Astrid burst into the forge, the sack of defaced and damaged books in her hand. "RUFF! TUFF! YOU HAVE TO THE COUNT OF TEN!"

Gobber blinked from his spot behind his anvil. "Astrid, what—"

A clatter issued from Hiccup's workroom. Astrid dropped the bag and bolted for the door. Bursting in, she found the room having been ransacked and Tuffnut—well, half of him. His legs were sticking out of the window in the back.

Unslinging her ax, she ran back out of the smithy's front door and around the back, where Ruffnut was hauling on Tuffnut's arms, trying to free him from the window. On the grass around them were a bunch of Hiccup's books and smaller creations.

Astrid's blood, already up, boiled at the sight, and she leveled her ax at them. "You two are so busted."

They both looked at her, and Ruffnut tried to scramble to her feet. Astrid swept her leg out from under her and had her ax at her neck a moment later.

"Lass!?" Gobber's voice called, alarmed. "What's going on?"

"Need you out here, Gobber!" she called. "As witness."

She heard him stepping over as Tuffnut tried to wriggle free of the window. He came up behind her a moment later. "What's this—oh Thor. You two didn't!"

"They did!" Astrid growled. "They stole Hiccup's books and notes and creations and were selling them to the merchants!"

"Hey, it's not like he'll need them any longer!" Tuffnut said—and as Astrid reared up over him, ax in hand and murder in her eyes, he held up his hands with a warding gesture and babbled, "I'm not saying he's dead! But what is Loki's grandson going to need with books!?"

Gobber made a noise like a cat being stepped on. "What?"

For a red-veiled moment, Astrid considered swinging and silencing Tuffnut before he could do any more damage, but killing one of her friends—even if that friendship had taken a beating and was now bleeding out on the ground—wasn't something she was willing to do. Not when Tuffnut was one of Hiccup's best friends. She wasn't going to take Tuff away from him. Not yet...

So Tuff was able to say, "Hela didn't manifest. She was under Valka the whole time, like Valka was a mask. When Stoick died, the spell unravelled!"

Gobber was making choking noises.

"So," Ruffnut continued, "if Hiccup is Hela's son, and Hela is Loki's daughter..."

"What does he need his books for? And we could use the money—"

Astrid reached down and hauled Tuffnut free by the collar of his tunic. "So you went behind my back and stole it?"

"Well, yeah," Tuffnut said. "You would have said no."

Astrid threw him down next to his sister with disgust. "I can't believe you two." She looked up at Gobber. "Keep an eye on them. I need to find Snotlout. He's the temporary chief, after all."

###

Tony looked out across the tarmac of Oslo's airport from the window of the First Class Passengers' Lounge; he'd gotten himself, Thor, Wonder Boy, the archeologist, the girl and her aunt inside by spending a lot of frequent flier miles on their behalf; the museum staffer had come along as well to grill Wonder Boy on what it felt like to be a living fossil. So now Tony was at the window while Friday crunched the numbers from the Hydra dump, and the others were all in the next room, eating overpriced luxury airport food and talking. For his part, he was already getting some incredulous emails from the UN asking how the hell he'd crossed the Atlantic so fast—information he wasn't giving them, to their irritation and his own amusement—among other bits and pieces.

He'd already let Pepper know where he was, and she was grateful to be in the loop, and had told Nikki's mom as well. Part of him was tempted to call up Strange again and portal the girl right back to her mother, but that would require some explanation. Besides, she'd said that she wanted to finish this, as she was going to be using this whole adventure for a video documentary for class, of all things.

He'd already checked, and, yep, Nikki went to Peter's school. He made a note to have Midtown's water fountains checked, there was clearly an issue there...

Footsteps came from behind him, and Thor's reflection appeared in the glass, a massive mug of beer in hand.

"So... nephew, huh?"

Thor snorted. "Aye. Half-human, half-Asgardian, even."

"What happened to his father?" Tony asked idly.

Thor hesitated. "From what Heimdall told me, he was a good man, loyal and true. His last act was pushing his son out of the way of an attack by a mind-controlled ally." He inhaled and then sighed. "From his perspective that was... a little over a week ago."

