OKAY. Between multiple trips abroad, wedding prep, the post-wedding phase of my Englishman's immigration paperwork, work being increasingly tiring ever since ChatGPT became part of it, and the fact that it's much easier to play through my backlog of video games than to do anything creative, it was already going to be hard to find time to work on this, but also this arc specifically has been an absolute bear to figure out at anything deeper than the vague summary level. I made the mistake of thinking I could plan my way out of this writer's block (that was when my living room floor was covered in index cards) or that I could simply wait for inspiration to strike (it did, but only for multiple other fandoms). Rereading the entire fic and compiling the appendix helped a little, but in the end it became clear that there was no way out but through, and what I actually needed to do was just carve out some time to write a little here and there, even if I didn't feel like it, until things finally clicked. To my delight, they DID. I've got a plan that I actually like now and I'm excited to dive into it. Guys, I am BACK and I am HYPED.
To everyone who's left reviews, I appreciate you so much and I hope you continue enjoying reading this as much as I enjoy writing it for many chapters to come!
A refresher, again, because it would take a memory much better than mine to remember all the threads currently running through this thing after this long:
1. Thor and Loki have arrived on Niflheim and Hela is sizing them up while they prepare to put her on probation somewhere far from Yggdrasil.
2. Zola2.0 is taking advantage of the Asgardians being out of the picture by putting Operation Drawbridge into action. The primary targets include Fury, Hill, Coulson, Clint, Natasha, Steve, and Tony.
3. Hydra remains unaware that Ava Starr was behind Alexander Pierce's death, and thanks to Clint's hidden Dad powers, she's willing to focus her anger on Hydra instead of simply turning her back on SHIELD entirely.
4. While Tony was in his workshop alone, JARVIS (still infected by Hydra malware) produced the file on the Winter Soldier's mission to eliminate Howard and Maria Stark, along with a file of his newest assignment: the Barton family, kids included. Tony immediately flew off for Missouri to save the day/get revenge without informing Steve or Natasha of any of this, fully expecting Hydra to try something with his suit and confident he's taken effective countermeasures against whatever that might be.
5. Steve and Coulson are on their way to Camp Lehigh to investigate the mysterious out-of-place munitions bunker in all of Coulson's photos of the former SSR training facility/original SHIELD headquarters.
6. Brunnhilde presented Odin with the Matriarchs' ultimatum: execute Hela or step down as king. To the bewilderment of everyone in the throne room, Odin readily chose the latter. Here we go!
New Jersey, Earth
Steve examined the chains holding the gate to Camp Lehigh closed. They were thick, and the padlock hanging off them was even thicker. Too thick for him to break without some leverage. He could simply bypass all of that by jumping the gate, but that wouldn't help Coulson. "Does being a government agent cancel out trespassing on government property?" he asked.
"I think the director will allow it," said Coulson. Steve turned around to see why Coulson hadn't moved from the car. He was standing behind it now. "I managed to requisition something for you." He patted the trunk. "It might help with the gate. If not, Lola can get us in."
Steve walked over to him, curious. Whatever he had must be good, because he surely couldn't intend to ram his precious vintage Corvette into the gate. Coulson swung the trunk's hatch open, and there inside it was Captain America's vibranium shield. Steve picked it up and slid it onto his left arm. "You dug it out of the ice too?"
"They found that before they found you," said Coulson. "It's why they knew they were close, but nobody expected you to still be alive."
Steve nodded, running his fingers along the impossibly smooth surface. "Thanks," he said. He returned to the gate, Coulson following. With one well-aimed sweep of his arm, the padlock fell to the pavement, shackle neatly severed from body.
X
The Triskelion
"Well, you have some big shoes to fill, Secretary Hill," said Malick as the holograms of his fellow WSC chairs flickered out. He offered his hand.
Hill shook it. "I wasn't expecting to have unanimous support," she said. "I appreciate the vote of confidence." She and Fury had been prepared to argue her merits against anyone Hydra might suggest, only for Malick to let her confirmation sail straight through. He hadn't said a word beforehand about his intention to withdraw his own nominations, and Fury didn't like the subtle air of satisfaction about him.
"I look forward to working more closely with you, Hill," said Malick. "Director." He nodded to Fury. "If you'll both excuse me for now, I have a lunch appointment on Capitol Hill."
"Don't let us keep you, Chairman," said Fury, gesturing to the exit. Malick departed.
"That went well," said Hill once the door closed behind him, her voice tight.
"A little too well, Madam Secretary," Fury agreed.
X
Natasha doubted Stark's A.I. butler was going to be able to get as deep into Hydra's files as she was. It barely mattered when she didn't know a passcode; between the perfect disguises created by the amulet Odin gave her and her already above-average hacking capabilities (now further enhanced by her souvenir from Sakaar, which even worked on some of the programming languages she encountered), she could get into nearly any system and through nearly any door in her way.
