Valkyrie
The first day after the funeral was one of the worst. Everyone was silent and gloomy after finally saying their goodbyes to Banner. I have to say, even I was saddened about the loss, even though I didn't know the man that well. I did know the Hulk though, we had been quite good friends at Sakaar... he had been the only friend I had there... That's why the loss was hard on me as well. Especially since I had already lost so many friends before. Losing someone, a friend, or someone even closer to you, the feeling of it... it's something that you'll never forget, something that will haunt you for years if not forever, because loss leaves a hole that can't be filled... not even with booze. I tried that before and I wasn't gonna try that now. Instead I tried to be with the friends that were left to me... which was basically only Thor. Well, him and the cats.
Yes, the cats were still with us. Every single one of them. They walked around our ship, they walked around the Avengers Compound and they walked around the ship of the Guardians, winding themselves around your legs, sometimes making people struggle when they weren't paying attention. I think they sensed the sadness, it has been said that animals do that and tend to try to make people feel better when they're sad, especially pets like cats and dogs.
It was things like this that made me miss my Pegasus. Yes, I used to own a Pegasus. Yes I know that that is awesome. Most people might just view him as a horse, or a winged horse in his case, but to the Valkyries our steeds were more than just that, they were our friends. So my steed, Aragorn meant a lot to me. I left him when I went into exile... and I didn't know what had become of him. I sometimes wondered if he missed me, especially in the beginning... but the more I drank the more that feeling left me. That was till two days after Banner's funeral.
The day started off quite normal, I woke up, had breakfast. Then lady Sif came to me to ask me if I wanted to help clean up the stables on the ship. "Stables?" I asked her in confusion. I seriously had no idea that we had stables on the ship. "Yes, stables, you think we left Asgard to be destroyed without taking the horses?" "I don't know, I was busy fighting Hela's undead soldiers." "Yeah, I guess that's right. Anyway, the horses were evacuated and I wondered if you wanted to help. Valkyries used to have steeds right? So I take it you're good with horses." "Yeah, I am." "So, do you want to help, we recently got back all the horses we lost, so it's quite a mess in there and we need all the help we can get." I nodded, "Sure, I'll help."
We went to the stables together, where some Asgardians were already cleaning up horse manure. It smelled pretty bad in there to be fair with you. I stopped in front of a stable where a big black horse was standing on his eight strong legs. "Is that..." "Sleipnir," Sif finished. "Yes, that's him. Odin's old steed. I imagine that now that Odin is dead he should go to Thor, don't you think? A steed fit for a King." "Yeah, he sure is." "The fastest horse in all of the nine realms." Sif continued to talk a little bit about Sleipnir, while I got distracted by a whinny behind me. The whinny sounded familiar, yet strange in this place. It was as if I had heard it before but as if the owner of that whinny just didn't belong here.
I turned around and found myself eye to eye with a beautiful white Pegasus. A Valkyrie steed. "Brunnhilde?" I heard Sif say behind me. "Uh... yeah?" "Are you looking at... of course you are. We found him after... well... you know after what, let's just say he had been dusted after Thanos snapped his fingers. We found him in the stables, I think he was the only Pegasus that survived... Do you know who he belonged to?" I nodded slowly, "Yeah, I do." "That makes sense, since he's a Valkyrie steed. I take it you also know his name?" "Yeah, his name is Aragorn... and he's mine."
I carefully walked over to the stable, hoping he wasn't mad at me for leaving him. "Aragorn... hey, it's me... do you remember me?" He whinnied softly, he didn't sound mad. In fact he sounded like he was happy to see me. I continued to walk closer and closer. Then, as I was close enough he laid his head on my shoulder and whinnied loudly. "Hey, you want me to go deaf or something? Weirdo." He tried to pull me even closer with his head. "Yeah, I missed you too, boy," I said as I hugged him. He nibbled at my hair. "Really? Do you have to?" I guess he did cause he continued to nibble. "Yeah, fine, just... nibble my hair."
