New York state flew by underneath—Friday had already filed apologies and a flight path for the supersonic trip to New York City—as Tony frantically made calls.

The staff at the UN had—reluctantly—approved of his request to intervene in a growing terrorist incident in Norway, mostly due to it being Asgardian-related. So that was good.

Thor wasn't answering his phone—and Valkyrie had turned down hers. Repeatedly.

One ear and display was giving him the feed from Nikki Peterson's phone, while Friday was analyzing the data dump from the girl's phone as it uploaded. Thank goodness Pepper had given all of the corporate staff and family a Stark-Phone plan; the jamming the terrorists were using was only cutting into the phone's bandwidth, not blocking it completely.

"Sir," Evelyn Peterson's voice came in. "Nikki is supposed to be with my sister, Emily. She has one of the Stark phones..."

"Call it. And transfer to here. We're getting your kid out of there, promise."

The phone rang three times.

A distraught voice answered. "Eve, I'm—"

"Ms. Porter, this is Tony Stark. I'm inbound. Is Valkyrie there?"

"Uh... yes..."

"Give the phone to Valkyrie," he said.

There was a brief pause, and then the Asgardian woman's voice came on.

"You need a phone," he said as she started to speak.

"Who is—Stark?"

"Put me on speakerphone," he said, and waited until he heard the beep. "Listen. I'm on my way, as is Thor. It's a Humans First! operation. From what we've been able to tell, they've got fifteen hostages in a room with a longboat, along with three backpacks full of explosives."

"But how are you getting here in time?" Valkyrie asked. "You're on the other side of the ocean."

"I know a guy." And speak of the devil... "In fact, Friday, brief them. I've got to take this call." One icon shifted to another, even as he kept watch on the feed from the girl's phone.

"Stark," the wizard's cultured voice came through. "What is it?"

"I need a gate from your New York address to Oslo, Norway in," he looked up at the GPS, "one minute and thirty seconds. You can handle a Mach two sonic boom, right?"

"Stark..." Strange said warningly. "What's going on?"

"Asgardians versus homegrown bigots. One minute fifteen. They've got kids as hostages. You helping or not?"

There was a brief pause. "I'm helping. Oslo?"

"Yep. Near the Ship Museum."

"Got it." There was a pause. "...There's a strong energy source there."

"Valkyrie's on site. Probably her."

There was sudden motion in the feed from the girl's camera, and a man's voice bellowing, "STOP!"

"Uh oh."

A gunshot rang out and a body hit the floor.

###

Hiccup, holding the sword and shield up in front of him, looked around the room; he saw at least eight of the men and women wearing masks and carrying those odd weapons in their hands.

The masked woman scoffed. "You?" She pointed her weapon at him and—

A loud BANG echoed, and something hit Hiccup in the shoulder with a great deal of force. The shock of it knocked him to the floor, and the sword and shield clattered to the ground with him.

"Anyone else want to be a hero today?" the woman asked in Norwegian. "Now, where's the artifact?"

Hiccup blinked and hauled himself to his feet—making at least one of the attackers squeak in surprise. "I told... huh... you... it's... me," he panted out, feeling a bit out of breath, but otherwise all right. He could feel the energy from the belt flowing into him and helping him heal and be ready.

The masked woman turned and looked at him, and her eyes widened in surprise as she pointed her weapon at him again, and then narrowed. "All right then."

She fired three more times, and Hiccup grunted in pain as three red hot spikes seemed to drill their way through his gut and out his back, but he remained standing.

Then the woman's eyes widened in surprise as she stared at his gut, and Hiccup looked down. There were three small holes in his armor over his gut... pale skin flecked with freckles were visible underneath.

"SHIT! Get him!" the masked woman screamed, and one of the other attackers tried to fire at him as well.

Hiccup dropped into a roll and snatched up the shield, flinging it into the man. He dropped, and the shield chimed like a bell as it clattered to the floor. Still in a roll, Hiccup plucked up the dropped sword and swung it through the hand of the man that had been threatening Nikki; he screamed as his weapon—still held in his hand—hit the floor and fired.

Chips of stone burst through the air as another attacker tried to fire at him, and Hiccup continued to roll behind another display, this one tall and narrow. Pulling his feet up into his chest, he kicked, and the whole display tore loose from the floor and flew at the man; there was a horrible squelch of impact, but Hiccup didn't turn to look. He was already in motion again, and grabbed the shield from the ground where it had fallen.

Coming out of his roll, he saw that the remaining attackers weren't pointing their weapons at him—but at the hostages.

"Give us the artifact," the woman said, holding her weapon to Nikki's head, "or I blow the girl's brains out."

Hiccup didn't hesitate and bellowed, "DROP IT."

A sudden clatter of metal on stone issued as suddenly everyone in the room dropped what they were holding in hand—the attackers dropping their weapons, and Nikki dropping her farspeaker.