Tony winced. "So... he lost his father, his family, his people, his friends... all in, what, two weeks? And then woke up now?"

"Aye, that about sums it up."

Tony looked back out the window, and muttered under his breath, "I am not adopting another teen with powers... I am not adopting another teen with powers... aww screw it. Friday?"

"Yes, boss. Still nothing," came from the helmet on the table nearby.

"Pop me up a holo-interface here. I've got some design work to do."

"Sure thing, boss."

A glowing light emitted from the helmet, creating his usual hologram design interface, and Tony started to fiddle with the images.

He glanced at Thor, who was watching, arms crossed, amused.

"Don't judge me."

"Wouldn't dream of it," Thor said cheerfully, and took a drink of his beer.

Tony worked at the light sculpture for a moment, and then asked, "So, why did your dad hide his grandson away in a tomb?"

Thor scowled. "It would be a bit hard for him to admit that the boy was a blood relative when he'd done his best to literally erase the boy's mother from our history."

"So, he just put him on ice?"

"More or less," Thor said, and he sounded less than pleased, to say the least.

"Greaaat," Tony drawled sarcastically. "And now he's been dumped in our laps."

Thor edged around the table, bringing him more directly into Tony's field of view. "You know, with the young maiden there safe, you have nothing holding you here. You could fly home to Pepper and let me handle my young relative..."

Tony considered it for a moment. He really did. But then he shook his head. "No, I want to keep an eye on the girl... and your nephew. At least for now. Yes, his heart's in the right place—I think, unless you Asgardians keep it someplace else?—but he's a thousand years behind the times, and while legally he's your responsibility..." He took a deep breath and sighed. "I'm not going to leave a guy who still looks like he's learning to shave and just lost everything."

Thor smiled and took another drink.

Rolling his eyes at his friend, Tony called up the scan of the sword and highlighted an emblem from the hilt. "Hey, so do you know if this is important? I saw that he had it on his outfit, too." The stylized black dragon curled around itself in a fluid fashion, and Tony rather liked it.

Thor smirked. "Oh, yes."

"Alrighty then." Tony considered where to apply it when abruptly the helmet chimed. "Mr. Stark? I found something."

Tony paused. "What is it, Friday?"

"An item matching the scan to ninety-four-point-three-six percent certainty," a hologram of a digitally-scanned paper document appeared in the air, with an appended photograph of something that looked—more or less—like Wonder Boy's sword, although it was a blurry black-and-white picture, "was recorded as entering the Hydra archives in October of 1952. I am running down the chain of custody now."

The sounds of footsteps from behind him told Tony that it had been noticed, and he hurriedly hid the design he was working on, just as Wonder Boy, the two academics, the girl and her aunt appeared.

"What is it? Did you find it?" Wonder Boy asked, and Tony noted that his accent and his fluency with English were getting better and fast.

Tony nodded towards the hologram. "Looks like." He considered for a moment. "And it's likely we're the first ones to notice it. Talk about a needle in a haystack!"

Hiccup blinked. "What do you mean?"

Tony opened his mouth, and then closed it again, considering for a moment how best to communicate it before giving a smile. Hey, it was a chance to show off a bit. "You said that you were literate, right?"

The younger man gave him another flat look, walked up to the hologram, and started to read off the digitized text. "'Item: Norse Sword. Description: One-hundred-six centimeters in length—"

"Smartass," Tony observed wryly. "Alright. What's the biggest library you've been in?"

Hiccup thought for a moment. "The Meatheads' library. I think they had about a thousand books. Of course, they're stuck in the bubble at the moment."

The archeologists looked like they were about to faint from sheer happiness from their spot behind Hiccup's shoulder.

Tony ignored them. "All right. A few years back some... friends of mine ran into this really, really bad conspiracy that had hidden itself in a group that was supposedly there to protect us. I'm not going to argue if they did the right thing or not, but what they did is they took that group's secret records—all of them, including the conspiracy's—and put them up where anyone could read them."

