Coterie

By: Shadow Chaser

Disclaimer:

All Marvel characters do not belong to me, they belong to Marvel Entertainment and Marvel Comics. Liberties were taken with the Norse myths.

Story:

Chapter 8

It was about an hour later and Thor could not keep the small satisfied smile off of his face. His friends, the Warriors Three and Lady Sif, openly gaped at the bridge of the Helicarrier from where they sat. Their eyes were wide as they took in the array of technology the humans had been able to produce since the days of yore. He felt a little proud of what he had accomplished in terms of relations between Asgard and Midgard and was glad that his friends were finally sharing in some of that labor. Though considering the circumstances and the possibility that Loki was really guilty of freeing Hel, Jormungandr, and Fenrir, his smile was not as boisterous as he knew he could have been.

There had been a bit of an awkwardness in part of his friends as they stood at the edges of the Bifrost landing site, wondering if they should return back to Asgard with news that Loki would not leave until he had finished his task, or stay. He had encouraged them to attend Fury's briefing and had assured the Director of SHIELD that his friends would mean no harm. There was also the fact that Thor knew that whatever knowledge Fury wanted regarding Hel, Fenrir, and the rest of the coterie his friends would at least provide a different point of view. Or at least one that was not clouded by his familial relationship to Loki.

He was not blind nor ignorant to what the other Avengers and even Fury thought of his attempts to reconcile and defend Loki. It was that he knew that they did not understand the familial love and bond that he shared with him – or at least he tried to openly show to Loki who constantly rejected it. He had been hurt more than once regarding Loki's rejections, but that was something for him to deal with. He would not budge – Loki needed to know that he would always be there for his brother, no matter what happened. That he would not be abandoned again nor think of himself as being abandoned with no support. His attempts to help fight Thanos with him had ended poorly and had resulted in his brother's brief brush with death. No, he would not make that same mistake again.

The Allfather was reticent in showing affection of any kind; and even his words were quiet and understated. The Allmother, their mother, had her own calming ways, but she could not be a constant present for Loki with her own affairs to run in the domestic court. So it had fallen, no, Thor had taken it upon himself to make sure that Loki knew he was well loved by his family, if only by himself if need be.

But this...the possibility that his brother had freed members of his coterie – it hurt Thor. He only vaguely remembered the reason why, but he remembered long ago that there had been a childish eagerness, a bright spark of light that had been within his brother as he had embraced his coterie and had ran with them. Then...something happened to extinguished, or at least bury that light so deep within him that it was all but smothered.

Perhaps not completely as he wondered if the flickering candled of that light, the eagerness and happiness that had defined his brother during the time of the coterie had somehow lit into existence once more. But instead of flamed by an innocent intention, it was flamed now by Loki's twisted sense of hurt, pain, and righteousness. That he would now use the coterie for nefarious purposes – a slight that he felt Asgard, and maybe even the Allfather, owed him after Thanos, after his fall from the Bifrost into the abyss and shadows of Yggdrasil. Perhaps it was now fueled by a sense of recompense of sorts, much like how he had wanted to take the Earth as his own a little over a year ago.

This possibility disturbed Thor and he hoped it was not true – that Loki was true to his intention to help the humans in creating a cure for Jormungandr's poison; that he did not free Hel nor Fenrir from their eternal imprisonments.

"Thor," Fury's voice directed at him pulled him out of his dark thoughts as he looked up to see the dark-skinned man rounding the triangular table that was to the side of the bridge of the Helicarrier. "I want everything you know about Loki's coterie. Everything. Jormungandr's attacked Earth and now Hel's here which means she's probably going to cause trouble and the fact that Fenrir is somewhere loose and we don't know where also means that Earth will probably be under attack. That means you don't hold back on any information. You don't color it with your opinion or your feelings regarding Loki. This is Earth that's under attack, not Asgard."

"I...understand," Thor could see Sif and Faendral bristling under what they consider slights, but held up his hand a little to calm them down. "Perhaps my friends would be able to provide more information should you deem mine unsatisfactory."

Fury nodded curtly, understanding that even with his order, Thor could not, would not keep his opinion regarding Loki and the coterie at a bare minimum. He could, however, protect at least a majority of the royal secrets, since the coterie was not considered part of it – but it still was a hushed subject that even he knew was not spoken by the Court under Odin's explicit orders. That was where his friends would at least provide some of the other information considering that even he did not know due to the circumstances during that time.

