And here we are! The final part of this particular AU, I really hope you'll enjoy it. I tried to do as much different as I could, liked how it turned out.
The song in this chapter is "Fear Not This Night" Asja Kadric's version is beautiful; there's also a cover by Taylor Davis, Tara and Malukah that can be found on youtube and I used as inspiration of how the interpretation might be in this verse.
Variations
Fate forges our destination, and through Destiny we craft the road to it.
The consequences of the Convergence and the battle against Malekith, his dark elves (and the Aether) were more on the side of interesting and intriguing (and sometimes funny) than worrying. SHIELD and most governments knew what we'd done, and while the existence of aliens, and especially the fact that some were on the side of humans, while others wanted just to destroy, left many an agency going nuts; the three of us didn't worry about that. As far as they knew, we were 'only' mutants. The day would come for the truth to be revealed, but not just yet.
SHIELD actually detained Dr. Foster for all of three days, until a messenger from Asgard made an unexpected appearance, looking for Lady Foster… Prince Thor's intended. It didn't surprise me, though SHIELD went crazy over yet something else for a while. They didn't understand, had no basis for comparison:
"They're a match." I told Phil, trying to make him understand.
He and his team had been called in to deal with the aftermath of the battle against the Dark Elves, which meant we had to debrief them regarding what had happened exactly. They'd been around when the mess with Jane had kicked up, had witnessed her departure with the messenger, and they still didn't understand why.
"You use that term a lot." Melinda May, one of Phil's team-mates commented. "I'm not sure I understand what you mean."
"A match, mirror, One True Love, Mo Anam Chara, the silver cord, the red string of fate..." My love enlisted in an almost bored tone.
"Like soulmates?" Grant Ward asked, obvious disbelief in his voice.
"Matches made in heaven!" Skye exclaimed at the same time, hope in her tone.
"Yes." I nodded. "Exactly. Though to be honest, there can be two kinds of soulmates: those that you see as closer than friends, as the brothers and sisters of your soul; and those you love with everything you are: body, mind, heart and soul." I made a pause, then added. "In our case, Darcy fits the first category, she's our sister in every way that counts; while Luka and I are romantic soulmates, we're a match..."
I held back from mentioning Darcy and Phil; with their disbelief I did not want to bring trouble to those two. They noticed and nodded at me minutely.
I decided to change tactics, focusing completely on May.
"You're high enough in SHIELD, I imagine you probably know what age I was when I married." I commented calmly.
"You were fourteen." She nodded.
"What?!" The shock and disbelief came immediately.
"Most believe it was done as some sort of political move, due to you both being gifted." May added for good measure.
"It was, and it wasn't." I told her honestly. "Luka and I are a match, getting married was always in the cards. We didn't actually consummate the marriage until I was over the age of consent. So, marrying at the time when we did was, in some ways, a political move. Luka was having trouble controlling his ice, so we went to Xavier's for help, but while we tried to explain our bond to them, they didn't understand, not like Aunt Kathryn did. Refused to allow us to share a room and stay together as much as possible… so we took the choice out of their hands."
"When did you learn you were a match?" Skye asked, very quietly.
One look told me there was more to that question, but I chose not to insist for the time being.
"A week or so before we went to the Institute." I told them honestly. "Though we'd known each other for three years, thanks to some irregular visits." I shook my head, that wasn't the point. "I had cancer, was given three months to live. Luka swore he'd find a way to save me, and he did. I still have cancer, but these..." I willed the deamarkonian to be visible. "… connect our life-forces, his energy keeps the sickness in my blood from weakening me too much, or killing me even. This is what changed everything. Being so close to death, minutes in fact, from what we've gathered. And then connecting our souls like this… it had consequences. It kick-started our bond. Usually, bonds like ours wouldn't have become obvious until later. I mean, the bond is always there, but the meaning behind it changes as one grows. When I first met him when I was eleven he was a great mystery, who then became a good friend, a trusted confidant… the evolution would have continued from there, until I was eventually mature enough to see him as a man, as a lover, and for him to see me in the same manner. As it was, we had no interest in laying with each other until I was fully mature, though we needed other forms of intimacy."
I could see more than one person blushing, not used to talking about such personal topics, so openly; but they needed to understand, not just for us, but for Thor and Jane, for Darcy and Phil, and however many other matches there might be…
"And here's where we come back to Jane." I went on. "Yes, she only met Thor less than a week ago, but I… we believe that the Aether being inside her… her life being in such danger, it pushed their bond into place faster than it would have otherwise."
"How can they even be soulmates, or a match or whatever?" May wanted to know. "They're not even from the same world!"
"So?" My love asked, with a shrug. "The Nine Realms are connected, you may be human in this lifetime, but who knows what you might have been in your last one, or in your next one."
"Reincarnation…?" May snorted. "That's what you're going with now?"
"It doesn't matter whether you believe us or not." My Maverick said loftily. "Matches, souls, reincarnation… all are things that will continue to exist, regardless of your personal beliefs."
"We're not here to make you believe, or stop believing in anything." I said, trying to sooth out any hurts my husband might cause. "That's not up to us. We're here to explain things as we know them, so you might have an easier time dealing with them. The path you're walking will put you in many such situations, and only with an open mind you'll be able to handle things. There's a lot in this world, in the universe, that you will never understand, that you're not meant to, We are not meant to. In the end, believe in soulmates or not, believe in reincarnation and past-lives, in a level of being that goes beyond what our mortal senses and minds could ever hope to comprehend… this is not a religious speech, this is beyond any one religion. You may think me insane, obsessed, naïve… I don't care. I've known the world was far more complex than most believe, since I was fourteen, and I'm not so proud to think I know it all. In the end, only you know how much you can deal with, and how much you rather not know."
"What?" Ward demanded testily. "You'll now say that ignorance is bliss?"
"Sometimes." I didn't bother lying. "Other times it only makes things harder than they have to be. And lying to oneself, pretending ignorance? It never works. Only makes things all the more painful in the long run."
I wasn't even sure why I said that. It's not like I'd done anything to make me feel like that and yet… it was like I somehow knew those words needed to be said, like someone there needed to hear them for some reason.
Loki and I left London the next day, wanting nothing more than to see our little rose again… Darcy chose to stay, her own need for her match driving her to stay with his team for a while longer. We understood her and did not insist. She knew we'd always be family.
xXx
Rose Alfdis first manifested on the very day she turned five. I entered her room in the morning to find tiny little flames all around her room. She'd always loved candles, kept them on every available surface… except the candles were no more, there was all gone, melted, and yet there were still tiny flames floating above the remains.
Rosie wasn't like mutants, her control of fire was instinctive. We still took her to the Institute every so often, give her a chance to use her ability freely. John loved her like a little sister and was soon teaching her all kinds of tricks. I could feel the boy's heart healing, ever so slowly, first thanks to Bobby, and then with Rose. It was like making sure she did not fear her gift was somehow allowing him to believe that same thing himself.
Life was good. Certainly not what I planned when I was a child, or even after I managed to survive the leukemia; and yet it was a good life. I had a family and we were helping people, some in ways I never imagined possible. I would have never wanted the fame we had, living in the public eye wasn't easy, not before the 'superhero boom' and especially not afterwards. It was no secret that we'd been in London during the alien attack, the fact that we were three of the people who'd fought, the only ones from Earth (nevermind that my love wasn't… they didn't know that part); there had been Dr. Foster and Dr. Selvig of course, and while they had done much, they weren't warriors, so it fell to us. There was also the fact that Dr. Foster was gone, off to Asgard to get to know her home, the realm she'd one day rule beside her prince. Dr. Selvig too was gone, working with SHIELD in some top-secret project or other.
We weren't expecting it when we got a call from Iron-Man of all people. Two gifted had just tried to kill him. They obviously hadn't been expecting some of his security measures, or the fact that the Starks weren't defenseless. I wasn't quite sure why Tony wasn't calling Charles directly, the two men knew each other after all, it was made clear when we arrived.
