Natasha dragged him down the hall and into a storage closet. "Please tell me that I didn't see what I think I just saw," she breathed, once the door was closed. The meager light from the Mind Stone poured through the spout, casting their faces in muted golden light.
"What do you think you saw?"
She glared. "Right, yeah," he sighed, scratching the back of his neck. "So. That thing that crashed into our plane on the way here?"
"Clint…"
"I'm sorry I didn't say anything!" he said hastily. "Really, I am! I was just, you know… a little occupied. I grabbed it without thinking - that's why my hand is burnt - and I knew I'd have to keep it secure somewhere, so…"
He toasted her with the travel mug. "Coffee," he said lamely. "Solves so many of my problems."
Natasha stared at him and slowly shook her head. "Not all of them," she said softly.
"What?"
"Do you know what this means?" she said. "Clint - the other stones could be out there."
"What -"
"Thanos had all of them when he snapped his fingers," she said. The Mind Stone cast a yellow pallor on her face, and made her eyes shine feverishly. "But the Mind Stone is here, not with him. What if… what if he lost the other ones?"
"Oh," Clint breathed.
In the gloom of the closet, they stared at each other. Nat's eyes were wide, afraid. He hadn't seen her like this in years.
"Do we have to tell the others?" Clint whispered. "I mean - if there's any way to fix what Thanos did, it'd be with the stones. We could hunt them down."
Nat pursed her lips and shook her head. She was thinking; Clint could see the gears turning. "Remember the last time we were with the stone?"
"When - oh."
Right. When Vision was born. They'd almost kicked the shit out of each other then, trying to stop Vision from being born. It was likely that the Stone had messed with them back then. That was a dick move, he thought at the Stone. Don't do that shit again. The Stone gave off the impression of a disgruntled sigh, and drew away. Clint scowled down at the coffee cup.
That reminded him. "What if we put it back in Vision's head?" Clint suggested. "That could -"
NO.
He cringed and staggered backwards, away from Nat. The coffee cup grew uncomfortably warm beneath his fingers. "Okay," he huffed. "The Stone… not a fan."
"It talks to you?" Natasha said. "It - do you know what else it can do?"
"...No."
" Clint."
"Sorry! I don't know what the extent of its powers are," Clint said, "but it's not that bad, actually. It's sentient. It's definitely sentient - no, no," he said, thinking, "it's sapient. There's a difference - it has no senses, but it can think, it has wisdom, reasoning and judgment... It can speak to me. It - it's in my brain -"
As Clint's words wound on, Natasha looked more and more uneasy. She said sharply, "Do you need a whack on the head?"
Memories of a SHIELD holding cell flickered through him. Of Natasha sitting on the bed next to him; of a blue haze slowly bleeding away from his mind and body. "No," he said. He shook his head. "No. This was voluntary."
"Why would you -"
"I didn't exactly have a choice!" he insisted. "I - it hasn't done anything bad to me yet, you know -"
Someone banged on the door outside.
The two froze. "Who is it?" Nat called out sweetly.
"It's Wong," said a terse, grumpy voice.
Oh, fuck, said Clint and the Mind Stone at the same time. Watch your profanity, he added.
FUCK YOU, said the Mind Stone. Great, it had a learning curve. It was like a toddler learning words; swear once around it, and it'd remember it forever. Gah.
"I tracked an Infinity Stone here," Wong said. "You have one. Get out here and explain, before I break the door down."
Nat said, "How did -"
"Magic."
"Right."
OBVIOUSLY.
Wong yanked open the door; the light from the hallway poured in, and Clint winced slightly. "Explain yourselves," he said sharply. The hand not on the door lingered protectively near Wong's pocket; with the Stone in hand, Clint could hear the bright crackle of magic around it, and heard a deeper, darkly sinuous hum beneath it...
"What's in that?" Wong said, gesturing at the travel mug.
Clint held the mug close to his chest. "Don't take my coffee," he pleaded. "Just -"
"Why do you have an Infinity Stone?" Wong snapped. "How?"
"Why do you - look," Clint said, exasperated. He gestured vaguely with the cup, and the Mind Stone clinked inside. Wong's eyes flickered to it. "Fine. It smashed through the jet on the way here and I grabbed it, and stuck it in here. Is that a problem?"
"Problem?" Up close, Wong's eyes were wild with panic. "Problem ? The problem is," he hissed, leaning in, "Thanos might still be out there! Unless his magic finger snap incinerated himself, too -"
THAT WOULD BE FUCKING HILARIOUS. UNLIKELY, BUT HILARIOUS.
" - And what do you think he'll do when he notices the stones are gone, huh? He'll come right back here!"
"So what are we supposed to do, yeet it into the sun?" Clint sputtered. The Mind Stone flared angrily, and golden light shone from the cup's spout. "Okay, not a fan, not a fan! It won't let us."
Wong just looked at him.
"...Do you know what 'yeet' means?"
"Yes. That's why I'm giving you this look," Wong said, waving at his unimpressed face.
"I have a thirteen-year-old son, it rubs off on you."
Natasha shifted slightly, and Clint realized what he said. I have a thirteen-year-old son. The pain that rippled through his gut nearly made him fall over. "It rubs off," he repeated, clenching his jaw. "Listen - this thing is sentient. It's helped me out so far. I - I just -"
As his mind faltered, the Mind Stone whirred into action.
ALLIES WITH LEADERSHIP CAPABILITIES HAVE EXPRESSED HIGH LEVELS OF ANXIETY AND PANIC, it whispered, AND SHOW VISIBLE PHYSICAL AND EMOTIONAL STRAIN.
Great, it was pulling out the big words. Time for the dictionary. "Steve and Tony have been chewed up," Clint said, translating. "Steve just lost his best friend for, like, the fourth time or something, and this time probably for good - and Tony got his ass kicked by Thanos himself. They're not so stable right now."