"So," Stark was now dressed in his comfortable attire of a long-sleeved shirt and pants while Barton was wearing a less armored version of his uniform as they sat around the table, "who the heck is Lady Hel and how the hell was she able to do all of that crap." His lips twisted a little, "No pun intended."

The only one of the Avengers who had not been incapacitated by Jormungandr's poison who was not at the briefing was Dr. Banner. But Thor suspected he was listening in as he worked with Loki in the labs once more.

"She is the current ruler of Helheim, the realm of the dead. Those glorified in death go to Valhalla while those who are not more often than not go to Helheim," Thor explained and saw the mortals' eyes stare at him in confusion.

"She's dead?"

"She is the ruler of the dead," Thor clarified, "and all who die in the realms usually go to her realm to pass the time there before they are deemed to be released from her gaze."

"The hell-the heck does that mean?" Stark corrected himself.

"I do not know," Thor shook his head, "even I do not know the workings of her realm and the Allfather has not given me such knowledge. I believe if I were to perish not in battle, but of old age, then I would either find myself in her realm or in Valhalla."

"That's...trippy..." Barton said softly as he looked away and Thor stared at him for a moment, wondering if the archer was religious. He knew of the main monotheistic religion amongst the mortals, the worship of a one God that would bring them to a place called Heaven where eternal peace reigned or damn them to Hell when they died. Those that went to the place called Hell would suffer eternal damnation and Thor wondered if Barton was trying to separate the two or was having a crisis of faith.

He himself did not want to get into the intricacies of religion and the like, but explaining about Lady Hel was sure to be indelicate in the worst way.

"Her punishment, as was told by the Allfather to me after the coterie had been broken, was to never leave her realm without the Allfather's explicit permission and to never use her magicks to cloak herself from Heimdall's gaze. He would be able to see her at all times to ensure her compliance," he quickly continued, seeing that talking about Helheim was going to make the humans more uncomfortable.

"And I suppose Heimdall can't see her anymore?" Stark asked his voice dry, but his expression mirthless.

"To my knowledge yes. Heimdall would have immediately transported her via Bifrost in the open area of Trafalgar Square if he was able to see her," the fact that she walked so openly fueled a lot of Thor's doubts that his brother had a hand in her escape. His brother had boasted that he was able to cloak himself in the shadows of Heimdall's gaze and even had given that spell or magicks to Thanos to cloak the Chitauri in their attacks around the realms. He suspected it would be mere child's play for him to cloak the Lady of the Realm of the Dead herself.

The fact that she had used the portal into shadows of Yggdrasil to arrive in London had further his suspicions. After all, she had been explicitly forbidden to use such magicks, and had clearly broken that command – but had she learned many of those spells from Loki? His brother had been in and out of the Courts and was skilled at illusions – perhaps he could have slipped in and out of the shadows to prepare for her eventual escape.

He shook his head inwardly. He wanted to believe the best in Loki, but he also knew that his brother loved the subtle magicks and plans that came to fruition...ironically much like the Allfather if he really wanted to believe that. Everything his brother did had a purpose.

"Are those the only three of the coterie or can we expect more to start popping up?" Fury asked, his fingers forming a steeple on top of the table.

"No," Thor shook his head as he crossed his fingers together and set his elbows on the table, "to the best of my knowledge there had been four others when Loki presented them to the Courts. Vali, Narfi, Angrboda, and Sigyn."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa...that's like almost everyone in the Norse myths who's associated really closely with Loki," Barton's expression was tense and uneasy as he leaned forward in his seat. "Thor, those names...Cap gave me a copy of the book that he read as a kid about the Norse myths, and those names...they're either labeled as Loki's kids or are married to him."

"They...were close," Thor mused reluctantly as he thought back to what he knew about the coterie and the days before. He had never considered it, but upon reflection, he had been jealous that there were others that Loki could conceivably be friends with. The coterie had shown that and Thor wondered if it had been a remnant of childish whim that he had determined to hate them and ultimately...undermine them with his jealous notions. He grimaced as he thought back to his actions then...he had been selfish, jealous that Loki had found companions and had looked like he had truly enjoyed their company.

"Perhaps..." he rubbed his chin and stared at his lifelong companions with a long look, making all four of them stare back in wonderment. "Perhaps they are comparable to my friends here..."