"I didn't want to say this on an open line, just in case." Tony told us once we arrived. "These two aren't just any gifted, they're mutants, late bloomers if I were to hazard a guess. They're also not exactly locals."
"How not-local are we talking about?" My husband wanted to clarify.
"Sokovia. Novi Grad, Sokovia" Tony told us honestly, before calling on some images in the nearest screens to show us pictures and files. "Meet Wanda and Pietro Maximoff, twin children of Django and Marya Maximoff."
"Magnus… Magda… Anya…" I couldn't help but murmur under my breath.
"Huh?" Tony looked at me oddly.
"Magnus Eisenhardt was… I suppose it technically is, one of Erik Lehnsherr's aliases." I did my best to explain. "In the late forties and early fifties he was married to a woman, a Romani, called Magda Maximoff. They had a daughter called Anya…"
"So you think they belong to his line?" Even as he asked the question I could see he was already ordering JARVIS to run tests.
Erik's DNA was already on record, so it could probably be done. I didn't tell him Anya Maximoff Eisenhardt had died in a fire when she was five. I also didn't tell him about the other two children that had existed, that had borne the surname Maximoff, that had belonged to the same bloodline, and Erik had never known they so much as existed. Odds were the twins were grandchildren or something like that, from one of them. I knew Erik had enough of a hard time being a father to Lorna, all the time he couldn't be there for her, when he hadn't so much as known she existed… no need to make it worse. Also, it wasn't like someone had trusted me with the information I had, I'd obtained simply because my daughter was meant to be a Seer… it wasn't right for me to use it. Those weren't my choices to make.
"That's not everything." My Maverick said, in a tone that showed it wasn't a question.
"Yeah so… apparently the Maximoff twins have been orphans since they were ten, when an SI bomb dropped into their apartment, killing their parents instantly, they were trapped for two days in the ruins of their home, with a second shell." Tony revealed as emotionlessly as he could.
"A bomb that did not go off?" What were the odds? I couldn't believe it.
"Actually, two bombs that didn't go off." Tony clarified. "If the first had, it'd have pretty much vaporized the whole place, themselves included." He shook his head while pinching the bridge of his nose. "I don't make faulty weapons. I may not be proud of them anymore, or of all the people I've indirectly killed by creating them and not noticing the kind of deals Stane was doing all those years behind my back… but I know the kind of work SI does, that I do. If those bombs did not go off, well, it's one of two options: either they weren't armed, which means they were being transported and someone shot off the plane carrying them or something; they were stolen at some point and whoever shot them had no idea how to arm them properly; or they are two products that did not pass the quality testing and somehow still got sold… probably as part of one of Stane's black-market deals. I still haven't been able to track down all of those." I could sense the mix of guilt and self-loathing coming from him, it tasted bitter and awful. "It's relatively easy to track down weapons in storage, some I can even destroy from a distance. But those that have already been used… it's next to impossible. I'm aware I will never know just how much damage my weapons have caused, how much death..."
"It's not on you." I couldn't hold back anymore, the dark feelings in him… they were too much. "Yes, you made mistakes. But you did not intend for things to go this way."
"Didn't you know?" He snarked at me. "The road to hell is paved with good intentions."
"So?" My husband could tell what I was trying to do, and he chose an entirely different course of action to achieve it. "You created something to protect your people, it was used to destroy others, innocents. There's nothing you can do about that now, it's in the past, already done. I know all you've done to ensure it doesn't happen again. That's good, that counts. But if you remain forever fixated in all the things you've done wrong, that anyone has done wrong, all the things you cannot change… that's pointless. Mourning the dead forever will not bring them back, and it doesn't help the living any either."
I was hit by an image then, a powerful one, of our old garden in Asgard ravaged, covered in frost, and my love screaming himself hoarse. It was just a flash, there and gone in the fraction of a second and yet I couldn't help the clenching of my heart. My love had suffered so much at my loss. Yet as much as it pained, to have been, in some way or another, the reason for that pain; he was right that fixating on it did nothing. I was back, we were together, we had our daughter, and even Helena was around, even if she couldn't exactly drop by for a visit. What else could we ever ask for, really?
Helena was actually around more than she'd been in the past. I didn't know all the details just yet, only that it involved the newest incarnation of her match. Dr. Stephen Strange, a neurosurgeon turned sorcerer. His was a complicated story, I'd read everything I could online, and I knew there was a lot I did not know. I just hoped he and Helena would be able to settle down soon and pay us a visit. I wanted so much to see what my dear daughter looked like when her other half was by her side… I'd never had that opportunity, but I knew it must be wonderful.
We took the Maximoff twins with us that day. Taking off for the townhouse rather than the apartment in Manhattan where we usually lived. It was a rather intense first week as we tried, and failed, to reason with the twins. They both kept doing everything they could think of to get out, not realizing that their abilities, amazing as they might be, would never compare to our magic (Loki was known as one of the two best sorcerers in Asgard, after all, the other being his mom). We warded the basement and kept them there. My husband would send them food and drink magically, and as the basement was pretty much a self-contained apartment, they had their own full-bathroom and more than enough space so as not to feel trapped.
It took me all of one week to grow tired of them, of the fact that despite all the times and ways my match kept trying, the two refused to give him a chance, to even talk to him without trying to attack. He only ever projected there, an illusion, which meant it was never really dangerous to him; it also meant that the slightest attack would dispel the illusion. I decided enough was enough and a different approach was necessary. So after making sure my husband was distracted (he'd have never allowed what I was planning), I took a deep breath and teleported straight into the basement's sitting room.
I wasn't a fool, I knew what I could expect, dropping in on them like that. I was ready. The moment I felt ground beneath my feet again I dropped to my knees, folding onto myself except for my hands, which I kept over me, to hold the shield that kept Wanda's magic from touching me. I waited almost thirty seconds, when the attacks stopped, then a few more seconds to be sure there was no more coming. Then I waved the shield away and rose.
Shock was coming off of the twins in waves, they hadn't been expecting for me to be real. After the week they'd grown used to my love's illusions and didn't quite know how to react to me. Also, I couldn't help but notice that both of them, but especially Pietro, stared at me as if he were trying to find the secrets to the universe in some part of me.
"Why are we connected to you?" Wanda's question threw me completely for a loop.
"What…?!" I had no idea how to respond to that.
"It's more Pietro than I but I can see the strands, we're connected to you in some way I cannot understand." She insisted, accent heavy in every word.
I was trying to think of something to say to that, though I couldn't even begin to imagine a possible reply, when my husband suddenly appeared beside me.
"By the stars, what were you thinking?!" He demanded, holding my face tenderly between his hands and looking me all over, making sure I was unharmed.
I felt and saw our bond resonate… and I wasn't the only one.
"What is so special about you?!" Wanda demanded shrilly.
"Huh…?" My Maverick seemed as confused by the whole thing as I was.
The next thing took the cake, as the interfon rang briefly, followed by a voice:
"Mama! Papa!" It was Rose.
Again, our bond resonated… though not just ours. I suddenly could see bonds coming from the twins: one the gold-tinted white of a family bond; the other the multi-color almost silver light of a match. The realization was enough to leave me breathless. My husband, being connected to me, could follow my line of thought easily enough. I could sense his recoil the moment realization hit: Rose was a child, not quite six years old yet, and already someone would claim some kind of right to her?!
"Please…" The change in Wanda's tone surprised me completely. "Please don't keep her from us, from my brother. I swear to you we mean no harm. He… we don't want to take her from you, we'd never do that. We just want to be part of her life, to have her be a part of ours…" She took a moment before adding. "Pietro and I… we've seen her in our dreams for years. I think since before she was even born. I think it was only supposed to be him, but we're twins and…" She shrugged almost helplessly. "When we suddenly found ourselves with these powers… she's probably the only reason we didn't go crazy."
