They went to a restaurant where Loki tried to act like he was absolutely not impressed with the white wine and the piece of cod elegantly laid out on a bed of sliced avocado and sun dried tomatoes, sprinkled with just a tiny bit of cilantro sauce…
Thor had a steak… It was good.
Well, the steak was still bleeding a bit, but apparently that was fancy. It was meat, meat and potatoes. It was good.
He had to enjoy the steak later though as the shift happened and he was back at the S.H.I.E.L.D. facility, sighing deeply, he knew what he had to do now though. Just find Nebula. Where could he find Stephen Strange?
Thor sighed as he walked down the halls towards the training grounds where Nebula probably would be. Glancing down at his stomach, Thor considered getting a bit of training in himself, he might as well… start working on that damn thing.
Sighing, Thor walked out then halted at quite the sight, it wasn't the blue woman he had been looking for, but a man with sandy brown hair, hanging by just one arm, his right arm, and pulling himself up and down.
Thor gaped. "Friend Barton?" he asked, shocked.
Clint let go and turned to face Thor. Clint was wearing a very dark expression and Thor blinked.
"Did you just come?" Thor asked, still shocked. "Natasha said you were..."
"What are you talking about, Thor?" Clint asked, annoyed. "We talked together just thirty minutes ago!"
Thor blinked. "What?" he asked, then tried to recall. Had he talked to Clint? But… No, that wasn't possible, he would have remembered that. Right?
Clint hissed as he turned around, grabbing his left shoulder.
"Weren't you… in Mexico?" Thor tried.
Clint hissed.
"Friend Barton?" Thor asked.
"This stupid old wound!" Clint exclaimed as he held his shoulder. "I was doing fine! But then..." he hissed. "And Natasha picked me up, forced me back here," he hissed.
Thor blinked, looking at Clint's shoulder, an image flashing through his mind. Loki… stabbing Clint, at the exact spot Clint was holding his shoulder. Thor's eyes widened… Could it be... "Cli-Clint," he tried.
"I told you, I don't want to talk," Clint then stated, starting to try and walk past Thor, only for Thor to grab him, forcing Clint to stand still.
"What?" Clint growled, and Thor looked down.
"Clint," Thor breathed. "I need you to tell me honestly… When and how did you sustain that shoulder wound?" he asked.
Clint snorted. "Well, if you absolutely must know..." he halted, then he blinked.
"Clint?" Thor asked again.
"I erh… I'm not sure," Clint then admitted. "The Battle of New York?" he asked, then he frowned. "No that's not it… Before then? Budapest… No.. Not Budapest."
Thor's eyes narrowed slightly as Clint was thinking, then he began to blink; slowly realization started to sink in and panic started to rise. "I… I don't remember!" he suddenly exclaimed. "I know I had it for years! But… How long? How can you forget that, I use that arm to pull my bow string, that's a serious handicap! How can I not..." he started to shake.
"Clint." Thor firmly grabbed his shoulder.
"Where did I get it?!" Clint exclaimed.
"CLINT!" Thor shouted, finally snapping Clint out of it and Clint, wide-eyed, looked up.
Thor breathed deeply. "The universe itself… is unstable, fragile, breaking apart."
"What… What are you talking about, Thor?" Clint asked.
"I'm not sure myself," Thor admitted. "Do you know of my predicament?" he asked. "The one I talked to Natasha and Bruce about?"
"What? The shifting timeline thing? Yeah, I still don't buy it," Clint snorted.
"Well, you should!" Thor stated. "You were not here the last time I was in this timeline! And we never had that conversation which you speak of!"
"What?" Clint blinked. "Then, where was I?"
"According to Natasha, somewhere in Mexico!" Thor informed. "She had tried to find you, but you always gave her the slip!"
"Huh?" Clint asked. "But… She caught me, I dropped my bow because of this stupid old injury!" He pointed at his shoulder.