"What the—" was all the woman had to say before Hiccup was among them; a bash with his shield sent the largest remaining one of the attackers flying into the wall, and then a backswing sent the masked woman flying into the longship, where she hit with a resounding THUD.

Suddenly, Nikki's farspeaker shouted, "Throw the rucksacks up and away!"

Hiccup didn't hesitate, and, still moving, spun into a crouch, plucked up the three rucksacks, black but apparently made with the same material as Nikki's, and flung them by their straps up through the glass skylight. There was a blast of light and a concussion that knocked them all down, and sent more glass from above down in a rain.

And then there was an alarming creak, as the longship started to tilt—towards the bound hostages.

Hiccup bolted to his feet and ran to it. He might not be his father, but his new strength was enough to bend metal...

Just as the ship started to roll, he caught it; it was heavy, even to his new strength, and he felt his prosthetic, made from ordinary metal, start to bend and crumple under the stress. Another shout—it sounded like Valkyrie—came from behind him, and there was another BANG from the modern weapons, followed by another shock of pain through him, and a spray of blood issued from his chest.

But the wound almost instantly healed, and he focused on keeping the longship from crushing anyone using two hands and one foot. This was his fault. He could endure it—

There was a sudden and incredible CLANG of metal on stone behind him, and he turned to look.

An armored man, his eyes and chest glowing, painted in blood-red and gold, had just landed behind him. For a brief second, Hiccup cursed his luck. He wasn't entirely sure for how much longer he could hold the ship up; another enemy was just what he needed right now. But to his surprise—and immense relief—the metal man apparently wasn't here to fight him. On the contrary, without so much as a second of hesitation, the newcomer came up next to him, and together, they pushed the ship back to where it belonged.

Once the ship fit into place on its display, Hiccup turned to the strange armored man. "Thank you—"

Before he could finish, the man turned to him and barked in oddly clipped Norwegian, "I don't know what stunt you were trying to pull back there, Obi Wan, but your heroics almost got people killed. You're lucky you're Asgardian or else you would have been in Valhalla right about now." With an angry gesture, the man jabbed his finger at him, poking him in one of the holes of his armor.

Hiccup pulled his lips back in a scowl and whacked the hand away from his shoulder. "What was I supposed to do? Pretend nothing was going on while innocent people got hurt!?" he rebutted in Norwegian, tone rising.

"That's exactly what you should have done," the armored man stepped closer to him. "I said I was coming! But, no, you had to be a hero and endanger over a dozen people, including yourself! That bomb would have made you into a smear on the walls, Asgardian or not!"

Hiccup blinked hearing familiar words from his past come from a stranger. He gave a frustrated cry. "This was my fault, I was trying to fix things!"

The armored man turned. "Rookie mistake. You should have let professionals handle it." He turned away from Hiccup and began walking towards the hostages before pausing and turned towards Valkyrie. "And why are you here anyway? Are you trying to catch a bullet?" he asked in English, his tones much less clipped, and the change in language let Hiccup recognize the voice—the man who had spoken through Emily's farspeaker, Stark. Well, he had said he was coming...

Before he could say anything else, though, to Hiccup's startlement, the armored figure's mask began to melt away and pull back, revealing the man behind the mask, a tired-looking but normal man with a neatly groomed beard and graying hair. The mask was obviously enchanted somehow with Asgardian crafts, which explained why he had come to the rescue.

"I had vacation days piling up, and they were non-negotiable," Valkyrie deadpanned in the same tongue. "And I heard there's an excellent brewery around here, but I took a wrong turn."

Hiccup swallowed a bark of laughter at the look on Stark's face. It was nice to know that sarcasm was a universal coping mechanism, regardless of time or language.

"You Asgardians aren't exactly straightforward, are you?" Stark asked rhetorically before he gave an exasperated sigh and said, "Paramedics are on their way in, along with the local cops. They'll be taking these guys in for questioning."

Valkyrie nodded. "That's good. So I'll get going with the hero here, and get out of your hair—"

Stark held up a hand. "Before you go..."

Valkyrie paused, and Hiccup kept his mouth shut, not wanting to make things worse. For once. "Yes?" she asked.

Stark snorted. "On the off chance that I might actually get a straight answer out of you, I heard what Junior here said."

Valkyrie gave him a look of suspicion. "Oh?"

"Yeah. They were here for the 'ancient Asgardian artifact' that blew up the Internet and attracted the protestors out front. And then Wonder Boy here said that he was the artifact... and..." He paused. "Did you guys pick up a stray somewhere? Friday says he's not listed in your census."

Hiccup could follow some of that, although he was moderately worried about whatever it was that he'd 'blown up' this time.

Valkyrie, on the other hand, scoffed. "In a manner of speaking, yes. Another one of Odin's many, many secrets that he swept under the rug."