A part of me ached for her, for both of them. All they'd suffered, and to think that the only comfort they had was a dream version of Rosie… but I couldn't forget everything else…
"What about Stark?" My husband asked, arching a brow.
"Stark already took our family once, our parents." Wanda stated, like a lioness defending her pack. "We will not let him hurt anyone else that we care about."
Loki was about to reply to that, but I stopped him before he could. He was angry, and anger wouldn't help in that moment.
"I am grateful that you wish to defend our daughter so." I told Wanda kindly. "But you must be careful, least you end up making enemies where there once could have been allies." I paused, giving her a moment or two to process my words before adding, in the softest tone I could: "Tony Stark is not your enemy Wanda, he never has been, and never will be. He created weapons, yes, but he's not the one to fire them. Others did that, others hurt you, and they used Stark weapons to do so, weapons they acquired through illegal means, with the help of one who betrayed Tony Stark. If anything, he understands your plight; he will be willing to help you, if you give him the chance. But not if you label him an enemy, if you try to kill him, before even giving him the chance to explain his side of the story."
"Dai (Mother), Dadro (Father)… they died." Wanda began rambling, almost ranting. "They're dead, that's not an accident. Someone was responsible for that!"
"Indeed..." I agreed, not letting her emotions affect me. "But that someone was not Tony Stark." I cupped one of her cheeks in one palm. "You're such a bright soul Wanda… do not let a desire for revenge, for destruction, taint you so, especially by aiming it at the wrong man. That is not the way things should be..."
Wanda did not reply, but the way she inclined her head into my touch told me that she was at least willing to listen to me. I hoped that would be enough.
xXx
Having someone trying to kill us wasn't much of a surprise, all things considered. Our jobs being what they were, it'd always been a possibility, due to the people who might not like what we did (a guarantee, actually, more than a possibility, on both fronts; after all, we worked for the benefit of mutants, and not everyone liked that). Having the Winter Soldier of all assassins in the world coming after us… that was something else.
It's not like there was ever any chance that he'd kill us. Not really. The nightingale pendant made of mithril and with more protective spells than any other single piece of jewelry in existence (except pieces owned by our daughters) protected me; and then there was Loki's magic, which was also available to me. And the twins…
It hadn't been easy, to convince the Maximoffs to give Tony Stark a chance. Still, from the very beginning they were very 'connected' to us. It was mainly to Rose, but the bonds branched from there. They'd been living with us since, and while both my love and I still had some trouble accepting the fact that Rose would one day marry Pietro, we at least knew we could trust him to do right by her (and she certainly wouldn't be marrying at fourteen!).
Helena and Stephen were in touch too, they were living in New York, in a building he called the Sanctum Sanctorum of our area. We saw them every so often, and visited too, when we had the chance. Rose loved Stephen's apprentice: Sachiko, like a big sister. She also seemed to have a soft spot for a man called Karl Mordo. He was a sorcerer too, though he'd mostly walked away from the Order. Apparently Helena and Stephen had managed to convince him to visit every so often, even if he refused to remain permanently. I'd no idea what the reasons for the tension might be, but trusted Helena and her match could handle it.
I was right, seeing my eldest daughter, my light, with her match, was something precious. I could only hope that happiness I saw and sensed from her, from both of them, would last for a very long time, hopefully for the rest of our lives…
We knew about Hydra. Darcy had dropped by, completely unexpectedly earlier in the year (it was 2018). As we found out there had been a mission to South Italy, things had gone horribly wrong and Skye (their hacker, the youngest member of their team) had come very close at being shot at close range; if her boyfriend, the specialist Grant Ward (who was also training her as an Agent) hadn't arrived right in time to kill the person about to shoot her… things would have gone way worse. Then, as if that hadn't been enough of a shock, the moment they were back on the Bus, Ward had walked himself to the 'cell', handcuffed himself, before announcing he was Hydra. He was on a mission to spy on the team and he turned traitor… out of love for Skye. Because he knew who'd ordered her shot, and he wouldn't follow that man anymore. His own SO…
Darcy'd had no idea what to do, who to trust, so she came to us for help. We'd been present for his interrogation, offering suggestions, but mainly acting as sort-of 'human lie detectors'. Ward never even tried lying, he was completely honest about both turning on Hydra and the reasons for it. He loved Skye, and even though he knew he'd probably lose her over his past, he'd made his choice. In the end the team believed him, and Skye chose to give him a second chance. They'd done their best to keep on the move, make it so Ward wouldn't have to meet with his former SO, so they wouldn't risk him finding out the truth. None of us had any idea what to do about Hydra. Even Ward didn't know more than a few people who were Hydra for sure, and unless we could get a good number of them (preferably all) in one go, doing anything would just alert them.
And then the Winter Soldier was sent after us…
While Loki and I weren't in danger of actually being killed by him, we were strong enough to protect ourselves; and in a worst case scenario, we knew the twins would protect themselves and Rose (Helena and Stephen were keeping their distance for the time being, something made easier by the fact that there was nothing tying them to us in reality). Still that wasn't good enough, not in the long run.
"We've let this go on too long." My Maverick stated as we gathered to make a plan. "We can run around the world over and over, but that won't change his orders."
"If this go on too long, things may, and probably will, escalate." Darcy pointed out. "Same thing if you take him out."
"Hydra needs to go down, and it needs to happen now." Phil decided.
"Get in contact with IronSmith." I told Darcy. "The two of you might be able to hack SHIELD, and Hydra, enough to tell us who exactly we need to take out."
It was unlikely that I'd be a direct part of that, but I wouldn't shy away from it either.
"Ah… I might be able to help too?" Skye offered shyly. "I'm known as BlueCloud..."
Darcy smiled wide at that revelation, and I knew why. She and IronSmith were the best, and third best hackers in the world, BlueCloud was the second.
The three of them got to work on finding the Hydra Agents, while the rest of us did our best to find allies who might help us take out said Hydra Agents; or if not that, at least try and keep those who might find themselves in the middle, safe.
Of course, whoever sent the Winter Soldier after us had to choose that exact moment to run out of patience. The Soldier was sent into the Triskellion in DC, where he killed all but one of the members of the WSC: Alexander Pierce, and almost killed Nick Fury, the Black Widow and Captain America. As if that weren't bad enough, someone somewhere managed to spin things around so my husband and I were hailed as accomplices to him, with Darcy herself cited as a 'person of interest'.
Erynion, Thenidiel and Sif (Thor couldn't visit himself, as he and Jane were being trained by King Odin and Queen Frigg in preparation to take the throne the next time the Allfather went into the Odinsleep) arrived with just enough time for us to explain the situation to them and direct them towards the hackers working, and then my match and I were off. Helena, Stephen, Karl, Sachiko, Wanda, Phil, his team, a few more sorcerers and the rest of the Avengers had committed themselves to either taking out Hydra agents, or helping keep the loyal SHIELD ones safe. (Pietro was staying with Rose at the safe-house, just in case).
It was like the most demented game of tag ever. The kind no child would ever play, since that tagging happened with guns and other assorted weapons, rather than with a hand, and no laughter ever followed.
It all came to a rather abrupt end in Washington DC of all places. I used myself as bait, something Loki didn't like at all, though he understood why it was necessary. It worked. Since by that point it'd become quite obvious that long distance attacks did not work on us, the Winter Soldier came after me on foot. My Maverick intervened in the last moment, and the two engaged in a vicious hand to hand fight. Such wasn't my love's specialty, but even with his obvious status as a super-soldier, Loki had some advantages of his own.
When the Winter Soldier tried to strangle him the balance shifted in an unexpected manner. The burns caused by the extreme cold didn't appear to slow him down much, and they healed fast; but my beloved purposefully held himself back, just enough for the Soldier to forget about it, to use his metal arm to try and choke him, and the Loki released all the power in his Jotun skin again. Even Aesir armor turned brittle and crumbled under such cold, the Soldier's arm did not stand a chance. And that was when the fight took a turn.
