Marvel, page 24
“Know what? I’m glad you stayed,” she said. “You were right, ha. I couldn’t handle that jerk on my own. That Rūna girl can really fight. Never seen anyone take a hit that bad and walk it off.”
“And now you have the money to rebuild.”
She waved him off. “No, shut up. That’s not what’s important here. Whatever’s next, we’re gonna get through it together.” Loki stared at her, bewildered by the kindness. Donna snorted. “Anyone ever tell you that you’re not half bad?”
“No.”
“Ha! You’re a good friend. Took you a minute to get there, I’ll admit, but you got there. It wasn’t about the money, but the sneaking around, the stealing. But you protected me and the dogs. Not everyone comes around, most people stay lodged up their own butts forever.” A pause. A breath. “Brian was lucky to have you. I’m lucky to have you.”
A slow smile spread across his face. “Ah! What a triumph! To be tolerated.”
“To be liked,” she corrected. “Even loved.”
Loki’s nose itched; he peered at her, this person he had thought ridiculous, that he had planned to use, manipulate, and discard.
“Not like that,” Donna groaned. “Love between friends, is it that difficult a concept?”
“Yes,” said Loki with a shrug. “Or rather, it was.”
“Huh. Well, I’ll toast to that,” she said. Her sandwich was finished, and she mopped her mouth with her sleeve then stood, taking up Thurman Thomas under one arm. “You want Sleepytime tea or something? This smoke is thrashing my throat, I need a break.”
“I’ll stay out for a while longer,” he replied, shaking his head.
“Suit yourself. Don’t sit out all night, smoke’s bad for you.” A few steps from the fire, she stopped, smelling the burning wood in the air. “I do love that smell. Makes me feel like a kid again. Always meant school and football was right around the corner.”
She left him, making the trek across the empty property to her own trailer. The dogs in the fenced yard were asleep in the back shed, secured there for the night. Alone, Loki bounced his leg as he clutched the arms of the chair. Love. The love of a true friendship. That was something to protect. He had protected things before: his ego, namely, and his position as Thor’s primary rival. Now there must be a Loki without Thor, but he need not be the same as before. Freed from the cycle that made him, what might he become?
A twig snapped in the brush behind him. The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end. Loki turned his head, listening. The yard was quiet for a moment, but Loki sensed the wrongness of it. He stood and blinked out into the darkness that encroached around the pool of light created by the bonfire. The trees at the edge of the property had their usual shape, but a shadow neared, the outline of it crisper as it approached, remaining just shy of the light.
Loki ignored the cold feeling in his hands. The magic in him stirred, a new light lending strength to the flames as a bright-green hammer materialized in his right hand.
“Show yourself,” he growled. “I know you are there.”
“My condolences, Prince Loki.” The voice was richly feminine, familiar, and the height of the shadow gave her away. Kvisa. She grew swiftly taller, no longer the size of a dwarf, but of a human man. He stepped closer again, and Loki saw that he was heavily swathed in a textured black cloak. It hid his face, masking his identity. “Or should I offer my congratulations? After all, you should be thanking me; your greatest rival is gone, and soon Asgard will lie in ashes.”
There was something in his gloved hand, a book, but it was a mistake to consider him unarmed. According to Rūna, this adversary had access to serious magic.
The stranger chuckled softly and nodded toward the spectral hammer. “You can dispense with all that. I’m not here to attack, and even with all your powers returned, you would not be my equal.”
Whoever he was, he had tricked the trickster, used the guise of Kvisa and then Loki for his own ends, and murdered Thor for some grand scheme none of them could understand. Loki smirked, nodded, waited until he felt the man’s ease return, and then lunged forward at him, swinging the hammer.
The conjured weapon was always light for him, but it became nothing as it narrowly missed the stranger’s head. He had dodged the blow, moving like mist, shifting backward, his free hand skimming along the hammer’s green handle before wrenching it out of Loki’s grip. It reconstituted out of purple vapor in the man’s hand, and before Loki could blink, his own hammer was wedged up under his chin.
The stranger pushed it just hard enough to make Loki sputter and gag.