ALLIES WITH ROYAL AFFILIATIONS ARE SIMILARLY UNSTABLE, OR ARE ACTIVELY ENGAGED IN ROYAL DUTIES.
"Shuri's got to run a country on top of wrangling us morons, and Thor - well, I don't know about him, he might -"
"He's got an unhealthy fixation on the Ring," Nat interjected. "It's an Asgardian construct, and he's convinced it's his birthright, or something. Might be the Ring's legendary temptation." Wong grunted, possibly in agreement.
"Yeah. Okay. So Thor's a little unstable because of the Ring," Clint said. "Until he gets his head out of his ass about it, which I bet he won't, he won't be in any shape to run this circus."
"So, what are you saying," Wong said skeptically. "You think you should be in charge."
"...I mean, yeah," Clint said awkwardly.
Silence. He gripped the coffee cup just a little bit tighter and took a drink. The Mind Stone thunked against the underside of the lid. Wong gave him a wide-eyed, incredulous stare. "Are you serious?" he said flatly.
"Dead serious," Clint said. "I'm not a complete moron. This stone is helping me a lot. I… I was a high school dropout. Now it's got me doing interior calculus in my head."
INTEGRAL.
"Integral, whatever," he corrected himself. "It's got my brain going a mile a minute, and… and I like it."
Saying it really solidified it in his mind - Clint liked being smart. He liked having what he'd never had in the past, what he'd been once ridiculed for lacking. It filled a void in him. Sure, it was weird and beyond terrifying having a voice in his head telling him what to do, but… This voice opened doors. It opened windows, it opened skylights, it opened fucking portals. The thought of power itched along his spine, and took hold in his mind. He held it in his hands and in his head. He could do anything.
"Do you expect to lead us all on your own?" Wong said skeptically.
"I won't be doing it alone, of course, that's stupid," Clint allowed. "I just… it'd be temporary. Until our resident geniuses get back on their feet, or until Thor gets his act together."
"I'll help," Natasha said. Clint slung an arm around her shoulders and grinned at Wong. "You can, too, if you're so inclined."
Wong did not look impressed. His face was practically made for looking unimpressed. "And how do you plan on keeping it a secret? Do you plan on keeping it a secret?"
"Yes," Clint snapped.
"I really don't -"
"Good," Natasha said.
Clint and Wong stared at her.
She explained. "Queen Shuri told the entire world about the stones at the UN conference, so now everybody's going to be watching us. And Wakanda's government is going to be shaky, with Shuri as Queen. She's smart as hell, but she's a teenager - not too experienced. Her claim might be challenged soon, and I don't think everybody's going to be on our side."
"So they can't know," Clint concluded.
Natasha nodded jerkily. "Exactly," she said. "This, this stays between us."
Wong took a deep breath. "I guess that's fine," he said sourly.
"Of course it's fine," Natasha said. "You and your sorcerers had the Time Stone for centuries and never told anyone -"
"You what ?"
Both Natasha and Wong ignored Clint's outburst. "- So this is just the same thing."
"Right." Wong sighed and crossed his arms, looking between the two of them. "This changes the entire game - you do realize that, right?" he said sternly. "Infinity Stones don't just… up and disappear. It came back to Earth for a reason."
"Which is -?"
"I don't know," Wong snapped, "you're the one with the smart-guy stone, aren't you?" Clint flinched from the heat in Wong's voice; the man almost looked apologetic, but the moment quickly vanished. "We can't be the only one who's noticed that the stone is here," he hissed. "There might be more on Earth. See if you can figure out what it did - why it crashed into the plane. Maybe ask it, if it's sentient."
Clint had already tried that; it hadn't gone so well. The Mind Stone had a mind of its own - pun completely intended - and wouldn't tell him anything. Asshole. "Yeah, sure," he said anyway. "We'll figure something out."
Wong nodded jerkily. "Do what you can," he said lowly, moving backwards down the hall. He unclipped a ring from his belt - a ring like the one Tony had been wearing, Clint suddenly realized. Alarm bells went off. God, he really should have gotten up in time for the briefing. "I'm going to talk to Stark," he said. "Then I'll be back at the Sanctum, tracking the atmosphere for signs of other Infinity Stones showing up. Do not use the Stone."
Clint blinked. "What?"
"Use anything other than the Stone's latent intelligence-increasing properties, and I'm telling everyone you have it," Wong said firmly.
Natasha rolled her eyes. "Wong, Clint was mind-controlled by the thing. He's not going to go around turning people into his own personal army like Loki did."
Clint nodded furiously. "Yeah, I'm capable of empathy, for fuck's sake."
Wong shrugged, a what-can-you-do expression on his face. "You can never be sure," he said offhandedly. Clint gritted his teeth. "I'll be watching you, you know. But we don't know who else will be watching, too."
"Well, Shuri probably was, Wakandan security is the stuff of legends," Clint said snidely.
Wong waved at the ceiling. "So is magic," he said. Clint rolled his eyes. "It's taken care of. Don't be stupid." Natasha huffed softly, and Clint elbowed her.
Wong raised his hands and drew a sizzling orange circle into the air; Clint stared, intrigued, while the Mind Stone gave the equivalent of an unimpressed huff. The circle widened to show an empty guest room much like Clint's own, the bed still made - slightly rumpled - and an empty glass on the nightstand. There were wheel tracks on the rug next to the bed. Muffled cursing came from somewhere beyond the portal's field of view. "Goodbye, for now," the sorcerer said. "Don't break anything."
"Thanks, Wong," Natasha said. He gave her a dismissive half-wave and closed the portal.
