Chapter 4

Breathe.

Inhale . . . exhale . . .

Open your eyes.

Try to relax.

Clint wanted to fight the weightlessness of his body, and the pull of a 4G turn in his marrow, but he resisted. He had to let his body go, relax, and take the G-force in like a drug in his veins. It was unavoidable. The fading blue and white shrouded planet spun away from him in a kaleidoscope of dying light. Soon, she'd be out of sight, hidden like a sapphire gem in the galaxy. Hopefully, it, and all the souls on it, would be far enough away from the center of this war to prevent being dragged into it. Earth, Midgard, Terra . . . whatever her name, he prayed she might be safe. Clint, though, could only hope. The sun, stars, and planets of the Milky Way's Terran edge became a backdrop of brilliant streaks on either side of the receding planet's surface. He watched it for a time, but eventually dragged his eyes away. Others experienced more difficulty adjusting to the zero-grav slingshot around the moon than him.

Thor thoroughly enjoyed the ride on the Earth vessel, and made that readily known by hooting and hollering his approval. Beside him, Tony looked like he wanted to vomit, and . . . he did. Clint scrunched his nose, and leaned his head back to count the imaginary ceiling tiles. He had to not think about being sick, otherwise he might just be the second chain in the vomit-comet reaction. T'Challa came next, leaning out of his restraints to evacuate what remained of that morning's breakfast into the grates on the floor cleverly designed for just this happenstance. A vacuum turned on somewhere in the belly of the ship, and removed what contents appeared in the collection wells.

Clint couldn't think about that either.

The artificial gravity kicked in halfway through the slingshot, and attempted to normalize the now 20Gs of force exerting on the nose of the ship. Clint had a keen sense that his entire insides were being dragged to the left as the maneuver sent them across the axis of the miniature lunar surface, and through the dark side of its gravitational sphere. A cackle of electric current built over the nose of the ship, increasing and expanding since the moment they escaped Earth's magnetic grasp. It was the only thing that powered the portal to come.

"12 seconds before completion."

"Got it." Clint told the artificial navigation. He looked over his instrument panel again, running through his mind what he must press next when the sling shot finished and the floating dock appeared between them and Mars. He waited as the final effects of the artificial gravity jockeyed into place, and he felt a little lighter, though more in control of his movements than before. He hit the forward controls on his chair, leaned into the console, and switched off the auto-nav computer. The ship-board controls released from the forward panel, and clam shelled open into his hands.

"Oh, my friends! That was a greatly enjoyable trip! Shall we try it again?" Thor exclaimed, clapping.

"Maybe the next go-round, Thor. For now, we need to get this ship, and that cargo of officers, to Vanaheim." Clint replied. He pulled the controls back and into a more comfortable grip. "Natasha, engage the portal. Set it for the coordinates I'm patching to you."

"A true need, to be sure, but would it not be more enjoyable to test the mettle of these men once more?" Thor continued to defend. He leaned over and slapped a mighty hand against Tony, who nearly vomited on his lap.

"Tony, I thought you made your money from being thrown around in a tin can at Mach 12." Natasha jabbed, cutting a glance at him through the reflection of the forward view screen.

Tony couldn't reply.

"I think it's a good idea we sent Bruce through the Bifrost."

Clint nodded at her assessment. He draped his hand between them, tapped out a code key sequence into the liquid glass tablet there, and swiped his fingers across it in her direction. The code he typed appeared on the panel in front of her, and Natasha took a moment to scrutinize his work. The code matched the coordinates of Vanaheim in the portal's computer system, and she sent the numbers ahead of them.

Clint liked navigating with the interstellar version of the quinjet more than the blackbird. The latter might have sustained a better atmospheric and gravitational control settings with a considerable space increase, but the tail of that thing swung out like the hind end on a Kardashian. He preferred sportier plane models and helped design the retrofit to the quinjet himself. Meaning, he wrote all of his must-haves on a list, delivered that to the science geeks in the lab, who then sent the plans with Bruce Banner to Vanaheim, who lastly churned out the planes and had them transported back to Earth. The doctor worked tirelessly on the latest battlement plans. Establishing the portal system was an idea Bruce credited to another friend.

The Mars Portal existed in the free space between the moon and the rotating planet for which its name derived. Powered continually by the electromagnetic pulse an entering ship generated by a moon sling-shot, the portal worked on a few select code frequencies. A technology Asgard, or more specifically Loki, lent them. Being one of the sad souls trapped in Galctus' direct line of fire, the Frost Giant offspring of Laufey had agreed to be rather supportive. They knew well enough to take any of his information with heavy grains of salt, but thus far, he had yet to enact an agenda of his ownvthat they knew of.

