Chapter 28 - Welcome to Hel

Hulk smell Puny God close by. Puny God usually smell like almonds and cherries. Now Puny God smell like almonds and cherries and something else Hulk not like. Hulk grab large chunk of concrete and pull up, about to toss away, when Small Buzzing Metal Man come up beside him and put hand on Hulk's arm.

"Hey Big Guy, wait up," say Small Buzzing Metal Man. "You can't just throw that anywhere, okay? You don't want to hit anyone."

Hulk want to roll eyes. Hulk know that, Hulk not stupid. But— "Puny God down there."

Small Buzzing Metal Man's metal face pop up, so Hulk see scrunched up hairy meat face. "Puny god—you mean Loki?"

Hulk nod. "Smell bad."

Small Buzzing Metal Man stare at Hulk like mind go to same place Banner go when Hulk in control, but no one else home in Metal Man's body.

Hulk see Pretty Psychiatrist Man walk towards Hulk and Metal Man from across street. Pretty Psychiatrist Man have pieces of street stuck in hair, not walking in straight line. In front of Hulk now. Hulk lean down to smell. Pretty Psychiatrist Man always smell like good-smelling musk and trees. Now smell like street too, but no bad copper metal smell—Pretty Psychiatrist Man not hurt, just confused and scared. Not scared of Hulk, though. Not flinch back when Hulk lean in to smell.

"Doc, you okay?" Small Buzzing Metal Man ask.

Pretty Psychiatrist Man nod. "I followed the other civilians to the basement of the building across the street. I thought Loki would have ended up there too, but I didn't find her. Is she with you?"

Small Buzzing Metal Man look at Hulk again. Hulk point again to pile of broken building and crumbled street and blue mailbox lying on its side.

"No, that can't be right—" say Small Buzzing Metal Man. "You've got it wrong, Big Guy."

"Hulk not wrong."

"Bruce took her in the direction of the restrooms. We should check there."

Pretty Psychiatrist Man nod again. "I'll go look." Hulk let him go. Probably best Pretty not here when Hulk find Puny God. Hulk pick up chunk of building again and toss to side where it not hit anyone. Beneath, Hulk find more concrete.

Hulk keep moving concrete until Hulk find Puny God at bottom of pile. Puny God not move, smell like copper metal and other bad things. Hulk bend down to pick her up.

Small Buzzing Metal Man grab Hulk arm again. "Wait Big Guy—you don't want to move her, okay? You might hurt her."

Hulk know he not hurt Puny God by moving. Puny God no longer able to be hurt by anyone. Hulk ignore Small Buzzing Metal Man and pick Puny God up, cradling her to chest. Hulk hold gently, even though Puny God not feel it.

Hulk sad. He know now Puny God not bad, just "messed up kid." Not Puny God's fault, not deserve to die! That make Hulk angry with world. Hulk also angry with Weak Banner—this his fault, for leaving Puny God alone in restroom. And Hulk angry with Hulk, because Hulk did not protect Puny God either, even though Hulk strongest there is.

Hulk throw head back and howl gut-wrenching howl at sky, though Hulk know this to be futile gesture. Then Hulk feel sad again. Hulk sit down on what left of sidewalk with Puny God in lap, wait for Banner take over. Hulk know how to be angry, not good at other feelings. Hulk leave other feelings to Weak Banner.

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Hela spread her arms out to her sides, gesturing towards the infinite darkness surrounding them. "Welcome to Helheim, realm of the inglorious dead."

"Oh, fantastic. After everything, I'm one of the 'inglorious dead' am I?" It didn't seem fair, after everything Loki had been through.

The woman shrugged. "That's what you get for hiding behind a mailbox and being crushed by falling debris."

"What happened anyway—an earthquake?"

The woman smiled a crocodile's grin full of too-white teeth. "A small group of not-too-intelligent mortal villains who collectively go by the name 'The Wrecking Crew' set off a bomb down the street from where you were. They had threatened to do so if they were not paid a certain sum of Midgardian currency. Before negotiations with the police even had the opportunity to break down, the bomb went off prematurely."

"You know, where were you when I jumped from the Bifrost? You could have saved me a lot of trouble."

"That wasn't your time. Your story wasn't through. It was no way for a Loki to die."

"But this was? As collateral damage in an attack perpetrated by petty mortal villains?"

