Two weeks and two days from when Thor had disappeared with Dr. Foster, Dr. Selvig, and an undergrad poli-sci student in a pillar of rainbow light about two miles outside of D.C., the second pillar of light appeared on the same patch of grass, burning away what had regrown and sending up alerts all through the Triskelion. The light soon faded and out stepped a lone man with a sword on his belt, dressed in leather armor similar to Thor's, though he wasn't nearly as huge as Thor and had auburn hair.
The pair of agents stationed at the Bifrost site stood ramrod straight to greet him, the picture of professionalism (the surveillance footage would show that, up until thirty seconds ago, they had been slouching in their chairs, sipping coffees and listening to a football game on the radio).
The man from Asgard turned to face them and inclined his head. "I am Geir Gunnarson, Huskarl of the third company of the Einherjar," he announced, "here on behalf of Prince Thor and Prince Loki to escort two agents of the SHIELD of Midgard to Asgard, as requested by Director Fury. Are you the agents in question?"
"No," said one of them, "but we'll let HQ know you're here."
"Very good."
X
"This is an opportunity we cannot waste," said Thor. "Please? Perhaps a few days away from Asgard and a decent fight will help you come back to your Frjosleikr lessons with a new approach."
"There's no need to beg," said Loki. "I'm aware that we can hardly waste a chance to deprive Thanos of an army and two of his most powerful minions, and I can hardly stay here to be pelted by snowballs while you muck it all up on your own."
"Excellent!" said Thor. "Then you will come with me after I meet with the SHIELD agents Fury is sending?"
"You mean today? Then the transporters are ready to use?" said Loki, surprised.
"That's what Banner said at breakfast," said Thor.
Loki gave an aggrieved sigh. "The mortals have worked out how to do instantaneous intergalactic travel and I still can't make so much as a bloody snowflake."
X
This being potentially the most important reconnaissance mission in the history of the planet and them being the top two field operatives of SHIELD, Natasha and Clint were the obvious choices to liaise with Asgard. Within an hour of Geir's arrival, they were accompanying him back to the Bifrost site, dressed casually and carrying no visible weapons.
"So how does this work?" said Clint as they stepped into the pattern of charred grass.
"We simply stand here and the Bifrost will do the rest," said Geir. A smile cracked through his stoic warrior's facade, making him look much less like a space Viking and much more like the kind of guy you'd find at a neighborhood barbecue. "I think you will enjoy it. It is quite a memorable experience. Are you ready?"
"As we'll ever be," said Natasha. Clint wrapped an arm around her shoulders. She allowed it and clung to him in a way that suggested she was more nervous than she was. The idea was to be underestimated, but they were going to another planet. Maybe she really was this nervous.
Geir looked skyward. "Heimdall," he called.
The clouds overhead began to swirl, and then that column of light came blasting down. Clint's grip on Natasha tightened as they were pulled off the ground. The earth fell away, and before she knew what was happening, she was rushing past stars, planets, asteroid fields, and nebulae almost faster than she could process what she was seeing.
"I wish Laura and the kids could see this," Clint breathed.
"You'll have quite the story for them," said Natasha.
Seconds later, they stumbled after Geir into a circular chamber, at the center of which stood easily the most majestic man Natasha had ever seen, his hands on the hilt of a sword set into some kind of console. His elaborate golden armor and helmet should have seemed silly, but they didn't, and it was a little too easy to play the part of swooning girl trying to hide her reaction to a man. She swallowed hard.
"Agents Barton and Romanoff of SHIELD, welcome to Asgard," he said, fixing them with gleaming eyes as golden as his armor.
"Thanks," said Clint, shooting Natasha a teasing glance and giving her a slight nudge.
She broke eye contact with the man, presumably Heimdall, and nodded.
"Come with me," said Geir. "I'll take you to the palace. That is where your scientists are staying."
In the end, it was impossible to do anything but play the part of gawking tourist. Asgard was stunning, and there was so much to look at. How long had this place been here, and Earth had only had a vague idea of it in one culture's mythology?
They rode some kind of sleek flying boat from the Bifrost Observatory into the city. As fascinating as the architecture was, Natasha was most interested in watching the people they passed, who increased in number the farther they went into the city. Asgard seemed to be a cheerful place with a lot of energy. Craftsmen called out their wares and prices, children wound their way between adults, horses, and vendor stalls, giggling and waving practice weapons or playing games, and she heard multiple bursts of full-bellied laughter from groups of shoppers. Once, the sound of shattering ceramics had her whip around to face a building that seemed to be some kind of restaurant, but it was only followed by more laughter. Most of the open squares either had musicians and dancers or what looked like casual sword fighting tournaments, surrounded by rings of delighted onlookers. No one looked sick, underfed, or dirty, but they also didn't look snobbish or arrogant, and the city itself was in pristine condition. It appeared that whatever Thor and Loki's family did to run this place, they were doing a good job.
