Chapter 6
The wall of clocks counted down soundlessly, in rhythm with one another, as the day until Galactus came cycled closer and closer. Even now, in the dark cold of space, Clint watched it all go by. Seconds, minutes, hours, days, cycling without anyway of stopping it.
The backdrop of stars and the surface of Vanaheim crested over windows. It seemed so full, out there now. Before, he could look into the sky and think only of the emptiness, but the events of his life changed that perspective immensely. Since the day Loki stepped through that first Tesseract portal . . . no, he had to go back further to Thor.
Thor, was his first real interaction with an alien race. Clint had seen what Asgardian strength could do to a human man, back when that powerless son of Odin fought his way to Mjolnir, the hammer weapon who had abandoned him. Clint watched the happenings from afar. Clint knew then the last thing he wanted to do was step into the firing line of a man with that kind of power. But now, look at him. He'd taken that exact step more times than he could count.
Space wasn't just full, it was teeming and bursting with life his brain had no ability to quantify. Endless stretches of darkness, leading to people living their lives with no idea of what might soon destroy it. He'd seen into the Nine Realms at Heimdall's side, and the effect was intoxicating. Part of him wished he'd gone to Asgard instead of Vanaheim, if only to avoid sitting in the bridge, staring at his time as it wound inevitably down.
"Someone else seeking respite of all that is to come? And here I wished to drink alone."
Clint had been sitting on the floor against the edge of the glass-fronted bubble that comprised the forward bridge. He grabbed one of the support struts, and lifted up to see the owner of the voice he knew only too well.
"Can't a guy get a moment's peace on this bucket?" Clint asked. He sat back down.
"I was considering the same notion myself when I came here, knowing that the crew had all gone below deck for that …oh, what did he call it? A World Council? How tantalizing. No one invited me." Loki rounded the upper deck, and took a few purposeful strides forward. He stopped at the end of the catwalk. Rotating only his upper half, he cast a glance along Clint's line of sight to the various time tables, then back at the archer. "Contemplating the remainder of your days?"
"I was, until you interrupted me. Now I think my focus shifted a little to you. How's the shoulder?"
"Healed, since you put an arrow through it."
"I wish it was your eye."
"So you often remind me."
"Someone let you off Asgard? And your leash?"
"It may surprise you to hear that I rather enjoy life, and am not in a hurry to yet end it." Loki stepped down from the catwalk and approached the wide glass Clint leaned against. He was impeccably dressed as always. A long green coat trimmed in black covered the length of him to just above below his knees. Beneath it, a black vest etched in gold designs covered his silken shirt. Even his trousers had all the show of being sewn onto him by some expert's hand.
"You look like a Musketeer." Clint remarked.
"And you resemble homeless filth." Loki replied. "I can speak harsh words too, if I wish it."
"One of these days I'll finally be rid of you."
"I believe it is the other way around, seeing as my life expectancy lasts much longer than the fleeting years you have left." He moved away from the windows into the stars, and stood in front of Clint, the view to the countdowns blocked.
"Tell me what it is like to face your own demise."
Clint scoffed. "I should ask you that. You've been in my shoes more often than I have."
Loki's expression changed faintly. He was curious. "You are mistaken. When one threatens to tear out my throat and leave the rest of me for the bilge rats, I know very likely they will not succeed."
"Someone once told me being that cocky gets you killed."
"Not when it is a fact." Unexpectedly, Loki stooped over him.
He grabbed a fistful of Clint's hair and dragged the archer away from the wall. Barton struggled, slammed his palm against Loki's forearm and forced the Frost Giant to let go. But Loki came at him again. He fell across Barton, his knife flicked out from some hidden pocket, and went for Clint's throat.
Clint grabbed his hand before the dagger sank home, and forced the hand away. He brought up his knee between Loki's legs and threw him to the side. Loki recovered, grabbed the retreating Barton's ankle, and slammed the human sideways into the elevated catwalk platform. The air rushed out of Clint. Loki snatched him, this time by the shoulders, pulled Barton up, and threw him against the catwalk edge. Clint's back cracked under the abuse, though it failed to actually break. The dagger came down. It cleaved a hairline cut across his throat from left to right before pausing in the middle. He considered calling his bow to his hands, and cracking Loki upside his head with it.
"If I killed you this moment, what might happen then?" Loki questioned, hovering the dagger's point against him. "Everyone puts so much faith in these words of some race that doesn't bother to do something about this destruction to come, and all of it hangs on you. So what if I just end it now." The dagger pressed forward half an inch. Clint felt the trickle of his blood run down his shirt.