In a matter of seconds the Winter Soldier was down, Loki on top of him, an ice blade pressed against the super soldier's bared throat.
"Daro (Stop)!" I called, not even noticing when I slipped into Sindarin (common elvish).
"Nightingale...?" He turned my name into a question.
"I just… there's something wrong with him." I admitted, approaching slowly.
"Of course there's something wrong, he's trying to kill us!" My love snapped, mentally apologizing for his harsh tone just a second later.
"I don't mean that." I told him, waving his wordless apology away as unneeded. "His emotions… they're… muted, or restrained. It's like…"
"Like he's being controlled." He finished for me.
With quick moves he pressed a point in the Soldier's neck, rendering him unconscious, before vanishing the ice blade and pulling back. Almost as an after-thought, he spelled the half-mask off the assassin's face (his glasses had been lost at some point during the fight).
"Oh my..." I breathed out, being the first to process what we were seeing. "This is worse than we thought… much, much worse."
Indeed, for the man we were looking at, was none other than James Buchanan Barnes, better known as Bucky, Captain America's best friend…
xXx
We took Barnes's case, of course we did, that was never in doubt. Not only because we had the experience with such cases, both in taking them, and wining them; but also we were two of a very small number who had no problem telling no, to Steve Rogers. The man was absolutely fixated with Barnes, and not in a good way either, we understood it, at least to a point, but it just wasn't healthy, not for either of them.
"That's enough!" I called, loudly, when I ran out of patience. "Mr. Rogers, I understand how you must be feeling right now..."
"You have no idea..." He interrupted me, desperate. "You have no idea what it's like, to close your eyes believing you're about to die, and then open them to discover you're still alive, but you might as well be dead for everything you've lost. The woman I once wished to marry, my best friend, the men I saw as family, as brothers… they're all gone. Peggy… when I first woke I thought I'd still have her, even with the sickness. They told me she suffered from Alzheimer, that she was always forgetting things… it took me three visits to realize there was something else going on. The things she claimed to remember… they were missing details, and there were other things from that time she should know, yet didn't. It was her granddaughter, Harriet, who told me the truth. The fact that Peggy, my Peggy, died a long time ago, and another took her place. A friend of hers, it was even Peggy's idea, she claimed that the world needed her, someone in her place, paving the way for others. So Marge took her place, only she, Jacob Sholto, whom she married eventually, and Dum Dum, knew the truth at the beginning, and then the secret was carried by their children: Stephanie Sholto, and then Harriet Watson… She cried, you know? Harriet, I mean. When she told me the truth. Said she never wanted to lie to me, but both her mother and grandmother were so insistent about keeping up the lie… Marge doesn't even have Alzheimer, but age is getting to her, and making people believe she has Alzheimer makes it easier for others to trust less what she says, lessens the chance of someone listening too closely, finding out the truth. It was her choice to be committed."
"She's a faithful woman, loyal to your cause, and to your Peggy..." I told him softly.
I waited several seconds for him to mostly calm down before speaking again:
"I cannot imagine what it's like to think you'll die and find yourself alive, no, but it's not that different from the things I do remember." I told him quietly. "Tell me Mr. Rogers… do you believe in reincarnation?"
I could see the question threw him for a loop. He didn't say yes, but he didn't say no either, and I decided to count that as a win.
"I remember a life, centuries ago, when I was born Lalaith Mirloth." I explained to him serenely. "I was born an elf, in a world called Alfheim, one of the Nine Realms, like Asgard, like Midgard, Earth…" I could see disbelief in his eyes, but he didn't interrupt me, or walk away, so I went on. "When I was five years old there was a great tragedy, our Queen died, as well as the Sisterhood of Princesses and the Legion of Lord Protectors. Everyone, slaughtered in the middle of the night by our enemies, ice-warriors from Jotunheim. Our people did not know what to do, we depended on our Queen and Princesses to guide us. You see, among the Ljósálfar, the Light Elves, royalty isn't born, it is chosen; mainly because there are no royal bloodlines, queens and princesses do not marry, much less have children, their lives completely devoted to their duties. My sister, Merilwen, was one of our princesses. I… I don't know what pushed me to do so, but I offered myself to take her place. I hadn't been trained for the position, nor had I been chosen to be one of the Sisterhood, not like Merilwen was, but there was no one left, and after the Bloody Night, no one was in any hurry to offer themselves. So I was accepted. I became Princess of Alfheim."
I made a pause then, taking a deep breath. I could still remember that time, those dark, uncertain days. I'd been so afraid… yet I somehow knew that was the path I needed to take, and even if I never became queen, there was no doubt in me I'd done the right thing; how else would I have ever met my match?
"Nineteen years later, preparations began for me to become Queen." I went on. "It was something that couldn't have happened before, as elves only become off-age at twenty-five. The steps for the coronation took place throughout the year, a number of tests and ceremonies. I was ready for them all… or so I thought. And then I met Loki."
Roger's eyes flew to my love instantly, he just smiled at the blonde super-soldier and wiggled his fingers in a mischievous manner. I'd no way of knowing if the captain believed that my love was a reincarnation too, or if he suspected something else already; no idea either if he'd connected my match with Thor yet… but the time for that would come.
I didn't even know what had pushed me into telling my story to Steve Rogers of all people. It's not like we were friends or anything, but somehow it seemed right. Necessary even.
"In Alfheim, a Queen is married to her realm, sees all of the Ljósálfar as her children; she cannot have a match, for she could never split her attention equally, and that would be unfair to her, her beloved, and the rest of the world." I tried my best to explain the next part. "As for what a match is exactly. It's a mirror, a romantic soulmate. The elves believe that such bonds are a gift from the stars, a blessing. A Queen had never been known to have a match… and then, like I said, I met Loki… I met my match."
"But you were never meant to be a princess." Rogers commented right then.
"Exactly." I smiled at him a bit. "I think we actually forgot that for a while. I'd been a princess for almost twenty years, and we'd been so sure I'd one day be Queen. I think at some point we forgot it wasn't supposed to be like that, that I wasn't the one chosen to bear the crown… I tried to hold back, I really did, tried to remain loyal to Alfheim, to its people… but in the end my love for Loki was too much. I couldn't do it. So on the day of the last test, six weeks before the coronation, I abdicated. The Elders didn't like it, but they couldn't fight it either, they couldn't go against their own teachings. And so they let me go."
"And Loki?" My love asked, turning towards my husband.
"I grew up as Loki Odinson." My husband took over the story. "Brother of Thor, yes, that Thor. Second prince of Asgard."
"Why didn't Thor say something…?" Rogers began asking, confused.
"We'll get to that point, captain." My match assured him. "Now, where was I? Oh yes. I met Princess Lalaith on the day of the first ceremony before her coronation. It still took me a while to fully understand why I felt such a pull to her. Then it took even longer for her to accept me." She ran a finger, softly, up my cheek. "I understood it, of course, she was faithful to her Realm, to her people, I admired that about her. Eventually we just couldn't fight it anymore."
"How did your family take it?" Rogers wanted to know.
"There were some complications on that end." My beloved admitted. "I'm adopted, and I did not know that, back then. My father had had plans for me, for my future, and they were no longer possible with a match in the picture. It was a very tense period in my life, in all our lives, but we fixed things eventually. I married my love and she took the name Tinúviel, the name I used to call her, in honor of her beautiful voice." He smiled at me tenderly. "In a relatively short time we became known across the realms for her voice, my magic and our diplomacy. We made some trips to this world back then too, met some very interesting people, some became dear friends..."
I knew why he broke off, I could remember Sharifa and Kontar too, the pain of their loss had been great on both of us. We'd stopped our trips completely for quite a while, and didn't fully recover until years later, the next big event in our lives.
"We had our daughter." I took over. "The light of our lives… Helena..." My expression turned impish as I added. "I think mythology calls her Hel, or Hela, most of the time."