As it fizzled shut, Clint took a sip from the cup. The Mind Stone brushed his lip, and he bit back a curse as it burned. Some kind of clarity returned to his mind, with the pain. "Well."
"Yeah."
"I won't use the Stone. I promise."
"I know."
They strolled down the hall, walking through the spot where Wong's portal had been. The air still felt charged with energy, slipping over Clint's skin and making the hairs on his arms stand up. "What did I miss while I was out, this morning?" he said.
"Not much - Stark and Nebula told us what happened on Titan, and we all compared notes. We'll... talk and walk back to your room," Natasha said, steering him around a corner. "You need to put on a shirt."
"With this body?"
"Clint, you're in a palace, at least have some respect -"
"I was kidding, sheesh."
"Couldn't bother knocking?"
Stark's voice echoed from the suite kitchen, as the portal closed. Wong turned to see Stark wrestling with the Wakandan coffee machine, ferociously jabbing buttons until a stream of dark liquid began to pour into his cup. His eyes met Wong's over the countertop. "This is ridiculous," he added, gesturing vaguely in front of him. "The countertop. It's too high and too far away, I feel like a toddler in this damn chair."
He looked like one, too. At this angle, looking directly over the countertop at Tony, all Wong could see was his face from the chin up. He very carefully did not say anything.
"And the coffee machine - holy hell."
"Yes, coffee machines with more than three buttons are the spawn of Satan," Wong said, nodding wisely. "Mind making me a cup?"
"What, you can't conjure one?"
Wong was so used to hearing that question that it merely made him grimace. "Actually -"
"No, let me guess, artificially-created shit is fake down to the molecular level and might spontaneously combust or some… fuckery." Stark raised his eyebrows and spread his hands, coffee slopping over the brim of his mug. "Huh? How close was I?"
Wong opened his mouth, thought better of it, and closed it. "Well - that's not a bad guess," he said at last. Stark pumped his fist and tried to stand up to grab another mug; Wong waved his hand, and a mug suddenly appeared in Stark's grasp. The man stared at it, then at him.
"No cream, two sugars, please," Wong said blandly. "If food or drink are conjured point-blank, they might revert to their original energy state, which is a problem if you've digested them. Think serious chemical burns to your small intestine. It'd be better to summon it from another place, which is more difficult, but less… deadly."
Stark made a truly grotesque face and backed up his wheelchair, steering the joystick with his elbow since his hands were full. "One of Gamp's laws of Transfiguration, nice," he muttered. "Rowling got something right."
"You are a nerd."
"And you are... wearing a bathrobe, I'm having trouble taking you seriously. So, Glinda," he said, sipping from his coffee. Wong sighed. "What's up, what's shakin'? You need me for something?"
"In a manner of speaking," Wong said. He took the proffered cup of coffee and gestured towards the desk on the other side of the room. "You said during debrief that you used Strange's sling ring to get off of Titan."
"I did, yeah," Stark said. He steered the chair towards the desk; Wong sat down in the desk chair, and they both sipped their coffee. "Thought that was okay."
"It is, it's… more than okay." Wong put his cup down on the desk and said, "You know, Stephen… it took him weeks to make his first portal. He only managed it when the Ancient One shoved him onto the peak of Mt. Everest and he had to travel back to save his life."
Tony spat his sip of coffee back into his mug. "Shit," he gasped, giggling slightly. "Goddamn, that's hilarious. How come he took that long?"
"Ego," said Wong. Something flickered across Stark's face, but he quickly hid it with the coffee cup. "He was so used to success that when he was faced with what seemed impossible, his mind refused to accept it. Took him weeks upon weeks to manage it."
"And I did it in a day and a half," Stark said quietly. There was no trace of pride in his voice; just a bland acceptance. Acknowledgement of a trial. He managed to make that day and a half sound like absolute hell. Wong had heard many things about the man, but he had not anticipated him to be this way.
"You did."
"And?"
"You have potential," Wong said. "Forgive me if this sounds like a college recruitment ad, but we - I think you'd fit in at the Sanctum."
Stark frowned and tilted his head. "If I remember correctly," he said, "I don't think there's much competition anymore."
Okay, that hurt. "Even if there was, you would come out near the top," Wong said sharply. "Stark - you can turn me down if you want. But there's no doubt that you have skills in the mystic arts -"
"I'm not turning you down."
Wong blinked.
"I'm just…" Stark waved his hand vaguely. Stephen's sling ring glimmered on his hand. "That mess on Titan?" he said. "Just a last grab at hope. Nebula and I had no idea it would even work. Desperate times, desperate measures, and all that. Now that my feet are on Earth's soil again, I don't know if I'll have time for Hogwarts."
"Kamar-Taj."
"Yeah."
"Let me guess," Wong added, thinking of Stephen. A man of science, logic and analysis. That had been his stumbling block: he had tried to analyze magic, to control it, and that kept him from truly reaching his full potential. At first. "If you had a chance, you would get a wizard in a lab. Have them cast spells under sensors, stretch the limits of their portaling abilities, test for dark matter in their sigils."
Stark grimaced. "Fun fact, you can't actually test for dark matter yet, only for where it might be -"
"That could change, with the mystic arts," Wong said.
"Using magic to run tests is like running experiments with salvaged alien tech!" Stark sputtered. "How can you use it to understand the world, if you don't understand it ? You don't! It's dangerous!"
"No more dangerous than brain surgery," Wong said. "We don't know everything about the human brain, either."
"But you don't carve up a brain with pieces of itself," Tony said.
"But there's still a brain at the helm of it all."
"A brain - you know what, fuck the metaphor, it's falling apart," Tony said, flicking his hand dismissively. "Fine. I give up. Color me intrigued, I'll be a wizard if you want. Just don't teach me." Wong's eyebrows flew up. "Give me the books and I'll learn myself. My rules, my game."