"Great," Stark said, and ostentatiously looked around the room at the destruction. Hiccup felt a moment of embarrassment as he did the same. The tall display case he'd knocked over was lying atop a body—alive or dead, he had no idea—and old Viking coins littered the floor. The floor was chipped, pitted and covered in small pools of blood, and the bodies of the attackers were scattered about like rag dolls that had been played with by an angry child. The one man whose hand he'd... removed was sitting weeping on the floor, having improvised a tourniquet out of his sleeve; the revealed arm showed a tattoo on his bicep; a circle with two oblong blobs inside it at the top and bottom and letters around the circle reading 'Earth For All Only Mankind'. Just as Hiccup felt like he couldn't feel any more sheepish, Stark's gaze fell back on him, and Hiccup squirmed for a moment, having a few memories—all right, a lot of memories—of his dad dressing him down for another destructive mess-up.

"Okay, but nobody's hurt except for the raiders, right?" Hiccup said as charmingly as he could in Norwegian.

Stark scoffed and turned to Valkyrie. "Given the damage and lack of green skin, I think it's safe to say he's one of yours." He then glanced up and said dryly, "And I wouldn't be too sure on that, Wonder Boy." He gestured with his chin, and Hiccup turned to see Nikki, covered in blood, curled up on the floor, whimpering and holding her arm, huddled under a display case.

Fear for her spiked through him and he went to take a step. But the floor wasn't his friend, as his bent prosthetic hit a patch of blood and he went down sprawling in a heap of limbs.

Stark chuckled and Valkyrie snorted at the sight.

At that moment, a number of people—some wearing black jackets with runes reading POLITI, others in bright red-and-yellow uniforms—came rushing into the room; Emily, Nickolai and Martin being off-color figures in the crowd.

Nickolai helped haul him upright, and Hiccup didn't miss that the uniformed people were giving a wide berth around him, Stark and Valkyrie. The black-jacketed people quickly put manacles and other restraints onto the raiders, shocking Hiccup, but a muttered comment from Nickolai on how they weren't being enthralled mollified him. It wasn't as if such measures weren't unheard of for criminals back on... Berk. Yeah.

The red-and-yellow-clad people, though, turned out to be healers, with their carry-cases being filled with bandages and other more arcane equipment. They went around to the various injured in the room, raider and bystander alike, and started to treat them. One of them was kneeling by Nikki's hiding spot and trying to coax her out.

Hiccup gave a sheepish and awkward forced grin when one of them cautiously picked up that one raider's severed hand and packed it in what looked like a case of ice.

"Think they'll be able to reattach it?" Emily asked.

Hiccup turned and stared at her. "They can do that?" he asked in shocked broken English.

Stark scoffed. "Wonder Boy, you really aren't from around here, are you?"

Hiccup turned and looked at him. "No. And I'm trying to get back to when I came from."

Stark muttered something that sounded like, Oh, no, not more time travel bullshit, but Hiccup ignored him. The healer trying to coax Nikki out had failed, and was trying to bodily haul her out from her hiding spot, without much success. Moving carefully, he looked around, and spotted Nikki's far-speaker and picked it up off the floor before it was stepped on in the sudden burst of activity. Noticing a few droplets of blood on the glass screen, he borrowed a scrap of bandage from one of the healers and carefully wiped it clean.

By this point, Nikki had wrapped her legs around something under the display case. "I want to go home! Nobody said I'd be getting shot at!"

Hiccup walked over and carefully knelt, touching the healer on the shoulder, and said in rough Norwegian, "Can I try?"

"No. You hurt her, and I'll see you get put up on charges," the healer said gruffly.

Hiccup scowled. He was trying to protect Nikki... but he paused and tried to see it from the healer's perspective, where a super-strong man could easily hurt the girl. With a heavy sigh he said, "You're right. But please... let me try?"

The healer scowled at him, but before he could say anything else, Hiccup called quietly under the display case in the best English he could manage. "Nikki? I've got your far-speaker here. Didn't you say that you needed it for your schooling?"

She shakily nodded.

He held it up and put it down on the floor next to the healer... a little out past the end of the case.

"Here. Just let the nice healer help you, all right?"

She looked at the far-speaker, looked at him, looked at the healer, and then back to the far-speaker.

Hiccup backed off and she cautiously emerged, and took up the small slate before letting the healer start treating her — thankfully light — wounds.

Satisfied that she was being taken care of, Hiccup stood and turned back to Stark and Valkyrie, who were bantering back and forth.

"So now what?" he asked as he hobbled back into speaking range.

Stark looked him up and down. "Well, I've let Nikki's mother know that she's safe. So I imagine that Valkyrie here packs you up and takes you back to New Asgard after she settles the damage bill."

Valkyrie sagged, while Stark looked oddly gleeful at that last bit.

"I don't understand..." Hiccup said cautiously.

Stark grinned. "It's not me this time that has to pay for all of this!"

Hiccup looked around at the damage and felt his heart sink as memories of him trying to help out only to make a mess of things—and his father having to clean up after him—came flooding back. He winced. "Oh." Then the rest of Stark's comment filtered in. "Wait — what? No! I don't want to go to New Asgard. I want to go home."