The Mars Portal had only a few frequencies that operated it, including Xandar, Vanaheim, and Alfheimr. Asgard remained open only via the Bifrost, and Xandar held another two portals which allowed access to a separate four systems each. They hoped by placing the only current Armada in existence, the Nova Core, as the hub of all activity would prove insurance. Should some undue opponent crack the portal's code, the farthest they could travel was Xandar by default. There, the Nova Corps was more than capable of taking care of itself. The most protected of all frequencies was Vanaheim. The site of the infant Armada had to be protected at all costs. Though, in the past nine months on Earth, acquainting to a full eight years in that realm, any mortal sent there had to stay in the orbiting space station of Tierre Elley (the Great Gateway) to prevent from aging too dramatically. The last thing anyone in the galaxy needed, was for Tony Stark to spend the days until Galactus came, on the twelve-days for every one Earth day surface, and end up in his seventies before the battle ever began.

"Thor, buckle back down, we're going through." Clint called back. He readjusted their approach on the portal, shifting their horizon sideways to fit. The small size only allowed a ship the size of the blackbird to enter at its most. The interstellar quinjet was half that, but Clint didn't want to take the chance of clipping a tail strut and spinning out of control.

"Oh, must I? These restraints do oppress me so. I should much rather stand."

"We buck around in this tunnel, and you might go flying through the windshield. That might not bother you any, but it will seriously screw the rest of us. Sit down already."

"I do not intend to cause your death, and therefore I sit." Thor replied, dropping into his chair again.

Clint shared a private smile with Natasha. "Set up the pulse. Turn on the portal. Let's get this boat to Vanaheim. Tony and Panther, better hold onto your butts. This is the hard part."

:(:):(:):

Tony groaned and shifted in his seat, laying the top of his head against the back rest. Not that he preferred traveling by the Bifrost, but anything beat the portals Loki designed and scattered around like playthings. He always anticipated that, one day, they'd end up spilling into the middle of a sun or something, just to make the Frost Giant smile. He never liked anticipating that.

Another part of him knew that he was perfectly safe. After all, he was flying with Clint. The minute the thought pressed into his mind, he immediately hated himself for it. It turned his stomach like spoiled milk, and threatened to drag the bile back up his esophagus. Tony didn't believe in predictions, or fate, or magic. All those things were explainable, scientific. Maybe he couldn't comprehend every reason just yet behind them, but it was science all the same. Thinking that there was no way he could die now, this day, because Clint was sitting there beside him, split his ribs like the thrust of a dagger. He wasn't the only one to consider that notion. Some heroes requested to stay with Barton, as close to him as possible even, because they thought his death date remained fixed. Until then, he was a safe bet.

The things he'd seen under the Sarhorn's guidance made his brain implode. Stars, galaxies, whole systems shifting and moving as if invisible strings connected them. Tunnels of light and dark splashing together like a Jackson Pollack painting as they converged in a vortex. Morning and night separated like a knife split the sky in half. Waters and land rose, mixed, and separated from their skies like a dealer might split a stack of cards.

Then, the mathematical principles floated around him. He plucked whole equations out of the air with his hands, played with them, expanded them, folded them into each other and created something new and unknown. It was like experiencing a power for which he had no name. He watched entire planets crash together, explode on impact, and the probabilities of their destruction ratios thrust outward like starlight in every direction. Most of the things he'd seen have had no descriptions for. He considered, for a long while, to write all of it down. He failed to do it. Some things were better to forget.

He watched Clint pilot them expertly through the portal, and considered all those things he took for granted in the archer. Though they didn't use his skills behind the wheel of a multi-million dollar jet all the time, he was without compare an expert. His ability to navigate had room for improvement, but Natasha, or a good targeting system, took over that part for him. When it came to safely landing a crashing plane with its wings blown out and the entire cabin on fire? Tony trusted no one, not even himself, in comparison to Clint's expertise. There were other things he did too. He'd developed a business mind, whether he cared to admit that or not. He was fantastic with kids, and often preferred the company of them to actual adults. Whereas impatience and cockiness got in his way in the past, a good teacher won out, helping to develop the new Hawkeye in Kate Bishop.