"Thor-"

"Wait a minute, Thor, we are your blood companions, they used magicks-"

It was Sif who held up her hand silencing both Volstagg and Faendral from defending his honor and whatever protests that they were to come up with. She had a crooked smile on her face as she nodded once, "Thor is right. Loki's coterie was much like his family; the first one outside of the royal companions and friends that we had been. Though considering the circumstances, our friendship was more based with Thor than with Loki himself."

"Sif..." Thor protested, but Sif held up her hand again and he fell silent. Her words were always blunt and Thor knew that she would speak the unvarnished truth if allowed. She was not eloquent with words like Loki, but in the thousand of years of playmates with the two princes of the House of Odin, she had picked up on some of the wordplay. Especially considering the minor, unspoken rivalry she had with Loki for his attention. And he knew that he relied upon Sif and Loki the most when it came to their adventures in the realms.

"It would be prudent by then to know that Loki had started to dabble in his magicks, first taught by Queen Frigga as she is the patron of the healing arts and perhaps some minor spells and basic illusions. The Queen herself was of Vanir blood, so the Court knew of her spellcasting ways, even though prudence demanded nothing overt. But we did not know of Loki's inheritance of that magicks and thought it was just the mixing of blood between the Allfather and Allmother.

"Thor had shown no inclination of magicks even as he was taught by the Healers as all warriors were to do to manipulate healing stones and grasp the inherent magicks imbued within our weapons," Sif said quietly.

"I thought Loki was adopted?" Stark blurted out, hand half-raised into the air.

"The knowledge of Loki's true parentage was not discovered until very recently," Thor interjected with a grimace. He could see the other mortals shift in their seats at the implication of that statement, but did not blame them. Perhaps it was what sent Loki over the edge, to destroy Jotunheim with the Bifrost, to plan and thwart King Laufey's assassination attempt on the Allfather during his Odinsleep. There were so many variables, that even Thor did not know and he knew that to demand an explanation from his brother was pointless. Thanos could be blamed for twisting Loki's thoughts, but truth be told, Thor did not know how twisted his brother's thoughts were at this time...the only thing he was grateful for was that Loki was not in Thanos' grasp.

"Loki disappeared for a time, then when he returned, it was to present his companions to the Court," Sif continued, "and we thought them unnatural. The sheer amount of power and magicks each held, each specializing in their own unique way – this was not the way of Asgard, not the way of battle. We considered them to be beneath us."

"Just because they're different-"

Sif stared at Stark with a plain look, "Yes. Because they wielded something that we did not understand and still do not to this day. We were wary of them. Even the Vanir, our sister race to whom we shared battlemages with did not understand them. But no one dared contradict the second Prince in the Courts. So there were whispers."

Stark's brow crinkled as if he wanted to say something, but then seemingly shook his head, his internal thoughts warring within him. Thor watched a myriad of emotions flit across the man of iron's face, almost too fast for him to figure out what he was thinking, but he briefly wondered if Stark had those same words thrown at him like what had been whispered in the Courts after Loki's presentation of his coterie.

"You bullied them," Barton's voice was surprisingly flat and Thor saw that the archer looked angry, but not at them, at something else.

"I would say we did not-"

"We did, Faendral," Sif interrupted him, "we were not kind to them as Loki had hoped we would be back then. You, Volstagg, and even you Thor, did not see the hurt we had inflicted-"

"Actually...I did," Faendral stared at the table, his face twisted into a grimace, "I...I saw it one day, but chose to ignore it. Probably...stupid of me because we could have stopped it then and there if we knew what was going to happen..."

"We could not have known what would have happened," Hogun spoke up, his voice raspy, but firm and Thor glanced at him to see him shake his head and the others reluctantly nod.

"My next words are of speculation, but we believe that Loki and his coterie went back into whatever shadows they had came from and plotted to take over Asgard," Sif continued her narrative and Thor absently nodded, "when they re-emerged, we thought them changed, subdued, understanding of our ways and that their magicks were unnatural. We believed that Loki had told his companions the intricacies of the Court, that change would come slowly. Then came the marauding attacks all over the realms. The five of us were sent to deal with the various bands-"

"Then Thor fell ill," Faendral interjected, "and we along with the two others of Loki's companions, Jormungandr and Fenrir, were sent to find a cure for this illness."