For the last thirty-eight minutes, she'd been hidden beneath an illusion of Gideon Malick so flawless that it passed retinal and fingerprint scans, and she was currently working at an offline terminal in a level of the records department she hadn't known existed yesterday, scanning quickly through files relating to the Winter Soldier. Most of the files were already in Russian or English, so the translator implant didn't have much to add there, but she could easily understand the Farsi portions of the mission report on the Iranian nuclear physicist she'd been assigned to protect.
Natasha had found that one among the many files of Sergeant Barnes's missions since Hydra had started keeping digital records. She had a lead on the ones that predated those, but she'd been focusing on the most recent information. For now, they needed to actually find Barnes more than they needed to piece together his past, and she was getting closer. She'd come across multiple references to the mind control techniques they used to keep Barnes compliant. One of them, the Faustus method, was all too familiar. It seemed the people who had used her before she joined SHIELD and the people who were using him had a long history of comparing notes. As much as that opened up a deep well of unease in her, it only made her more determined to get him out of their clutches.
Amid a frankly staggering trove of data on various attempts to replicate the results of Project Rebirth (which someone who wasn't pretend-raised by Alexei Shostakov for three years might've found much more distracting), the most promising thread she'd found to pull on was the name Colonel Vasily Karpov. Mentions of him kept popping up in association with Winter Soldier activity and she wanted to know why.
The phone in her real pocket, not the pocket in the suit of the Malick illusion, buzzed. The two analysts in the room were keeping their eyes carefully averted from such an intimidating superior, so she slipped the phone out. The sight of the name scrolling across the screen made her stomach drop. Pepper Potts. This could get complicated. She accepted the call. "Senator Stern?" she said, very much in Malick's deep voice. "Whatever it is, make it quick."
"What?" said a bewildered Pepper. "I'm not Senator Stern, and this is the number I have for Agent Romanoff!" The tension in her tone made it clear this wasn't just a casual phone call. Something was wrong, but it would be at least an hour before Natasha would be free to call her back as herself. Agent Romanoff was officially on leave, so being seen anywhere inside HQ would blow her cover, and she was just a few layers of security away from a possible location on the facility where Barnes was kept between missions.
"That's correct," said Natasha, willing Pepper to catch on. She wedged the phone against her shoulder so she could keep typing, trying to pull up files relating to Karpov. One of the analysts glanced at her with a frown, but not the kind of frown that suggested her magical disguise had glitched around the phone in some reality-defying way. "Are things going well with your new personal assistant? The last time we spoke, you were having some issues. Did you still want the previous one to come back and explain her filing system?"
With Malick's clearance, the search command pulled up not just Karpov's service record as a member of the Soviet and then Russian military, but also the personnel file she was looking for. He was Barnes's handler and currently stationed in New Jersey. It was enough of a lead to walk out of this room and finish her conversation with Pepper without any nosy analysts of questionable loyalties around, but she wasn't getting back in here anytime soon and she wanted to be thorough.
"'The last time we spoke?'" Pepper repeated. "Do you even know who this is?"
"Yes, that's correct," said Natasha. "I believe we discussed it shortly before the Asgardian press conference." She glanced through a few more files, sorting by date.
"Wait…," said Pepper slowly. "Natasha and I joked about her training my new PA, but how do you even know about it? Are you…are you saying that this actually is Natasha? Why do you sound like that? Is this another one of those flying squirrel things?"
Thank God. "Not exactly, but Asgardian magic may be involved."
There was a slow burst of feedback caused by Pepper letting out a shaky breath.
"Excuse me, sir." It was the frowning analyst, now edging closer to the terminal she was working on. "Is there something I can help you find so that you can make your lunch appointment?"
"If I need help I'll ask for it, son," Natasha grumbled without looking at him. "No one likes a brown noser." He abruptly retreated to own terminal while his colleague let out a choking cough. Into the phone, Natasha said, "If you still have concerns, you could bring them up with Coulson. I believe he's closer to the matter than I am."
"I could do that!" said Pepper. "Which means if this is some evil spy ploy to get me to reveal key intel, it's a really stupid one."
"Agreed," said Natasha, her brow furrowing as she read Karpov's report, which had been submitted yesterday morning. "Luckily, that's not the case."
Status report on frozen assets: Primary asset's debriefing after his first and only failed mission was significantly more difficult than usual, which I attribute to the encounter with his prior associate. I strongly recommend against deploying him until that is no longer a concern. The secondary assets have been relocated to the American storage facility and primed for deployment. They should be activated if there is an opportunity to address either of my concerns. Their enhancements are less stable but there is no risk of compromised loyalties.