The whole trip from the Observatory to the towering golden palace took about an hour (she estimated that the entire planetoid was at most a thousand kilometers across), and then they were disembarking and Geir was leading them through the biggest doors Natasha had ever seen. They had barely stepped inside when there was a delighted shout.
"I didn't know you would be the ones Director Fury would send!" It was Thor, and despite the fact that he and Natasha had only met briefly at the Triskelion when he tried to invite her to Stark's mansion for some reason, he reached for her as well as Clint and pulled them into a hug.
"Damn, is he always like this?" Natasha gasped.
"Yep," wheezed Clint.
Thor set them back down and beamed at them, his hands still on their shoulders. "It is so good to have you on Asgard. How do you like it so far?"
Natasha smiled back automatically. She was having a hard time with the idea that someone with as much power as Thor could be this genuine. For all she knew, it was a species thing, and what she'd seen on the way over certainly supported that idea. It shouldn't take too long to be sure. "It's beautiful, and your people seem pretty happy."
"Yeah," said Clint. "We had to wrestle Coulson to get the assignment."
"The Son of Coul is welcome on Asgard whenever he would like to come," said Thor. "He was a great help to my brother and me during our visit to Earth, and we would gladly return the favor." He looked over at Geir, who clapped his right fist over his heart and gave a partial bow. Thor nodded back. "Thank you, Geir. Was that your first time on Midgard?"
"It was, my prince. Will you need me to escort more mortals in future?"
"Very likely, when I can't do it myself. I will send for you when it is time for Barton and Romanoff to return."
"Yes, my prince."
He bowed again and withdrew, and Thor turned back to Natasha and Clint. "You've come just in time. Jane, Erik, and Dr. Banner have made great progress on their work. The short-range tests of their transporters have been successful, and they want to move on to long-range tests to see how much farther they have to go on the tracker to locate the Dokkalfar fleet."
"What about the other one," said Clint. "Thanos?"
Thor's eager smile hardened into something more like a snarl. "He lacks the Dokkalfar's cloaking technology, and we've already located him. His base of operations is too well fortified to attack directly, but he's just sent two of his minions to a remote world with little support. We believe their mission is to deliver him another amy, and we mean to thwart them in it."
Natasha frowned slightly as she and Clint followed Thor to a staircase and up a few levels, while Thor described Sakaar and what he intended to do there. If Thanos was an old enemy of his father's from before he was born, then why was he acting like this was so personal for him? She'd read everything Thor and Loki had given Fury on Thanos and the Dokkalfar. Thanos's habit of invading planets and slaughtering half of their occupants because of some extremely backwards ideas about cosmic balance and resource availability was horrifying. It was definitely worth fighting a war, but to really hate someone, you had to know them better than having a general understanding of their military strategy and ideology. Was Thor just that gung-ho about war, or was there something else going on here?
X
It took Jane Foster about half an hour to explain the devices she, Selvig, Banner, and an Asgardian engineer had made. The transporters, of which there were two, looked like something out of an H.G. Wells book, if Wells had possessed an intense interest in Norse iconography. Perched atop five spindly legs was a sleek golden cylinder about four feet tall. A third of its height was taken up by a clear chamber full of a swirling, gleaming blue substance. Numerous handles protruded from the sides and there was a dial on the top with four concentric rings and a holographic projection display.
The other device was much less impressive in appearance. It looked like a fancy, oversized geiger counter with a long golden antenna sticking out of the top. It, too, had dials and a holographic display.
Natasha was not a stupid woman, but she felt like one beside Dr. Foster, listening to her explanation of how the devices were meant to work. The only other people who didn't seem to be following much of what she said were Clint and the poli-sci intern. Even Thor and his band of warrior friends looked more impressed than confused, but Loki was the only one actively asking questions and pointing out potential problems.
The gist, Natasha thought, was that if you wanted to teleport somewhere in the universe, you twisted the rings around the top to set your destination, then grabbed onto one of the handles and held on for dear life. The tracker thing was presumably capable of tracing energy signatures across space, which was the main point of having two transporters. The computing power that must be packed into these small devices to be able to calculate such precise locations across such vast distances had to be insane.
"The transporters are fuelled by the Tesseract," said Dr. Banner. "A little of that will get you pretty far, but it won't last forever. If we're talking different galaxies, I don't think you'll get more than two uses out of it a pop."
"How do you know it'll work?" said Clint.