"It was similar to the poison gas grenades used by HYDRA," Thor spoke up, looking at his friends the Avengers, "it is the reason why I recognized the magicks used when I held the grenade in my hands."

"Somewhere in our expedition, Loki disappeared and that was when Jormungandr and Fenrir attacked us. We eventually subdued them and brought them back to Asgard," Sif did not meet his gaze as he listened intently to her narrative. She was a good storyteller, especially during feasts, but to see her speak now, summarizing what should have been a grandiose battle spoken at the tables, told him of the seriousness of the situation.

"My brother disappeared?" he asked and Sif nodded, still avoiding his gaze.

"Yes. To this day we do not know and you yourself have heard the rumors, but when we arrived back on Asgard with Jormungandr and Fenrir, we learned that we had returned to a sentencing for crimes of the highest treason. Lady Hel was the first, Fenrir the second and Jormungandr the last. Only Loki, Odin Allfather and Frigga Allmother were allowed in the throne room, but we did hear a lot of shouting. Even the House Guards were sworn to silence regarding what had happened in there."

"So what happened to the others?" Fury asked.

"The Allfather announced during the feast that the surviving traitors had been dealt with and there would be no songs sung of the battles fought or anymore mention of the coterie."

"Surviving traitors..." Stark whispered mostly to himself, "...holy shit..."

"My brother-"

"Was not at the subsequent feasts," Sif shook her head before giving him a wan smile, "we found him by your bedside in the Healing Halls just...sitting there, waiting."

"Are you sure that Vali, Narfi, Angrboda, and Sigyn are really dead?" Fury asked, pinning the five of them with a steely-eyed look.

Thor saw Sif shift in her seat, but the others nodded their assent. "Sif?" he prompted, wondering why she was so hesitant.

"I...overheard this and still do not quite believe it to this day," Thor saw her compose herself as calmly as she could, "and it has never been repeated, not even to the Allfather...but the four others were killed by Loki."

Thor blinked, a little shocked and surprised as he digested this new information. He had never heard of that rumor spread about the Courts, not even whispered amongst the House Guards, even if they had been sworn to silence. He himself had wheedled some of the secrets they knew out of the Guards, most of the time citing that he was to be their future King and he needed to know the information. But this one... Thor realized that there was only one who would say such a thing and it was Loki himself...and for Sif to know that...

He knew of the very brief time Sif and his brother had been involved, but many had thought it was just petty spats that amounted to an unusual form of flirting. His brother would never readily give up his own secrets in front of others so the only way Sif would have known that particular secret was if there had been an intimate relationship. He blinked again as that thought sunk in and saw Sif look away from him, seemingly determined to wash all thoughts of having a previous relationship with Loki from her mind.

Loki had been very secretive since the days of the coterie, so to allow himself to tell Sif something like that and not anyone else...there had to be a grain of truth – even if he was known as the Silvertongue and Liesmith.

But to hear that his brother had seemingly killed four of his companions...to betray his friends like that – he did not understand why. If the coterie was comparable to his friendship with the Warriors Three and Lady Sif, Thor could never fathom betraying his friends like that. Not after all that they had been through. His friends had even went against the Allfather's explicit orders, against Loki's orders during his regency, to save him. But for Loki to do it...Thor did not know what to think. The Loki he knew back then versus what he knew now...?

"Do you think Loki deliberately killed them, sent them to Helheim or wherever, and even the ones that were imprisoned, do you think that he did it to release them at a later time?" Fury asked slowly.

"My heart tells me no..." Thor said softly, wanting to believe his brother, but the possibility still existed. There was no chance that the coterie had been sent to the honored halls of Valhalla, not for what they had done. But to Helheim, to where Lady Hel ruled and oversaw the dead...the possibility existed. The others had said that he had disappeared during the quest to find the cure, leaving them to fend for themselves against Jormungandr and Fenrir. Sif even said that supposedly Loki had killed the four others and that the rest were imprisoned. It would be like Loki to have such a scheme for the long run, to hopefully one day change the opinions of those at Court, to present to them his coterie once more.

So then why was his brother furiously adamant about making the cure? It made no sense. Was it a ploy to deflect suspicion away from him, to have them see that he had nothing to do with it? Was that the truth or was it like many of Loki's illusions, wanting them to see what he wanted them to see?

"But..." Fury prompted and Thor shook his head.