Sif
In case you have never seen a Pegasus nibble an Asgardian's hair, it looks pretty strange. Then again it was kinda like how horses greet each other by nibbling at each other's manes. So I guess he was just greeting her. Well, whatever it was, they looked happy to see each other again. Sleipnir neighed loudly behind me. "What do you want, you big beast?" I asked as I turned to him. Then I saw that he had been reaching for a bag of carrots. "Ah, right, you're hungry." I reached for the bag of carrots and gave Sleipnir a carrot. "So, how you doing huh? Do you miss Odin?" Sleipnir whinnied. "Yeah, it's strange huh? But we have a new King now, Odin's son. I take it you remember Thor." Sleipnir nudged my hand and started to scratch him behind the ear like one would usually do with a dog. He seemed to like it.
We stood there for a while, me petting Sleipnir and Brunnhilde hugging her steed Aragorn. Then Thor walked by and asked us what we were doing. "We uh... we were here to help clean the stables," I told him. He nodded, "That's nice of you, but in that case you should really help instead of cuddling the horses." Thor put his hand on Sleipnir's cheek for a few seconds and the horse leaned into the touch. "Sleipnir," he whispered, "my father's steed," then louder he added, "I will take care of him now. I hope that he will accept me as his new rider if I take care of him."
The rest of the day we spent looking after the horses, which means brushing them, cleaning out their hooves, cleaning out their stables and feeding them. It was quite a lot of work, even though we did it with quite a lot of Asgardians. Yes, there were a lot of horses, of course there were, we ride them. We don't have those two wheeled metal horses or those four wheeled things Midgardians called cars. Horses are our main source of transportation so of course we have a lot of them. That makes a lot of sense, whether you like it or not.
At the end of the day I walked over to Thor to talk to him, "Are you okay?" He turned to me, a look of mild surprise on his face, "Of course I am, why do you ask?" "Because you looked a little emotional when you saw Sleipnir standing there." "I didn't know he was here." "He had been dusted." "Ah..." "Thor, I know it wasn't the horse that made you emotional. He reminded you of your father, didn't he?" Thor sighed, "Well, he is my father's steed... or was... of course he reminds me of him. Do you remember when he came after us to Jotunheim?" A small smile played at his lips as he thought back. "Of course I do," I told him, "how could I forget that? Fighting the Ice Jotuns was quite exhilarating." "He thought I was reckless." "He was right. You were reckless, we all were, stupid and reckless." "No, I was the only one who was both, you guys were just stupid for following me." I rolled my eyes, "If you say so." "I almost got all of you killed that day." "Almost... We lived." "Yeah... and now here we are... just three of us who went to Jotunheim that day are still alive." I sighed, I didn't want to think of how dead Volstagg, Hogun and Fandral were. "Three is better than nothing," I said in a sad attempt to cheer him up. "Still... three of my friends... lost." "It's not your fault." "I know, they were killed by my sister... She was stronger than me and I couldn't have stopped her... but that day I could have lost all of you." "You're not the man you were back then. You're smarter now, less reckless." "Yes... thanks to my father, who is now lost to me as well..." I put an arm around him. "Thank you, my Lady," he whispered. "You're welcome," I managed to say before he pulled me into a hug. "I don't know where I would be without you." "Probably in a grave, since you liked to fight in wars..." "I always had your favor, didn't I?" "Of course you did... You were my prince and now you're my King." "Is that all I am to you?" "What else should you be to me?" "A friend would be nice." Still just a friend? Oh come on! How bloody blind are you. "You are my friend. The only friend that's left of my best friends." "Yes. You're my best friend as well. I know that I can count on you, that I can trust you." Yeah, he can trust you, but you're still keeping secrets from him, aren't you? I sighed, "Thor, I need to tell you something."