Good Lord. Wong surreptitiously checked to see if he was stuck in a time loop. He'd had a conversation just like this with Stephen, once, back before he'd become Sorcerer Supreme. "You two," he muttered, shaking his head. "Stark, you're not ready to run through my library without restrictions. One portal does not a sorcerer make."
"I'm sorry - you two ?" Stark said, raising an eyebrow. God, he even had the same skeptical mannerisms as Stephen, and a similar godforsaken goatee. This was horrifying. It was a wonder that their commandeered alien ship hadn't imploded from the gravitational force of their combined egos. "Who - oh, you're referring to Stephen."
"Yeah." Wong chose his next words carefully. "The moment he learned to astral project," he said, "he set his soul to studying while his body slept. Having a photographic memory helped, but -"
"Wait, wait, wait, hold up, slow down. Astral projection?" Stark echoed. "You mean - releasing the soul from the body, letting it do its own thing?"
His face was pale. Wong saw this and leaned back in his chair, studying Stark. He had meant for those words to appeal to Stark's curiosity - to his Ravenclaw side, to put it bluntly - to pique his interest, make him see the base practicality of magic and seek to use it. He did not see curiosity in Stark's face. He saw dread.
"What happened, Stark," he said sternly. His hand crept to the sling ring on his belt.
"I," Stark said, and paused. "Never mind. It isn't something I - ugh." He exhaled sharply and slumped back in his chair, dragging his hands down his face.
Wong noticed the slight tremor in his hands and leaned closer. "Are you alright?" he said quietly. The man looked like something was wearing on him. Something was drawing his energy.
"Yeah," Stark said into his hands. "Just peachy."
"I respectfully disagree," Wong said dryly. "You look like a Great Depression photograph, all… gray and dusty." Perhaps "dusty" was the wrong word to use, because Stark flinched slightly, but he pushed the moment aside for the time being and slipped on his sling ring. A faint thread of unease went through him. "Seriously. You look like hell. If you're up for it, I can try to accelerate your healing, and get you back on your feet."
"No, no - I'm fine," Stark insisted. No, you're not, thought Wong, looking closer.
In his pocket, warded with the strength of a thousand sanctums, the Ring stirred. Wong sent a mental punch of magic the Ring's way, and it settled down again.
"Good God. Stop with the mother-henning, Jesus."
"Stark."
The man peeked through his fingers at him.
"What. Happened," Wong said sternly. Stark stared back at him. Hiding the sling ring with his other hand, Wong twitched his fingers slightly to cast a spell. Stark looked almost like Clint Barton had - the same manic weariness in the eyes, tension in the shoulders, shaking hands. If Stark had another Infinity Stone… then Wong might have to spill both their secrets.
Maybe. Maybe not.
As Stark regarded him carefully, and the spell spun itself into existence, Wong rethought that idea. If Wong was the one to tell the others that the stones were back, they'd all doubt Clint for not telling them himself. There might be infighting. Whatever tenuous bond they all had over the Ring would shatter. Their Civil War had been fought over much less. Clint would have to tell them on his own - hopefully sooner, rather than later.
The spell finished and locked in. Wong slowly nosed along the edge of Tony's soul, and found… nothing. Just some residual energy, similar to what he'd detected on Steve and Thor as well - from being in such close proximity to an Infinity Stone, in Stark's case the Time Stone, even for such a brief time.
So the man was just tired. As always.
Then Stark spoke.
"There was a dream," he said softly. "I - I dreamt, of something."
Wong leaned forward. "What?" he prompted.
Stark took a deep, shuddering breath and looked at a point somewhere above Wong's head. "I was standing," he said slowly, "in a hallway lined with every suit I ever built. And as I walked. Uh."
He grimaced, and ran a hand over his face. "As I walked, I heard Stephen talking to me," he whispered. Wong's breath caught in his throat. "Weird, yeah, I know. He was… passing on messages. From the ones who died."
Wong quickly conjured a pen and a piece of paper, writing down what Stark said. The man watched him with amusement. "Great, now I really feel like I'm in therapy."
"How does that make you feel ?" Wong said stoically.
Stark snorted with laughter. "Shut up. Anyway - Stephen. He said that they were all safe. They were fine."
"Did you see him, in your dream?" Wong prompted.
"Uh. Yeah, I did," Stark admitted. "He was hovering at the end of the hallway, wearing that stupid cape -" Wong itched to correct him, but didn't want to interrupt. "- and I was… I was walking towards him, but no matter how close I got, how fast I walked… I never got there." Wong wrote that down.
Stark clutched his coffee mug tighter. The unadorned ceramic creaked. Wong surreptitiously strengthened the mug with a spell; Stark clearly felt the tingle of magic and gave him a vaguely exasperated glance. "And they were there," he said softly.
"Who?"
"Everyone. Standing where my suits stood, in the same poses - but completely motionless, not a breath out of any of 'em. I - I couldn't see beyond Stephen and the cape, but there might have been more. I don't know."
"Did he say anything?" Wong said. "Other than the messages."
Stark was silent for a few moments, staring resolutely at the floor. "He said," he whispered, "that we were on the right path. He didn't know what would happen next, but we were on the right path."
Wong nodded pensively. Inside, his heart slammed against his ribs. This could change everything. When he looked into the futures, did Stephen know that the Ring would be summoned? The Ancient One hadn't had time to educate him about the artifact, but Wong had prepared some basic notes for him: powerful artifact, Asgardian relic, don't let them have it even if Odin was standing on our front doorstep, et cetera. How much did Stephen know?
But he didn't know what would happen next. He was dead. Perhaps the Time Stone did not know if he would live or die, and thus did not show him what would happen after Thanos's snap. But Stephen had clearly seen victory, and hoped that they would be sent along the right path.
How much did he know?