"All their secrets? Where anyone could read them?" Hiccup repeated slightly incredulously. "And my sword was a secret?"

Tony nodded. "But to give you an idea of the haystack we're talking about here..." He considered and smirked slightly, playing with the hologram slightly, bringing up a holo-picture of a bookshelf loaded with books. "You said a thousand books." The bookshelf multiplied appropriately, growing to be a double-sized steel archival stack laden with a thousand books.

"Yes... they had an enormous library—and a really scary librarian."

Tony chuckled and made another tweak to the image. "Now imagine a thousand times that."

Hiccup blinked at the huge mass of illusionary bookshelves filling the air in front of him, row upon row, something the size of a good university library. "That's a lot of books."

"Heh. We're just getting started, Wonder Boy. The amount of information that they had stored was about twenty million times that." Hiccup looked befuddled, and Tony tweaked the diagram again, starting with a 'zoomed in' bookcase and then expanding outwards, until the individual bookcase they'd started with was just a fuzzy blue dot among a field that would cover a large portion of a continent if it were actually printed out as hardcopy—five zettabytes of information, enough to fill twenty trillion of those bookcases. As Hiccup—and Nikki—stared, Tony clarified, "A million is a thousand-thousand."

Hiccup paled and Tony continued. "So we found the one sheet of paper in that whole haystack about your sword," he nodded to the hologram, having it suddenly zoom back in and having a single page in one of the holographic books glow brighter, before zooming back out again for emphasis, "and now we're finding the paper trail saying where it went. But given how much there is, I doubt that anyone else has found it before now."

Hiccup was looking a little stunned, and then choked out, "And where is this magic library?"

The archeologist coughed and looked at Tony. "I think that's enough future-shocking the poor fellow for one day, wouldn't you say, Mr. Stark?"

Before Tony could respond with a quip, Friday spoke up. "I have it."

"And where is it?" Hiccup asked intently.

"New York City."

###

All Snotlout had wanted was some peace and quiet to himself after everything had happened, ending in Drago's attack. But nooooo... things just had to get even more complicated. That was Hiccup for you.

He glanced up at the sky which flickered with the colors of the Bifrost. It had been over a month since they'd arrived... here, for want of a better term, and it was a sight he still had yet to get used to.

A shudder wracked his body as he watched the colors change and swirl in a hypnotic way. It didn't seem to have any adverse effects on them or their crops like it somehow did to Hiccup. It gave off a gentle warmth reminiscent of the sun which seemed to keep plant life alive. For now, it was day, and he could see the light of the Bifrost clearly. But when night... set, for lack of a better term, weird things were seen. If one flew high enough, they could see other islands from the archipelago dangling upside down in the sky as though the islands were on a ceiling, their patchy fires and other lights being poor substitutes for stars. And Snotlout missed seeing the moon.

Meanwhile, some people were taking to watching the Bifrost for hours at a time. He'd already heard several people claim that drinking a potion made from ground-up dragon scales and watching the Bifrost would give them glimpses into their future.

Snotlout shook his head to clear it from the strangeness, and his thoughts wandered back to his cousin, who had yet to make an appearance as he'd promised.

He still had no idea how Hiccup could have jumped so high without Toothless' help—it wasn't like he'd been able to do that before. Well, he had some idea—it clearly had to do with being the son of... well, a god, but what had changed? He would have to ask Hiccup if he ever decided to come back.

A snort escaped him at that passing thought. His favorite cousin, the offspring of Death Herself. That meant that his cousin was likely related to Toothless somehow. Not that he could say that they were siblings. Coming from his own experiences, siblings hardly ever got along unless they needed something. And Hiccup and Toothless worked together as though they were joined at the hips.

Another thought crossed his mind that made his guilt heavy and his chest pang with regret. A thought he often had to push away. But with time passing and no Hiccup showing up, it had begun to scratch the back of his mind more and more often. What if Hiccup had been so badly injured he couldn't return? What if Hiccup had gotten himself killed? What if he really had abandoned them for a cushy spot in Valhalla or somewhere else in Asgard?