"...my heart tells me no..." he repeated himself quietly, "he is my brother..." He pushed his chair back as he stood up gripping Mjolnir. It was oddly light in his hand instead of its usual metallic heaviness. "I am...sorry, my friends..." He grimaced and nodded mostly to himself as he left the bridge, headed towards the temporary quarters he had been given for some solitude.

He wanted to believe in his brother, but at the same time knew that if all of this was a ploy; a feint by him for some mad scheme to show the Allfather the power of his coterie, then it would break his heart. But at the same time, he also knew that if it came to that, this time, this time, he would stop the coterie's schemes before his brother could be hurt from them again.

The whirling hum of a centrifuge spinning away was the only sound in the lab for the last twenty minutes or so as Loki studied a drop of the venom that had been in the bottle Hel had given Dr. Banner. About half an hour ago, he had finally opened the bottle after hastily constructing the strongest barrier he could create using a spare modular he had with him in case the bottle was a trap.

But that had proven unnecessary as it had been the venom of a sea serpent, an unclassified one by mortal standards. Banner had identified it as much based on the samples he had scattered over his workstation, but Loki did not quite care about that. The doctor had then mumbled about something regarding separating things within the venom that he had not paid attention to, taking a drop for himself to study in the silvalume.

"Loki, mind if I ask you a question?" Banner suddenly asked and he only arched an eyebrow at the rhetoricalness of what was said.

"Lady Hel...she was a part of your coterie, right?" Banner sounded hesitant, but Loki did not look up from where he pulled at the skeins and weaves. It was similar to the bonding agent used in the blood samples, but not as dense. Still, he did not want to risk any untoward explosions or the like. They were dealing with the venom itself, not the infected blood.

"Why would she do something like this? I mean, why give us the venom from Jormungandr if she's working with him?"

"Not...necessarily," he murmured as he studied another skein before his fingers twitched to switch to a different section.

"Huh?"

Loki released the skeins and glanced up at his screen, noting the small window where there was an overhead view of the briefing being conducted by Fury, the remaining Avengers, and the Warriors Three and Lady Sif. He was surprised that the four stayed, having hoped that they return to Asgard. But he supposed Thor would always take the opportunity to make sure his friends were well acquainted with his precious mortals on Midgard. A quick glance at Banner told him that he was watching the briefing, but his earpiece was not in. Loki did not know what to quite make of it. He would have thought that the scientist would had liked to listen into the tale that Thor and the others were going to spin about his coterie, but the fact that Banner did not have his earpiece in told another story.

And he realized that Banner was still staring at him with an expectant look, waiting for an answer to his previous question. Perhaps there was something to be said about the mortal who held no judgment in his eyes, at least none that he could see for the moment; the mortal who did not exactly sympathize with him, but had been a little less hostile – he dared not say friendlier – than the others aboard the Helicarrier.

There had to be something gained from this, but Loki did not know what. He shook his head inwardly, pushing that thought aside for the moment. Whatever there was to be gained, it at least gave him the chance to answer questions about his coterie on his own terms instead of the farce that Thor and the others were surely to spin to the others.

"Are you asking me if I had freed them?" he asked lightly, but kept his gaze sharp on Banner.

"That's part of it, but I just want to know about Hel. She was literally able to suppress the Other Guy...and the only other person-being, that I know could do that is Thanos. He did it on the Helicarrier during the attack, but it hurt. She...when she did it...it...felt weird."

Loki's lips twitched in a slight smile at Banner's attempt to try to piece what he had felt with that powerful brush of magicks from Hel. "It does not surprise me that she knew how to use that spell. The beast within you is a force of its own and by my reckoning, has saved you more than once from the embrace of death has it not?"

"...Yes..." the corners of Banner's eyes crinkled in pain at what was probably memories of shame.

"The Lady Hel is the ruler of Helheim, the realm of the dead. Her magicks skew towards the shadows of death and those amongst her realm."

"That certainly explains why her clothes sounds like the howling of the damned and that her portals whisper something god-awful," Banner muttered.

"The shadows in between Yggdrasil are entwined with the magicks that she uses," Loki shrugged, "whereas it is not death magick, it is close enough that it is...a place where one crosses oneself." He suppressed a shudder of fear that shot through him at the mention of the abyss and the shadows in between that he had fallen into when the Bifrost had been broken. Even with Thanos trapped, it had been...unpleasant to say the least to have experienced the true shadows with no anchor, no destination in mind, nothing that prevented him from grabbing a metaphoric hand-hold to hold himself whenever he traveled the shadows freely.