"We've already tested it on Asgard," said Dr. Selvig. "We sent it from one end of the palace to the other, first by itself, then with a small passenger one of the guards found digging up a flowerbed in the garden." He indicated a cage on the table across the room, which contained a creature that resembled an oversized raccoon, except that it had longer ears. "We've had him under observation since yesterday, and there don't seem to be any ill effects, so Bruce and Vidar tried it about an hour ago."
"Then it's safe for both mortals and Aesir to use," said Thor. "Marvelous. Why don't we try a destination a little farther afield?"
"Right now?" said Loki. "You want to go right now?"
"Why not?" said Thor. He looked at the scientists. "Loki and I can take the first one, and then you can use the tracker and send Sif, Fandral, Hogan, and Volstagg after us."
The four Asgardians in question stood up straighter and touched their weapons.
"When we all come back, you'll know it all works, and we can see to the Dokkalfar," Thor went on. He looked at Natasha and Clint, his grin returning. "Want to come?"
"What, use a prototype device to travel to a remote planet run by a crazy guy to help you take down two of this genocidal warlord's lieutenants?" said Clint.
"Yes, I think having a couple of expert spies along will be a significant advantage," said Thor. Natasha noticed that while Loki seemed satisfied by this, the other warriors looked a little incredulous.
"Sounds like fun," said Clint.
Natasha gave both of them a flat look. She hadn't decided yet whether this was better or worse than working undercover at Stark Industries, but Thor looked so damn happy about the idea of the two of them coming along. "Our assignment specifically said to gather any intel we can on our big upcoming threats," she said reluctantly. "It shouldn't be too hard to justify making it home a little later than planned."
"If you're sure about this," said Selvig.
Natasha, Clint, Thor, and Loki each stepped up to one of the handles on the first transporter. Thor twisted the dials on top, bringing up a hologram of a small planet, then poked a spot near what looked like a massive city of skyscrapers. "Ready?" he asked. It was as ridiculous a question now as when Geir had asked it, but Natasha and Clint both nodded.
All together, they twisted the handles ninety degrees counter-clockwise. Webs of golden light shot out of the center console and enveloped them, and then there was a blast of blue energy, a sensation like they were spinning very fast, and the laboratory disappeared from view.
X
Sif watched the princes and the mortal spies vanish using the transporter, and she had to admit that she had underestimated the scientists.
"Can the tracker see where they've gone?" said Volstagg.
"Let's find out," said Jane Foster, touching the dials on the device in question. "It's picking up a few different signals. It looks like there's some back on Earth, which makes sense. Oh, here we go, this is the strongest one besides the Tesseract, and it's well outside Yggdrasil." She walked up to the second transporter and entered the coordinates into it. "Okay, you're all set."
Sif and the Warriors Three did the same as the others had. Traveling this way felt very different than traveling by Bifrost, and Sif already knew which one she preferred, but the unpleasant spinning sensation was over quickly, and they found themselves standing amid long, purple grass under a reddish sky. Not too far away was a cluster of huts decorated in vibrant colors, and a few children with green skin and pointed ears chased each other around until an adult voice within the nearest hut called out to them, and they walked, slump-shouldered, back inside. It was a pleasant site, but Thor and Loki were conspicuously absent.
"Er, have we come to the right place?" said Fandral.
Sif frowned and looked back at the transporter's console. She prodded one of the dials, and it brought up the destination Jane Foster had entered. It wasn't a planet she was familiar with, so she couldn't say.
"Sif, Fandral," said Hogun, his tone sharp and his hand on Hridgandr. Beside him, Volstagg was drawing his axe. They spun around, reaching for their swords. Something was flying towards them at great speed. Something that was giving off nearly blinding golden light.
Please don't talk about Endgame in the comments. Not everyone has seen it yet. I have, and my fear that it would sap my will to write appears to have been unfounded. I'm actually even more determined to work on this fic than I was before I saw it. :)
I also saw Captain Marvel for the second time last Monday, and it *may* have inspired part of this chapter. The first time I saw it, I liked it okay but felt like the final battle should've been harder to win. On the rewatch, I realized that, in terms of plot structure, the final battle is more of a victory lap. The climax already happened. So that fixed my biggest problem with it.
Natasha's reaction to Heimdall is pretty much my reaction to Heimdall. He's ridiculously attractive.
My original plan was to have Fitzsimmons be the SHIELD agents who got sent to Asgard, but in planning out the Sakaar arc, I realized that I needed Clint and Nat more. In any case, we're finally in the Sakaar arc and I am SO HAPPY. Been looking forward to it for months, and I think I finally have all the plotty things sorted out for it.