"Absolutely not. That's why I'm sending you back."

"You're—sending me back?" Loki had thought it might be possible to trick Hela into sending him back, but apparently that wouldn't be necessary. That things could be so easy made him a little suspicious.

"I won't accept your death until you've died a worthy one," Hela told him. "Not the kind of death Odin would find worthy, mind you. Not a death worthy of a Thor. But a death that is worthy of a Loki."

There had to be a catch. "So, all I have to do if I want to live forever is to make sure to always die in the lamest way possible?"

"I wouldn't push your luck if I were you. My patience isn't infinite. If you start coming here every other week just because you've stuck your tongue in an electrical socket, I might decide that it would be better for you to be reincarnated as some sort of flightless bird. How do you feel about ostriches?"

"I was kidding, obviously." (Loki hadn't been kidding. If he had to choose between dying heroically and staying dead or dying by sticking his tongue into an electrical socket and coming back, he'd stick his tongue in the electrical socket every time.) "I promise I won't try for a Darwin Award just so we can have daddy-daughter bonding time, though you do seem like a lovely person."

"I assure you I am not. Your daughter, remember? The apple doesn't fall that far from the tree."

"Tell me, what would you consider a worthy death 'for a Loki?' Care to give me any clues?" Go on, tell me what to avoid. Loki might have wanted to die once, but not so much now.

"The death of a Loki cannot be trivial. Your death should matter. It should be vital to the story being told. Perhaps an unexpected act of heroism—but not some stupid, useless gesture, the only significance of which is that dear Uncle Thor is forced to overcome his grief for you and avenge your death."

"I doubt Thor would grieve for me," Loki told her, "Nor do I imagine he would be motivated to avenge my death, so there's probably nothing to worry about."

"Norns, thou art a fool." Hela shook her head. "Even now, your brother grieves for you."

"I'll believe that when I see it."

"Then follow," said Hela, and a portal opened to the side of her throne.

[ᴿᴵᴾ]◟◟◟◟◟❀◟(ó ̯ ò, )_中

Hela's portal led out into a sterile-looking room that Loki assumed to be in the medical bay of Avenger's Tower. He and Hela stood a few feet away from where his brother, his "dads," and Pepper Potts stood around a hospital bed. Loki didn't want to take too close a look at what lay in that bed, because somehow, he knew it would be his own corpse. And that, quite frankly, weirded him out a little.

"I'm so sorry, Thor. I shouldn't have left her. I thought she'd be safe if she stayed in the restroom. I yelled for her to stay where she was, but maybe she didn't hear." Bruce seemed hardly able to speak, as if he might be suffering from severely strained vocal cords.

Thor looked like he was about to be physically ill, or as if he had been physically ill shortly before. "Please do not blame yourself, Doctor Banner. If it were not for me, none of you would have left the tower this morning."

"It isn't anyone's fault," said Pepper. Tony leaned against her, and she smoothed his hair back. "Not anyone but the Wrecking Crew's, anyway. You couldn't have known what would happen."

"But we shouldn't have let her drink almost an entire pitcher of mimosas on her own," argued Tony. "And maybe if she hadn't, she wouldn't have wandered out in the street. What kind of gay dads are we?"

Pepper arched an eyebrow at her lover. Not having been privy to the conversation of that morning, she obviously had no choice but to assume he had finally gone off the deep end.

Doctor Samson hadn't said a word. He seemed to be in shock. Of course, it would make sense for him to be distraught over the slaughter of his cash cow—or at least that's what Loki would have thought, had he not still suspected Leonard of genuinely caring for him.

Thor shook his head. "I should never have left Loki alone in her weakened state. As much as she would have hated it, I should never have allowed her to leave my sight. Nor should I have stood by and allowed Father to send her away from Asgard when she most needed protection—my poor little sister. I wonder if she was frightened."

"I was terrified," said Loki bitterly, though no one could hear her. Had that been what all those people who had died in the invasion felt? Confusion and helplessness?

The elevator door opened, and the Black Widow, Hawkeye, and Captain America shambled out, dressed for battle and covered with dust. Natasha limped a little.

"Holy shit, it's true." Barton froze when he saw the others gathered around Loki's lifeless body. He cursed again. "I'm so sorry, Thor—I didn't always get along with Loki, but I never wanted something like this to happen."