Rogers opened and closed his mouth, like a fish out of the water. It was hilarious. My love let out a loud guffaw, probably guessing what must be going through the super soldier's mind:
"Yes, she was our only daughter." He stated. "No, I never gave birth to a horse, never had a wolf or a giant serpent as children either. Though all three of them exist. Sleipnir is the Allfather's steed and I helped the mare who birthed him, there was a bit of a magical accident as I did my best to save the foal, which is how he ended with eight legs. Fenrir is… the last of his kind, a being from a distant planet that no longer exists. Though we've found some a bit like him, here on Earth, they call themselves skinwalkers… I hope he'll get the chance to meet them one day. The only real different is the wolf form he takes, it's much bigger than any wolf of this world, like the extinct dire wolves, perhaps. He needs no moon to change, it happens at will, though there's a wildness about him. The first time he wanted to court someone it didn't go well, it's how he ended chained in the deepest part of the Asgardian Forest. Things are better now, he's still pretty much trapped, but he's not alone, he has us, and his match, a Valkyrie called Ylva. I've known him since he was very small, did my best to help him, though it wasn't always enough. I suppose, in some ways he's as good as my son, and Tinúviel's too." He shook his head. "As for Jor… he was my pet once. There was magic involved there as well. You see, he was so small at first, I worried about him being able to survive with other predators in the area, so I used magic to help him. I did not expect for him to grow so fast, or so much. In the end it would have been dangerous for him to stay in the Asgardian sea, both for him, and for the fish; so Mother helped me get him to a bigger ocean, your world has the biggest and deepest ones." Another pause was made, a moment of consideration. "Vali and Narvi have never existed, and most likely never will. I cannot begin to imagine who could ever think such cruel a destiny for two children, my own or anyone else's. As for Sigyn, she's an Aesir lady, and one of Mother's handmaidens, she's a good friend of mine, but that's all she's ever been, all she'll ever be."
Rogers nodded, showing he understood.
"At some point, Amora came into the picture." I went on. "Amora Enchantress, she's known as, and that's exactly what she was. Talented in some areas of magic, though of course not as much as Loki, or the Queen." My love scoffed at the comparison. "She had one obsession, though: Thor. She wanted him, wanted to be his wife, and one day Queen."
"But Thor and Dr. Foster..." Steve began, obviously confused.
"Jane Foster is Thor's match." I clarified. "This was, of course, many centuries ago. But still, Amora cared little for something like that. She wasn't in it for the love, but for the power, economical and political. I became aware of several of her plots and thwarted her. So she turned her anger onto me, believing that if I hadn't been there, she'd have succeeded."
"All things being fair, she probably would have, at least until Mother or I noticed what was going on, then she'd have lost her head for trying to trick the crown prince of Asgard into a marriage." My husband offered in his most deadpan tone.
"That did not stop her anger at me." I went on. "She tried to kill me, several times. The last time… the last time she did more than try." I took a deep breath, forcing myself to go on. "I was pregnant then, with our second child. Amora's plan was very complex, she managed to get Loki, Thor and most of the warriors out of the palace, leaving me vulnerable. Then she came after me. Helena, a young adult at the time, and even that just barely, tried to stop her, but she just couldn't. Amora threw magic at me, a sphere of pure magic, it tore me from the inside out. Helena tried to help me, almost paid with her life. I died, and our unborn baby died with me."
Rogers didn't say a thing, but the look he directed at my love made his question rather obvious.
"I killed Amora." He said with no regret. "With Mother's help we managed to save Helena. Though to this day she still carries the scars of what happened, of what Amora did." He let out a breath. "Nowadays she says they're a badge of honor, a proof of what she was willing to do for her Nana, of how much she loved her… It didn't change the fact that my consort, my match, the love of my existence was dead, and there was nothing I could do about it..."
"It's the other side of the coin, where matches are concerned." I explained quietly. "A true match is bound at soul-level, the death of one half… your soul keeps reaching for something that just isn't there anymore, and that is a pain few can imagine, much less comprehend. If they're lucky, they will die together; either killed by the same thing, whether that be age, sickness or an enemy. If they aren't… then they will go mad, self-destructive, seeking a way to join the one they've lost. Not suicide, killing one's self leaves a stain on the soul that nothing can take away, it damages one's core and… and it may hurt the match as well, which means that it's not something a half of one would ever consider." Unless they were far beyond reason by that point, but there was no point on focusing on that. "No, instead they will seek death in another way."
"You did not die with her." Rogers wasn't asking, he'd managed to read between the lines just enough as he stared straight at my love.
"I did not die with her." My match confirmed. "Couldn't even wish to, driven as I was to avenge her, and then to saving Helena, our dear child… And then it was too late to just let go. I tried provoking others, did all kinds of pranks, getting progressively worse, but Thor and Sif were always around to diffuse the situation. And then I snapped, I destroyed our garden in a rage, also then revealing my true skin, my blue skin, before them, as well as Erynion. I told you I was adopted, truth is I was born the son of Laufey, the barbarian King of Jotunheim, I belong to the very race that slaughtered Alfheim's court, including my match's own sister. I believed that revealing myself in such a way would be enough for Erynion to kill me… he was after all a Lord Protector, the head of Alfheim's guard; and not only that, but he was also the only survivor of the Bloody Night. Why wouldn't he want to kill the monster and avenge his people?"
"Erynion loved me, he would never hurt those I love." I offered before the captain had to ask any questions. "He may be a Lord Protector, but we're also the closest each of us has to a sibling."
I held back from saying the rest, the only circumstance upon which my elven brother would have killed my match: if he'd asked. It was truly as simple as that, Erynion was one of the few who'd seen how much the two of us loved each other, and he understood our bond in ways few could (thanks to Alfheim's tradition, mostly); if Loki had asked for death, Erynion would have done it. Thankfully it hadn't come to that.
"What then?" Rogers wanted to know.
"Father decided I was too far gone." Loki shrugged a bit, probably trying to make it seem like less than it actually was. "He… he didn't want to lose me, I suppose. He thought if I could no longer remember what I'd lost, that would also take away the pain… he was wrong. The hole was still there, only I no longer understood why it even existed, that I was missing anything at all." He shook his head. "Some of my behavior continued, but people no longer understood why I did the things I did, why I acted so erratically. Even Sif and Thor supported me no more, they didn't even know why I'd need their support at all! Erynion remembered, and the rest of the Ljósálfar, but they drew away, they saw Father's actions as an offense against their princess."
"So you had no one." Rogers let out a breath, then turned to look at me. "But you're here now… and you said something about reincarnation?"
"I am here now." I confirmed. "It took us centuries, almost nine of those, to be precise. I was born Silbhé Arianna Kinross Salani. Mama died around the time I turned three and my father… even before he went to live in Europe he was hardly ever around, always working… he died in an accident in the Mediterranean a few years ago. I was raised almost since the death of my mother by Aunt Kathryn, she's the closest thing I remember to a mom. She used to work for SHIELD. You can look her up one of these days, if you want, her name was Kathryn Adler then."
"Was…?" He was trying to be kind while asking if she was dead too.
"She changed her name when going to work for the government." I clarified. "Her legal name is Kathryn Salani, she lives in NY, works at the Metro-General nowadays." I let out a breath. "So, back to the story, and getting to the important bit. I met Loki when I was eleven years old. He's always liked visiting our world, the fast pace and chaos humans live in apparently fascinate him." I rolled my eyes mischievously. "He didn't expect me to be there, or for me to be curious rather than scared. He tried a glamour that would make him look like a child but it didn't work, his eyes looked much too old. We became friends of sorts, he gave me my black-jade Chinese flute, it's my favorite instrument. I used to play for him at every opportunity. Then, when I was fourteen, the cancer came back." I realized then I'd skipped that part. "I was diagnosed with leukemia at four, spent a few years very sick, both because of the cancer and the chemo to treat it; entered remission when I was nine. Then, at fourteen, the leukemia came back… the prognosis wasn't good. I was given no more than three months to live. Even the harshest treatments didn't promise me more than a year. I rejected them anyway, the last thing I wanted was to spend the last weeks of my life in a hospital bed, feeling too sick to even enjoy being alive at all. And then came Loki… he refused to let me die."