"Days, weeks, months; they are blinks to a being like I. So what if Galactus comes and destroys everything and everyone? Those who are left behind will be easier to manage than the many. Some would call this armament of Midgard, Vanaheim, and Xandar an act of war. What if you were not around to see this to its end?"
"Be one Hell of a monkey wrench. You love mixing things up. So what of it? You kill me, Cap takes my place. Kill him, then I'll bet someone else tries it. Who's to say anything's even going to happen? Maybe Star-Lord found that Infinity Gauntlet already, and this is all useless."
Loki considered it. "For agreeing to this partnership, I have requested to stay as far away from this nonsense as possible. You lowlifes may make your ships and weapons and face a world eater, but I will not."
"I never wanted you to play in the same sandbox as me, anyway." Clint said honestly.
"In the meantime . . ." Loki retracted his dagger and leaned back. "I am not leaving your side."
Clint raised his eyebrow. This was something he never expected. "Excuse me?!"
"If this all happens as it has been foretold, then that means you will survive for the next . . ." he checked the Midgardian clock, "Six years and forty-three days. Your survival means my survival. Do not take my attention personally, but I rather enjoy my own assurances."
Clint's bow appeared in his hand and with a mighty swing, the lower limb came across and connected with Loki's jaw. The Frost Giant sailed sideways until he hit the floor. Barton stood, rubbing the spot in the middle of his back that he decided needed icing.
"Partnership accepted." He said to Loki's prone form, and headed for the door. Thor's adopted brother scrambled up to his feet, and followed along after him.
:(:):(:):
"Clint, no."
"I didn't pick this, and I sure didn't want it. But if we don't say yes, he's just going to find his way in here without our permission."
"He's weird, and he's creepy, and he's Thor's evil brother!" Natasha shouted back.
"And I am standing right here." Loki said, folding his arms. His eyes cast a wide net around the small quarters that Clint and Natasha shared on the Gateway. "I just love what you've done with the place."
Natasha narrowed her eyes at him. "Go breathe in space."
"Loki, I will make you sleep in the hall, on the floor, hog tied, if I have to." Clint said, over his shoulder.
The Frost Giant lifted his hands in supplication, and glided across the room like a vapor. He hit the key to an adjoining room, and the door sprang open. "There are six rooms on this side of the ship, and all of them are interconnected. You just happened to have found the corner room. I will sleep here," he motioned inside the adjacent room. "and spare your mortal qualms about my interfering with your love making."
Clint called his bow to his hand and chased after the man, but Loki slipped inside and sealed the door before the weapon could connect. Barton heard him snickering from the other side. Clint kicked the bottom of the divider, and threw his hands up at Natasha. "I can't handle that following me around for the next six years. I might lose my mind. Or kill him."
She didn't smile. "Can I tell you which I prefer?"
Loki's face phased through the sealed door. "That is not very kind."
Clint turned around and punched him, but only managed in connecting with the metal frame. He yelped and drew his hand back, shaking it frantically. "Loki, you come over here one more time tonight and I'm going to shoot you – "
"In the eye?" the mischievous voice drifted to him.
"In the nuts!" Clint corrected. He stopped shaking his hand to consider the red and bruised knuckles. There was a spigot in the corner beside another entry where the bathroom hid. He flicked the faucet on and washed the blood off his hand.
"How did the World Council go?" he asked.
"You weren't there." Natasha said, returning to the pile of clothes she laid out on their bed. She didn't bring many things into the sky, weight restrictions kept everyone to a single suitcase and little else. A few pull-out drawers were built into the wall. She drew them open one at a time and added both of their things to it.
"I didn't want to be." Clint replied. He pulled his hand away and wiped it dry on his shirt before going over to the bed. He sat down and started sorting through his few necessities.
"Quill missed you."
Clint looked up. "They found him? Where is he?"
Natasha stuffed a second load of shirts into their mutual drawer and slid it shut. She turned and leaned against them. "By Galaxy Red, past Xandar and Knowhere."
"Did he find it?"
She paused, her memory resting on the crestfallen look on Quill's face as he reported to the room of men and women. Since news spread on M-Day of the coming attack, new and inventive ways to classify the systems involved had to be established. Star maps, charts, plots, and lines were redrawn in the three-dimensional vastness of space. Charting the actual battle area was much more complicated than attempting to quantify the borders of Germany and France. It took Bruce five months of hard work to finally establish some sort of roadmap for the area they were going to operate in.