"Wonder Boy, from what Valkyrie told me, your home was left a thousand years in the past." Stark seemed oddly sympathetic and then reached out and patted him on the shoulder with one metal-gauntleted-hand.

Hiccup scowled and went to bat the hand away but reconsidered after a moment. "Let me talk to Heimdall first before I say that they're all dust and bones, all right? And I need to find my sword; I remember Odin telling me that it was a key."

Stark shared a look with Valkyrie before saying, "And then what?"

"Depends on what Heimdall has to say," Hiccup said—and then looked up as there was the sound of thunder through the shattered roof window.

Stark looked up as well. "Fashionably late, I see," he snarked.

People cleared back below the open hole as a tall blond man with a red cape, lightning cascading over his body, descended through the window. And Hiccup immediately recognized him from depictions of the famed god he'd grown up with, although his hair was the wrong color. Landing lightly, Thor's gaze fell on them. His breath hitched. For a brief moment Hiccup thought the god was looking directly at him. "Ah, Stark! Fancy meeting you here!"

"I had a Strange time getting here," Stark replied with an odd emphasis — or maybe that was just how the word was pronounced? Hiccup was still getting the hang of English.

Thor nodded solemnly. "I see. Going back the regular way, though?"

Stark sighed. "I guess I'll have to. But first, dealing with Wonder Boy here."

Thor turned to Hiccup and looked him over. "So! You're my nephew! Well met!"

Hiccup looked at the god in front of him and felt faint as what he'd said sank in. Nephew. He was the god's nephew! He could barely get his words out past the growing lump in his throat. "Uh, yeah. So, um, you're Thor."

"And a pain in the ass," Stark snarked, making Valkyrie snort. Hiccup shot Stark a confused look. Thor being unphased by his remark, even smirking at it told him the two must have history together. He then looked back up at Thor, and his eyes grew round. He prayed that he was about to give no offense for what he was about to ask.

Then paused. Who was he praying to?

"I... uh... th-thought that you'd have two eyes. And where's your hammer?"

Thor's face shadowed for a moment. "Your mother took both."

Hiccup swallowed. "Uh..."

Thor reached out and clasped him on the shoulder. "But you aren't her! And I'm not going to punish you for her actions, have no worry!" He then looked around and grew a pained expression. "Please, please tell me that you and Valkyrie didn't fight."

Valkyrie snorted. "He's still standing, so, no."

"You and Stark? I remember how we first met."

Stark snorted. "I hear the forest there is finally starting to come back." He scoffed. "No, it was a Humans First! group that figured that they don't like Asgardians, but will happily take Asgardian artifacts. They just didn't figure that this one would be walking around on a leg and a half. Your nephew here charged in, got himself shot a few times, and played hero. He's lucky that nobody else got severely injured or killed."

Thor nodded. "How many?"

"Six."

Thor beamed at Hiccup and he could feel his cheeks heat from awkward shyness that was not helped by what he said next. "And you took them all on by yourself! Very good!"

Stark made a slight strangled noise, but didn't say anything else.

At that moment, Hiccup felt a hand on his shoulder and whirled, his own hand reaching for the hilt on his hip reflexively.

Emily was standing there, with Nickolai and one of the healers; his two friends looking concerned. He relaxed, but then cocked a brow.

"What's wrong?" Hiccup asked.

"Uh... a little hard to explain," Nickolai said as Emily looked him over carefully, silently counting, and then her eyes widened.

"Hiccup, turn around."

Obediently, he did so. "What's going on?"

Behind him, she swore and said to Nickolai, "I count five bullet holes on his front... and only four on his back."

"Uh oh," Stark commented.

Hiccup paused. "What, 'bullet'? Like you use in a sling?"

Nickolai shrugged. "With a thousand years of refinement, yes; now they're almost like arrowheads. It looks like you've got the one in your shoulder—that first one—still in there. The paramedic noticed and asked us to check."

Hiccup blinked. "Uh... so you're saying that there's an arrowhead stuck inside my shoulder? Under the healed skin?"

"That's more or less the size of it, yes. And worse, it's made of lead."

Hiccup grimaced. "Uh... lead. As in, heavy metal that breathing the fumes when you melt it drives men mad? Soft, kind of silvery, poisonous?"

Nickolai grimaced and gave a pained nod. "That's the one..."

"So much for hoping for a mistranslation..." Hiccup muttered and looked to Emily. "So... please tell me your next question was 'Can we take it out before you turn into a deranged lunatic?'" One Dagur is enough, thank you very much, he thought. Yes, it took extended exposure to lead to have that effect... but with his speed of healing, who was to say it wasn't also going to be accelerated?

Emily nodded, and Nickolai stepped forward with the healer.

"Alright, let's take a look," the healer said, and reached up with a pair of gloved hands. "Can you sit down somewhere? You're too tall to make this easy."

Hiccup shrugged—which set off a wave of pain through the shoulder. "Ack," he grunted.

"Hiccup, you okay?"