He smacked one fist into his other palm. He had to stop himself from thinking, he was beginning to sound like Fishlegs in panic mode. Hiccup would never abandon them!

Snotlout grumbled to himself as he entered his home and rummaged through the pantry for a block of ice to cool his growing headache; they'd put many of the blocks of Bewilderbeast ice down into the tunnels to keep food cold and preserved, and still had plenty. Finding one, he placed it against his aching crown and wandered into the open area. At least now that he was home, he could be alone and able to hear himself think clearly. He didn't understand how Stoick had done this job without losing his mind, or even how Hiccup had managed to keep his during their time on Dragon's Edge. He had almost lost his temper twice today already, and it was only early afternoon. One thing's for sure, he had newfound respect for the chief's duties. It had been bad enough when he'd had to banish the twins to Eel Island last week for stealing from Hiccup's personal items. He'd been almost as livid as Astrid had been, but they'd agreed that Hiccup had to be the one to cast judgement on them. So they were banished until he came back...

Opening the door to his room, Snotlout saw his father sitting at his desk. He yelped in surprise and dropped his ice block, which shattered on the floor.

His father didn't react, though, beyond finishing rolling up a parchment and handing it to his Terror where it was perched on his shoulder.

"Ah, good to see you back, boy-o," Spitelout said.

Snotlout narrowed his eyes suspiciously at Spitelout. "What is that you are sending?"

"Just thought I'd make things easier for you." Spitelout glanced between the discarded ice block on the floor and then his son. "After all, it's not easy being a chief without some assistance."

Snotlout gave his father an accusing glare, as he was unusually chipper—and the only time he was ever this happy was when things were going his way. "You still didn't answer my question. What are you sending by Terror mail?"

"Just taking care of business for you, son." Spitelout admitted and let his Terror free. The tiny dragon took off in a flurry of wingbeats.

"What business? What, Dad, you can't just take control! I'm the interim chief, not you!" Snotlout barked.

Spitelout turned, a glare that sent dread down Snotlout's spine and made him instantly regret what he had just said.

"Son, do you know why we flourished under Stoick?" Spitelout asked.

"Uhm," Snotlout couldn't put a word on it. Because he knew that whatever he said was wrong. Spitelout was always right.

"It's because we took care of our own," Spitelout said and approached Snotlout. "Even if Hiccup returns, there's the chance that our tribe won't survive under his rule. He's soft, boy-o. Even if he is a demigod, he's closer to Baldr than Thor! You know how he is! An outsider with a sob story shows up on our beach, and he shows her around! A dangerous warlord with a captive dragon army? Oh, he'll just go talk to him! He forgets how much work goes into a loaf of bread or a mug of beer, but he'll happily give it to some undeserving outsider rather than save it for our own! And Hiccup saved all of them? Well, they should show his tribe some gratitude for the service!"

Snotlout looked up at his father as he stretched an arm around his shoulders and leaned against him. He regretted swallowing audibly seeing his hand curl into a fist as he raised it. Fearing that fist would make its home in his face.

"So now, outsiders have been sending requests for more aid. They want to hold the blot here. They want Hiccup to mediate negotiations. They want his help. Well, if they want more than what they've gotten, they need to pay for it! So try to consider what I did a favor," he patted Snotlout on the back before finding his own way up the stairs and out of the house.

Snotlout gulped and rushed over to the desk and began shuffling through the parchments. Finding what he was looking for, he skimmed through the message and his eyes grew round. Rolling up the parchment, he quickly rushed out of the house.

He raced into the empty Haddock house, panting heavily. "Astrid! We've got a problem! MAJOR problem!" he shouted in panic as he waved the parchment in the air. He ran upstairs to the loft where he figured he might find her. As he cleared the stairs, sure enough, he found her in the loft right where he expected her to be. But he was not expecting to see what greeted him.

He found Astrid curled up beside Toothless. It almost looked as if they were asleep, but when he burst in, they both stirred, slowly. The vision made him stop in his panic and guilt began to replace fear. He steeled himself and asked, "Is, uh, is everything alright?"