Thor was silent, dead silent.
"Thor," Clint prodded, his eyes serious.
"An injury you did not have before… And now you don't even remember how you got it," Thor breathed. "The injury… is the difference." He looked at Clint's shoulder, then up. "What I do in the other timeline has an effect on this one," he realised. "How?"
Clint frowned.
"Friend, when was the first time we met?" Thor asked.
"On the S.H.I.E.L.D. helicarrier after you guys had first captured Loki." Clint blinked. "The Battle of New York was later the same day."
"So, you don't remember meeting Loki and I in the S.H.I.E.L.D. facility that stored the Tesseract and Friend Rogers for a while?" Thor asked.
"We met there?" Clint asked.
"Not in this timeline," Thor stated. "Clint, did someone steal the Tesseract before Loki arrived and stole it? Did someone steal it before you managed to unfreeze Friend Rogers?" he asked.
"No, if it had been stolen before then, how could Loki have stolen it?!" Clint asked. "That makes no sense! Well okay, someone could have stolen it and we could have gotten it back only for Loki to steal it again. But that didn't happen, it was safe!"
"Are you sure?" Thor asked.
"YES!" Clint exclaimed.
Thor sighed as he stepped back, grabbing his forehead.
"Thor, what on Earth is all this talk?" Clint asked.
"Well, my friend." Thor sighed. "In the other timeline, Loki and I… We stole the Tesseract." He held out a hand and the blue cube appeared. "And in the same incident… Loki stabbed your shoulder."
Clint's eyes widened.
"It seems like… Your wound has been transported, but not the actual event." And Thor put the Tesseract back.
"What… What does this mean?" Clint asked.
"The two timelines are connected. Also, they are both incredibly unstable." Thor swallowed.
Clint was shivering.
"Clint?" Thor asked.
"So… It's true?" Clint asked. "There's another timeline and… Laura is there, isn't she? And the kids?"
Slowly, Thor nodded. "Aye, they are."
"Then… Please. Save them!" Clint asked, stepping forward. "They talked about how you might only be able to save one timeline... if that is the case, pick them, please!" he asked, grabbing the front of Thor's armour. "This world isn't worth shit anymore! But the other, they still have a chance! Save them!"
Thor quieted. "Then you wouldn't exist anymore." he breathed.
"You really think I care about that?" Clint asked. "It would be a relief! I put myself in war zone after war zone, hunted down the worst mafia bosses and drug lords in the world and yet… And yet. None of them were good enough to kill me!" he hissed. "I am too good of an assassin!" he chuckled while tears fell down his eyes.
"You..." Thor gasped. "It was a suicide mission," he gasped.
"A failed suicide mission," Clint hissed. "I was too good, even with an injury… And when I wasn't too good, Nat had to pull me out last second."
"You poor fool, you are even worse off than I am," Thor swallowed.
"Save them, Thor, please," Clint pleaded. "My family..."
Thor looked at Clint, then put a hand on his shoulder. "Clint, you just saw me pull out an Infinity Stone. The universe itself has tasked me with repairing it… I just need to find the rest, then we can bring them back. Okay?" he asked.
Clint's eyes were wide.
"I just need to find the other four," Thor said.
Clint hissed. "Thor… Promise. If it comes so far that there is no choice, one reality has to be chosen. Save the other one, this one… It's too broken. It can't be repaired."
"Clint," Thor breathed.
Clint, though, shook his head as he stepped backwards, then finally he managed to get past Thor and left.
As it turned out, Nebula had no clue who Stephen Strange was, only that he had been there fighting alongside Tony and the Guardians against Thanos… And lost.
Natasha though, she knew.
She had the footage from New York where Strange had first shown up fighting the aliens together with Tony and the man of Spiders.
At the sight of the man wearing Wizard's robes and a red cape, Thor's eyes widened... Stephen Strange. OF COURSE! Stephen Strange! Thor felt so stupid! That Midgardian Sorcerer whom had managed to trap Loki in a falling dimension for a while and helped them find Odin!