Wong scribbled down a few more notes and focused on Stark again. The man was still staring into space. "Anything else that you noticed in the dream?" he said.
Stark was silent for a few long, tense moments. "No," he said quietly. "Not - not much. I wouldn't take this too seriously, if I were you," he added. "I've been doped up on all kinds of alien and human drugs for the past few days. Probably a fever dream, nothing more."
Wong shook his head. The dream sounded too specific to be a hallucination, and he said so. "It could be a mix of the two," he allowed. "I'll read into it. Dreams often have more truth in them than waking life."
Stark nodded wisely. "That quote is pithier than an orange," he drawled. "Better write that down."
"Stop that."
It was the truth, though. In Wong's line of work, all sorts of things were possible. Messages from beyond the grave, while rarely true, still had merit. If Wong wasn't sure that Stephen was dead, he would put the dream down to a variant of astral projection, but… who knew? It might explain a bit why Stark looked like hell; if Stephen was astral-projecting into his soulscape, a difficult but possible task, he would have to draw on Tony's soul energy as an anchor. That would wear down a man.
But Stephen was dead. To the best of Wong's knowledge, he was dead.
"Well," Wong said, standing up. He drained the last of his coffee and banished the mug back to the cupboard. "If you ever want to chat, you know where to find me."
"Actually, I don't."
Wong opened a portal behind him, so they both could see it. The main hub of Kamar-Taj loomed beyond: the three doors to the other Sanctums, the pedestal for the Eye of Agamotto. The sigils and mandalas of the Sanctum Santorum's wards burned bright. Wong could not leave the Sanctum unprotected while he was in Wakanda. He hadn't had a peep out of any of the Sanctums since the Dusting, so he had to do it all himself.
"You do now," he said to Stark. "And even if you don't, you can always travel to the New York Sanctum. Just picture the stairs, or the Cauldron of the Cosmos that you were leaning on."
"Don't keep giving me shit about that, I already apologized."
"I know."
"And -" Stark sighed, and fiddled with the sling ring on his hand. There was another ring just below it: a simple gold band, with some kind of pattern etched into it. His engagement ring, probably. "C'mon, Wong, both those locations are thousands of miles away," he said sourly. "I could barely manage a hundred-mile portal."
"That's still better than nothing," Wong pointed out. "Just keep practicing. Remember, even Stephen was absolute shit when he started." Stark's lips twitched. "And besides, last I checked your suit could break Mach 1. If you're not up for portals, just jet over here the old-fashioned way."
Stark shrugged. "If that wouldn't fuck with my stitches, maybe I would," he said.
"You could learn to heal those."
"Tempting, tempting. Maybe. Not now -"
There was a sudden bellow from the room next door, rendered wordless by the thick walls. Stark flinched and slopped coffee all over himself. "What the hell ?" he hissed.
Wong deftly closed his portal, staring at the wall. "Who's next door to you, Stark?" he said.
"Uh." Stark frowned and thought. Then his eyes widened. "Bruce," he said.
Earlier:
Bruce's room was… better, somehow.
It felt lived-in, worn and used in a comforting way, though Bruce had only had it for a couple of days. Doors, cupboards and drawers were flung open, the rug was askew, and every time Thor popped his head in the bed was a blast zone of messy pillows and blankets. A disaster. It was glorious.
It was better than Thor's room, at any rate. The only sign that anyone lived in it was Stormbreaker, propped against the bedside table. Everything else was gathering dust. Even the bed was crisply made. So Thor found himself slipping into Bruce's room, merely because it didn't feel like a mausoleum. Though he felt that his mood was ruining the calm vibe of the suite; he had been more than off since the meeting that morning, and his skin crackled with tension.
From his seat in the nest of pillows and blankets, Bruce didn't seem to notice; he was using the tablet to scan news headlines, but every now and then he switched to a different window and typed a few words in it. He'd read over the text already written, make a face, delete it all and start over, with a wrinkle between his brows that never seemed to vanish. Thor flung himself into the desk chair, which creaked ominously, and watched Bruce slingshot between the windows. His feet were tucked under the thick blanket rumpled at the end of the bed.
Thor realized that Bruce had more pillows on his bed. Five, to be precise. Thor only had one. This was unfair.
"You okay?"
Thor glanced up. Bruce was watching him, frowning slightly. "You just look," he started, and waved vaguely at his face. "Tense."
Thor swallowed. "Yeah," he said. "Yeah, I guess." He rose from the chair and gazed out the window.
"Talk to me," Bruce demanded softly.
His eyes burned into Thor's back, and Thor took a deep breath. He stared out the window; his eye stuck yet again, and he smacked the side of his head a couple of times, knocking it loose. He needed to get that fixed. But he couldn't replace it with the patch. He couldn't.
"Thor."
"Right, yeah," Thor huffed, scratching the back of his neck. He turned to Bruce, who had turned off the tablet and set it on the bedside table. He sat cross-legged on the pale yellow sheets, facing Thor with his hands folded under his chin. Patient, listening. He was good at that, being patient - it took patience to control the Hulk, Thor knew. But this patience wasn't the alert, guarded wariness of holding back the Hulk; it felt resigned. Nothing else to do but wait.
"What is it?" Bruce said.
Thor swallowed. "It's the Ring," he said quietly.
With one foot, he hooked the leg of the desk chair and dragged it towards the bed. "Wong had it with him, I could feel it," he said, sitting down. Bruce nodded. "It was calling to me… I could hear it whispering to me, for the entire meeting."
"It does that," Bruce said pensively. Thor stared at him. He hastily corrected, "In the books. The Ring, it, uh - it tempts people into putting it on and using it; it's supposed to be some giant metaphor for how power corrupts -"
"Well, it doesn't sound like a metaphor anymore," Thor said sourly. "I'm living it."
