Loki doesn't like how easily this woman is able to sneak out of the Grand Palace; able to sneak off without Loki noticing until she's already disappeared. Loki follows the trail of her aura easily enough, perhaps even easier because of how strong it is – almost as strong as Thor's. That fact makes her even more curious to know more about the woman she's now being pitted against in order to find her idiot brother.
Loki spots her just outside the Palace walls, follows her and then finally makes herself known once they reach a quiet alley way. The woman halts halfway down the alley way, huffs and turns to face her.
"You're not very good at this sneaking up on me thing." Brunnhilde says with a bored tone.
"I wasn't trying to be." Loki answers with a sarcastic little smile.
"Right. Well. Nice chat. Bye." Brunnhilde turns away from her.
Loki immediately teleports herself in front of the woman, smirks at the half shocked, half annoyed look on her pretty caramel face (Loki has never been one to deny true beauty in all beings.) "What are you up to? Do you know where Thor is?" She asks, eyes slightly narrowed as she watches that pretty face for every tiny reaction.
"I don't answer to you, Lackey." It's Brunnhilde's turn to smirk when that gets an annoyed and very pretty glare in response.
Loki grabs her wrist as she brushes rudely passed, glares back at that smug expression. "It'sLoki." She grits out. "And youwillanswer to The Grandmaster."
Brunnhilde glances down at her hand, bored look still on her face as yanks her wrist away. The woman quickly attacks her, but she's ready; already predicted as much. With quite a lot of ease, Brunnhilde manages to block the grab attempts at her other wrist, then both her shoulders. She blocks each descent, smacks the woman's hands away until there's a hand at her throat, and finally, she slips out of defence and smoothly into offence with a hard punch to the woman's nose. Though, she's rather impressed at how well the woman takes the hit (almost better than her adopted brother or whoever they are to one another, she really isn't interested, either way.)
Loki sniffs loudly, wrinkles her nose and then is back to glaring at the woman, small dagger materialising out of thin air as she clutches it and points the end of the blade towards the woman. "Why wouldyouhelp my brother escape with that green fool?"
Brunnhilde pulls out her own dagger and points it at the woman, voice slightly mocking as she says, "I don't help anyone."
Loki glares "daggers" before her irritation gets the better of her (as it all too often does) and she lashes out again, this time with her weapon at the ready. However, this woman is rather quick and very skilled, it seems. Her moves are all too familiar to Loki, though, and she knows an Asgardian trained soldier when she fights one.
"Not bad." Brunnhilde shoots her a taunting smirk, though, has to actually hide how impressed she is. The woman is almost as swift and light on her feet as Brunnhilde herself. Though, Brunnhilde is a lot faster, and by law of aging to Asgardians, she's a lot stronger than the woman.
Loki launches her attack again, this time takes a small backhand to her right cheek before she's angrily swirling them around and kneeling over the woman. They both have their blades pointed at one another, Loki's at Brunnhilde's throat, and Brunnhilde's over Loki's heart. And with her caramel arm raised up towards her, Loki's eyes are instantly drawn to the all too familiar tattoo etched into the skin at her wrist.
Loki's eyes widen in surprise as she asks, "You're a Valkyrie?" When the woman's expression falters, Loki takes the distraction, makes it her advantage as she finally uses her blade to draw the woman's own blade out of her hand and send it clattering to the ground.
Brunnhilde grits her teeth in anger, shoots the woman a murderous glare as she lands another backhand to her face. She ducks the incoming swipe of the blade with ease, lands a hard punch to that delicate little nose with one hand, the other batting the bladed hand of the woman away. Annoyingly, the woman seems to take all of the hits in her stride, so Brunnhilde lands one more backhand to her face before sending a hard fly-kick to her gut.
After you've been beaten by the God of Thunder, not much phases one, and Loki is no stranger to abuse. She's pretty good in a fight, yes, but nothing compared to Thor. But Loki barely lets out an irritated groan here as her back smacks into the brick wall and she lands on the ground on her arse, literally. And besides suspecting the Valkyrie has been holding back in the fight, now Loki has something she can work with; now she can use her real power here.
"I thought the Valkyrie all died gruesome deaths." Loki spitefully spits out, smirks when it earns her an angry snarl and an almost kick to the face. Loki quickly rises to her knees and instead, gets a knee to the chest.