Steve grimaced. "This wouldn't have happened if we'd put a stop to the Wrecking Crew before now. The Avengers might have been organized to respond to global threats, but we should never have ignored what was going on in our own backyard."

Natasha limped forward. Without saying anything, she pulled a slim compact out of the pouch at her hips. She popped it open and begun attempting to cover the bruise on the side of Loki's cheek with her foundation. A useless effort, and Loki wondered what went on in the woman's head. Perhaps she felt guilty for not sharing her cosmetics before. Something about the gesture felt almost ceremonial, like lighting a lantern at the edge of the water before pushing a funeral barge out to sea.

Thor took a deep breath as if to steady himself. "I must go inform my father of what has happened. Then I will return—I am certain Father will wish for me to bring her home so that she can be given proper Asgardian funeral rites."

Loki wanted to laugh. "Fat chance. I died a mortal, and it's not like he did anything to try to stop it. He won't care how they dispose of my body. They could flush me down the toilet like a goldfish for all the All-Father is likely to care."

"Sir, we seem to have a visitor," said JARVIS, his voice more subdued than usual. For a moment, Loki wondered if JARVIS could sense Hela and himself, but then the AI continued. "The Bifrost has opened out on the landing pad. I do believe we'll need to repaint it."

The Bifrost—had the All-Father sent someone? Whoever it was was probably there to collect Thor. Odin would have sensed his distress and sent Sif or the Warriors Three to prevent him from doing something rash, and to tell him that in no uncertain terms was he to bring Loki's body back to Asgard.

The door leading from the landing pad to the med bay opened, and Loki squinted into the light until he could make out Odin's old traveling hat.

"Father?" asked Thor.

The old man shuffled into the room and his eyes alighted on Loki's uninhabited body. "My poor child." Seriously? He was going to act like a grieving father, after disowning him and banishing him to Midgard, when, as Thor had said, he had been in most need of his protection? Odin came forward and reached out to touch the side of Loki's face. He nodded. "You are truly gone—perhaps it is for the best." Oh, well now, that sounded about right. Obviously, the All-Father had come just to ascertain he was dead.

Thor's eyebrows furrowed. "Father, how could you say such a thing?"

"Your brother may finally find peace now, Thor. The peace he would never have been able to find in this world, his nature being what it was."

"His nature? And what was that, Father?"

"To never be satisfied with his lot. He wished to be your equal, Thor, but he could never have been that."

Thor blanched. "You think that's all Loki wanted, Father, simply to be treated as my equal?"

Loki rolled his eyes. He had told Thor that himself once, had he forgotten? He'd seen about enough. "Can you send me back now? I need to slap some sense into a couple of people."

"Try not to do anything too rash," Hela told him. "I won't send you back twice in one day. There have to be limits to this sort of thing."

"Yes, yes, or you'll have me reincarnated as an ostrich."

"Or perhaps an emu." Hela tilted her head to the side as she considered her options. "Or a dodo. Imagine how the mortals might react if a single dodo suddenly appeared in their realm."

"Why does everyone want to turn me into wildlife now?"

"Because you're actually cute so long as you can't speak? You used to turn yourself into animals for fun. I didn't think you would mind."

"It's different when you can't turn yourself back—wait, will I have my magic back, once I'm alive again?"

"If you want it."

"Of course I want it! Why wouldn't I want it?"

Hela arched an eyebrow at him, causing him to pause.

"If I have my magic back all at once, the mortals might stop trusting me, despite everything they've said to deny that would be the case. Either way it wouldn't matter, because Odin would have me thrown back into a cell. But no one would have to know I have it back—"

"You're not that good a liar."

"I'm the god of lies, according to some people."

"And yet you suck at what you're supposed to be god of."

"I do not—"

"You're too proud of your supposed ability. You can't help but gloat and give yourself away. Besides, if you do have your magic back all at once, you'll definitely use it. You won't be able to resist. And they'll find out, because mortals—at least these mortals—aren't stupid, like the majority of the Asgardians you're used to."

"Thor isn't stupid, he just thinks it's endearing to act that way."

"No Father, he really is fairly stupid, at least in certain ways. It's going to take him a lot longer than it took you to figure out that Odin didn't actually trade his eye for wisdom. That's why you need to cut him some slack. He might be the only one who loves you in a way that's completely unconditional. Which is probably also due to his stupidity, when you get right down to it. I mean, who loves someone who's constantly trying to kill them?"

