Chapter Notes

A shorter one this time! Well, balances out with the last one, that was a bit longer.
That concludes Thor, now I have to get back to my wobbly timeline.

Chapter 10: Of four idiots and the dangers of sleeping in

At this point in the story, I had to admit to being a deep sleeper.

Although my sleeping habits have become much healthier ever since I had acquired a body that was in perfect condition, some things just don´t change. Such as me sleeping like a stone anywhere for at least 9 hours when I get really tired.

And staying up with Thor for hours after holding an emotionally exhaustive conversation (monologue) made me tired, very much so.

So, yeah, I slept in. I slept on the roof. That´s a little embarrassing, but ok. While my dignity wasn´t entirely intact, my secrecy thankfully was.

Ree would automatically enter incognito mode when I wasn´t conscious. It would have been mortifying if Shield not only got my identity, but my first picture as an outed hero would be of me drooling on myself in my sleep.

At least someone had brought me a pillow at some point in the night. How nice.

Caught up in my thoughts and not all that awake yet, I conjured a cup plus straw with some cooled orange juice and looked out over the town. I immediately regretted my choice of drink as I snorted out my first sip through my nose and into my mask.

Why? Because strolling down the middle of the road were four in full Asgardian armor-clad aliens. That is just great. Note the sarcasm.

Now, I knew this would happen. But, well… It had been a while since I watched the movie.

In my brain, the time between Thor´s crashlanding and the arrival of the Warrior Four (they call themselves the Warrior Three and Sif – for reasons? Never cared, will continue to ignore it) was a lot longer than 40 hours.

And of course, I slept through Ree alerting me. So much for setting myself up as the go-to person for aliens on Midgard. Very professional.

I massaged my head and cursed silently for a solid minute.

I could hear their excited shouting when they found Thor while looking through the garage´s glass doors.

Reluctantly, I came downstairs. The idiot four were already pitching their brilliant (read: not existent) plan to return Thor to Asgard.

"How exactly did you imagine this going? He doesn´t have his powers. He would be in more danger in Asgard then he is here, and he can´t really help you either. Also, how are you going to return exactly?"

Not the nicest introduction, I admit. I´m moody in the mornings.

I stared at them with a carefully neutral expression and began slurping my juice. Waste not, want not.

They stared back with varying arrays of curiosity and confusion.

"Ah, good morning, friend!", Thor called out with a friendly smile. I waved at him. Then I waved at the scientists. Darcy waved back. Ah, a woman of culture.

"Friends!", Thor started while he turned back to the Asgardians in the room. "This is a local warrior, that has helped me greatly. He is well-versed with seidr and explained to me the conditions of my father´s exile. I won´t be able to return until I prove myself worthy."

The warriors looked crushed at that news.

"But Thor! Asgard is in need of you! Loki has seized the throne and-"

Sif didn´t get further in her plea as she noticed the thunderclouds in the distance. As everyone watched the spectacle, Ree warned me of an immediate arrival incoming from Asgard.

Ah, shit.

The Bifrost did its work and the Destroyer landed about a mile out of town in the middle of a crowd of Shield personnel.

"Thor!", I called out while making a portal. "Evacuate the people out there now!"

I didn´t stick around to wait for an answer. I could try my hand at evacuating the townsfolk myself, but it would take a lot of time. People aren´t all that great with portals their first time around. That took time we didn´t have.

I found myself floating above Coulson as he tried to talk to the Destroyer. Yeah, that´s not going to work.

On cue, the giant robot (?) heated up for a beam that the Shield agents were most certainly not prepared for. My quick shield (heh) saved probably quite a few agents.

I didn´t have a problem with Hydra´s people dying, but innocent Shield agents?

On second thought, that sounded like an oxymoron.

When the first short beam did nothing, the Destroyer focused on me and fired again. And again, for longer now. I could practically feel my energy slipping away holding up that construct. I grit my teeth.

"Get your people away from here! Fast!", I threw over my shoulder in the direction of Coulson. He seemed to take my friendly advice and I could make out cars driving further away out of my peripheral vision.

Taking advantage of the fact that the beam was pointed at me, I created a portal in front of me and let the barrier fall. The redirected energy hit the robot guard into the ground from above. It took it to it´s knees.