"The next time I see you in person," Pepper was saying, "we're making a code phrase."
"Not a bad idea," said Natasha as though she wasn't reeling from what she'd just read. Barnes was apparently the least of their problems. What did Karpov mean by "secondary assets," plural, and when were they going to be deployed to "address" the concerns of Stark surviving an assassination attempt and Rogers messing with Barnes's programming? "Now do you want to spit out whatever's so important?"
Pepper seemed to understand that the brash phrasing wasn't for her benefit, because she began speaking at an almost frantic pace. "Okay, well I'm at the New York penthouse and I just went looking for Tony in the workshop since he wasn't anywhere else. There was no sign of him and my calls are all going straight to voicemail, but JARVIS showed me the files he was looking through right before he left. They're the Winter Soldier mission files, and one of them is about the deaths of Howard and Maria Stark."
Natasha's stomach plummeted. Oh, shit. And he'd left her and Rogers out of the loop. Did that mean he was en route to the cryo facility right now? Had he found it? "Anything about a destination?" she asked.
"No, he's just gone, along with his suit. I can't get JARVIS to tell me where he went."
"Give Agent Coulson a call. He should be able to help. Just tell him everything you told me." She felt the analyst's eyes on her again as she hung up, but she had to see if she could dig up anything about these secondary assets before she left.
X
Missouri
Even flying at top speed, the trip from New York to Missouri took just under an hour, and who knew what kind of delay a compromised JARVIS was operating on? The hit on the Bartons could've been sent out way before Tony learned about it. His only reassurance that the window to act was still open was each new charge Laura Barton's credit card made inside a gift shop or cafe location inside of Silver Dollar City. Then again, if he could access that information in real time, so could Hydra.
He'd been gaming this out in his head for the whole flight to keep himself from imagining a thousand different scenarios of Barnes murdering his parents. Hydra wouldn't send an asset like the Winter Soldier if all they were going to do was poison the park food. Setting up a sniper position would be a lot more difficult than at Yankee Stadium because there was no guarantee of the Bartons going down any particular path, and the winding walkways of a theme park would obscure a sniper's line of sight as much as it did the guests'. In a crowd of civilians, a sniper also became less effective when he had multiple targets, and when the principal target was a sharpshooter himself, there was the risk of getting made before he could take the shot. Simply opening fire at mid-range would be more likely to eliminate all targets, but that was almost guaranteed to plaster the shooter's face all over the news, which would render Barnes much less valuable as an assassin. An up-close attack was possible, and daggers would be easier to get through security than firearms. But the best way to buy time to control the narrative and hide the real targets in this kind of setting, Tony figured, would be ride failure.
Silver Dollar City finally came into view, and even with visibility on the HUD severely limited by all the tree cover, the scale of the place took Tony by surprise. He hadn't expected to find a theme park much bigger than a pop-up carnival in the middle of the country, but this was almost as big as Disneyland and had even more roller coasters. Oh yeah. Plenty of opportunities to sabotage a ride here.
"I want to see ride schematics for everything in the park," said Tony, "especially the big coasters, and patch me into all the security feeds. Find me the Bartons and see if you can get a facial recognition match on Barnes from the last three hours of camera footage."
"Right away, Sir," said JARVIS.
X
Niflheim
"This is how it's going to work," said Thor. "We're taking you off Niflheim to a world friendly with Asgard, where we will place you under a binding spell that will prevent you from seeking passage back to Yggdrasil or navigating there yourself."
Hela curled her lip. She knew that binding spell. Father had used it on Thanos to keep him from returning after he fled defeat at their hands like a coward. Now it was to be used on her? "Banishment from all of Yggdrasil?" she said. "That hardly seems better than imprisonment here."
"Both are better than you deserve," said Thor. His eyes remained locked on her.
It couldn't be plainer that he wanted her dead. Was he too weak-willed to disobey Father or was he wise enough to know that he would be no match for her if he tried to attack? "Oh?" she said, smirking. "Then what's stopping you from meting out a more fitting punishment?"
"Only my respect for Father's wishes." By his tone, that respect had its limits and one wrong move from her would exceed them. His gaze was somehow as piercing as Father's. He looked at her not like a blustering pretender sizing up an unknown and unwanted rival to his ambitions but like a seasoned warrior staring down familiar foe whose measure he had already taken and who could no longer surprise him. The slightest chill prickled along her spine. As weakened as she was here on Niflheim, she should not assume that she was currently the strongest of the Odinsborn, but that equation could be changed.
She gave an exaggerated sigh, letting none of her unease show, nor her irritation at being made to feel it. "Am I not to be permitted so much as a glimpse of home?" She directed the question at Loki. If her relaxed sentence was his doing, misplaced pity might move him far enough to make an even more fatal mistake.