"What do you think?" Astrid snapped, without looking at him and without the bite she usually had. Then her shoulders slumped. "No, it's not," she sighed. "Nothing is alright! But Toothless, he… he barely eats and… and…"

"How long has he been like this?" Snot asked when Astrid didn't continue.

Slowly, Astrid struggled to her feet and sat on a bed that was devoid of its owner, only his dragon and betrothed to be keeping it warm for his return. At first, he thought she wouldn't answer, instead turning to Toothless and running a hand along his scaly head.

"For almost a week now," she eventually murmured. "I think he can sense that Hiccup… that he's not coming back."

She sounded strange, her voice thick and breaking at the end, as if filled with suppressed tears. But that wasn't possible, right? No, Astrid Hofferson would never cry… would she?

Snotlout looked as though he had an upset stomach and he felt bad for what he was about to say. For a few minutes, he said nothing, just fiddled with the parchment and tried to find the right words.

Eventually, Astrid visibly pulled herself together and sat up straighter. "Well, Snotlout? What was this major problem of yours?" Astrid asked, sounding incredibly tired.

With a strangled sound, Snotlout slowly handed her the parchment. "I... I caught my dad sending out a parchment. That looks like one of the drafts."

Astrid read it over quickly, and Snotlout watched her eyebrows climb as she hit the threats that were barely hidden in the message. His dad's message basically amounted to We have dragons and we have the gods on our side. The gods listened to Hiccup because he was of their blood. Berk will expect support and compensation for our protection. Bring them to the blot next moon.

Astrid set it aside after a moment and then said, in a quiet but sarcastic tone, "Well. That won't cause a mess or anything." She looked up at him, expressionless. "How did he find out?"

Snotlout shrugged, feeling pained. "My guess? Gobber. Get a few drinks into him and he'd tell."

She sighed and hauled herself to her feet, giving Toothless one last scritch on the head. "Well. That's going to be a problem." She scowled before taking a deep breath and letting it out.

"Why aren't you upset?" Snotlout asked, worried.

She gave him a flat look. "What makes you think I'm not? Did you not see me just now? But I'm tired, and I'm remembering one of Hiccup's comments back at the Edge when I got upset with the twins. I could start yelling and shouting, but then we'd both be going off, and what good would that do?"

Snotlout winced and nodded. "So... what do we do?"

She thought for a moment, then nodded as if to herself. "Even if we tell them all not to bring tribute... your dad let the cat out of the bag already. And I'm not going to lie," she said. "So I think we'll want to send a followup message, saying that, yes, the claim about Hiccup being descended from the gods is true. But nobody needs to bring tribute. Someone on Berk was trying to extort the other tribes, but we won't demand them."

"And what if they bring it anyway?"

"Then we don't accept it," she said, and her eyes narrowed. "And if your dad tries to make us accept it, we arrest him, and let Hiccup judge him when he comes back."

Snotlout swallowed at the thought of arresting his own father, but nodded jerkily before saying quietly, "What if… he doesn't come back?" Snotlout asked, growing worried. "What if he's forgotten about us and moved on?"

His words visibly hit Astrid. She grew tense, her hands balling into fists. "You've known him your entire life, Snotlout. Do you really, truly think Hiccup would move on and forget about who he is? Or forget about us?" she demanded and began to descend the stairs.

Snotlout paused. Astrid was right, in all the times they'd been in trouble, Hiccup had never stopped fighting to be there for them. He was selfless that way. His cousin could make Tyr jealous with his heroics.

He took in a deep breath to steady his nerves. "You're right. You're always right," he admitted.

"What I wouldn't give for Hiccup to hear that," she said, forcing a smile.