Thor
Whatever it was that she felt the need to tell me was serious, I could see it on her face. "What is it?" I asked her. She sighed, "It's something that I should have told you before... but... I... I couldn't. Darcy made me promise not to tell you, but I feel like you should know." "Darcy?" "Yes... You see, Thor... a month after you and jane broke up she found out that she was pregnant." "JANE IS WHAT?" "Well... more like was by now." "And she thinks I'm the father?" "Yes... she does. You know how that goes with Asgardians, highly fertile and all, especially when it comes to female Midgardians with male Asgardians..." "And you didn't tell me because you promised Darcy not to tell me?" "Yes. I should have told you anyway, I know, I just... I couldn't." "Why not?" "Well... maybe because I was... afraid that you'd try to get back with her... because you have a reason to now, because you have a child together." "And you didn't want that?" "She broke up with you, she wouldn't want to get back with you. You'd only get hurt again." "Is that all?" "Well... Maybe not, but... that's not relevant." Sif looked at her feet as she said that. "Sif..." "It's nothing, really Thor. I just didn't want you to get hurt." "You know I'm going to have to call Jane now, right? I want to see my child." "Yes... I know and I understand." "Good."
That night I called Jane to inquire about my child only to find out that she had given me twins, a son and a daughter. The son she had named Magnus, which means fighter, the daughter she had named Astrid, which means divine beauty. They were good names, I had to admit. And they were Norse names as well, both of them, that would fit in nowadays. I asked Jane for a picture, which she send. Magnus looked like the drawings I had seen of myself as a baby. Astrid looked quite like the baby pictures Darcy had shown me of Jane. I still have no idea how she got those.
I couldn't help but smile when I saw their little faces and so Jane and I eventually came to an agreement. When they didn't drink her milk anymore they would go to me every other weekend for a year, then every weekend till they were eighteen. After that they could come and go as they pleased. It might not seem like much, but I was pleased with it. Maybe we could make some different arrangements for the vacations if the children wanted it, we didn't really think that through. In any case, I had two children now, my own flesh and blood... I had something new to live for. Family, Real family.
Groot
I am Groot. I. Am. Groot. I AM GROOT!! I am Groot. I am Groot. i Am GrOoT. I am Groot.
Rocket
Yeah, Groot's right, that was funny. It's good we could have fun so shortly after a funeral. Maybe it was because we, the Guardians of the Galaxy, didn't know the guy that well. I mean, if you don't know someone that well it's hard to mourn for them, right? So, yeah, we joked around a bit on the ship. We were basically having quite a good time there. Even when Peter and Gamora were around flirting with each other. Honestly, I still find it kinda gross. One time they even kissed when I was around. Okay, maybe I don't find it that gross, maybe I'm even kinda happy that they have found each other and that their feelings for each other are mutual, but mostly I just hate it, okay?
Anyway, nothing really exciting happened on the ship neither in the Avengers HQ, not for a long time after Banner's funeral. And that exciting thing honestly wasn't that exciting, unless you like food, cause it was an end of summer buffet organized by Tony and the Asgardians. Cause for some reason the changing of the seasons was important to them, and with them I mean the Asgardians.
"Doesn't summer end at the 21st of September though?" I asked Thor at one point. "Ah, that depends on how you look at it, some people say the 21st, we Asgardians say the 1st." "Yeah, but uh... why? Why would we celebrate?" "Why not?" "Oh, I don't know, maybe because there's still the threat of Thanos coming our way." "Hmmm. Yes, there is sweet rabbit." "I'm not a rabbit." "But he isn't here yet, and he hasn't been seen on our radars yet. Carol hasn't spotted him either, so we're fine for now." I just assumed, or more hoped that he was right. Cause no matter what, Thanos would come.
"Maybe the attack weakened him, or at least his resolve," Gamora said when I asked her about it. "What? Why would it do that?" "Because now he doesn't have the stones anymore. It makes us a force to be reckoned with... it might be that he is trying to build a bigger army because he is afraid of us." "Oh, great, that ain't concerning at all." "We will fight him off when he comes," Drax said. "Don't be so sure of that," Gamora told him, "he's got a lot more up his sleeve than we have seen."
Peter Q.