"You found a cure for cancer..." The captain gasped in disbelief.
"No." I hurried to correct him, having already been expecting that, it was only a natural mistake to make, after all. I willed the deamarkonian to be visible. "He created this. The deamarkonian, they're a set, and unique. Basically what they do is bind our life-forces, the energy that keeps us alive. With those bound, his energy can help mine fight off the effects of the leukemia. For all intents and purposes I still have cancer, I'm just not as badly affected by it. We've also discovered that the constant stream of his energy is changing me. I'm no longer purely human anymore, then again, perhaps I never was. Our best guess is that I'll eventually become a mix of human, Aesir, Ljósálfar and Jotun." I shrugged, not caring too much for that detail. "That's not the most important part though. No, what's most important is that when the bracelets were activated… something happened. We don't know exactly what. We know I was seconds from death, and there was something in our energies combining when I was already on the very edge, at the end of my tether… it made all spells collapse…"
"The memory spell..." Rogers breathed out in realization.
"The memory spell." I confirmed, smiling at the way he was paying attention. "It technically was only him, of course, but we're bound, and his memories being restored somehow allowed for me to gain mine. And suddenly I was a fourteen-year-old girl with memories of more than a hundred years of living, most of them married to my one true love… there was also some trouble with Loki's ability with ice, which is how we came in contact with the X-Men. We spent a year at the Institute before going off to college."
"Is that why you didn't go back to Asgard?" The blonde asked my husband.
"I wanted to stay with my Nightingale, of course, but that wasn't the only reason, no." Loki answered, but wouldn't explain further.
"And this is where we go back to the beginnings of our conversation, Captain Rogers." I told him kindly. "You claimed we couldn't understand you… but now see things from our point of view. We remember another life… well, for Loki it's the same, but the point remains. We remember a time that no one else in Asgard does. Well, Thor and Sif do now, but that was some kind of freaky accident and we have no idea how to go about replicating it. We are together and we know we belong together. But right now the Allfather would give us a hard time, simply because I was born human. Also, they don't remember having talked to Loki about his heritage, about the plans that were never accomplished. All that is gone, as if it never happened. Asgard hates my match for all the things he did while he mourned me, and they aren't even aware he was mourning anyone, and there's no way to convince them of the truth. Not with the spell in place." I let out a breath. "That's why we haven't gone back to Asgard, none of us. Why even Thor and Sif haven't insisted on it. Going to the Realm Eternal, facing people we consider friends, family… and having them not know me, not understand why we are the way we are..."
I didn't dare finish, but there was no need for me to do so, Rogers understood. Finally, after all the arguments and the tensions, we were on the same page.
xXx
In the aftermath of the mes that was Hydra-in-SHIELD (which, thankfully, very few people outside of the organization itself, and those of us who'd gotten involved, knew about) some changes needed to be made. The WSC was gone (because, of course, the only survivor of that particular mess had to be the biggest head of the freaking snake!), and the UN took that as an opportunity to step in, putting their own chosen into a new Council that would oversee SHIELD. It was allowed with a few conditions, mainly the use of advisers depending the circumstances: Phil Coulson, Maria Hill and Melinda May (the three who'd once been an Elite team, the second such generation; with the first one having been: Nick Fury, Shannon Carter and Kathryn Adler) were called on regarding SHIELD issues; while each group of gifted had chosen their own representative.
Then there was us, because of course we had to end up involved in some capacity, we were too well-known not to. We never stopped doing our job, but the UN helped give more backing to our actions and choices, and it allowed us to reach people we never could have before. It also allowed the UN to gain the trust of the gifted, who'd have never trusted a government body formed almost entirely by baseline humans (there were gifted among their number, of course, but none too well-known or obvious about their differences).
It was sometime in 2020 when Rose first dreamt of brass-colored creatures wearing primitive armor, with circlets around their heads, carrying energy lances and guns. She was eight years old. It didn't seem that important at first. Rose had many dreams, and not all were prophetic. Also, dreaming about aliens (however ugly they might be) did not seem as especially important. And then other precogs began having the same dreams…
It still took us close to a year to understand what they all meant: the aliens were coming, an invasion was coming.
Getting that information out was insane: there were those who did not believe in the word of the precogs (nevermind that Destiny of the mutants, Angel of the inhumans, Doctor Fate of the JSA, Angela Petrelli of the evos, Phoebe Halliwell and several other witches and warlocks among the magical community, and other lesser known groups had all said the same); there were those who did believe, yet were against most of the world finding out the truth, stating it'd bring panic.
Skye ended taking the matters into her own hands: hacking what records she could find about the visions in SHIELD and secretly sending them to all her contacts in the Rising Tide (making sure no one would know the information came from SHIELD… or from her). In a week the whole word was whispering about the alien invasion. Not everyone believed, but at least the warning was out. Only those who really knew Skye suspected her of being behind the revelation, and no one said a word about it.
Even up to that point we still had no idea why the chitauri were traveling towards us, what their interest might be on Earth… and then Rose saw him, the leader of the Chitauri, a being most of us had believed to be nothing more than myth (either that or long dead), the Mad Titan, he-who-courts-death (he-who's-freaking-insane, according to Pietro): Thanos.
"Earth will never be able to stop him." I said what both my match and I knew already.
"We'll need help from Asgard." Darcy guessed.
She didn't expect it to be too hard, Asgard's crown princess was a human, after all. For all Jane had earned her citizenship in Asgard and had gained the same life-span, she was still of human origin, something she made sure everyone knew.
"We'll need help from a lot more than Asgard… a lot more." My husband corrected, looking me straight in the eyes.
I knew what that look meant, it appeared we'd be facing our destinies a lot sooner than expected.
xXx
We took time to make our plans, discussed how we'd handle things, in the end we decided not to go in anything that might connect us to Alfheim, or to Asgard, instead we chose some of the human clothes we favored, to show not what we'd been, but who we were, our present and our future. Even if one day we might move into another realm, Midgard/Earth was important. I chose a long-sleeved black sheer blouse with a thin-strapped top of the same color underneath, dark skinny jeans, black ballerinas on my feet and a black leather jacket on top, auburn hair down. My husband for his part chose a forest-green button up, dark-washed jeans, heavy boots and a black-leather jacket on top, black hair styled back.
Rose and the twins stayed with Aunt Kathryn, promising to raise havoc if we did not return in a week, or less. Helena and Stephen actually promised to go and get us if the worst should happen (though none of us thought it'd get to that point, Thor and Jane were in Asgard, and they were on our side). We did promise to hurry, though.
The visit to Alfheim was easy. Some of the Elders did not like us, but I cared little about that. The Queen shut them down when they became too annoying; according to Erynion, she hadn't been like that, my choice to fight back for my match had apparently inspired her to stand her ground for things she believed in (he'd also said something about me managing to corrupt the Queen without even being in the Realm… my love just laughed at that).
Queen Faelwen listened to everything she had to say and immediately offered her support for the upcoming war, promising to send Erynion and Thenidiel with a legion of warriors and at least a squad of their best spell-weavers when the time came.
We also dropped by Jewel Forest and my old home briefly to check in on my secret caché, and the Aether. It was still there, heavily shielded and there was no sign that anyone so much as suspected the caché existed, much less what was hidden inside. It was something very important, we needed to keep the Stones safe and as far away from Thanos as possible. Stephen had the Time Stone and neither of us would ever think of asking him to surrender it (and we knew that with the Eye of Agamotto answering to him… there was a very high probability we'd need such power during the coming war). The Mind Stone we believed might be in Thanos's hands already, which wasn't good, but no reason to despair just yet either. Power, Rose had seen was in the hands of another group, individuals we'd be coming it contact with eventually. And Soul… the Soul Stone had been lost since the last Universal War, before the last Celestials perished, and while I suspected that at least one of our daughters knew what had become of it, I'd decided not to ask; if they hadn't shared that information, there must be a reason.