With a slightly strangled moan, he said, "It's definitely still in there... and my body isn't happy about it." Without another word, he ambled over to a nearby bench and carefully sat.

The healer came over to him and, after Hiccup took off the tattered remains of that section of armor, started to probe his shoulder with firm touches of his fingertips. "The entire area is swelling," he observed. "I'm worried that it might be internal bleeding from the bullet lying against an artery... wait, no, it's in the wrong spot. But what would cause that much swelling that fast?"

"Foreign body reaction, magnified by his healing rate," Emily suggested. "I mean, the skin's already healed; his system is probably on overdrive, trying to isolate the toxin."

As they spoke, Hiccup glanced back and forth between his two shoulders; he could see the swelling that the healer had mentioned—a shiny and reddish area of skin perhaps two or three inches across, visibly standing up from the surrounding flesh.

He swallowed.

"Well, then it has to come out before the swelling starts to impact his brachial artery," the healer said. "I don't care how fast he heals, if he loses oxygen flow to the extremities, he'll start getting necrosis."

Hiccup didn't recognize half of those words, but judging by Emily's expression, it wasn't good. "So, it has to come out," he said.

"Yes," the healer said. "And the sooner the better."

Hiccup considered for a moment, and knew that he wasn't in a position to blindly trust anyone. Not after the lessons he'd learned so painfully.

"Emily, can you take it out?" he asked.

"Me!?" Emily blurted. "I—but I only ever worked with the dead!"

"Shouldn't be too different."

"But there's a very large difference! I — what if I slip up and make things worse?" Emily argued, tone rising.

"I heal, remember? That seems to even be the problem," he said cheerfully.

"Hiccup!" she protested. "I—"

Stark interjected, "I can see where this is going so how about this—You, medic. You'll guide Ms. Porter while she operates on Wonder Boy." Stark then turned and looked at Hiccup. "Will that work?"

Hiccup opened his mouth to object, but closed it when no words formed. In the back of his mind, there was still the off chance that the healer could tell Emily what to do as she blindly trusted his guidance that would result in injuring him. But it looked like he really didn't have a choice in the matter now judging by the impatient and tired look he was receiving from Stark. He nodded reluctantly.

"Alright then. Let's do this."

Hiccup laid back on the bench as the healer handed implements to Emily one bit at a time. What happened next was... revolting.

An injection to numb the pain did little, and a small incision to open his skin and remove the bullet erupted in blood and pus, but closed again almost instantly—although the relief in pressure helped significantly with the mounting pain.

Twice more they tried to open the skin to remove the bullet, but by the time Emily had set the knife down and picked up the tweezers to probe for the bullet, the incision had healed, after releasing copious amounts of blood-tainted pus.

"It's like the worst pimple ever," Emily commented, as Nikki retched in the background. After the fourth time, she asked, exasperated, "Hiccup, is there any way to turn that off?"

"I... I think so," he said, and retreated inside himself, seeking the flow of energy that he'd become so familiar with when hanging on the tree.

He found it... and, unlike how he'd been encouraging it back then, he throttled it back with an effort of will.

"Try it now," he croaked.

Another quick slice and a relief of pressure, and he felt the tweezers probing around in his shoulder as the sensation of fullness in the wound lessened. Sweat beaded in his hair from the effort of holding back the healing. He was sure that he could remove the belt and possibly end it entirely, but he didn't know if he'd continue to heal afterwards.

Something to ask Thor and Valkyrie when he had the chance.

Speaking of them, they were watching, apparently fascinated, and sharing comments about vicious battlefield injuries they'd seen.

A cry of triumph followed by a clatter of metal on metal drew back his attention to Emily, who looked relieved. "Got it! You can—"

He didn't need to be told twice, and with a grunt of relief, let the healing flow back into him.

The healer watched, apparently fascinated, even as he cleaned up the bloody remains of Emily's explorations. "It's already completely healed, and the swelling is going down." He glanced at Thor. "No wonder you Asgardians are so hard to kill."

Thor grunted. "Aye." He turned to Stark. "So, now, to New Asgard?"

###

The scent of car exhaust and the sounds of heavy traffic vanished as the door shut behind him, replaced by the filtered scent of cool central air and the murmur of the lobby's wall-mounted waterfall.

Effectively invisible in the business suit, tie and leather shoes, he joined the line to go through the metal detector and was waved through after presenting the security card that had cost fifteen grand (and two deaths) to counterfeit with enough quality to get him in here. Checking his watch as he put it back on, he gave a small nod. Two minutes thirty seconds ahead of schedule. Perfect.

Going deeper into the government building, he passed a variety of functionaries, all of them dressed similar to himself; the security card pinned to his lapel giving him all the cover he needed.

Reaching the janitor's closet in the sub-basement, he unlocked it and slipped inside. As soon as the door closed, he started his transformation, from mid-level functionary to janitor; a baggy set of loose blue overalls that he'd stashed here earlier went over the suit, and boots went over the nice shoes.