###

As they crossed the tarmac of Oslo's airport, heading for the private jet that was going to take them to the US, Emily mused on the odd turns of chance and fate. Two weeks ago, she hadn't expected to find herself on the adventure of a lifetime; she'd just answered a call from a friend who needed help running down a lead on threadbare funding, and hopefully find something before some opportunists looted it. It had sounded like a nice, quiet dig out in the middle of nowhere, a safe endeavor where her niece could come along for her school assignment. And now here she was, at the side of two of 'Earth's Mightiest Heroes', engaged in what could only be called a quest on behalf of a thousand-year-old half-Asgardian Viking, and a genuinely heroic one in his own right at that. She had not expected him to put his life on the line to rescue strangers. But he'd gotten to know Nikki. And when Nikki was being threatened it had brought out an instinct to protect her. She couldn't thank him enough for all he had done.

Valkyrie, she had learned while they'd waited for Stark's information, had stayed behind to deal with the damage bill. Emily felt somewhat guilty about that, but Hiccup had only been doing what came naturally, protecting his people as well as the innocent caught in the action. And now apparently she, Nickolai, and Nikki had been adopted by Hiccup as his 'people' after all they've gone through. It made sense for why he risked his life to protect Nikki.

If one left out the very real danger they had been in, Nikki especially, all this could have been incredibly exciting. But with the newest additions to their party, Emily was swamped with keeping Nikki on a short leash so she wouldn't constantly pester Thor or Stark... So, instead, she'd taken to pestering Hiccup—with Nickolai and Martin's support, as they wanted copies of the video. Now that Hiccup's English and Norwegian had improved to the level of conversational chatting, the two archeologists wanted to debrief him. They'd spent the hours in the airport lounge with them asking Hiccup questions about life a thousand years ago. Thankfully, Hiccup seemed to be doing better, emotionally speaking, with the confirmation that his home and fiancee were alive, well, and waiting for rescue, and had gamely gone along with the polite interrogation.

As they approached the jet, Emily glanced at the young man. Hiccup, with Nickolai's help, had certainly cleaned up nicely. Once that scruffy beard had come off in one of the airport restrooms, Emily had found that a strong jawline and a number of adorable freckles had lurked underneath. His fiancee was a lucky woman, that was for sure. Also, he wasn't hobbling anymore. With his strength, she watched him straighten his prosthetic—while they were waiting—to the tune that he didn't have a spare and had to make due with what he had. A fresh black t-shirt—sans bullet holes—completed the ensemble, with the remnants of Hiccup's armor, cape, and tunic having been left in Martin's safekeeping. Which, Emily was sure, meant that they'd be whisked off to the museum lab for analysis by a number of very giddy archeologists as soon as possible.

Once Stark had tracked down the stolen sword, he'd pulled strings; it had taken a few hours, but the State Department had—with Stark's nudging—reluctantly granted Hiccup a provisional visa to visit the US, in the company of a US national who had sworn to act as his minder. Specifically, Stark. So Stark had gotten a jet from some timeshare company, and they'd be flying back direct to La Guardia.

As they reached the stairs up to the jet, Hiccup looked up at the sleek aircraft and swallowed.

"What's wrong? You've flown before in one of these, haven't you?" Stark asked Hiccup.

"They're a little, uh, intimidating," Hiccup said.

Emily reached up and gently lay a comforting hand on his shoulder, seeing the ancient Viking was still insecure about flying in airplanes. And who could blame him? Something big and made of metal theoretically should not be capable of flight. But science and technology had a way of defying all expectations.

"You'll have plenty of time to adjust. It's a nine hour flight back to the States, plus layovers," Stark said.

Thor slapped his nephew on the shoulder. "And they're very comfortable! And Stark promised me that there'd be beer aboard!"

Hiccup gave a shaky laugh at that. As before, Hiccup anxiously boarded but relaxed once they were inside and everyone had settled down. He seemed to enjoy the takeoff a lot more this time.

Once the Seatbelts sign turned off, Stark turned to him. "So, Wonder Boy, you get the sword from this Hydra vault. Then what?"

Hiccup swallowed as the stewardess came by and gave him a bottle of beer. "Then I use it—somehow—to get my home freed from the bubble of the Bifrost it's caught in."

"And how will you do that?"

Hiccup took a deep swallow of the beer and put the bottle down in the cupholder. "I don't know! It's not like Odin gave me instructions before he put me on ice!" he said with a scowl. "I'm hoping he left a message with it that'll tell me what to do. Other than that, I'm making this up as I go along!"

