I Can Hear The Drums
Chapter 30
Thor Odinson scaled the lengths of the Voiya Rose faster than his compatriots could. He burst into the command room and stood, drop jawed, in the doorway. His hands rested on either side of the entry, as if to hold himself up and prevent toppling right over. The battle regalia he wore, was unlike anything they had ever seen. Glints of gold and silver crisscrossed along his arms in a dragon scale pattern. His cape began red, and ended in a deep-space black. His boots, with thicker treads and armored tongues, stretched all the way to his knees. He looked prepared to take on a thousand men, and yet, seeing his friends again had even his might faltering where he stood.
"Odin's beard," the Asgardian whispered.
At his back, a lithe form slipped beneath the others, and launched across the air between the two forming groups. Pepper Potts threw herself at Tony. Two arms, encased in gold and red metal, locked around his neck so tightly he began to choke. The front of her iron suit created a bruise in his chest.
"Oh my God!" she cried out, over and over in shock. "Oh my God! Tony, oh my God!"
At Thor's back, Steve Rogers' head appeared. He laid a hand on Thor's shoulder, as if trying to get him to drift aside, but the Asgardian couldn't move. Steve lowered himself down, and squeezed himself beneath Thor's cape and arm to get in. A line of others followed him.
Fehreh rushed for Rinon. Bruce appeared, paused for many long moments, before rescuing Tony from Pepper's strangle hold. Vision, Sif, Fandral, Volstagg, Hogun, Veurr, Odin, Peter Quill, so many flooded the bridge that the room became thick with elation and surprise.
Many furtive glances were cast toward Barton. No one approached him. Natasha reached over and held Clint's fingers in her hand. It was a small, uncommon gesture for her. But somehow, the moment required it. Clint found himself squeezing back. A cold sweat broke out on his brow. He knew the day had come. Somehow, he always knew his time was up.
Bruce extended the olive branch where the others kept themselves restrained. He stepped right up to Clint, and threw his arms around Barton's shoulders. It was a quick, heartfelt moment, and Clint pulled his hand away from Natasha long enough to return the embrace. Bruce removed himself to arm's length, and looked into his eyes.
"We all thought the worst. You've been away for so long, we thought all of you were gone. The ship, Alfheimr . . ." Bruce let his voice trail as he shook his head. "You're so young, Clint."
Clint smiled a little. "You don't look a day over Hulk," Clint replied wittily. It was a private joke. Bruce aged half as much as most humans did due to the gamma radiation he'd been infused with.
Bruce forced a smile. He pulled his hands away, and awkwardly stuffed them into his pants pockets. Clint noticed he wore standard Hulk material. Old sweat pants and a shirt he didn't, like with the expandable suit tucked underneath.
"How did you get back? Where did you come from, I mean? The last thing any of us knew, was this ship went off for Alfheimr, and you were heading straight for Thanos. Quill said you even had the Infinity Gauntlet with you. Then, all of a sudden, nothing. We looked. I looked for two years, and I never - " Bruce looked down, swallowed, and raised his head once more. They could see the struggle in him. He had worked, tirelessly, since the day that part of the Nine Realms blinked out of existence, until this moment. The scientist might have never given up hope that he'd see them again, but he had finally allowed other concerns to thread through him, dragging him back to the heart of their war efforts.
"Long story," Natasha said, "but the Infinity Gauntlet was involved."
"Thanos?" Clint asked.
Bruce shrugged. "A ghost, like all of you. Until now." He added the last part hurriedly, still coming to grips with it.
"Clint?" A small voice called.
The archer turned slightly, and Bruce stepped aside to let Thor through. Clint tried to smile at him, but found the motion difficult. Thor stood beside Bruce the way he'd stood at the door. He hardly knew what to do with himself, or what he might say. Others crowding around began to shift their attention all at once to the Asgardian and the archer. Whereas before, they might not have wanted to face the man, now the dam broke.
"What day is it?" Clint asked him.
Thor's jaw quivered slightly before he ground his teeth together and forced it to stop. He pulled a long, stuttering breath through his nose, and slowly released it. Eventually, he spoke.
"I am staying at your side even if I must lash us together. Nothing Galactus can threaten or destroy may steal either of us apart. I have failed you, as a brother and as a friend. I have allowed the fears of this future to keep me distracted in the ruling of my own people, and I have forgotten the depths of those that matter most to me." Thor was very eloquent when he chose to make a speech, which was generally a rare occurrence. "You will not see your end this day, not when this team has, at last, received you back."
"Thor - " Clint tried to say, but Odin stopped him at once.