"I know, I'm sorry."
Bruce scooted a little closer to the edge of the bed. Thor saw him squinting slightly, and wondered where his glasses had gone - perhaps he'd never gotten a new pair in the first place. Maybe he would talk to Stark or the Queen about getting him some spares. "So it's… tempting you," Bruce said.
"Yeah. And it's wrong."
Bruce blinked. "Well, that's a good sign," he said. "That means you're not going to rip it out of Wong's hands and go dominate the galaxy, good job."
The words were meant to be a joke, but they made something bitter and grim stir in Thor's chest. Dominate the galaxy. Wasn't that what his ancestors did? Wasn't that the Asgardian way? He was Asgardian, and the Ring was Asgardian. He had a legacy, a legacy, Asgard had a legacy
"Thor."
Bruce's hand reached out to touch Thor's shoulder, and he jerked away from it, shivering. His skin was cold all over. "What?" he croaked. A few sparks shot from his fingertips, and he flinched, staring at his hand.
"You were spacing out," Bruce said softly, folding his hands in his lap. His eyes were soft and concerned. A strange rush of gratitude filled Thor's chest and, slowly, ebbed. "Thor - you're doing fine."
Thor shook his head. "I don't know that," he said. "You can't know that."
"I can -"
"You can't," Thor snapped, standing up. The desk chair rocketed backwards, and Bruce raised his eyebrows. He only leaned back slightly to look up at him, and Thor wished briefly that there had been a bigger reaction, because standing in the face of Bruce's calm was… was infuriating.
"Everything about this is shit," Thor snarled, jabbing a finger at the door. "This whole plan, this whole story, everything. I know what the Ring can do, I know what we have to do. It - it's stupid, waiting around for this, telling stories and watching… watching movies when I already know what we have to do!" His voice rose to a near bellow by the end, but he didn't care.
"Okay," said Bruce.
"That Ring - it was supposed to return to my people centuries ago! My father had been looking for it since I was a child. It - these people had no right to keep it for so long," Thor fumed. "It's the only piece of Asgard I have left, and I can't stand to see it in the hands of - of -"
"Thor, can I ask you something?"
Thor clenched his jaw, and lighting rippled across his chest. "Fine," he ground out.
Bruce lifted his chin slightly, and asked a question that Thor had been asking himself, over and over, since he had seen the Ring gleaming in Wong's hand.
"Is that the Ring talking, or you?"
Is that the Ring?
He sat back down in the desk chair. "I," he started, then trailed off. Thor wanted nothing more for those words to be the Ring's fault. The past years had changed him, made him hard and bitter against the universe - against his past. Even now, he could taste rock dust and crumbled mortar in the air, the ruins of Asgard's mosaics crunching underfoot. That was Asgard's legacy: death, destruction, subjugation. A golden empire built on foundations of blood and bone.
"In the mirror," he said softly, "I look like my father."
Bruce frowned slightly, and leaned forward.
"The only thing stopping me from ripping this stupid cybernetic eye from my skull and using the patch is… is how like him I would seem."
"You're not your father, Thor," Bruce said gently.
"And I don't want to be him." Thor gulped, and unconsciously scooted his chair forward, closer to Bruce. "I can't follow in his footsteps," he whispered. He looked at his own hands, grasping each other. His thumb had started rubbing circles into the other palm. "That's not the king I want to be. That - I can't rule that kind of Asgard. I can't be king of that …" If I'm even king of anything anymore…
"Thor. Look at me."
Two hands rested on Thor's shoulders, then dragged slowly in to rest at the base of his neck. Bruce's fingertips skimmed his collarbone. Despite himself, Thor shivered, as the roughness of Bruce's hands caught on his skin. "Look at me," Bruce said again, just above a whisper.
He did. At this angle, he had to lift his head slightly to meet his eyes.
"You're right," Bruce said. "Asgard's legacy is not that stupid ring. It's its people."
"But what if there aren't any people left?" Thor choked out.
Bruce shook his head. "You can't know that," he said. The echo of Thor's words made his chest ache. "On the ship… uh, there were escape pods. I saw them the first time, on our way to fight Hela. There's a chance that some of them might have gotten out."
There's a chance. "There is," Thor whispered aloud. "There - but where would we look? How?"
Bruce laughed quietly. "I might have a few ideas," he said. "I'd have to work out the kinks and ask Shuri, or maybe Tony, to give us the tech, but… you know, it could work."
"You really think so?"
Bruce nodded sharply, and his eyes glittered with something beyond excitement. Determination, even - as if there was something to prove. Thor realized Bruce was close enough that he was no longer squinting. "It will," he said firmly. "And I'll help you."
"You're sure."
"Yes."
Bruce swallowed, and added softly, "And if we find… if we find what's left of the Commodore…" Thor froze when he heard the name of their lost ship. Gently, Bruce's hand rubbed circles into his tense shoulder. "We can bring the bodies here. I can ask Shuri or her… council? Is it a council?"
"I don't know," Thor breathed.
"Whatever -" Bruce waved his free hand, the one not currently pushing the tension from Thor's shoulder. "I can ask them if you can bury your people here."
"We don't bury them," Thor said. He cleared his throat, and looked at his hands once more. "There are… rites. We'd need a waterfall. And boats." He remembered a flaming boat on the waters, embers rising through the stars. Would they find Loki? Could they give him the Asgardian burial he had earned, even in death?
"We have one," Bruce said, grinning. "If the Wakandans don't want us to use theirs, we can always check out Victoria Falls."
"Yeah. Yes, that sounds…" Thor couldn't find the words. He let out a helpless laugh, still looking at his hands, and shook his head.