I allowed myself a smirk and then promptly dodged an uppercut from the machine. Fast bugger.

I dodged another beam sideways. They came in short intense intervals now. For a few seconds I was content with evading the strikes so I could lead the Destroyer away from the town.

Thank fucking god, that Loki didn´t land this monster of a machine in the middle of a populated area. I would have been screwed.

I took position in the air, creating a small red glowing eldritch shield with one hand and a whip with the other. Blocking the beam, I swung for the things legs and got them tangled.

Before the guard could react to the unfamiliar magic, I pulled with all my might, and it landed on its back. I moved in, concentrating on building bindings that would hold.

Before I could do much of anything, a spear struck the machine in the side. Startled, I looked up, the red threads of magic between my hands fizzling out at my distraction.

The Warrior Four had reached the battlefield. At least Thor stayed back.

Now, you might think help is a good thing. Despite what movies may have you believe sometimes, working together in a fight is hard. If you don´t know each other, it gets harder. And we certainly didn´t know each other. They cooperated just fine under themselves. Just not with me.

But the movie had already proven that the Warrior Four lost to the Destroyer. Badly. And now Sif had already lost her spear. Wasn´t this just peachy.

The hairy warrior jumped at machine shortly after the spear landed. And destroyed was my plan at burying that thing under magic bindings.

The Destroyer caught the Asgardian and threw him in my direction. Feeling uncharitable, I flew higher and let him land on his own. He did so with a loud "Uuf".

Sadly, the metal guard had already ripped out the spear and stood up.

I sighed. Time for round two.

Over the next few minutes, the idiot four had succeeded in drawing the fight near the town and getting into my way consistently. Round two was not going well.

I couldn´t wield most of my weapons while I had to dodge missiles (be they laser beams or the occasional Asgardian) and avoid hitting the warriors, that were fighting in close quarters.

I glanced backwards. The town seemed deserted. So, Thor did his job. Good.

Speaking of Thor, two houses away was the Scooby gang. (Wait, does this mean that Thor is Scooby? Nevermind, focus brain!)

Of course, when the Destroyer spotted Thor, he changed target. By now, most of the warriors seemed pretty out of it. They could barely stand.

I was fine still.

Apparently, that wasn´t enough for Thor. He ran up to us and still made that whole spiel about sacrificing himself for the safety of his friends and these innocents, ignoring his friends calling out to him.

"Loki, brother, don´t take this out on them. Take my life and be done with it!"

Very dramatic. Much inspiring.

Would have been more inspiring if I wasn´t halfway to starving right now. My stomach was cramping badly after all the energy I had used. Not ideal.

Still, seeing Thor thrown back from the Destroyers hit made my heart beat dangerously fast. I knew, he shouldn´t be in any real danger, but the slight uncertainty made me very nervous all of a sudden.

My face was stony as I hovered closer to Thor. I landed and checked on my first Asgardian friend, kneeling on the ground.

"It´s alright, you ar- agh, you are all safe now.", he assured me. I furrowed my brows and tried to ignore my stinging eyes. Dammit! He was going to be fine. Stop crying!

Thankfully, Thor´s eyes had barely closed when I could feel my alarms around Mjolnir going off. I looked up and saw the hammer taking to the sky.

I breathed out, eyes fixed on the flying weapon and backed up some.

The impact shook the street and the electricity around a newly powered Thor wrecked a number of street lambs.

Thor looked a lot more like a god like this. Well, I mean, he kind of was.

He summoned a thundercloud just meters of the ground, that started to spin wildly.

Thor managed to suck the Destroyer up towards the sky. I couldn´t see much, but I did hear the explosion that signaled our win.

The clouds disappeared and I let out a breath, I didn´t know I was holding.

Behind me the Scooby gang was coming up and Thor landed some ways in front of me.

He was laughing while he was walking up to us. Energized by their friend's victory, the Warrior Four were pulling themselves together too.

"Please, don´t that again.", I said with half a smile. Thor smiled brightly and rested a hand on my shoulder.

"We prevailed. I thank you for your help, friend." Then he turned serious and gazed into the distance. "But now we must return to Asgard and stop my brother from doing something foolish."

Oh, how right he was about that. Loki was not making sound decisions right now.

Thor turned back to me: "Know this, when Midgard needs assistance, I will be there."