The biggest surprise was, perhaps, when a visiting ambassador from Nidavellir asked to see me, only to then inform me that the dwarves were offering their assistance as well. I'd no idea who'd told them about what was coming (for all I knew there were precogs among their people as well), but knowing that a race known across the Realms for being so isolationist (really, Wakanda had nothing on the dwarves of Nidavellir) was willing to go to another realm, to go to war, for me, for things I'd done as Tinúviel… it was a most humbling moment for me.
After three whole days in Alfheim, the time had finally come for us to go on to Asgard. We used the Shadow Paths and soon stepped out into an alleyway half a mile or so from the palace. A pair of tanned cloaks to cover our non-Asgardian clothes and we were on our way. After much consideration we'd decided it was better to approach the Allfather in public, just in case. We did not think he'd turn against us or anything, but much as we both might love him, King Odin had never been too keen on mortals, and we didn't think he'd be exactly happy at the prospect of sending his warriors to fight for them. So we needed as many people to find out the truth straight from us as possible. Also, the fact that Alfheim and Nidavellir had pledged their support to our cause already could only help us.
We waited until business was finished for the day and a spokesman called for whoever might have something urgent to address, that was our signal. As agreed, the two of us walked directly to the middle of the room, in sight of everyone, and without pulling off our cloaks, I began talking (it had to be me, because my love's voice would be recognized immediately, and things needed to be made public before we were interrupted).
"There is a matter of great urgency that we are here to bring to your attention, Allfather." I called in my strongest voice. "We come from Midgard and are here to warn you a storm is coming."
"Why should we care about Midgard and its storms?" Someone from the Council scoffed.
Jane let out a wordless exclamation, but Thor stopped her before she could say anything; a part of me wondered if it was curiosity, regarding our news, or if he somehow knew who we were, and how important it was for us not to be interrupted.
"Because if Midgard falls, you will follow, all the realms will follow." I replied evenly, ignoring any and all attempts to be interrupted. "For the storm is an invasion, and the one leading it is no other than the Mad Titan, Thanos..."
That definitely got a reaction: that of absolute denial. Practically everyone in Asgard was beyond convinced that Thanos was dead, had been dead for millennia… they'd no idea, a creature like zir could not just be killed, not even by the Celestials.
Beside me I could feel my husband tense, like a coil about to spring, I kept a hand on his wrist, conveying as much serenity as I could. If he replied to the denials, the shouts, the insults… it'd never end. We needed to remain detached from all that.
"Who are you, lady?" The Allfather finally. "And what guarantee have we that the information you bring us is the truth?"
"As for guarantees, not much I'm afraid." I admitted with a shrug. "Only the word of every single cognitive in Midgard. I'm sure, Allfather, that you know as well as we do that the Mad Titan is very much alive. As for why he'd even go to Midgard, he wants what he's always wanted: the Infinity Stones, and three of them have popped up in that very realm in the last decade…"
That certainly called everyone's attention. Even those who did not believe that Thanos still lived, believed in the Infinity Stones.
"As for who we are..." The time of truth had come, with a deep breath I pushed back the hood of my cloak and let it fall open; knowing that beside me, Loki was doing the same thing. "I am Silbhé Arianna Kinross Salani-Hvedrungr, the Nightingale, reincarnation of Princess Tinúviel of Alfheim. And besides me stands my match and consort…"
"Loki Odinson, of Asgard." My love finished in his most dramatic tone.
I was expecting insanity, perhaps denial, had even accounted for the possibility of insults; the one thing I never planned for, was what followed: it was as if no one moved, they hardly breathed for a handful of seconds, like someone had pressed pause on the world, and then that moment passed and, almost in unison, everyone present except the royal family (Jane included) dropped on one knee, calling greetings to both Loki and I, calling us by our titles: Prince Loki, Princess Tinúviel, of Alfheim and Asgard…
*What in the void just happened?* My love asked in the privacy of our bond.
I could sense his shock at everything going on, and I felt the same.
*I think…* I swallowed, not quite believing it could be that easy… *I think they… all of them, just remembered.*
*Remembered…?* He repeated, though I could tell he suspected already what I meant.
*Me… you… us…* I couldn't find the right words to define it, but something told me that was enough, at least for the time being.
"Brother!" Thor's enthusiastic approach broke the solemn moment.
I was in shock still, in ways I found myself unable to express, even to my beloved. Was it really that easy? Could we have had everything if we'd just visited Asgard before and introduced ourselves? If I had acknowledged my past?
*Darcy…* My Maverick whispered softly into my mind.
He'd obviously heard enough of my thoughts to guess what I was thinking. His single word also did something else, it served to remind me everything we had, not just Darcy but Phil, his team, Aunt Kathryn, the twins, Charles, Erik, the Institute… so many people we wouldn't know, wouldn't have been able to help and befriend if we hadn't been there. And while I'd no doubt that someone else would have been able to do the things we did (or most of them at least), I was so proud of everything we'd achieved, so happy of the family and friends we had… no, I could never regret the life we'd lived, even if we'd been forced to stay away from other people we'd always loved too.
xXx
Things went much smoother after that. We had no idea what exactly had broken the Allfather's spell of forgetfulness exactly, but we were certainly grateful it'd happened. Lady Frigg refused to let us go for the longest time, and the moment she learned we had a second daughter, and that Helena was married to her match she began making plans to go to Midgard. Surprisingly enough, Odin was the first to notice that there was no surprise coming from three certain someones…
"How long have you known?" He asked straight out.
"Since the Convergence and the battle against Malekith." Thor did not see the point in trying to lie. "All the realms saw them, heard Nightingale sing… but Sif, Jane and I were the only ones who heard the full song, as the Convergence ended before its end. It did something to Sif and I, cleared our minds, we knew who she was, what that meant, for both her and my brother. We also knew why they couldn't come back with us."
No mention was made of just how hard it'd been to convince him at the time, it was unnecessary.
"The Realms know you're Jotun then." Odin commented right then.
"Alfheim knows." My love pointed out. "They did not like it. Were quite… explicit in their disapproval, though my Nightingale showed them the error of their ways, of course. The rest could not have known who I was, exactly, at the time of the Convergence."
"The dwarves know." I pointed out. "That much was made clear when we talked to their ambassador while in Alfheim. Both realms have promised their support for the coming war with Thanos and the Chitauri."
"I will not hide, Father." Loki decided to be perfectly clear. "I may not intend to announce my heritage, or the bloodline I carry, but if I need the ice I will not hide it, nor the color of my skin. Asgard will react however they wish, I'm through concealing a part of me because it might make things harder for some people."
I couldn't stop smiling, knowing I had played a part (however big or small) in him feeling that way. In him knowing he didn't need to be angry, or afraid or anything else negative about the color of his skin, about his power, about anything at all.
xXx
We were never asked about the Infinity Stones that had 'popped up' on Earth, either they didn't really expect us to know where they were, didn't think we'd tell them, or no one had really paid attention to that part. We didn't mention it either, though at one point Loki did make sure the Tesseract was still where he'd put it, safe. It was all we could do. Also, the less people that knew where the Stones where, and who had access to them, the better. We knew Stephen had a plan, a contingency in case worse came to worst, to make sure the Time Stone would never fall into Thanos's hands; we never asked.
We returned to Earth with enough time that no one had any reason to worry. Helena was satisfied with how things had gone, and Rose was very eager about getting to know her uncle, aunt and grandparents. She was oddly unafraid, despite everything going on, and the fact that, with her being one of the precogs, we couldn't hide the seriousness of the situation from her. At first I was unsure if it was bravery, naivete, or something else entirely, the answer surprised me:
"I know things will go well, you will win Mama." She told me with absolute confidence.