Bruce gently squeezed Thor's shoulder. "And -"
Before he could finish, someone rapped on the door and pushed it open. Thor flinched so hard that the desk chair rocketed backwards. Over Bruce's suddenly tense shoulders, he could see Wong, hands glimmering with mandalas, standing defensively in front of Tony Stark's wheelchair.
"Everything alright in there?" Stark said. "Heard shouting, was concerned - oh, hi, Thor." Thor gave him a halfhearted wave.
"Hi, Tony," Bruce said wearily. "You're a bit late for the shouting; sorry to disappoint." One of Tony's eyebrows slowly crept up; Thor couldn't see Bruce's face, but judging from the way Tony's face was twitching, the two were having a very meaningful conversation with nothing more than their eyebrows. A faint flush was creeping up the back of Bruce's neck.
"So… no sign of the green guy?" Tony said slowly.
Bruce shook his head. "No, it's all quiet up here," he said, gesturing at his head. "A little too quiet, but I can't complain."
"Think he'll ever come back?"
Bruce lifted one shoulder in a shrug. "No clue," he said. "I… I wouldn't mind if the Hulk stayed away, but it'll take some getting used to."
Somehow it was… odd, listening to Bruce speak of the Hulk so calmly. Thor picked at his fingernails, sparing him a few glances. Even on Sakaar, after the Hulk had gone back under, Bruce spoke of his alter ego as if he was afraid of him. Not the best relationship.
But something had changed between then and now - no, between then and that first day, in Thor's room, going through Wikipedia and yelling at each other about their problems. He remembered the tension in Bruce's body, building like a tidal wave in every muscle - but there was no flash of green in his eyes. The anger had vanished as if it had never been there, replaced with a stone-cold blankness that far surpassed any kind of control he'd seen from Bruce in the past.
For the first time, Thor got the sensation that something was deeply, deeply wrong.
Tony and Bruce were still talking. "You know, you did really well with the Hulkbuster," Tony was pointing out. So that's what the suit was called. Thor barely refrained from rolling his eyes. That was irony at its finest. "If you ever want to use it again, let me know, I'll get it fixed up for you."
"Thanks, Tony, but I'm not really up for battle anytime soon," Bruce said quietly.
"Neither am I, neither am I," Tony said. "I get it. Forget I said anything." He poked Wong in the side. "Okay, Sparrowhawk, false alarm," he said, steering his wheelchair away from the door. "You're free to go."
"Sparrowhawk?" Wong echoed. "How old are you?"
"Younger than you, I bet." Wong rolled his eyes, opened a portal, and strode through without a word. Grinning, Tony watched him go. "Good talk, Bruce," he added, driving his wheelchair away. "See you on movie night!"
"Movie night - oh, right," Bruce muttered, as Tony vanished. "Yeah, Clint's master plan. Oy." He collapsed against the headboard, pressing his hands to his eyes. "Gah."
"Yeah," Thor huffed, leaning back in the chair. "That was… surprising, that he came up with it."
"Hey, don't knock him for that, Clint's a pretty smart guy," Bruce said. He crossed his arms over his stomach and stared at the ceiling. "He just doesn't show it much."
"Right, right."
Bruce rolled his head towards Thor and said quietly, "You're sure you're going to be fine with this?"
Thor nodded. "I'm sure. Even if it feels like a waste of time… at least I can focus on our thing, huh?"
"Yeah," Bruce said, smiling faintly. "Yeah, that'll be good."
He picked up the tablet next to him and closed his open windows. Thor squinted at it; the holographic display was see-through, and at this angle everything was backwards. "What were you writing?" he said.
Bruce pursed his lips. "Uh - an email," he said, deftly closing the email tab. "For Betty. I… changed my mind."
"Oh. That's - that's good, I guess," Thor said. For some strange reason, he felt relieved. "Want to, uh… figure out what we have to do?"
Bruce blinked down at the tablet for a bit. "Yeah," he said slowly. "Okay - uh, I already kind of have an idea or two…" He nudged the tablet away and slid down the headboard, until he was lying stretched-out on the bed. "There's two or three ways we can go about this…" His face was oddly still as he talked, save for that faint wrinkle between his brows that never, never went away. The only things that seemed alive were his eyes, as soft and brown as they always were.
Thor suddenly realized that Bruce had stopped talking, and was waiting for a response. He hadn't heard a single word of what he'd said - "Yeah, totally," he said.
There was a beat of silence.
"Were you even listening?" Bruce said.
"No. I - I spaced out."
"You were staring."
Thor's mouth fell open. "I was - I was not," he sputtered.
"At me. "
" I was not!"
Bruce shook a finger at him and said, "You're turning red, Thor, I know you were -"
"Seriously, no- !"
"Yes you were! What - is there something on my face, or -"
"No, no, you just look… too… comfy," Thor said lamely. Bruce raised both eyebrows. "Yeah. It's a crime, really. You have five damn pillows on your bed and I only have one in my suite. Totally unfair -"
Bruce threw a pillow at him, and got him right in the face. "There. Happy now?" he said, smiling.
"Sure," Thor allowed. "Anyway. Sorry about that, would you mind starting over?" And Bruce covered his face and laughed into his palm, the corners of his eyes crinkling as he smiled. Thor hugged the pillow to his chest and leaned back in the chair, listening to Bruce talk.
"I'm thinking we go about this a few different ways," he said. "At first I thought about tracking for gamma radiation - like that time with the Tesseract, six years ago or so. 'Cause he used the Power Stone on the ship, right?"
"Right," Thor said. He gripped the pillow a little tighter.
"Sorry for bringing that up," Bruce said, glancing at him. "I - I don't remember it, but I know you went through it, and that must have been horrible for you -"
"It was, yeah."
"Sorry."
"No, it's fine, keep going."
"Okay." Bruce clasped his hands together over his stomach and continued. "But the… it happened in such a small place, and we'd have to comb the entire galaxy for that one little spot. Too much time."