Stark nodded. "Got it."

They started to go over what they did know; most of it went over Emily's head, but she paid attention as best she could. Apparently the Bifrost was a wormhole that the Asgardians could command—or at least they could before their homeland had been destroyed—and Heimdall had split off a portion of it into a self-contained time-slowed bubble that held a thousand square miles or so of ocean and a few dozen islands. The time dilation was apparently on the order of thousands to one.

Once Thor had finished his explanation, using one of Stark's holograms to illustrate the bubble's general properties, Stark tapped his chin in thought as Hiccup examined the hologram.

"So, how do we pop this bubble—and do it in a way that doesn't end with Wonder Boy's family ending up as soap scum?"

Thor shrugged. "I am not an expert on the Bifrost. I don't know."

"Well, I guess we need to handle Step One first," Stark said. "But as for experts..." he gave Thor a significant look. "I think I do know an expert."

Thor looked at him quizzically for a moment, and then got whatever Stark was hinting at. "Oh. Him. Aye, if anyone would know, it would be him."

"Who is 'him'?" Nikki asked.

Stark turned and held a finger up to his lips before typing something out; the hologram shifted for a moment, to display words that read, Plane's bugged. Don't want to out the guy.

Nikki's eyes went wide and then she nodded.

"'Bugged'?" Hiccup asked.

Emily sprang into action. "It's a slang term in modern English. It can mean harassed, bothered, has a persistent small problem, or is being spied on," she said, giving a heavy nod at the last, which Hiccup seemed to pick up on.

Stark snorted. "You've got a lot to learn, Wonder Boy. There's so much out there to be seen."

Hiccup looked between them, then he glanced over to Emily, who was sitting at his side. "You said you live in this 'New York City.' Is it anything like Oslo?"

"It's a little more compact than Oslo, but yes," she said.

"It's also noisier, and more crowded," Nikki added.

"At least, the downtown areas are," Emily said.

"Will it be crowded when we land?" Hiccup asked.

"We'll be landing at the La Guardia Airport; it's next to the section of the city where your sword is," Stark interrupted, "but we won't see crowds until we go further into the city."

"How many people resided in your village, Hiccup?" Nickolai asked curiously.

Hiccup blinked and said, "Last I remember, about seven hundred, give or take. Probably more, hadn't had time to take a head count before... Hela happened.."

Emily could see that Nickolai was having an academic's crisis while at the same time trying to contain his excitement. "Well, New York City is by far larger, with far more people."

###

Thumb resting on the back of his ring, just in case things had changed and he needed to make a quick exit, Damon knocked on the door to the abandoned warehouse, using the special rhythm he'd learned once upon a time.

Looking from side to side so the hidden cameras that he knew would be there could get a good look, he waited patiently, and hoped that he wasn't about to get vaporized.

After a few minutes, his shoulders developing an increased itch, the door buzzed and unlocked, and he entered, again hoping that it wasn't so that they could dispose of him more privately.

But that thankfully wasn't the case. "Damon!" a cheerful voice called out. "Long time no see! How have you been? What've you been doing? Nice tan, man!"

Damon grinned and clasped the lanky man in an embrace. "Max! Good to see you!"

Max Dillon backslapped him cheerfully. "Good to see you too, 'Mon! So, what, you giving up the hired killer life and coming back to join the crew again? You always were good at picking out the good stuff from the xeno-trash."

Damon shook his head. "Nah, Max, I'm here as a customer. Is Phineas in?"

Max rolled his eyes. "Yeah, the Tinkerer is in. C'mon." As they walked back into the warehouse, they chatted. "So, how's life doing yah?" Max asked.

"Eh, I travel the world, see exotic people, and put bullets in their heads. It pays the bills and, damn, I have fun doing it!"

Max snorted. "You always did have that slight psycho edge to you, 'Mon. So, what do you need?"

"I need a suit."

Max smirked. "Men's Warehouse is a few miles downtown."