"My captain, I lend you," he motioned to Veurr, an old friend of Clint's from the days of the Frost Giant War, and now the leader of Odin's armies directly beneath Thor himself. "My men, and my legions. All you may need."
Clint opened his mouth to object, but before the chance came, Rinon put in his confidence as well. He planned to be at Clint's side personally until the bitter end of the war. This satisfied Odin, who had been through one war at the elf's side already. He knew Rinon's word was law.
Peter Quill moved past Thor and Bruce to grab Clint's hand. He shook it firmly, then dragged Clint against him for an embrace.
"You saved my hide, buddy," he said low enough so the others wouldn't overhear.
"I'm glad you made it," Clint replied, still trying to catch up. Peter pulled away, ducking his head and hiding in the crowd. Clint looked at the room of people. At least three realms and two galaxies were represented here. At his back, the progression of war ships continued to pour steadily into the portals without fail. Already the smallest of them had passed through. Lines upon lines of destroyers and troop transports came next. Behind them, the carriers with the greatest one of all, the Bethlehem Star, at the center.
"It's today, isn't it?" Clint asked them all.
T'Challa looked at Steve. Natasha felt a pang of emotion in her chest looking at them together. She didn't forget Steve's frantic screams into a comm unit as, half a world away, the manic T'Challa took off with him, sealing Clint's death certificate. Her eyes looked to Rinon. Apparently, the elf could see it too.
"Midgard's ships were completed five years ago, a few months after you disappeared." Fehreh, Rinon's chosen love, said. She had been the Queen of Alfheimr once, and for as long as Clint knew her, she'd been a shining star of hope and support. "After they were finished, we did not stop building. The Kree caused some trouble, but worse has been those legions faithful to the monster himself. We finished another two armadas, one for Asgard, and another to retrofit Xandar within the same few years. The Shi'ar at last joined us. Negotiations were long and hard, but successfully won."
Fehreh extended her hand to Pepper, an object of great interest to Natasha, Tony, and Clint. The woman was dressed in her own Iron Man suit, similar to Tony's, but adjusted for her own physique. The floor handed to her, Pepper took up the story, "It took four years to clean the atmosphere, but we did it. The people began returning last year as a pilot program. The rest were supposed to join next week."
"But?" Natasha asked.
"Galactus." Bruce said, matter-of-factly. "He came out of the hole like a bullet train five days ago. The hole expanded, created a singularity and," Bruce's hands extended in front of him. They opened, his fingers spread apart as if he held an orb. "The force of him punching into our plane caused a rift." His fingers pulled apart, expanding until they were on either side of him. Then, he brought them together suddenly. The sound they made on contact, rippled along Clint's bones. "The singularity collapsed. The Hyth Comet shot out of its orbit and scattered the colonies. Galaxy Red and the Dark System collapsed into each other like two colliding eggs. Pieces of them slammed through four systems. There's nothing left. Hyth's Star Vein is gone. The main comet followed Galactus back into the black hole, and literally gave him a handhold to climb out with."
"Billions of worlds, stars, systems," Steve shook his head, thinking of them all. The five days of hard realities were hitting him all at once, "Everyone is dead."
Natasha glanced at the ships. "Where are they going?"
"The Xandarian system," Steve told them. "With three galaxies destroyed, his Heralds have guided him to the closest living world where he might feed. There's an energy source there which appeared literally overnight. We can't track it, but we know it's down there somewhere." He glanced over his shoulder at Tony. "It's Nova Luna."
Clint paled.
The Earth colony in the Xandarian system, Nova Luna was the moon they agreed to evacuate the planet to when the Kree attacked. Tony looked at Pepper. "How many people are still left there?"
"Only half, but it's still billions, Tony. If we don't get them out, then most of Earth's population will be gone."
"Your ship is ready, Tony. I saw to the specifications myself."
"It doesn't require a pilot. Fehreh upgraded it with some elven technology to help it guide itself."
"We need to get Galactus close enough."
"Need to fly him straight through it."
"Leave now."
The conversation spiraled. The world around them took up cues and points, adding interjections to bring the others abreast of what had happened in their absence. The mood was tense, apprehensive, like any room of warriors waiting to break into the field of battle, now with their strongest allies beside them.
Clint tuned all of them out. His heart jackhammered in his chest. Nova Luna. He could have never imagined it. The small moon, hidden in plain sight in a world as far from the black hole as he dared to go. He knew of it from his travels with Quill. Knew the moon was safe because he'd been there before. It was where the Herald had dragged him. Where that great slab of rock, Heaven's Keel, jutted out of the earth.