She'd cried bitterly when he left, though she tried not to show it. She wanted to come. Half of all the people Clint mentored wanted to, but they were needed more on Earth than in the stars. Heroes were leaving at astounding paces, but that didn't mean the home grown terror was leaving as well. Earth had a few, very challenging, years left ahead of her. She needed the support of good men and women on the ground. Clint trusted Kate to be that hero. All she wanted was him.

In a way, Hawkeye grew up. Tony, despite himself, grew up with him. How else would he have agreed to finally put a permanent ring on Pepper Potts, one that she wouldn't just yank off once in a while so he had to fish it out from the bottom of the Atlantic? This was legal and permanent. She literally owned half of him now. That was a step that, in the past, he might have never taken. No one even forced him into it, but Tony did it all on his own. Without Clint's insatiable ability to befriend just about every woman in the galaxy, Queen Fehreh might have never come into Tony's acquaintance, and therefore wouldn't have agreed to marry Pepper and him in the same exact manner she'd done for Barton.

Their lives had altered in ways he might have never expected. Here, another twist pulled them away from home, and for what? The words of a twenty-year-old man who showed up in Clint's hospital room in a red sweatshirt and claimed to be some ancient race? Why did Tony even believe him? He'd seen aliens. Ones with powers that could boggle his mind, and make him both see and do things he couldn't explain. Why did this one have the right to alter their futures so much? Why did they even listen to him?

"We're going through. Ten seconds of crazy, everyone, hang on."

Clint's announcement through the back of the cabin brought Tony out of his introspective thoughts. He shook off those fears that plagued him more than any man, save Barton himself. Tony knew he wasn't alone. Anyone close to the archer felt the same as he did. Just as Star-Lord pointed out the day their lives were uprooted, they could change it. The heroes had to change it. At this point, they had no other choice.

The Mars Portal created a hum in the ship's cabin, like a live circuit as the energy coursing over the ship's magnetic plating leaped through the open space and clung to the portal's metal hide. The blackness of the ring's center altered, filled, and as the nose of the ship entered, a force shot them forward like a bullet from a gun. Tony's back slammed against his seat rest as the entire cabin bucked downward with the force of the throw. The tail of the ship raised, the entire mass threatening to roll end over end.

"Clint?" Tony asked. He might not be much help, but he could at least offer to do something.

"I've got it." Clint replied calmly. "Or, you know, I don't have it, and you won't care either way cause we'll all be dead in five seconds."

Tony swallowed the second influx of bile trying to escape his stomach, and tried to focus on the streaks of light grazing across the view screen. If he didn't know any more than a remedial elementary student, he would have thought Clint drove them into the center of an Aurora Borealis. The dance of light was playful, beautiful, and yet so very deadly. He knew it consisted of raw goliath particles, a form of deep space energy that only formed in these other worldly portals. Only a pixel of that light, held enough energy to fuel a whole warehouse of atomic bombs.

"Clint?" Natasha asked now. The ship's nose continued to dive, despite Clint's effort of pulling it up. They were flying head-first through space. While that normally wouldn't matter, in this case, the other metal-ringed portal was coming up fast. If he didn't straighten her out, they were bound to slam right into it and never see the other side of the war, let alone the Vanaheim skyline.

"I got it." Clint insisted. Tony believed him. Why shouldn't he? The archer wasn't currently poised on a crevice filled with horrible monsters waiting to tear his flesh apart. Stark had every reason to believe at least Clint would survive this.

"Shall I get out and give us a nudge?" Thor asked.

"And watch you get blown up and infect this ship in goliath particles? No thanks." Clint replied. He leaned forward, adjusted the drag of their wing flaps to give him a few more seconds before they slammed into the other side, and stopped fighting with the controls. In fact, he completely let them go.

Natasha would have jumped in her seat if she could, but the G-force kept her glued to down like a carnival ride. "What are you doing!" she shouted.

"Does no one believe in me?" Clint asked her with a playful grin. He kicked off the gravity drive, giving him a few brief moments of zero-grav with which to adjust a few more toggles. He kicked the joystick away from him, and the nose of the ship responded. They continued to dive, flipping forward until they were aft-first to the upcoming portal. He closed the flaps, tucked up the wings, and grab the controls back long enough to tilt the ship just barely to the left.

They emerged from the other side of the portal with the crackle of electricity rushing back into the ship. The lights and switches flickered, the normal gravity took over, and they drifted backward with their tail to the planet, and forward viewports facing the portal. Natasha leaned over and smacked his arm.

"That was not funny!" She exclaimed, breathing a sigh. "You are such a little kid, I swear."