"Funny. No, I need one of Phineas' supersuit specials. I might end up going toe-to-toe with someone out of a human being's weight-class, and I need an edge."

"What sort of weight-class are we talking here?" Phineas' voice interrupted. "Good to see you again, Damon. So, what are you going to be fighting?"

Damon took a deep breath. "Asgardians."

"Ooof!" Max exclaimed. "You're going hunting for Thor?"

"No, the new mad dog that they unleashed. Check the news from Oslo. He's got a taste for human lives now, and needs to be put down. Humans First! is footing the bill for this, before he makes like Loki and redecorates another city with bodies."

Phineas and Max shared a look, before Phineas nodded. "All right then. Well, for old times' sake, I think I can let you into the special stock..."

"Awesome," Damon said. "So, what do you got?"

"Eh, a few things. Super-suits are tricky, and a good way to draw too much attention. I tend to make them on custom order rather than off the rack," Phineas said. "So... hmm... Thor? I think electrical insulation is going to be a must... and probably flight..."

As he mused, Damon's phone buzzed. Figuring it was Liz wanting an update, he pulled it out, but instead, it was a news briefing pushed to his app, and he felt the blood drain from his face.

"Oh god..."

"What? What is it, 'Mon?"

"The Asgardian, my target. He's coming here! To the States, to New York!" He felt rage start to bubble up inside himself. "What the flipping fuck are those fuckheads at the fucking State Department fucking thinking!? Are they out of their fucking minds? Did they forget what happened here last time we had Asgardians jonesing around the City?" He waved towards the skyline that would be on the other side of the wall. "This guy already pulped some people like they were bugs, and now they're bringing him here? Under Stark's watch!?" He spat. "Like he's done such a great job in the past! Remember Ultron!?"

Max whistled. "Well... fuck."

Phineas had his phone out and was rapidly typing. "No idea what they're here for... but one of the guys going with them is an archeologist... hmm..."

While Phineas thought, Damon felt like things were spinning out of control. He liked to take his time; while he could manage deadlines, he usually had months or years of background information on the target already assembled. But all he knew about this alien mad dog was that he could crush human beings like bugs...

And he had just been invited to the biggest hive on the planet.

Damon swallowed. He was going to have to up his game. Hardcore.

"I've got something," Phineas said. "Net traffic from Stark says it has to do with some Hydra crap; he was querying one of the databases pretty hard." He looked at Damon. "Hey. I've got an offer for you."

"Yeah?"

"I'll build your suit, and even throw in some surveillance and assault bots as a package deal, for your Humans First! buddies to cover, at cost... and if you find what they're looking for, or find something interesting, I get first dibs. Sound good?"

Damon nodded without hesitation. "You got it, Phineas. You're a lifesaver."

"Yeah. Mine. I remember the Battle, and I don't want Stark and his alien buddies triggering round two while I'm in the hazard radius," Phineas said curtly.

"Ouch. Yeah... that... yes," Damon said with a pained nod.

Max was nodding as well. "But one problem for the bots, especially when going up against Stark."

"What's that?"

"AI. We don't have good ones, and he's hacked our shit before. So we keep them dumb, with human operators."

"Human operators?"

"Yeah. Set up a VR interface, and use that, instead of trying to go for an AI that Stark will hack and turn into a puppet," Max said. "But you don't got a crew to run them for you."

Damon thought, and then a slow smile grew across his face. "I think I have just the solution there. If I run out and get a few dozen, can you hook up those drones to some VR glasses and game controllers?" He grinned. "I remember this great arcade I used to play at..."

AN: I'm sure that some of you will be confused by the twins saying Hela is Loki's daughter. According to real-world Viking beliefs, Hela-or Hel-is the daughter of Loki. Marvel altered the religious figures for their purposes. As for how the MCU timeline Norse religion exists...

Think of the Telephone game. Where you pass on a phrase through a long line of people. And for a while, the phrase remains consistent at the beginning of the line, but the further the phrase passes the line, the more obscure it gets. That's what's happening with the MCU Norse religion and why it's different. It's been passed down from word of mouth through generations.