It had been such a short encounter, but now when Thor saw him he could only remember far too clearly.
Natasha had long since run a facial recognition program on the man and now the bio was shown on the screen.
"Doctor Stephen Strange, he was actually quite a celebrity in the medical world," Natasha informed as she looked at an older photo of the man, lacking the gray stripes on the side of his head… and his fancy beard. "World's best neurosurgeon, according to a lot of people, won a bunch of medical awards too."
"So… He's a healer?" Thor asked. Then vaguely recalled... He had called himself a doctor, right? Maybe... So much else had gone on back then, it was hard to remember.
"Was, it seems," Natasha said. "A car accident shattered the bones in his hands which forced him to leave his practice. It looks like he searched out several different alternative medical treatments for his hands, we are talking millions of dollars on medical bills alone… And then he just vanished."
Thor blinked. "Vanished?" he asked.
"Well, it seems like he sold his old house to pay his medical bills and lived in an apartment for a short time, but then he vanished from there too. He just stopped paying his bills and wasn't there, so he was officially kicked out… He was pretty much assumed dead. No one heard from him for over a year. Not his old colleagues, not his friends…. Okay, he doesn't seem like he had friends, according to witness accounts he was kind of an ass. However, New York when Thanos's army arrived was the first time he made an appearance ever since his initial disappearance two years prior."
Thor looked up at the picture of a slightly younger Stephen Strange, he seemed very neat and proper, then his head turned to the other picture, the one from the alien attack and saw the same man, wearing what looked like wizard's robes, a red cape and his hands… They were covered by thick cloves. Hiding the scars.
Then Thor's eyes were drawn to the man's neck, a strange pendant and a green light.
"Where is he now?" Thor asked.
Natasha quieted. "He is among the half that didn't make it."
"Oh." Thor glanced down.
"Tony was with him," Natasha stated. "Watched him turn into dust, like the Guardians, and Peter Parker."
Thor had no idea who Peter Parker was, but he wasn't going to ask, it sounded like it was a painful subject.
"Peter Parker, Spiderman," Natasha answered for him without Thor even asking.
"Oh, that tiny one!" Thor pointed at a smaller figure in a blue and red costume, then he halted. "He seems young."
"Yeah, I can't say I knew him that well but… He seemed like a sweet kid. Tony really took a liking to him." Natasha smiled lightly.
Thor swallowed, looking at the image of the man of Spiders, swinging above Tony and this Stephen Strange.
"I watched footage..." Natasha said. "When the Snap happened, I saw a young mother… She was holding a baby in her arms and then, the baby..." her voice broke. "The baby turned to dust, and the woman screamed. It was awful! I couldn't watch anymore!"
Thor's eyes grew wet.
"There are so many parents who lost their children, and also so many children who lost their parents! Those who still have just one parent are lucky! I don't know which one is worse!" Natasha grabbed her head.
Thor felt it, the tears in his eyes, but he didn't fight to stop it, he allowed Natasha to speak.
"Laura, and the children. They are gone!" Natasha sniffed. "What must Clint have felt, can you even imagine? He turned around for one second and then… They were just gone! The nicest people you will ever know! Why?"
Slowly Thor stepped forward, then gently he put his arms around Natasha and then allowed her to cry into his chest. Tears quietly falling down his own face as well.
"It's all right," Thor assured, just holding her gently. "You have done so much better than most of us, you carried on while I..." he halted, then looked down. "You have been so strong, a true inspiration, Natasha."
Natasha sniffed. "I.. I have been trained to show no emotion. To not let attachment cloud my judgment and yet..."
"You are just a person, Natasha," Thor assured. "Same as I… I..." he halted. "I am not the perfect mighty hero so many desired for me to be, I mean..." He gestured to his gut.