"Wait - why would we have to find the Commodore ?" Thor said. That would make sense if the ship's computer was still intact - they could look at the pod records to see if they'd deployed, and possibly track them from there - but Thanos had blown the whole thing to pieces.
"The pods," Bruce said. "We could scan for traces of exhaust and see if we can map out where they were going. Maybe I can talk to Kraglin or Nebula, they know more about spaceships than I do. They can give us a baseline for spaceship exhaust to work with, and I can send up a probe rigged with Rocket's ansible tech, to scan for it and report back instantaneously."
Thor stared at him. "I only understood about three quarters of that, but you make it sound smart, so," he said. To be honest, he understood everything - except the ansible bit; the Allspeak didn't translate that, so it must have been a colloquialism. He just wanted to see Bruce's reaction.
All he got was a warm smile - which was, honestly, not that bad. "Don't sell yourself short, Thor," Bruce said. "You matched me toe-for-toe getting off Sakaar. You've got a lot going for you."
Despite himself, Thor smiled. "Thanks," he said softly.
"No problem," Bruce said. "So - anyway, first we find the Commodore. Gamma tracking, like I did for the Tesseract, is out, because of how small the area was. But then," he said, dramatically raising a finger, "I remembered you said the Guardians picked you up - they were following the distress signal and coming to help."
Bruce swallowed and shifted down into the pillows, so far down that only the tip of his nose was visible. "I'm glad they found you," he added softly, voice just above a whisper. "I - the whole time, before you, uh, Bifrost-ed in, I thought you were dead." A spark shot out of Thor's hand. "I missed you. I guess. Uh. No, I did." He swallowed. "I definitely did."
"Oh," Thor said faintly. Another spark shot out and scorched the pillow. "I… missed you too. I didn't know where Heimdall sent you - I guess I thought the worst, until I saw you."
They were both quiet for a few tense moments. Thor shifted in his seat and clutched the pillow closer. There was a weird tingling in his fingers; if the conversation kept going like this, he was going to set the pillow on fire.
Bruce cleared his throat awkwardly. "Uh. Anyway. I was thinking, we could go to Titan - remember, Tony and Nebula said that they left the Benatar there, since the engines were shot? We can look at their GPS, see if there's anything we can salvage."
"We could bring the ship back," Thor realized. Bruce lifted his head slightly to look at him. "Rocket would want that," he said. "That ship was his home for a while. He'd appreciate it if we brought it - maybe he could fix it."
"That'd be a lonely ship," Bruce said. "Empty chairs, empty tables and all. Sure it'd be good for him to see that?"
Thor shook his head and leaned forward. "If we have any say in it," he said firmly, "those chairs won't be empty for long."
Bruce opened his mouth to respond, but didn't speak. His breath left him in a rush of air. All he did was nod slowly, and give him a small, hopeful smile. It warmed Thor's heart in ways that he could not pretend to understand.
Thor added, "So, want to go to Titan?"
Bruce's eyes widened comically. "What?" he sputtered, sitting up. "You want - now? "
"Why not?" Thor said blandly. "I have Stormbreaker. I can use the Bifrost. I know where Titan is, everyone does. It's a disgusting hellhole, and nobody goes there unless they have a really good reason or if it's a body dump -"
"You're really helping me get on board with this, Thor," Bruce snapped.
"I thought you said you wanted to go!"
"Well, yeah, but - not now, I haven't thought out what to do -" Bruce ran a hand through his too-short hair and slumped back on the pillows; the mattress creaked. "I don't know what's in the atmosphere, I don't know if -"
"Tony was able to breathe it for a couple of days," Thor pointed out. "He's not dead."
"And he looks like the ass end of hell, not exactly a ringing endorsement," Bruce said. He huffed and looked at the ceiling for a long while. Thor just watched him.
At last, Bruce turned his head and looked at Thor. "Allspeak works on text, right?" he said.
"Uh - yeah," Thor said, briefly flabbergasted by the intensity of his friend's gaze.
"Great. You'll be my translator, I won't be able to read their dashboard," Bruce said firmly. He slid out of bed on the side closest to Thor's. "Let me get my shoes," he muttered. Thor grinned at him and bounded out of the desk chair, chucking the pillow onto Bruce's bed on the way out.
Then he rethought that and came back, stealing the pillow and another one as Bruce's back was turned. It was unfair. Really. Absolutely criminal.
"I saw that!" Bruce called over his shoulder.
"I know!" he shouted back, shouldering open the door to his own room. Whistling cheerfully, he tossed the pillows onto his crisply-made bed, taking some satisfaction in how the sheets rumpled beneath them, and grabbed Stormbreaker. Lightning rippled across his arms and over Stormbreaker's blade.
His eye stuck again.
Thor grimaced and popped it out with his thumb, wincing as that half of his vision went black again. The eye rolled into the palm of his hand and stared blandly up at him. Perhaps he'd take it to Rocket to get it fixed, if the rabbit ever showed his face again.
Perhaps not.
Thor set the eye on the bedside table and fished the metal eyepatch from his pocket, pressing it over his eye once more. Fuck legacy. Fuck his birthright. Bull shit.
"Thor?"
"Coming," he called. He lightly tossed Stormbreaker, caught it, and strode out the door.
Author's Notes:
Sorry for the late update; I took the first half of the week trying to untangle the plot threads for the entire planned series, so I can get this shit in gear. I'm about as good at juggling plot threads as I am at juggling greased refrigerators, so good luck to me. We'll get into Phase One of the plan next chapter, in which there will be several gratuitous references, bad jokes, and angst galore. Hope you enjoyed.
Favorites, reviews, and constructive criticism are, as always, greatly appreciated. Thanks!