"I think not," he said. "The last time you were on Asgard, you tried to kill our mother."
"Ah, yes, her," said Hela, her ire rising. "How is the conniving witch?"
"Why, positively radiant," said Loki. "Asgard has never had so beloved a queen. Wouldn't you agree, Brother?"
"Indeed," said Thor. "Together, Father and Mother have ruled over Asgard's longest time of peace. Old enemies have become allies, and many realms have prospered. The bloody empire you helped Father carve cannot compare…"
He seemed prepared to wax, if not poetic, then certainly long about the benefits of Odin's post-Frigga style of ruling. Hela was no longer listening, for she had noticed the slightest shimmer over Loki. Her sense of the living being at Thor's side drew closer to her, though by all appearances he hadn't moved an inch. An illusionist, then, but an amateur one if he thought it was enough to fool her.
"Thor will suspect nothing until it is too late," said a smooth voice in her ear. "Swear upon your seidr that no harm will come to Frigga and I will bring you to Asgard."
"Then you don't agree that Odin's reign has been better since my imprisonment?" she asked, not bothering to use the nameless tongue or even to keep her voice low. If he intended to double-cross their brother, let him be the one to conceal her part in this scheme. Thor continued to prattle about alliances and nobility, oblivious.
"Odin is in his final years, and Thor is a trusting fool," Loki hissed, sounding annoyed at the test she had just forced on him. "If he ascends to Hlidskjalf, he will allow Asgard's beloved allies to strip us of everything we have left."
"Come," said Thor, his speech evidently over. "We will bring you to our transport device. It isn't far."
"You can walk there under your own power or we can restrain you," said the projection Loki had left behind.
"Approach me with shackles if you would like to lose your hands," said Hela, getting to her feet.
She walked in the direction Thor had indicated, feeling Loki's invisible presence keeping pace beside her.
"We'll be taking this for King Eitri," said the projection of Loki, striding up to the carved throne and vanishing Malekith's head into a dimensional pocket. "Well?" said the real Loki urgently.
"I'm sure it would be very convenient for you if I were to eliminate your largest obstacle to the throne," said Hela as they walked. Then he could run straight back to Odin with his tale of Thor's fate, and Odin would finally overcome his hesitation against executing her, leaving Loki the sole heir.
"Very convenient indeed," said Loki, "except that I've never been in the running for the throne at all. I may bear the title of prince, but all of Asgard knows me to be a foundling. Odin and Frigga used me to take the place of the trueborn son your supporters killed."
Hela was stunned to silence for a moment, but wicked glee grew in her heart. She could almost taste freedom and power already. "You ask a high price of me, Mischief, so this is the deal I will make you. If I must spare Frigga's life, you will buy it from me with one of equal value."
After a brief hesitation and with the slightest quaver in his voice, he said, "Done."
"Good. Then Frigga will not be harmed," she said. "I swear it on my seidr." It was not such an intolerable demand. It might actually be more gratifying to keep the usurping Vanr princess alive to witness Asgard regain all the glory she had sapped from it.
The dumbest, most insignificant things can get you hung up as a writer, seriously. One of them in this chapter was that I wasn't sure how to approach the next bit for Steve and Coulson, but then I remembered the shield hasn't been in play since Steve got out of the ice, which gave me something to focus on.
So this is technically a retcon but Natasha was originally meant to be impersonating Malick at Maria's confirmation meeting. For some reason it took a long time for me to realize how absurd of a play that would be on Fury's part (still, it was probably a big part of why I was stuck). The real Malick wasn't just going to go along with being impersonated for such a significant event, and it would majorly tip the good guys' hand to Hydra. No idea what I was thinking with that, but I'm glad I came to my senses before I got too far down that road to course correct.
Nat's PoV scene in this new version where she's only using Malick's likeness to access intel was a fun challenge because of how many things are happening simultaneously and how different that scene plays out to each person in it. Hopefully it still came out easy enough to follow. The idea to have Pepper discover the files that set Tony off is one I can't believe I didn't think of earlier, too, but I remembered that Pepper has spent more time with Natasha than Tony has at this point and they're on pretty good terms outside of Tony working with Nat and Steve on Winter Soldier stuff. (By the way, Vasily Karpov is the guy Zemo drowns upside down in a sink in Civil War.)
Writing through an unreliable narrator has got to be one of the top ways to make a scene more interesting to work on, and that 100% applies to every Hela scene. That was the first one I started writing to break out of my horrible block. Thanks, Hela!
Also if you would find the appendix helpful, I encourage you to migrate over to reading this on Ao3. I don't think there's a way to put stories together in a series here but over there, you're always only one click away from a handy reference document if names, places, dates, and fake Asgardian jargon ever gets confusing.