Natasha smiled as she swallowed. "You know, it's actually not so bad," she informed as she finally managed to stand back, wiping her eyes. "It makes you kind of huggable, like a big bear. You were already kind of like a bear, but now even more so."
Thor smiled, amused. "I'm still going to get rid of it," he informed.
"That's fair." Natasha smiled a bit in amusement. "How is Loki in the other reality?"
"He's pretty good," Thor replied. "We are actually bonding, can you believe it?" he asked.
"I can, in fact." Natasha smiled. "I know I only ever got to see the worst side of him, however, your love for him has always been very real. So clearly there must have been something about him I just didn't see."
Thor smiled. "Oh yes, it would be nice if I could show you," he admitted.
"Well, he's your brother. So he can't be all bad." Natasha smiled, amused.
"Adopted… I mean..." Thor blushed.
Natasha shook her head. "You know something, Thor?" she asked.
Thor shook his head.
"I never knew my parents, Neither do I have any idea who they were… I was an orphan, given to the Russian military. Raised to be the perfect killing machine from the moment I could walk," Natasha informed. "If I have any blood relatives at all, I don't know… I never knew the meaning of sentiment or family."
Thor was quiet.
"Until I met Clint and he introduced me to his own family," Natasha continued. "It changed me, they became my family and I changed. It was real." She turned to Thor. "And then, I met you guys too. Tony… Bruce… Steve… You." She lifted a hand, resting it on Thor's chest. "So I guess what I am saying is this... Blood doesn't dictate who your real family is. Not at all."
Thor let go of a breath.
"If it weren't for you people," Natasha sniffed. "I don't know what I would do!"
"Natasha." Thor grabbed her hand resting on his chest. "I am honored that you would consider me family," he informed. "Even among the warrior maidens of Asgard, you stand tall and proud. I am only sorry there is nothing more I can do for you."
Natasha smiled as she looked up. "The universe has tasked you with saving it and thereby also us, right?" she asked. "I'm going to say that's plenty."
Thor smiled.
"Take another message to Loki, will you?" Natasha asked.
"Natasha desires to thank you, for all the work you are doing," Thor informed Loki.
Loki glanced up as he was holding his wine glass.
"She also asks that you look after, well..." Thor blushed as he scratched his cheek. "Me," he admitted. "What were her words, ah... Thor has a good heart, but thinking with your heart and not your brain is not always the answer. Sometimes having good intentions is not enough, in fact good intentions could be Thor's doom. Keep him alive, Loki. The universe depends on it," he finished. "Yes, those were her words. Nearly exactly."
"She seems like a reasonable and clever woman," Loki commented, amused, as he neatly cut his fish. "A shame we can't meet, I have a feeling I might actually like this one."
"She was also the one asking you to pull yourself together earlier, remember?" Thor asked.
"Oh, the excrement woman," Loki recalled. "Crude." He put a piece of fish into his mouth.
Thor smirked. "She should also be around somewhere in this timeline," he pointed out. "I am honestly unsure if you would like or dislike her."
"Oh?" Loki asked.
"She is also a master of deception," Thor informed. "She has multiple acts, sometimes she acts like a meek and defenseless woman only to make her enemies lower their guards, that's when she kills them in cold blood."
"This sounds intriguing," Loki had to admit.
"They call her the Black Widow, she seduces men to expose their vulnerable side, then uses it for her mission," Thor admitted.
"I changed my mind, I like this Natasha," Loki informed.
Thor lifted an eyebrow.
"Men stupid enough to fall for that deserve to die," Loki simply stated.
"Well, that, erhm." Thor scratched his cheek, unsure if he should agree or disagree with that one. "The people she kills are only the bad guys."
Loki looked at Thor. "Who decides who the bad guys are?" he asked. "What defines a bad guy?"
"You know, people who kill," Thor commented.
"Thor, you killed," Loki pointed out.
"Ah, that is true," Thor admitted.