A minute after he'd entered as a paper-pusher, a janitor emerged from the closet, his hair tostled, not slicked back like the functionary's had been, pushing along the special cleaning cart he'd prepped.

He toddled over to the elevator, checking his watch again. One minute forty-five ahead of schedule. Very nice.

Again, he was invisible as he went through the hallway, pushing the cart of cleaning supplies. Reaching the conference room on the eighth floor, he punched in the access code after checking that the coast was clear; the door light blinked to green after he presented his forged security card to the scanner.

Then the serious preparations began.

Off went the janitor's overalls; they'd just interfere for the moment. Out of the underside of the cart came the rifle, already zeroed in and ready for deployment. Moving aside the tray of water glasses at the center of the table, he found the drill holes he'd already placed there, and, moving with practiced efficiency, he mounted the buffer plate of the rifle to the table. He'd have to leave it, but given that the gun had been... borrowed from the country's military stockpiles and it was his job to implicate them, well, that made the parting a bit less sad. It was still a fine weapon, though. Capable of putting bullets through an area smaller than the size of a dinner plate at more than a mile.

Opening the window was difficult; it wasn't designed to open, but he'd practiced that as well, and the specialized tools that he'd brought with him in the cart made short work of the glass.

He checked his watch.

It was time.

Up on the table, sighting down the scope of the rifle. A month of preparation to get this. The target was paranoid, but justifiably so. He'd made many enemies and buried many bodies—not all of them dead at the time of burial—on his way to power, and he travelled everywhere with his enlarged security detail.

But there were times when they would let down their guard. When there was no threat that could possibly reach him.

Such as the ferry crossing the bay that the window overlooked. The small resort island it served was off in the distance and now...

Here it came.

He brought out his phone and set it on a tripod, allowing him to see the drone footage from one eye.

The target was a proud fellow, and in past attempts on his life, he'd been adamant about being seen again as soon as possible.

So when the second drone—piloted by a patsy that he'd found—dove for the man as he lounged on the back recreation deck, his protective detail shot it out of the sky, and it exploded in an impressive display.

The protective detail immediately likewise exploded into action, dragging their protesting principal away from possible threats.

He watched, amused, as the target pushed his way up top to the observation deck, exactly as planned. He always had to make a production after an attempt, to show that he wasn't scared. With that confirmed, the drone flew off, so as not to provoke a possible reaction.

The ferry came into view a moment later... and while the recreation deck wasn't visible from the conference room, the observation deck was.

With one last exhale, the Huntsman centered himself, focusing on the moment when the reticule and the target became one. Even with the dampening of the heavy conference table to absorb the recoil, it was still over three kilometers to the target, and even the slightest jarring could turn a hit into a miss. It was at moments like this that he resented his heartbeat, as it could throw off his aim.

The ship slid along his sight, and he saw the target, talking and gesturing angrily. Now, if only he'd hold still for the three and a half seconds it would take for the bullet to travel downrange...

There.

He'd paused, standing at the railing, gesturing angrily to the apparently empty skies.

Boom.

Headshot.

As the body crumpled, the protective detail shouting for a medic, the Huntsman rose from the table. Company would be coming soon, and he would best not be here when they arrived.

Back on went the overalls, and the janitor emerged from the conference room, and returned his cart to the basement. Then the functionary emerged. Now came the tricky part. With the deed done, he couldn't speak the local lingo any longer... but he had other skills up his sleeves.

Or on his hand, as the case might be.

Reaching the exit, sure enough, it was already on lockdown, with angry looking men with guns at the exit.

But he was prepared for that. When nobody was looking, he tracked his thumb over the back of one of the lines etched onto the back of the ring... and he vanished from sight.

What came next was tricky. While they could literally look right through him, he still cast a shadow, for whatever reason, and he was still physically present, and blundering into an invisible person tended to be the sort of thing that jittery, angry men with guns had a very direct response to.

But he'd practiced at this sort of thing as well, and ghosted behind one of the guards as he left the building. As the man went over to a fellow in a military uniform featuring a great deal of gold rope and medals, the Huntsman peeled off from the guard, silently counting down the seconds until his invisibility failed. Making his way to an alley, the suit came off and went into the dumpster, the weakened threads at the seams letting him peel it off with panache, revealing jeans and a nondescript t-shirt underneath, and the leather shoes broke down to reveal sandals.

An American tourist emerged from the alleyway, jamming to a pair of headphones in his ears, who gave little attention to the caravan of official looking vehicles parked in front of one of the governmental offices of the Ministry of Justice. He just wandered away... and somehow still managed to slip through the perimeter at five blocks before it was established.

Reaching his hotel, he found that the news was busy with his handiwork, but for the moment, he still had time to get out.

His phone was blinking with a missed message, and, popping on his encryption app, he returned the call.

"Lizzy! How's my favorite client!?" he said in a cheerful drawl.

"Can it, Damon," the irate voice came through. "Are you available?"

"I'm between jobs at the moment. You know us freelancers."