The easiest place to start was to view the entire galaxy as a sphere. The Nine Realms system took over the lower left side of the sphere and stretched upward on the left in the order of Alfheimr, Musphelheim, Hel, Vanaheim, Asgard, Nidavellir, Jotenheim, Svartalfheim, and Midgard.
At the top left, pushing backwards and diving to the right, existed the Xandar system, with the top of the sphere representing Xandar's border with the Kree Empire. Swinging down the right hand, one would encounter first Knowhere, floating about ten inches outside of the sphere at the edge of the Kree/Xandar boundary, and then going down Xandar-bordered Quivenrell and the Oore System.
The very center of the sphere was occupied from back to front by The Dark System on top (right beside Svartalfheim, the realm of dark elves), and Galaxy Red beneath (by Vanaheim), with the Hyth's Star Vein circling their border. The most important of all these systems was the location of the very black hole from which Galactus planned to return to the galaxy through. That lay in the edge of Hyth's tail, on the map's right in Galaxy Red.
Steve sat by the head of the table along with Nova Prime, Drio, the Dwarfish king from the realm Nidavellir, and Professor Xavier. Along the sides, other universal representatives gathered, including Vanaheim's regent, Shrin, Odin Allfather, Thor, Ligsri of Jotenheim, Brez and Krex from the Dark Systems, Oqquiri of Oore. Only Blenheim, the Star Vein, and Qivenrel went unrepresented at the World Council and their individuals communicated via remote system. Beside those faces, Peter Quill filled the center screen.
Natasha stayed behind the scenes, observing everyone at the table for signs of mounting tension. Many of the people gathered weren't exactly friends on the best of terms. Since coming to power, Ligsri declared open war against Odin and others from Asgard. It was the third such war in the planet's histories.
The first, began during Odin's father, Bohr's, regency, and extended through Odin's own. With the help of the Light Elves, Jotunheim was driven back from Asgard, and peace was declared for centuries. Fifteen Midgardian years prior, with the help of an Asgardian named the Enchantress and Loki himself, Jotunheim invaded again.
For a second time they were decimated on the field of battle. Clint, himself, gained notoriety in that war by rallying the disheartened Asgardians back into the fight before taking his team into the heart of Asgard's city to reclaim the captured capital. When Loki overthrew his adoptive father, Odin, for a time, it seemed Jotunheim had full control at last. Odin's return heralded a mighty war that lasted almost two full years. Since his defeat, Ligsri still held a grudge. Posturing was the name of Ligsri's game now.
On the other side of the universe, the Dark System's population was expanding, and they needed somewhere to go. The closest neighbor, Galaxy Red, disputed their attempt to control the outer planets in Red's system, and skirmishes had broken out over the past century. Having them in the same room was like asking to rub together a few sticks of dynamite. For everyone's benefit, they kept apart. Already, Ligsri and Odin seemed ready to square off at the slightest provocation, which Thor took no side on.
Vanaheim technically had two regents; Shrin commanded the advanced coastal cities, and Vruu, who controlled the antiquated inner mainland. Vruu and his people decided to abstain from the preparations of war, as was their right. The Dark System resented Vanaheim for its inability to come together as a complete nation, the way their entire forty-three planets had been able to. The Oore System resented the Dark System for being so pervasive on the matter, and threatened to storm off in defense of free choice. Quivenrel's prefect, a woman named Lotti of substantially diminutive stature with a face resembling a faun, laughed at the Oore's attempt at support, and pointed out that the best thing to leave their galaxy in the last two thousand years was, precisely, the Hyth star.
The Hyth Star was actually not a star at all, but a comet. It began circling the outer edge of the overlapping Galaxy Red and The Dark System after being jettisoned from the Oore system when a supernova exploded. It had since cut a path directly between both systems, creating a physical separation between them. The comet was settled on by the inhabitants of the supernova's solar system. As the planet-sized comet arched through the magnetic pull of both the systems, it dragged smaller planets, moons, and satellites into its tail, dusting all of its catches in a luminescent blue hue. Hyth's Star Vein had nearly twenty colonies, or mini biospheres, in its moving system. A collective body known as the Hen-En-Alli commanded the people. A representative of them, F'iti appeared just beneath the face of Lotti.
Musphelheim tried to remain as neutral as possible. Therefore, the son of their king, Petro, appeared in his father's place. The king himself, a notorious hot-head and trouble maker, would have had the World Council crumbling to its knees before anything was ever accomplished.