"Are you then a bad guy?" Loki asked.
"Well, in some circumstances… I was," Thor admitted. "That's why it's so important to be careful, either of us could so easily become the bad guy."
Loki was quiet. "Also you, Thor?" he asked.
"Aye, no one is above it, I don't think." Thor commented. "There is even sometimes, that… No matter what you do, even if you do nothing. You're still the bad guy. I suppose the best thing you can do is just… try to do your best."
"What about..." Loki halted. "Odin."
Thor smiled grimly. "Odin..."
"The hero of the nine realms, the peace bringer. He brought peace. Under his rule all is fair and prosperes" Loki pointed out, the story they had been told. All of their lives.
"Loki… Listen to me," Thor spoke seriously. "Odin, the peace we have known growing up... was bought with oceans of blood," he informed. "Odin didn't just peacefully take over the realms, he conquered them, he killed the lords… The foundation of the peace we know is blood, hidden beneath pretty pictures and walls made of marble, it is all built on top of a mountain of corpses."
"But not Asgardian corpses," Loki tried to reason, though he did seem a bit unsure
"of course also Asgardian corpses! Many Asgardian warriors died in those wars, how do you think war works?" Thor asked. "The realms, they are not at peace with Asgard, they are trembling with fear, they desire Odin's demise but are too afraid of him to act, because they still remember the bloodbath. However, the moment Odin is no more… Death awaits our realm."
Loki swallowed. "Your mind… The sea of corpses. Asgard burning… I saw."
"And I lived it," Thor informed. "It is all waiting to happen, and yet Odin has told us nothing about it! Left us unprepared for the true horror his demise will inevitably bring! Left us… With his own baggage."
Loki swallowed.
"The more shining the image, the more fake it most likely is," Thor informed. "Loki, you are known as the deceiver and yet… Our father, he is the greatest deceiver of all. For all of our lives." He swallowed.
Loki closed his eyes.
"Loki?" Thor asked.
"I can't deny what I saw… Asgard burning. So many dead," Loki breathed. "And you say that Odin..." He looked up.
"He knows… He knows that upon his own death, it will be unleashed. And yet he has neglected to tell us," Thor informed. "He didn't even tell us of her, the goddess of death whom he imprisoned himself, though as he dies the seal shall be broken and she will be unleashed. Seeking revenge on the people whom have now been put to replace her."
"Replace her?" Loki asked. "Who?"
"Us," Thor informed. "The new heirs to Asgard's throne, the throne which rightfully belongs to her... Hela Odinsdottir."
Loki's eyes widened. "What?" he asked.
"Our sister." Thor smiled sadly. "Odin's first born."
Loki's eyes were wide, his face white as a sheet, he couldn't believe it.
"Aye Loki, neither am I a first born," Thor informed sadly. "Hela is far older than either of us."
"You're lying," Loki breathed.
"You saw her face, it is forever burned into my mind," Thor breathed.
Loki swallowed, he was shaking lightly.
"Loki… are you..." Thor hesitated.
"When… When this is over, I want you to tell me all else you know," Loki informed, returning to his fish. "However, right now, we have other concerns."
Thor nodded. "Aye. That is true."
Loki was still slightly shaking as he tried to cut his fish.
"I.. I'm sorry, Loki," Thor tried.
"No, I appreciate you telling me the truth instead of a half baked lie," Loki replied. "As I said, when this is over, I wish to hear it all."
Thor swallowed but nodded. "I… I swear, Loki, I shall tell you all I know. It is the least I owe you."
Loki closed his eyes. "Why is it I have a feeling that I will not like what you have to say?"
"It is because that is the truth, and you are a very intelligent man," Thor replied.
Loki sighed, putting another piece of fish into his mouth. "At least tell me you have something on this Strange person."
Thor smirked. "Which one is better, home address or working address?"
Loki glanced up.
"Have your pick," Thor invited. "I got them both."