If Galactus consumed Nova Luna, he would have not only eliminate most of Earth's population, he could use the Tesseract to travel anywhere in the galaxy instantly. Galactus could try and consume the Gauntlet's power, destroying the carefully sealed energy cores, and ripping a hole in the fabric of reality. He could even summon up the evils of their past times and drag them through to the present. With the Gauntlet, he could do anything he wanted. Using it against him never ended well. When he arrived the first time, years before, it was again on the coat tails of Thanos. Thanos tried, and failed, to use the power of the stones against him, only to find Galactus absorbing the power.
"Clint?" Natasha whispered to him.
He locked his knees before they betrayed him by turning into rubber. Still, he felt like the room was beginning to spin in a vortex around him. Angling away from them, he placed his hand on the forward glass to keep upright. Natasha reached out for him.
"Clint?" She whispered again, trying not to draw the alarm of others. She grabbed his free hand, holding it against her and pulled in close to him. "It's there, isn't it?"
Clint's head whipped toward her. How could she possibly know?
"It doesn't matter," she said. "It's going to be all right. We'll get it back. We're doing this together, as a team. That's the only way we can make it through this. You just have to let us. Please, just trust me."
Clint opened his mouth. No words came out.
"We've done enough of this apart. That's the key, that's what's going to stop this: we need to stick together."
Clint wanted to stop her hope before it had a chance to grow, but he knew it was already too late. She'd been convinced, somehow, that there was a way she could still save him. After everything that's happened. After blinking one moment, and awakening to the realization that the entire universe had sprung into the future while they had fallen into their past selves. After all that had uprooted their lives and ripped apart their families, Natasha Romanov, of all people, was being optimistic.
She's either a fool, or she really does love me, Clint thought privately. He leaned to the latter, and rubbed the ring on his finger that symbolized their marriage. For the first time, on the eve of his coming death, she finally gave him her entire heart. She was always a 'better late than never' sort of woman.
Natasha leaned forward, and pressed her lips against his. She liked to flirt, to catch him off guard, and to shock others with the displays of affection. This was not like that. Clint could feel the thread of her pulse as fast as his own. Something dramatic had changed between them, and he couldn't understand what it was. He'd had this once, long ago with his second wife, Marie. A spark, a chemistry uniting two minds. For the brief moment they came together, the entire world slowed to a screeching halt.
And then, it ended.
Natasha pulled away from him. She pushed herself to the center of the room and climbed onto Rinon's throne. Instantly, her act claimed the attention of everyone in the room.
"The Infinity Gauntlet is on Nova Luna! If Galactus gets it, we will lose this war before it starts. Clint knows where it is and will guide us there. Cap, Stark, Rinon's team, Thor, and the Hulk, you all stay here. The rest, spread out to the other command ships. Who is guiding the Bethlehem Star in?"
"It's self-commanded. There are three hundred elven minds surrounding it, each with an influence on her control mechanisms. I don't know how they do it, but they are." Bruce looked at Rinon. "You'd probably understand how it works better than I do."
"Explanation is too difficult for one who cannot see what we see," Rinon replied cryptically.
"Stark, Hulk, and Thor are guiding us in. The rest of the ships, keep Galactus at bay however you can until Clint shows us to the Gauntlet. Then Thor, you are going in after it," Natasha stated.
Thor lifted his hammer, a show of his worthiness, and crossed it over his chest in a salute. He accepted the challenge. The plans were set. Arrangements made. Clint, whether he wanted to or not, ended the impromptu rally with a team of forty close friends and fellow heroes riding beside him into the coming storm cloud of war.
They stood on the bridge beside him, their battle gear on, his quiver laden with what remained of his arrows and elven counterparts. The elves, ready for whatever may come. And those who could not survive in the throes of space, commanded those that could. Blasting over the nose of the ship were Iron Man, Thor, Vision and the Hulk. They brought up the rear of the fleet, sticking close as they entered the portal that would lead them into the heat of war.
Ahead of them, the Bethlehem Star towered, hundreds of stories high. As she was guided through by the hundreds of flanking elven ships, every goliath particle ahead of her clung to the hull. She began to glisten and shimmer as if a coating of diamond dust meters-wide wrapped around her. The ship's design system worked flawlessly, unlike most things created from the dual minds of Bruce Banner and Tony Stark. The plans from the Sarhorn made the trial and error unnecessary.
On, they flew. On through the other side. Onward toward battle, Galactus, and everything they had prepared for.
Onward to life or death
Onward to destiny.