“Live out the rest of your days here, Loki,” said the man, letting the hammer fall away and then disappear completely. He was using something to alter his voice, magic or technology, giving his words a warped, whispered edge. “You’re free. Enjoy this new life you’ve stumbled into, mm? Please consider it my gift to you. Do not resist what comes next. Do not strain against the inevitable.” He merged back into the shadows, just a vague darkness among deeper darkness. He tossed something toward Loki; it was the book he had been holding. Loki recognized it, it was a self-help manual from his trailer that had been scattered by Stark’s attack. The cover was worn and curled, but by the firelight Loki saw a beach scattered with smooth rocks and the foam of water.
“You’re a pebble in the stream. Just a pebble in the stream.” The stranger then produced a throbbing purple crystal from within his cloak, holding it up until the flames caught the incredible multitude of threads running through it. It shattered the light. “You, a pebble, and I, the current. You, nothing, and me, practically a god.”
“I won’t be lectured by a coward who refuses to reveal himself,” Loki snarled, snatching up the book and tossing it on the bonfire. He spit on the ground. “My powers will return, and then we will see who is meant for greatness and who is nothing.”
There was a soft whooshing sound in the distance overhead, and the high shriek of a neighing horse. Loki frowned, glancing skyward and toward the noise, a white horse descending out of the night like a wisp of cloud detaching from a large bank. It landed in a graceful trot, brought around expertly by its rider, who was cloaked in blue. Rūna. He felt a grateful surge for the reinforcements, but by the time he had registered her arrival, the stranger was gone, slipping silently away.
Loki darted forward, conjuring his hammer, lighting the area, revealing nothing but brush and scattered debris. The trees shook. The flames sparked. Rūna jumped down from her mount and joined him in the darkness.
“That sly conjurer paid me a visit,” he muttered. He probably looked mad scuffling around in the shadows by himself.
“For what purpose?”
“To deliver a message,” Loki replied. He let the hammer disappear with a frustrated swirl of his fingers before stalking back toward the bonfire. There he found the charred remains of the book dying in the flames. “To command that I do…nothing. I tried to apprehend him, but he stole the conjured hammer from my hand with no trouble at all. Was his voice distorted when you encountered him?”
“It was.”
“Like a cold metal whisper?”
“Exactly so.”
Loki snarled. “He was powerful. And arrogant.”
“Whatever his aim, it must wait,” said Rūna, slightly out of breath.
“Where’s Jane?” asked Loki, surprised to find that Rūna had returned alone.
Rūna shook her head. “I could not bring her, but I’ve secured help.”
“The horse?” Loki snorted. His eyes kept wandering to the edge of the property. He feared the stranger lingered, listening to them. Who was he? What did he want? “My father could spare nothing else?”
“I defy him even now by being here with you. The queen will look after Jane, and knowing our human friend, she will rally allies to her side.” With a huff, Rūna dropped into one of the empty chairs. Her horse ambled over, resting his nose on her shoulder. “One moment of rest, then we depart on Skæva.”
Loki gawked at her, then slowly began to applaud.
“What?” Rūna asked, hunching defensively. She could not see him, but she clearly felt him staring.
“I’m just…impressed, frankly. I never thought I would live to see the day a loyal Valkyrie opposed the ruler of Asgard.”
Her recovery at an end, Rūna hopped to her feet and brushed off her cloak. Holding her head high, she said, “Thor was a being of two worlds, two worlds he loved. I will not see them both torn apart in his absence. Come, no more talk. We begin the search for Quinn and Mjolnir.”
“Odin recalled Mjolnir to Asgard once already. Can he not do so again?” asked Loki. It would solve one problem, at least, though they would still need to find Quinn.
“He has attempted to recall it,” said Rūna. “Alas, it refuses to return. I think it has…bound itself to another already. Its new owner has been chosen, and thus it will heed no other.”
Loki was exhausted, but he knew every moment wasted presented greater danger to Quinn and the far-off land she might one day come to rule. It was a wild thought, a half human raised on Midgard presiding over the sacred and eternal cycle of ages, yet certainly the past month had been strange enough to rid him of any pretext of what was “normal” or “expected.”