"Choose your next wordsverywisely!" Brunnhilde hisses, knee pinning the woman to the brick wall.
"I'm terribly sorry, my dear. It must be averypainful memory." Loki's smirk widens as she shoots out a hand and presses it firmly to the Valkyrie's forehead, her own green eyes staring back into those infuriated dark brown pools until they roll back into her head.
Brunnhilde tries to resist, but it's already too late. She's already back there in the darkness and death already surrounding Hela. She's sat back on Aragon as they fly through the air with the rest of her sisters and his winged equine brothers. They're descending on the Goddess of Death, Dragonfangs at the ready. Then, everything is quickly sliding out of their control; they're dying, being slaughtered, one by one. And then, it's her facing Hela, one on one, but she doesn't even get to try. Hela is on her and she cannot do a thing. And then the worst of it, her last standing sister jumps in the line of fire; a blade of black death meant just for her, now sticking out of her sister's heart instead.
And then, they are falling, and Loki's stomach only drops at the sensation, too, because she wants to feel and know and see everything she can. Though, she does feel sympathy towards the Valkyrie; the last of her kind. Loki feels an odd sort of kinship in the fact that they both really have no home (not like Thor actually does, though, she doesn't blame her people for hating her.)
Brunnhilde finds herself falling through her memory and literally back down to reality, the impact of reliving the horror sending her to the ground. She takes a second, tries to calm her racing heart as she's then back up on her feet and sending another kick to the woman.
This time, Loki gives up the fight completely, lets the Valkyrie rough her up out of anger before inevitably knocking her unconscious. And that's because she has what she needs now – took a quick peak at the most recent memories and saw her brother and the green Banner pop right up. All she has to do now, is let the Valkyrie take her right back to Thor.
..."Oh, I don't like anything about this." Bruce's voice quivers slightly, hand pressed back to his slightly racing heart, and eyes darting warily all around.
"You're OK, it's OK." Thor reassures, hands lightly massaging the man's shoulders as he walks him over to the nearest spot, sits them in the corner, half out of sight. He needs his friend to stay calm and focused or they are surely done for. "Sun's getting real low. The Sun's getting real low. The Sun –"
"Stop saying that. It only works on the big guy." Bruce tells him, looks slightly exasperated as he takes a seat and takes a breath, and then wiggles his shoulders out of Thor's grasp and tells him, "And that's not helping. It's only making me feel more crowded."
"Right." Thor smiles sheepishly, takes a seat beside him.
"But thank you. I appreciate you trying to keep calm here, but I'm still kinda freaking out. I'm on an alien planet here." Bruce hisses the end part out, starts to panic slightly again.
"Yes, but so what? It's just another planet. You've been on a planet before. Now you've been on two. It's just another new experience. It's fine. You're fine. Everything is fine." Thor shrugs casually, tries not to let his voice raise any higher (he really needs to learn how to lie better.)
"Ohh..." Bruce shakes his head, hands curled tightly in his already mussed up hair and eyes wide as he tries to register everything. "My neurons.. they're firing faster than my brain can handle information right now. I feel like I'm gonna vomit." He leans closer to Thor, whispers, "It's totally different this time."
Thor arches a brow, looks slightly confused.
Bruce continues with, "In the past, I always felt like the big guy and I each had a hand on the wheel. Butthistime? It's like he had the keys to the car and I was locked away in the trunk."
Thor nods in understanding, smiles reassuringly at his friend as he tells him, "Well, you're back now. That's all that matters."
"No, it'snotall that matters. That's what I'm trying to tell you." Bruce shoots him a serious look as he tells him, "If Hulk comes back, Banner maynevercome back. Banner. That'sme, Thor.I'mBanner. I may never come back, because that big green asshole has somehow figured out a way to take full control." He lets out a loud huff, motions around at their busy surroundings (they seem to be on some sort of market street.) "And now, I'm stranded on a planet that seems to bespecificallydesigned to stress me out!"
"We're not stranded. I'm gonna figure out a way for us to get home. I promise." Thor tells him with a soft and soothing (he hopes) voice.
Thankfully, it seems to work as Bruce finally takes a deep breath and calms himself. He even throws another grateful smile in the mix and says, "Thank you."
Thor smiles sheepishly again, then, finally adds, "Not your home, though. My home.. Asgard."