"Very droll. Have you seen the news?"

"Regarding...? It's a big world, sweetheart."

There was a scoff on the other end of the line. "There was an... incident up north a short while ago, featuring some of your favorite people, and a new player, who plays rough. We'd like to see him taken off of the field for roughhousing. Message me after you've had a chance to see the video. We'll offer you your usual fee."

Once Lizzy hung up, Damon swiped his thumb across the screen a couple of times before footage acquired from anonymous sources within the police department greeted him on the screen. The footage appeared to be from a drone. As the footage rolled, he could see just who the drone belonged to; Iron Man. He scoffed. Tony Stark was a high profile target. But that didn't stop Damon from hating him for collaborating with Asgardians. But as the footage continued, he soon caught sight of a tall figure dressed in some bizzare looking leather ensemble, holding what looked like a heavy shield and sword. Damon rolled his eyes.

But then things got interesting as the mysterious man stood up after being shot and plowed through the Humans First! soldiers. He stopped the footage as the man kicked a heavy display case off onto one of their own. Then it all made sense. This man wasn't human. He had to be Asgardian, it would explain his strength and speed. It didn't sit right with him knowing that an Asgardian had taken a life.

He set his jaw and called Lizzy back. Her calm voice answered, "I take it I have your attention?"

"I don't do Asgardians, Liz, you know that," he paused, "but this one. I'll make an exception."

"Then you agree he must be dealt with.""Tell you what, Lizzy, I'll do this job for you for expenses plus ten percent instead. Think of it as my membership dues for the year," Damon said coolly.

There was a long pause on the other line before Lizzy said, "It's agreed then."

"I'll call you when the job is done." Damon then ended the call with a tap before looking back at the paused footage on his phone.

When dogs got violent, Damon knew the only thing to do was to put them down. And this dog certainly had a taste of blood. The thought of another Loki being loose sent dread up his spine. He sighed as children free on summer break raced past him. His jaw set the longer he thought about what he'd seen. Normally he avoided high risk targets, but he would do what he could to prevent a repeat of what happened in New York. He had a lot of prep to do for this special job. He couldn't just face off with an Asgardian bare-fisted. No, he'd have to do some shopping around for special protective armor in case he was drawn into a close range fight. Armor that could lend him strength to level the playing field. And he knew just the person.

###

"New Asgard?" Hiccup furrowed his brow at the suggestion and asked testily, "Did anyone listen to me?" The group turned to him as he stood up carefully, minding his bent prosthetic. "I thought I made it very clear, I want to go home."

"Stark has told me about your home. And I agree with him," Thor reached out and rested his hand on Hiccup's shoulder sympathetically.

Hiccup rolled his hand off his shoulder. "I don't belong on Asgard. I belong with my people. I've been away from them far too long, and they need their chief," he said.

Nickolai made a choking noise. "Hiccup, you, you're a—chief?" he stammered, struggling to hold back excitement.

Hiccup looked to his friend and nodded.

Stark commented, "I'm beginning to see the family resemblance. Wonder Boy, you've got to realize that there's a strong chance your home is gone. And from what I'm hearing here, it's locked into some extra dimensional hole in time and space, so even if it's still there—"

Hiccup, tired, in pain, and feeling lost, finally snapped at the armor-wearing man. "My home is exactly where I left it. In the Bifrost. So, to find it, I need to talk to the guardian of the Bifrost."

"Well, then come to New Asgard," Thor said calmly. "Heimdall is there."

"But will I be allowed to leave again?" Hiccup asked pointedly. "Especially after this mess?" He motioned to the damaged museum room. "I've made enough messes in my life to know that they're not going to want to let me out again after this."

"That's... a good question," Stark said, sounding pained.

"Thank you! So, yes, I need to speak to Heimdall, but I'm not going to New Asgard! I got sent to my room enough—"

He was abruptly not in the museum any longer, and a deep amused voice said, "Perhaps a meeting in the middle would be best, then?"

Hiccup turned around. He was standing in the middle of an open path laid with bricks, with foot traffic all around. A ship hovering in the air nearby told him where he was—on the small island in the middle of the sea that he'd seen from the air.

New Asgard.

He groaned. "I said I didn't want—whoa!" He jumped a foot in the air as an Asgardian woman literally walked through him as if he wasn't there. Not 'ignoring him', but she physically passed through him.

"Oh. This is a dream-visit, like you did before," he said faintly.

Heimdall's voice was amused as he said, "Yes. I'm sorry for not communicating earlier, but the situation was fraught."

Hiccup turned to face the God of the Watch, and to his surprise, the tall man was no longer dressed in his fine armor, but in a motley and colorful assortment of tunics, hose and leather. It looked good on him, but it was definitely a change from his last image of the god—from his perspective, only a week ago.

Weakly, he said, "You changed your outfit."

Heimdall laughed. "That I did." His smile revealed even white teeth, but then he sobered. "As for your people..." He closed his eyes and seemed to focus. "They live."