The God of Mischief rescuing Thor’s daughter, the Valkyrie Rūna defying her king…Perhaps rain would pour from the ground and lava from the sky. Donna emerged from her house, the light coming on in the living room before the sliding back door opened and shut. Carrying her dog, she came hustling across the grass, dressed in a knee-length football T-shirt and blue slippers. Her face was slathered with thick, green cream.
Catching sight of Skæva, Donna pulled up short. “Oh, hi, Rūna, didn’t know if I would ever clap eyes on you again. Can’t say I expected the horse, either.”
“Indeed. Greetings once more, Donna,” said Rūna, bowing gallantly.
Even in the flickering half-light of the fire, Loki saw Donna turn red around the edges of the green face mask. She cleared her throat and clumsily mimicked Rūna’s gesture, then thrust her phone out toward them. It was a video call, muted. A redheaded woman with nervous eyes waited, frozen, on the other end. “This lady has been calling nonstop trying to raise one of you. Seemed sketchy at first. She works for Stark, but I think you’ll want to hear what she has to say.”
Loki carefully took the phone from Donna. Behind the woman, just visible in the corner of the room, was Quinn, dozing on a white leather sofa, Mjolnir on its side, cradled against her like a teddy bear, a blanket pulled over them both as the child slept.
He unmuted the call, holding it up for Rūna to see.
“Hello,” the woman said, a bit stiff. “This is Pepper Potts. I’m Tony Stark’s right hand, and it’s time we had a heart-to-heart.”
“What do you want?” Rūna sneered, showing her teeth.
Pepper Potts appeared as exhausted as Loki felt. She drew in a shaky breath, lowering her voice to a whisper. “I want to do the right thing,” she said. “I want to help you stop Tony Stark.”
26
PEPPER STOOD ON THE edge of the sky and watched the sun separate itself from the jagged slice of city across the East River. Gold and purple ribbons faded into the dark-blue haze that smudged the stars. Cars like ants crawled sleepily across the Williamsburg Bridge, a morning weather chopper sweeping by like the early-bird robin ready to slurp them up.
It was Friday morning. She loved Friday mornings. Usually. Starting a Friday morning at the top of Stark Tower, where the air and glass felt thin, should have been particularly special. There was no escaping the buzz of exhilaration and possibility that a great height like that afforded. Who got to work in a place like this? If she wanted to, Pepper could go to Tony’s personal tablet on the desk and scroll through his personal emails. She could take all the confusion, anger, and frustration bottled up in her chest, pretend to be Tony, and email a foreign dignitary or someone at the DOD or God, maybe even the president, and call them a clown. She could dig up the most embarrassing, hungover, still-partying-at-6-a.m. picture of Tony from her phone and send it to his entire contact list.
She could do anything.
Anything.
If only there wasn’t a security guard the size of a linebacker standing between her and the girl. Jax was a nice guy; she had to wonder if he felt good about looming menacingly over a sleeping child. He was facing away from her, still as a statue, moving so little that it was hard to tell if he was even awake.
Pepper slipped out of her heels, still gazing out over the city to the east, and leaned against Tony’s desk to rub her pounding foot. Her nose itched viciously for a few seconds before she caught the oncoming urge and sneezed into her elbow. The flowers were still everywhere. A month later, the arrangements continued arriving. Happy Hogan’s boxing club buddies had hand-delivered a trophy they had commissioned in Happy’s likeness. It was a caricature, hideous, honestly, but the thought was there. Engraved on the base was: Our #1 Guy. A wreath of fake flowers was around the trophy Happy’s neck, noticeably tacky in the way fake things were next to the real deal. Cheesy white plastic roses on cheesy green plastic leaves placed beside clean, cylindrical vases bursting with ‘Snow Goose’ roses, Veronica ‘White Wands,’ solomio, and eucalyptus. Warren had sent over a shockingly beautiful batch of white and black anemones, simple and stunning in their contrast.