Clint laughed. "Oh, come on, that was fun and you know it."

"I'm married to you. I did that. That was a decision I made." She continued to complain to herself, arms crossed in annoyance.

Thor was instantly out of his restraints again. "My friends! Was that not a glorious time! Clint of Barton, you and I are going to try that again, and this time we shall make a full turn! End over end!"

Clint chuckled. "Yeah, sure Thor. Next time we go to Earth, you and me."

Thor clapped him on the shoulder, which Tony could tell hurt considerably more than the smack Natasha left on him.

No one better, Tony thought to himself. There was no better pilot than Clint. Not when it really came down to it. Tony trusted his instincts every time.

Vanaheim, in all its rich glory, filled their view screen when Clint brought the ship around to her. A kaleidoscope of green landscape filled her middle, and spread outward like the fingers on a hand. Dots of archipelagos lined the short beached coastlines, before giving way to a massive sea the size of half the planet.

Vanaheim was a marble cleaved into aqua and emerald halves. Its populace likewise divided into separate humanoid species, and lived very different lives. Hogun, one of the Warriors Three, hailed from the rural people, while the deceased Queen Frigga, Thor's mother, came from the coastland. Hogun's clans inhabited the core of the earth, surrounded by plains and jungles, dangers and escaped from busy advanced lives. The coastlines were something entirely different. Massive city states grew like the landscape of Asgard itself. Jeweled cities were lined in platinum and gold, with streets paved in silver. Archways reflected their neighbor sea, with the lives of the coast landers tied intricately with the life-giving waters. Tony was wrong to really consider it a sea at all. There was no saltwater to be found on Vanaheim. Everything was fresh, fresh enough to drink right from the shores. Like the elves of Alfheimr, the inhabitants of Vanaheim prided themselves with closeness to their lands. Pollution was long left in its illustrious and bloody past.

The floating space station was suspended beneath the two miniature moon-like satellites, and rotated in time with the typical Earth day, considerably faster than the surface of the planet itself. They salvaged the hull of the ship from a decommissioned excavator of Xandar. The Nova Corps assisted with the initial retrofitting to get the station running, and Vanaheim's technicians and the dwarfs of Dondor from Nidavellir took over soon after. According to Bruce's latest transmission, the ship was not only operational, it was beyond what they even considered possible.

"Mainland, or Gateway?" Clint asked the cabin.

"Let's get to the ship. I want to check in with Bruce. We'll send this puddle jumper down with the crew to start training the new pilots." Tony replied. He hit the center of his seatbelt and released the mechanism so he could stand. "I'll tell Cap."

"He'll probably want to go down with them and inspect what we've already got built to go." Clint said.

"Well, he can go inspect all he wants. All I care about is my containment unit, and if Pym didn't figure out the latest specs I sent him, we're going to have some words." Tony replied. He'd built a new partition into the body of the quinjet between the forward and back cabin. He figured that not every one of their passengers wanted an up-close view of the things they passed on their journey through the stars. He added the safety feature after the first quinjet took off with a passenger load of twenty mutants. The sheer panic that came over them all was to such an extended degree, the ship didn't even make it to the Mars Portal before a rescue boat had to be sent out, and the passengers bound and gagged, to make it through the other side. Some things just didn't need to be shared anymore.

He typed in the door code, and passed through a small double-hatch to reach the back cabin. Steve had already sprung loose from his own safety harness, and was trying his best to keep the crew of mortal men calm. Seeing Tony arrive as support brought a visible wave of relief to his face.

"So, did we hit enough turbulence going through that thing, or what?" Steve said, attempting to keep his voice even while he fished for information.

"Nah, Clint was just showing off."

Steve's expression of relief swiftly retreated into a mask of coming anger.

Tony went on as if he didn't notice it. "We're stopping at Gateway first to get us squared away with Pym and Bruce. You can take the boys down from there if you want, but I need to stay behind. Any word on your end from Ham-Lord?"

"Not since two weeks ago when he checked in." Steve replied. "Showing off? Clint was showing off?"

"Well, Peter Quill's probably going to need a babysitter then, if he hasn't come up with the Gauntlet yet. We'll figure it out." Tony continued to deflect.

"Tony – "

Stark retreated to the forward cabin and slid the door shut before Steve could follow him in. His face reflected in the forward glass, displaying his grin to Clint. "I think I got you in trouble."

"What's he going to do? Ground me?" Clint shot back, laughing.

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