Hiccup almost fell as his knees buckled in relief.

"Thank you."

"Don't thank me yet," Heimdall said mildly. "In order to avoid breaking my oaths to Odin when I first helped you, I needed to surrender control of the Bifrost loop in which your home is now contained. It is out of my control, a self-sustaining loop." He nodded to Hiccup. "And you will be the one that has to free them. I cannot, again because of how I gave up control of it."

"Oh. But you can see them?"

"With difficulty and effort. For them, it has only been months. Your beloved and your scaly friend miss you terribly. They hope that you'll return, but that hope is beginning to fade, and they are facing great dangers from others inside, and need your help."

Hiccup felt his hands clench into fists. "I'm coming."

"I know." Heimdall hesitated and, clearly choosing his words carefully, said, "I cannot say more, but you will need your blade in order to free them. Unfortunately, I do not know where the true blade is."

"Oh for..." Hiccup barely kept from swearing at the god, who looked sympathetic. "Do you at least have some place for me to start looking?"

"You have a Midgardian scholar at your side, do you not? Ask him for some help. And Stark... while frustrating, is a good friend, and has found small hidden things before."

Hiccup sighed. "I see. Is there anything else you can tell me?"

"Yes. Good luck." With that, the vision ended, and he was back in the museum. The group of them were all looking at him expectantly.

"So, what did Heimdall have to say?" Thor asked cheerfully. "Don't worry, they don't think you're crazy for having walked around talking to someone they can't see. That's normal these days anyway."

Hiccup ignored the joke. "They live. It's been months to them, but the 'loop' they're in is out of his control. Apparently it's up to me to free them... and I'll need the real sword," he held up the fake hilt, "to free them. The rest, he was under a geas not to say anything."

Valkyrie scoffed. "Typical."

Martin spoke up. "But the actual sword was lost decades ago!"

Stark sighed. "Lost how?" he asked.

"The Nazis took it!"

Impossibly, Stark perked up at this. "They did?"

"Yes! Along with half of our collection of Norse weaponry and artifacts!"

Stark beamed. "Finally some good news."

Hiccup gave him a sidelong glance. "How is this good news?"

"Because, during that history that you slept through, Wonder Boy, the guys who stole your sword..." he paused. "You know how to read, right?"

Hiccup gave him a flat look.

"Hey, hey, thousand-year-old Viking, your people were barbarians..." Stark said cheerfully. "So, yeah, the people who stole your sword, they kept records on everything. And there was another smaller group of them that had a real hardon for anything Viking, a group called Hydra... and their records were published for the whole world to see a few years back." He held out his hand. "Let me take a look at this."

With a shrug, Hiccup handed the hilt over, and then his eyes went slightly wide at the sight of blue-white beams of light coming out of the sides of Stark's helmet that played over the hilt. Martin hurried back into the museum and brought out the blade that Hiccup had snapped off and held it in place for the lights to play over.

"How close was this replica, by the way?" Stark asked idly.

Nickolai said, "Good enough that Hiccup recognized it on sight."

"All right then." Then, in an air as if he was speaking to someone else, Stark said, "Friday, code up a search for this sword in the Hydra database and see what you can dig up."

Hiccup blinked as the same woman's voice that had told them about the attackers in this room said, "On it."

With that, Stark turned to him and said, "There we go. So, now, while we wait for my assistant to hunt down your wayward sword, let's get out of here and get you cleaned up, shall we?" He glanced to Thor, who had taken the hilt and was playing with it. "And remember, you're paying for this mess this time, not me!" There was a distinct glee in his tone.

Thor sighed.

###

Astrid slumped against the wall of one of the houses, exhausted. With the blot coming up soon, visitors were starting to flood the island, and as Hiccup's betrothed, responsibility for organizing it had fallen squarely on her shoulders.

Yay.

Forcing more strength into her limbs, she walked tiredly down to the docks to greet yet more newcomers, until she passed one of the merchants having set up a small stall on the pathway.

"—it's a beautiful sketch, isn't it? Fine lines and—"

Astrid didn't hear the rest of his sales patter as she saw the parchment he was holding up for sale—and recognized it. It had been in one of Hiccup's sketchbooks—a book, she saw, that was lying open on the table next to several others, a knife lying on the open pages.

She saw red and moments later, she had shoved the customer out of the way and had her fist in the merchant's tunic. "WHERE DID YOU GET THIS!?" she thundered.

"I, I was sold it!"

"BY WHO!?" she demanded.

"I, I don't sell out my suppliers!" the merchant—a trustworthy-looking Saxon she'd seen before—stammered. "It's bad for business."

Astrid growled deep in her throat before hauling the man up on his tip-toes. "'Bad for business'? Bad for business!? Well, so's having your eyeballs spooned out and served on toast! So I suggest you try to remember where you got these, because I'm getting awfully hungry!"

AN: Giving my FF readers a heads up, Resurrection is undergoing a hiatus to build a buffer two chapters from now. So, please be patient :)