Fandom: Avengers

Character(s): Thor | Loki | Hela | Thanos

Pairing(s): mentions of past Thor/Jane

Warning(s): AU, references to Odin's A+ parenting, violence, spoilers through Avengers: Infinity War

Thor sat down hard on the edge of Hela's bed, legs no longer capable of holding his weight. "Heimdall?!" He repeated, dumbstruck. "Heimdall?"

Loki nodded, a feverish light kindling in his eyes. "Yes." He spat, looking very fierce. "Heimdall. Your precious Gatekeeper has seen fit to show himself at last."

Bewildered, Thor stared from Loki's angry face to Hela's bandaged side and then back again, feeling like a boat drifting out towards the falls. It didn't make sense. The last time Thor had seen the Gatekeeper, Heimdall had pledged his loyalty and helped devise a scheme to smuggle Jane – sweet, dearest Jane! – to the Dark World and beyond Odin's reach. He was a good man! And he was a friend.

"What lies are these?" Thor exploded, glaring suspiciously at Loki. (Loki who had never liked Heimdall in the first place…)

Loki's mouth twisted into a very ugly sneer. "Lies?" He repeated scornfully. "Oh yes, if the King likes not what he hears then it must be falsehood. Of course. How foolish of me. No friend of Thor Odinson could ever be less than fully honorable."

"As if you would know about honor."

The snide words slipped out before Thor could really think them through...and almost immediately he wished he could take them back as Loki flinched away defensively and something closed off between them.

Frustrated, Thor raked both hands through his hair and groaned. "I'm sorry, Loki." He said, trying to calm the pounding of his anger in his ears. "I don't...I don't want us to fight."

"So you say."

This was terrible! Thor turned back to Hela. "Heimdall attacked you?" He asked, pleading with his eyes for her to contradict Loki and let the world right itself again.

But Hela only confirmed the awful accusation, looking all the while as if bracing herself for some kind of blow.

"I...I..." Thor wasn't sure how many more terrible revelations he could take tonight. "I cannot believe… Why would Heimdall do something like that?"

Loki snorted and opened his mouth to say something (undoubtedly something scathing), but Hela beat him to the punch.

"Heimdall recognized me." She said, voice rather quiet but eyes intense. "He knew me of old and, tonight, sought to finish what our Father could not." And she pinned Thor with a look.

It took him an embarrassingly long minute before he grasped the significance of what she was trying to say, but when it finally dawned, Thor gaped at Hela and shouted,

"Heimdall knew who you were?!"

She nodded.

And Thor stared. No one knew who Hela was; not Tyr who had fought under her command nor Lady Eir who had served beside her in court nor any of the people who would have once flown her banners. Ever since she first stepped into Asgard at his side, Thor felt like he had had to explain his sister's presence and identity and very existence to every living soul they encountered. No one knew her. No one remembered her. Loki had his theories at to why, Thor knew - but so far as he was concerned, all that really mattered was that somehow Odin had managed to erase his eldest child and only daughter from the collective minds of every one of his subjects.

Except, apparently, for Heimdall.

Who had immediately attacked her with such a fury that he managed to draw blood from the Goddess of Death.

Thor swallowed hard. "Are you certain, sister?"

Hela responded to that with an affronted glare. "Do you think me to be in jest?"

The words were spat out like venom, but there was no true bite to them. If anything, Hela seemed to be a bit discomfited by the whole thing; embarrassed, even.

Thor rubbed his chin wearily, trying to think. "How can this be?" He muttered. "I thought Father made it so that no one remembered you.

Hela made a movement that, on any else, could have been called a wince.

Loki barked out a mirthless laugh. "Oh, well done, King Thor." He remarked mockingly. "Always so quick to the heart of a matter."

Thor gave him a scowl. "I'm just trying to understand - "

"What is there to understand?" In an instant, Loki went deadly serious – not smirking, not sneering, just speaking in a rather flat and bland tone, as though making a report to the Council. "Heimdall has committed treason. He has flouted the laws that you, as Crown Prince and King, have sworn time and time again to uphold. Furthermore, he has spilled the blood of one of our family. For even just that last, you could demand his head. What you choose to do with him is your prerogative...but, just remember: The Nine Realms are watching. And so are we."

Thor deflated, his anger draining away as quickly as it had flared and sputtered before. "I just can't believe it...Heimdall."

Loki raised an eyebrow. "Well." He said coldly. "If you are not prepared to take the word of your sister and brother, perhaps you will hear that of Lady Eir? She treated Hela's wound, you know. Or you could speak with Captain Hrothgar. He was one of the guards on the scene of the attack. I'm certain you can trust his testimony."

"No...no." Thor shook his head, then abruptly remembered something Hela had said earlier in the conversation "What did you mean," He asked, turning to her, "When you said that Heimdall was finishing what Father couldn't?"

Hela blinked, looking surprised, then quickly arranged her features into an expression of pure boredom. "So, you were listening." She drawled, slouching back against the bed's headboard. "Norns be praised. I wasn't sure."

"But what did you mean?"

"Exactly what I said. Who do you think Father commissioned to oversee my exile on Midgard? Heimdall always did have his finger to the wind, and when it became clear that I had fallen from favor, he was swift to transfer his loyalty. In return, he was given the key to the Bifrost and set to be my jailer and Father's most trusted informant." Hela looked dangerous. "His voice was one of the loudest petitioning for my execution."

"Why?"

"Darling – why not? Do you know who I am?"

"You are my sister." Thor reached out and took Hela's hand. "That's all I care about."

Hela looked at him as though he were a particularly slow child, then shifted her incredulous gaze to Loki. "Is he always like this while drunk?"

Loki snorted...but Thor was not going to be distracted. There was something wrong with this picture; something buried just beneath the surface that he couldn't quite grasp. And he wasn't entirely sure that he wanted to know – but he was quite certain that he needed to.

The fog of alcohol hadn't yet released him from its swirling grip, but Thor gathered his wits about himself as best as he could and, clearing his throat softly, spoke: "Why did Father banish you, Hela?"

There was a long beat of silence.

Then Hela looked up at Thor, locking his gaze with her own. "Why did Father banish me?" She repeated, half-sneering. "Why did he banish me? Why, dearest brother, I can't think why he would have done that."

"Why?"

"Because I tried to kill you."

Thor couldn't help it; he drew back like he had been struck...and his sister actually rolled her eyes.

"Well, what did you think he banished me for?" She demanded impatiently, yanking her hand out of Thor's grip. "Putting frogs in the palace moat?!"

Loki let out an odd little choking sound from somewhere behind Thor.

Thor only felt sick. "You tried to kill me?"

Hela's eyes were like green marble - icy, glassy, hard and sharp as flint, yet also somehow empty and utterly devoid of light as she spoke. "Yes." A shrug. "And I would have succeeded, were it not for the witch who presumed to call herself queen."

"My mother was a good and much beloved queen!" Loki's voice was low (menacing) and he took a threatening step towards the bed. "Have a care, sister, how you choose to speak of her."

"Your mother was a usurper." Hela stated calmly. "She was a fierce shieldmaiden and a dutiful wife and a kind stepmother...but she stole her throne from one of the greatest queens ever to breathe. She beguiled my father and seduced him, her arts and her allurements seeing to it that he was never again the King who conquered the Yggdrasil. She made him weak; drunk on love and feckless."

Quickly, Thor reached up and forestalled any retaliation from Loki with a stern, upraised hand. "Hela." He warned. Then sighed. "If you are going to speak so, sister - perhaps you should start at the beginning of the story."

TBC...