Bruce blinks. "What?"
Thor sighs, explains, "Listen, my people are all in great danger. Well, what's left of them, anyway. And you and I have to find a way to fight this all-powerful evil being, who also happens to be my sister and –"
"Oh, no, I'm not fighting Loki again. Last time I did that, she almost made the big guy kill Nat." Bruce tells him.
"No, not Loki. I have a half sister who came before me and Loki. Loki is actually nothing compared to this woman." Thor says, looks highly disgusted.
"Man, this seems so messed up to me." Bruce says, shakes his head in dismay.
"Yes, thank you. I'm quite aware. I'mlivingit." Thor drawls out.
"This seems more like a family issue to me." Bruce says, looks rather awkward.
Thor rolls his eyes. "She's a totally evil being. She needs to be stopped.. because she's a totally evil being."
"I don't care what she is. I'm not fighting any more beings. I'm done." Bruce holds up his hands, shoots the god a firm look.
Thor sighs.
Bruce's eyes narrow slightly as he says, "I just told you – if the Hulk comes back, I will probablynevercome back, and you don't even care."
"No, no. I'm putting together a team. You're the brains and the Hulk is the fire." Thor assures him, tries to not sound as desperate as he feels.
He fails, clearly, because Bruce is now looking rather bummed out as he says, "You're just using me. You don't want my brains for this, you just want the Hulk. You're just using me to get to the Hulk. Ugh. That's sick. You're a bad friend." And Bruce isn't angry, he's just disappointed.
"What?! No!" Thor practically squeaks out his words.
"You don't really care about me." Bruce mumbles as he turns away from his so-called friend and stares glumly down at the dusty ground beneath Tony's sneakers.
"What? No, that's absurd. I don't even like the Hulk. He's all like, 'smash this' and 'smash that'. Lather, rinse, repeat, and all that other boring stuff." Thor tells him with as much sincerity as possible. "I much prefer you."
Bruce knows Thor's probably talking shit, but still feels himself crumble. "Thank you." He mutters with a small smile.
"But–" Thor begins with another sheepish smile. "– if I'm being honest here, friend to friend – the Hulk is a lot more useful with fighting against all-powerful evil beings.."
Bruce lets out a quiet scoff. "Yeah, well Banner's –I'mpowerful, too, y'know?" He says, tone edging on snooty.
"Is he though? Are you though?" Thor asks, voice slightly cracking.
"OK." Bruce's eyes narrow. "How many PhDs does the Hulk have?None.How many PhDs do I have?Seven!"
Thor blinks, pleasant smile dropping when Bruce's defiant expression doesn't crack even in the damn slightest. He lets out a loud huff of defeat then says, "Fine. You don't have to fight."
"Thank you." Bruce smiles happily.
Thor huffs, rolls his eyes, says, "But we still have to get out of here before we're discovered."
Bruce watches as Thor discretely swipes one of the green scarves from the market stall and quickly shuffles back over to their quiet corner. He smirks amusedly as he watches the Prince trying various ways to wrap it around himself before finally giving up and just placing it over head instead. Bruce digs into his pockets, finds a pair of Tony's old sunglasses and puts them on.
"Very conspicuous." Thor smirks lightly.
Bruce arches a brow, motions to the scarf. "Ditto."
Thor simply rolls his eyes.
"I'll be Tony Stark." Bruce says.
Thor arches a brow back, tells him, "You're Bruce Banner, remember?"
"Then, why did you dress me up like Tony Stark?" Bruce counters; snips.
"Why are you being so bitchy?" Thor snips back.
"Oh, I dunno, Thor. Maybe it's the fact that I've been trapped inside of a goddamn monster for the last two years that's got me alittleBITCHY!" Bruce grits out, voice slightly raised as he feels the big guy almost break free again.
Thor's eyes widen in horror. "OK, OK , calm down." He hisses with slight panic – because OK, he needs the Hulk, but not that much and not right now when the entire planet is probably looking for the both. "Look, we'll go to Asgard and everything will be fine. You can relax and you'll never have to even think about the Hulk again... oh."
Just as the last word leaves Thor's mouth, Bruce is being literally pelted in the face by a tsunami of Hulk-green powder. And Thor can't see Bruce's face properly right now, but Bruce is definitely glaring back at the god.