I nodded at him, satisfied that he made that pledge to me and not Shield like in the original. Established in Asgard, check.

"Go get them, tiger!"

He smiled, somewhat used to not getting Midgardian phrases. I could hear Darcy cracking up.

"Let´s go to the Bifrost site!", Thor declared towards the other Asgardians.

I frowned. Wait, does this mean the Bifrost can´t get you from everywhere? Or is it to make Heimdall´s job easier? Or-

While I was trying to make sense of comic-book-movie-logic, we all moved to where there was a circle of runes burned into the ground.

The scientists were understandably excited at watching another kind of portal. Heimdall wasn´t responding though.

Jane asked:" Then how do you get back?"

"There is no other way. We are stuck.", Sif proclaimed worried. Thor nodded and then looked at me.

"Unless your portals could get us to Asgard?"

I shook my head before he had even finished the question.

"I have to at least have seen where I am going. Or have some concept of it. And I have no idea if the whole different realm thing has an effect on this."

Those were mostly half-truths. It was true that I had no idea if I could portal to Asgard but trying wouldn´t have been that dangerous.

I mainly wanted to stay on earth and not meet Odin. Bad news.

Also, if the Bifrost was still destroyed, Odin might have the brilliant idea to use me as his personal taxi. No, thank you.

I had debated on going to Asgard to save Loki plenty already but decided against it in the end. There was no guarantee that I could save him. I had no idea what back-up plan Thanos would use to invade earth.

Most compelling: Loki was already backed up in a corner and suicidal. While his time under Thanos was certain to be painful, staying in Asgard wasn´t a good choice for him either. Especially if he was exposed to Odin´s personal brand of bullshit.

I just had to make sure to get Loki off for the invasion through him being brainwashed and maybe he could start over on earth. You know, a clean start. More or less.

While I was off in dream land, Heimdall had freed himself from Loki´s bindings and the signature Bifrost clouds were forming.

The Asgardians took their place in the circle. I waved.

"Good luck!"

And off they were.

I sighed, feeling very tired. My stomach growled. Mhm, breakfast time. I wondered if the dinner was serving customers again already?

I leisurely made a portal back to town and waved the scientists through. Jane and Erik were animatedly talking about the Bifrost. That tracked.

I was humming until I froze in my tracks, eyes wide.

Wasn´t Jane supposed to kiss Thor before he left? Shit, where were all their romantic scenes together?

God dammit! That is the second pairing I fucked up!

I mumbled curses under my breath while Darcy looked at me weirdly.

Going through the last few days, I had more or less stolen all the bonding opportunities the two would have had. No sneaking into Shield, no talk about stars and portals, no dying in Jane´s arms, …

Ah well.

Spared Jane some heartbreak over the next few years.

An hour and a big meal (and an autograph and photo session with Darcy) later, I stumbled through Tony´s kitchen, exhausted. I grabbed a bowl of fresh blueberries out of the fridge and dumbed myself on the next chair.

When Tony came in (probably alerted to my return by Jarvis) I was already laying on the table with my whole upper body and halfway to sleep.

The dipshit had the audacity to laugh at me. I threw a blueberry at him.

I looked up at him through still mostly closed eyes. He was leaning against the doorway, arms crossed with a shirt that said: "I've cooked; there´s coffee." and had a grumpy cat with steaming cup on it. My Christmas present from last year.

"Sooo-", Tony drawled with a smirk. "What was all that about in the news?"

I grumbled: "Asgardians are idiots."

Tony´s right eyebrow rose in sync with the corners of his mouth.

"Tell me more."

I groaned and let my head fall on the table with a loud "thump".

Chapter End Notes

Damn, when I rewatched Thor, I noticed how shitty the fight with the Destroyer is. Yeah, the movie is old now, but man, the effects look bad.
Somehow the Warrior Four don´t look so hot in this chapter? I mean, they are kind of … dumb in the movie. They encourage Thors worst behavior and barely think for themselves. They also endanger humans and don´t seem to care very much. We´ll see if they come up again.
Also, Al is destroying canon relationships left and right. This one wasn´t even planned. The way I wrote it, Jane and Thor just never spend a lot of time with each other. I don´t think they were the best pairing anyway but still :( What am I going to do with Thor now? I guess he doesn´t need a romance in my fic.