"I've never really wanted to kill him."

Hela smiled that wicked smile of hers again. "Perhaps you do deserve to be called the god of lies." She clapped her hands together. "Alright, time to go back before they cremate you or something. Less work for me if there's a container to put you back in, even if it is a little damaged."

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Loki felt as if he had been hit by a train. He drew in a shaky breath and attempted to open his eyes, but his eyelids proved much heavier than he remembered them to be. Still, he could see the light behind them, and he could hear other people moving about the room—

"Holy shit, did Loki just breathe?"

"Clint, no. It was probably just a muscle spasm, part of the onset of rigor mortis," explained Doctor Banner.

"Or you're just seeing things," said Doctor Samson. "The mind likes to fill in things that it thinks ought to be there. When you see a body, your mind expects to see signs of life, so it's pretty common—"

"No, Loki is breathing," Clint insisted. "I'm serious, take a look, damn it! Her chest is moving up and down—and come to think of it, it might be flatter than it was? Those wolf ears are gone too."

"Oh, oh my God. I think Clint's right," said Bruce. "I don't know what's happening." Loki felt fingers pressed up against his neck—Doctor Banner feeling for her pulse, probably. "Oh my God, oh my God, he's got a pulse—" Loki wondered if the man had just found religion, as many times as he had just called out for divine intervention. His hand was lifted, and something clipped onto his first finger. A steady beep commenced. "We've got vital signs, but this can't be right. Loki was dead when the other guy pulled her out of the rubble—it's difficult to explain but he could smell the death on her. That was a little after eleven this morning, and it's after one P.M. now."

"It's happened before," said Clint. "In New Mexico. Thor got killed, then he got back up. But he wasn't dead for over two hours."

"Loki, can you hear us?" asked Doctor Samson, gently rubbing Loki's upper arms, perhaps trying to help along his circulation. "Come on sweetheart, time to wake up if you're going to."

Loki wanted to tell him that he was trying, but all he could manage to do was moan. His limbs were still paralyzed. He tried to tell himself not to panic, to just breathe slowly, trying each of his fingers and toes until something moved, like Samson had advised him to do if he had another sleep paralysis episode.

Hela wouldn't have put him back in his body just so he could slip into a coma, surely. But then again, what did he know about the goddess of death? (The rather insane thought occurred that a prince would need to kiss him on the lips in order to wake him, like in Snow White. If that was the case Loki was screwed, because Thor didn't feel that way about him. He had better not, anyway.)

"What if he's some sort of zombie?" asked Clint. "What if he wakes up with a craving for brains?"

"That's not funny," Bruce told him. Loki agreed, and secretly hoped that Hela hadn't turned him into an again-walker. Now that he thought of it, he had no way of knowing she wouldn't do that as a sick joke. It would make sense for the goddess of death to have a black sense of humor.

"I'm not trying to be funny. Weirder things have happened in the past year. Maybe we ought to be taking some precautions here."

"Clint, just stop. Stop and go get Thor, and tell him—I don't know, he's probably not going to believe this, so just tell him to come here."

"You sure he didn't already go back to Asgard?"

"No, he didn't leave, he just wanted to have a private talk with Odin, I think."

They were likely off arguing about whether his remains could be taken back to Asgard. Of course, Odin would refuse. Loki couldn't wait to tell the two of them that he didn't even want to be given Asgardian funeral rites when he did die, thank you very much. For all he cared, they could leave his body in the woods for his flesh to be devoured by ravens and his bones to be gnawed on by wolves. There was something comforting in knowing he would be part of the larger cycle of life and death.

"Come on, Loki, try to open your eyes," said Bruce. "I don't know how this is even possible, but we all want you to come back."

Damn you, I'm trying, thought Loki. He tried to say it out loud, but it just came out as another groan. When Bruce took his hand, he tried to grip him back. When he couldn't, a frustrated tear tumbled down his cheek.

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Author's Note:

The chapter count has jumped up to 32. The first scene in this chapter is something I added, because I had this image in my head that I just needed to get out. I couldn't quite figure out how to do it before, but then I thought, maybe that's because it needs to be written fromHulk's point of view. Writing from JARVIS's PoV seemed to work, so I decided to give it a go.

What do you guys think of the scene written from Hulk's PoV? Did I pull it off?