It was becoming harder and harder not to see the flowers as tribute, placating offerings sprinkled upon the altar of an angry god. Tony had gone into quasi seclusion. He wasn’t taking meetings or calls the way he normally would, unless they pertained directly to his project, his Destroyer.
Pepper turned and looked through the aquarium at the girl sleeping on the office sofa. Her light-blond hair tumbled across the throw pillow she rested on, her lips open and puckered and hissing spit in the way of someone who had crashed and crashed hard. There was an angelic quality to the girl, even if she could throw a tantrum like no other. She was wrapped around the hammer protectively, her fingers shaped into little claws as she clutched it.
Was I ever that childlike? Was I ever sweet?
Pepper scraped her nails down her face. It would leave welts. Tony would comment.
What the hell did you do to your face? he would ask, laughing.
Pepper could do anything now. Anything. But not with Jax there. She had already thrown in her lot, in a way. She had already tipped off “the enemy” to the girl’s exact whereabouts. Tony wouldn’t—couldn’t—move the hammer himself, so the next phase of his plan had to happen wherever she was. Not to mention, Pepper didn’t think Tony would move the operation to his underground workshop and risk blasting a hole through Stark Tower with his theoretical wormhole. The poor girl didn’t know that even as she vehemently guarded her hammer, it didn’t matter: Tony’s maintenance crew had already moved up the circular panels that would focus the weapon’s power and, if he was correct, and he usually was, create the gateway that would carry him forward on his crusade.
Wormholes. Destroyers. Space Vikings. Hammers that weighed everything to a man and nothing to a child. What was any of this? Pepper dug a small USB device out of her purse on Tony’s desk and trotted around the aquarium, standing a few feet away from the black-suit-clad wall of Jax’s back. She slid her phone out of her skirt pocket and clipped in the USB device, which was shaped almost like the front of a hammerhead shark. With a few taps, she got into the correct app on her phone, Stark tech, naturally, and powered up the experimental Taser. The attachment crackled and spat tiny sparks, loud enough for Jax to tilt his head curiously in her direction, but as soon as the device bit into the back of his neck, his face went slack, then the rest of his body, and he thumped like a sack of laundry to the floor.
Pepper leapt over him, keeping her phone and the Taser attachment primed just in case, then hurried across the floor and squatted next to the sofa with the kid. She felt the sizzling pressure of a panic attack building in her body, the warning choking sensation in her throat telling her an intense and unavoidable episode was coming on. She missed the days when she ran a coherent team. People had looked up to her. She loved promoting hard workers. She loved seeing the dazzle in their eyes the next day, the elation that came with validation. She missed when this was all a scrappier operation, still big and powerful, but back then getting pizza for the whole building was kind of a ridiculous extravagance; they did it anyway because Tony adored his staff. She missed that first fat-paycheck feeling. She missed ordering a latte and worrying what it would do to her grocery budget.
She first laid eyes on him what felt like eons ago, at an engineering conference in Fresno. Everyone had been split into teams and tasked with building a prototype in Autodesk. Tony took the lead on a different team. She barely saw him, and they didn’t speak, but she knew right away there was something different about him, a natural confidence and swagger. There was grant money on the line, not that Tony needed or wanted it; he was just there for the experience and bragging rights. And, by his own later admission, to pick up “smart hotties.” They wouldn’t meet in earnest until years later, when she was climbing the ladder of the company he had built. She noticed an error in an accounting report, estimations for a project that would be going out on pitch the next day. It was a critical mistake, and she fixed it. She didn’t expect Tony to care about the save, but he did. The details mattered, and she had saved him a lot of money and embarrassment. Her promotion came the following week.
A critical mistake, and she had fixed it.
Pepper grimaced. There had to be a way to move the kid out of here before Tony wrapped up his final design tests and went through with his bonkers plan. What if it worked? What if he managed to make a bridge between their world and another one? He had no real inkling of what might be on the other side; he just wanted to make someone pay, distract himself with metal fists and lasers and wormholes so, God forbid, he didn’t have to stop and sit in the dark, cold room Happy Hogan had vacated.