"You learned it from her?" Banner asked, "is she the Death that Thanos courts?"

Loki blinked and came back to himself before shaking his head, "No. Her mother is Death itself."

Banner fell silent at that for a long moment before blinking several times and snorted lightly, "Well...that makes more sense. I mean, Death in the literal sense, has a daughter who's the guardian and queen of the realm of the dead. Totally makes sense...wait a minute..." The scientist stared at him, "You learned to walk the shadows of Yggdrasil from Death herself?!"

Loki smirked, "Amongst other things...who better a teacher than the one who would greet you at the end of your life?"

"Did you...uh, did you die?" Banner shook his head, "Sorry, that's so Tony of me, but I mean...h-how?!"

"Is that truly what you want to know?" Loki asked with an edge of warning his tone. He was willing to indulge Banner's curiosities at the moment, knowing that he was not inclined to repeat any of this, not even to Tony Stark, but also knew that the scientist was edging into something he would never talk about. Not even to Thor, not even to his mother who had been his first teacher.

Banner shook his head again, "No...yes, but at the same time no...it...it must have been tough..."

"Yes...it was," he was willing to say that much as Banner cleared his throat nervously and rubbed the back of his head, taking a quick look at the briefing that was going on. It seemed that Thor was trying to say something and looked like he had swallowed several bligesnipes to do so.

"Your...coterie...they also learned from Death?" Banner asked after a moment's pause.

"After a fashion," he replied, "we were all like-minded and for once, we were lauded for our abilities, not scorned. And we sought to bring acceptance to those who feared us."

"Why? I mean, we embrace science and technology-"

"But only recently, am I correct? Just hundreds of years ago, technology and the sciences were scorned by the ruling mortals of this realm as heresy, punishable by death. Even now, your wars against each other are of ideologies that you do not accept, that whom you perceive as the enemy do not accept."

"Yeah, but we've made strides to accept-"

"How many have died? How many more will die?" Loki asked and saw Banner fall silent as he put the pieces together and looked away from him.

"SHIELD tolerates me for what I am, but I can see that they also fear me. Even if I tell them I have the Other Guy mostly in control, they don't believe it after so many incidents. Hell, Tony's told me that he's refused to tell SHIELD where I am when he knows exactly where I am. He's...the only one who's really accepted me and is willing to protect me. I don't know what I've done to deserve his friendship, but...the others..."

Banner raised his head to look at him again, a slightly bitter sardonic smile on his face, "That's what the coterie tried to do, right?"

"In a similar manner," Loki knew he had been an ideological fool back then; naive and willing to believe what the others had said. He thought he could have used his position as the second Prince of Asgard to force a change, to force acceptance. That the battlemages of Vanir and of the Aesir were cowards for hiding behind their secretive skills, to try to blend in with the warriors that they fought alongside. That the Healers were stupid for pretending that their magicks were not magicks at all. Even the Vanir were cowards for pretending that they were like their sister race the Aesir, denying their magicks and abilities, pretending that they were something that they were not.

"Hel was the only one of us who said it was a fool's wish," he continued softly, "and she was right in the end."

"You failed in changing their minds?"

"There were four others of the coterie," Loki stared at a point beyond Banner's head as he remembered the flash of blades, impact of spells, his own desperate fight- blood spraying in the air along with the heavy thunk of a body falling. There had been more than one body that had fallen in that time... He had stared at the blank eyes, heard the screams, the denials, but he had been so...oddly calm. It was as if he realized what had truly happened then and...knew what he had to do.

"Vali, Narfi, Sigyn, and Angrboda," he said, his voice oddly detached, allowing himself a moment in the memories he had long suppressed, "they are all dead."

"...And the others imprisoned..." Banner finished quietly before taking a deep breath, "Loki...what happened? I mean...if they were your coterie...they were like your family, your close friends. What...happened?"

Loki shook his himself out of his memories as he smiled crookedly, "What always happens, Doctor. Thor."

Author's Notes:

I'd like to take the time to thank all who have favorited, alerted, and reviewed this fic. I also wanted to take the time to thank my beta reader Legume Shadow for giving this a once-over. Hopefully updates will be faster as this is now my sole concentration for the holidays! I also oddly want to write that backstory described in this chapter...huh. Food for thought...