"Did you see that, darling?" I couldn't help but ask her.
"No Mama, but with you and Papa doing everything you are, everything you can, I know we have to win." She said simply.
Her level of trust, of faith in us… it floored me. An opinion Loki shared when I passed the little exchange through our bond, to him.
"Well, you heard the little princess." He said after what seemed like forever. "We have to win, there's simply no other option."
He was right, of course he was. Even if I hadn't the slightest idea of how we would do that, how we would win, considering the number of enemies coming our way; I did believe it could be done (I had to, couldn't let my little girl down…).
What I found curious was the way everyone else reacted when they heard about that conversation with Rose. Their fear did not disappear, but their doubt somehow did. It was as if somehow Rose believing in them pushed them to believe in themselves.
"Our little goddess of faith..." My match murmured softly after I told him that.
And he was right. That's exactly what Rose was: Goddess of Faith… She was barely ten years old and yet… at times it was as if she'd lived for ages. There was a light in her eyes, like she was older than her looks, much like myself, like Helena… made me wonder if somehow, during her visions, she might have seen more than just the present, near past and future; perhaps another life? I knew not, and I'd rather not ponder on it; things were complicated enough already.
xXx
When the war came, we were as ready as we could be. Alliances had been made, teams of gifted and human soldiers were stationed across the globe; elves, dwarves, aesir and vanir wherever they might be able to do the most good (or where we expected the battle to be most intense).
The civilians knew what was going on and, to the surprise of many, while children and some of the elderly had been sent to refuges, most of the adults had offered to help in some way: either as a last line of defense, assisting in hospitals, taking care of those who couldn't fight, manning communications, cooking for those fighting… there were many jobs, and enough people to cover them. It was truly amazing what could be achieved with everyone working together.
The best part was seeing other races' reactions to it all. For the longest time Midgard had been seen like a primitive realm, so far behind any of the others, simply because humans had short lives… and because ours was the only world not unified in one way or another (even Vanaheim, where its people lived in pretty much self-contained tribes, there was a sort-of realm-wide government that acted when needed) they'd no idea how fast our world had progressed. It was a kind of evolution that did not exist in any other realm. And our gifted…
By the time Loki and I got back Fury already knew what was going on. Aunt Kathryn decided to take matters into her own hands and tell him the truth. He did not like it, not at all, but at least he didn't get on our case. In fact, I was quite convinced there was something between them, or had been at some point, as far as I was concerned Fury gave up too easily, considering how he could be, most of the time.
And then it happened. All precogs woke up one morning after having the same dream/vision: Thanos and his army had just entered the Solar System.
It was almost like a countdown to doomsday or something. It would take them a week, perhaps two (if they stopped to establish some kind of base in another planet or even the moon) to reach Earth. We were all on edge. And then a ship appeared, seemingly out of nowhere; though, as we later learned, it'd actually reached us through one of the Hidden Paths, from Svartalfheim. The ones on board weren't dark-elves though, no they were a rather mismatched group from distant planets. They called themselves the 'Guardians of the Galaxy'… and they had two stones with them: Mind and Power.
A moment came when the chitauri got close enough to Earth, people with telescopes good enough began being able to see them. There was some panic, particularly among those who'd refused to believe our word regarding the upcoming war up until that point; but for the most part things were alright. Battle was coming, and we were as ready as we could be, to deal with it.
Still, that did not make it easy to try and sleep the day before it all began. For most of us it was actually next to impossible. We were in Central Park, which was expected to become a battlefield the following day, and while tents had been set so we could rest beforehand, there was too much tension for me to even think about trying to sleep. I wasn't actually sure when it was I decided to sing, and yet I wasn't the only one who did. We were all communicated as best as possible and thus, while we weren't in the same place; that didn't stop us. Helena was in Kamar-Taj with Stephen and some of his best sorcerers; the rest equally split between the three Sanctums. Rose was in Avengers Tower, as young as she might be, and as much as we hated having her so close to danger, she was powerful enough to protect herself, and her Sight would be much too useful to even try and send her away (not that I think she'd have gone, had we tried). So, soon enough the three of us were singing and surprisingly (or not, all things considered), people (human or not) everywhere were stopping whatever they were doing to listen to us, to our voices, to our song:
"Fear not this night
You will not go astray
Though shadows fall
Still the stars find their way"
"Awaken from a quiet sleep
Hear the whispering of the wind
Awaken as the silence grows
In a solitude of the night"
"Darkness spreads through all the land
And your weary eyes open silently
Sunsets have forsaken all
The most far off horizons"
"Nightmares come when shadows grow
Eyes close and heartbeats slow"
"Fear not this night
You will not go astray
Though shadows fall
Still the stars find their way"
"And you can always be strong
Lift your voice with the first light of dawn!"
"Dawn's just a heartbeat away
Hope's just a sunrise away"
I had no idea where the song was even coming from, and doubted either Helena or Rose knew, and yet the fact that all three of us were managing to sing the same melody in perfect sync, without having practiced it beforehand… I couldn't help but take it as a sign, not just of the bond the three of us so obviously shared, but of the fact that there was something special in the song, something that needed to be shared, not just between us, but with everyone in our alliance. And so we did exactly that, we shared the song, our voices and the magic woven through it all.
"Distant sounds of melodies
Calling through the night to your heart
Auroras, mists, and echoes dance
In the solitude of our life"
"Pleadings silent arias
Gently grieving in captive misery
Darkness sings a forlorn song
Yet our hope can still rise up"
"Nightmares come when shadows grow
Lift your voice, lift your heart"
"Fear not this night
You will not go astray
Though shadows fall
Still the stars find their way"
"And though the night sky's filled with blackness
Fear not, press on, call out and take my hand!"
I did not know it at the time (none of us did) but it wasn't just those with us in Central Park, the Tower and Kamar-Taj listening to the song, everyone in the Alliance was listening in; and as always happened when me/us and singing was involved, our song soon was a lot more than just words being thrown to the wind. It was something I found curious: the spoken word could be so easily lost in the wind, turned to nothing, yet a song… there was something in the song that allowed it to endure, no matter the distance, the time, or how many ears heard it. It was its own form of magic, and we, all three of us, were both creators and subjects of it at the same time.
"Fear not this night
You will not go astray
Though shadows fall
(Still the stars find their way)"
"Fear not this night
You will not go astray
Though shadows fall
(Still the stars find their way)"
"And you can always be strong
Lift your voice with the first light of dawn"
"Dawn's just a heartbeat away
Hope's just a sunrise away"
I remembered Rose's words, and the conversation Loki and I'd had afterwards; we had to win, there was simply no other option. There had been such faith in those words, in our daughter that day. That faith had never vanished, no matter the time that passed, or how close to actual war we got. And somehow… somehow that song managed to do something most would have believed impossible: it passed that faith on to everyone who listened to it.
Somewhere a bell tolled, marking the hour (a different one for most of us). High in the skies, dark ships appeared. War had begun…
So... I think this is actually the closest I've ever gotten to the Infinity War... originally I had the whole thing in my head being more in line with the first Chitauri Invasion, but then it turned like this... it's why I decided to end it where I did, rather than risk giving anything away.
Also, this is very different from how I've been doing things in recent AUs, with CW things and all that. I decided I'd rather go back to the way I prefer the Avengers to be, especially Rogers. Also, for those who might have wondered how things go with the StevePeggy pairing in a universe where Loki and Nightingale weren't there to marry them during the war... and why exactly Steve ends up with Sharon in those universes, here you have it. Hope you liked it!
Next AU is coming in three weeks, it's called "Brethil", it'll be a One-Shot and, starrose, my friend, that one's definitely for you! (If any of you can find out what the title means you'll get an idea of what it is about... See ya in three weeks!