With all the interstellar tension in the room, one might hope – nay, pray! – that Peter Quill, and self-proposed Star-Lord, would be a bringer of good news on the Find-The-Infinity-Gauntlet hunt. That was far from the case. His ship was stranded, his men hungry, he lacked an adequate oxygen supply, and he'd picked up a random Clathian girl who danced behind him to the tune of the Jackson Five. Everyone in the room had the impression that allowing him to go off with his ragtag group of outlaws and find where the Infinity Gauntlet, the most powerful weapon in the universe, had been hidden was a distinctly bad idea.
Natasha considered everything she'd heard and saw in that World Council over the last three hours she'd decided to sit through before the members adjourned for another day. Clint waited for her to say something.
"Quill first insulted Petro, made fun of Xavier's head, and asked if Nova Prime could give him a little leeway on thirty-five separate crimes he apparently committed since yesterday morning. After that little explosion hit the room, he decided to mention that not only was he no closer to finding the Infinity Gauntlet than he was twelve weeks ago, but he also ran out of gas somewhere in the Oore System and requested that we send him a spare can."
Clint shook his head. He really shouldn't be surprised, and he wasn't, but that didn't make the blow any easier to take. They assumed Gamora would be all the babysitting Quill needed to complete the one task they set aside for him. They were wrong.
"It might be a good idea if I go out myself." Clint said.
"You?"
"Why not? You and me wanted to get apart anyway. You could stay here and watch things on this end while I go. I've worked with Star-Lord a few times, I might be able to keep him on track. Besides, who better to find the Infinity Gauntlet than me?"
She walked over, picked up their stack of pants and started shoving them into the small space beneath the shirt drawer. "I'm sure you could. There's only, what? Forty-billion places it could be? And that's only in our little ten percent corner of the universe. You could look forever and never come close to finding it. That's sort of why we sent him off to do this to begin with. Keep him busy and out of the way so he doesn't gum up the real work."
"Was Haladarrel there?" Clint asked. He'd feel guilty if the elf, who had saved Clint's life more times than he could count, arrived and Barton had stood him up.
"No, he hasn't left Vanaheim yet. Tomorrow, I think, he'll come. If not, do you want to go down and see him?"
"I should and want to, yes. It'll give me a chance to see this armada that dwarves, elves, alien Asians, Asgardians, Xandarians, and Bruce Banner made. You saw it already."
Natasha slid the drawer shut. "It's beautiful, in a way. There are thousands of ships. I've never seen anything as big as them. Tony's little side project is still walled off. He's not letting anyone see it until it's complete. I think that'll be another three months from now, at least."
"The Bethlehem Star." Clint remarked, nodding.
"You picked the name."
"I thought it was appropriate, what with the Genesis Edict and all. I was actually drunk at the time…" Clint caught her wrist when she came back with the last few things. In the mood to be inconvenienced, she allowed him to drag her into the bed on top of him.
"I'll talk it over with Tony and Bruce, see what they think about me helping Quill." Clint said, leaning up and pressing his lips beneath her ear.
She set her palms on the bed to hold up her weight. "Xandar's still worried."
"About the Kree?" Clint asked, switching sides.
She leaned more against him, enjoying the feel of a chill racing up her spine. "The truce is still on, but they think Brega has been talking to Thanos."
"Is Brega the blue Kree or the white one?"
"White."
Clint moved from her neck upward, crossing her face, finding her mouth, and pressed his lips against hers. As her eyes fell shut, he twisted them together and spun her on the bed. They were lying in the pile of remaining laundry with Natasha poised beneath him. She chewed his lip.
"Not funny." She said.
"Fun." He corrected. Pushing himself up, he straddled her waist. "All right, so they are worried about Thanos making trouble with his weird undead-Chitauri, and the leader of the Kree helping him do it. I could see that happening. We have scouts along the entire length of the three systems between them and us, so unless they find a way to go unnoticed – "
"Mr. Romanov?"
He stopped babbling and smiled in amusement. The man who contributed to Clint's own genetic creation with a Y chromosome was known as Mr. Barton to everyone, even his own sons. Natasha knew Clint hated the name with a passion that even forgiving his father never really wiped away. "Yes Mrs. Romanov?"
"Stop talking shop, and let's make Loki blush."
Bruce's Star Chart is available for viewing on my author facebook page. just look up Ezra Cross.
to "guest" who is oncerned about that ever daunting prologue: well, nothing in my stories is as it seems. I remember once starting half of a story, only to reveal it was all a dream. Is this all truth? Is this a parallel world? Will Clint actually be meeting his doom? Who is to know? I didnt learn myself until last week;)