Well, that sounded dark and gloomy, even coming from Gamora. I decided to follow her as she left the room. "Hey, you okay?" "I'm worried," she admitted. I was still surprised by how open she was towards me. "What's there to be worried about?" "Thanos. We should have heard something from him by now. This radio silence, it just... isn't right." "You're afraid." "Of course I am, I know Thanos. He's planning something... something big." "Well... you do think that he's afraid of us, right? Maybe he's getting the Chitauri again... or some worse alien race to fight with him against us..." "Yeah, maybe he's forming an alliance with the Kree, they'd love to fight against us, since we killed Ronan... Dear God, that's a possibility..." "That would be bad." "That would be terrible you mean." "Hey, relax, we don't know anything for certain yet." "Yes... that's true. It would be horrible to know what would be coming for you." "Yeah, if I had known that I would be abducted by aliens there would have been no way that I set a foot outside the hospital that day." She looked at me, a little smile on her lips, "I thought little Peter liked adventure." "Yeah, but little Peter also loved his family and wanted to attend his mother's funeral." "You couldn't go to her funeral?" "No... Yondu abducted me right after she died." "That's horrible." "Yeah, it is." "Thanos abducted me right after the deaths of my parents as well..." "Sounds like we got something in common..." "Yeah, we're both messed up."
Not the best thing to have in common of course, but at least it's something, right? "Hey... when all this is over... maybe we should go on a date or something," I offered, "you know, just the two of us..." "That sounds lovely." "Yeah, it does, right?" "Here's to hoping this will all be over soon, then." "Hmmm, are you that eager to go on a date with me?" "Peter, I have been in love with you for years..." "Oh really now?" "I just... couldn't admit it before." "Why not?" She shrugged, "I don't know. Maybe I was afraid of my own feelings because I had never felt like that before." "You know, that's actually kinda cute." "Don't call me cute." I smiled, "Sorry." You're still cute though. I wrapped my arms around her and pulled her closer to me. It felt good to have her in my arms. She wrapped her arms around me. "You good?" I asked her. "Better," she answered.
We just stood there like that for a while, until our moment was interrupted by Drax who came to "fetch" us for the buffet. We were both very annoyed by him, which he didn't seem to notice, but we agreed to come with him if he'd leave us alone for at least five more minutes. He agreed to those terms as well and he actually left us alone for five more minutes, which is quite a miracle since Drax is an idiot who likes to interrupt people at the worst possible moments. This time he didn't, which was lucky for us. Since we spent that five more minutes "tongue-wrestling" if you know what I mean.
After the tongue-wrestling we followed Drax to the cafeteria part of the Avengers Compound, which had been decorated quite fancily for the "festivities". That was a little weird, considering the festivities were just eating a lot, but hey, I'm not about to question Asgardians, cause they might get really angry and rip your nose off or something. Seriously, those people are strong. All of them... even the fat ones. Not that I have ever seen a fat Asgardian.
Anyway, the food was great. My company was better though. Gamora and I sat down next to each other. We talked to each other and joked with each other through the whole buffet. Okay, we occasionally talked to other people, but only to be polite, to ask for some food stuff, to laugh at their jokes or to tell one of our own jokes out loud cause it was just too funny and we wanted to share it with the rest.
Gamora
The night was great, despite my fears. Maybe it was the food, maybe it was the alcohol or maybe it was Peter, probably a mix of the last two, with a little bit of the first. Whatever it was didn't matter, what mattered was that it made me forget my fear for a while. For that is what I wanted, I wanted to forget, even if it was just for a while. This might explain why I drank a little too much that night. Meaning: enough to get me drunk. Now that might not sound too weird, but considering my kind doesn't get drunk that easily I drank quite a lot. Like... you know what, let's not talk about how much a drank... let's talk about what else happened at the dinner party.
The food was great, there were all kinds of meat that were still strange to me because they were either Midgardian or Asgardian. Same goes for vegetables and fruits. Don't ask me how they got the Asgardian stuff here, it had probably been stored on their ship. At least that seemed the most likely to me. Apart from that there was a lot of alcohol going around. All kind of wines and mead and beer, enough to even get an Asgardian drunk. However, the first person to get drunk wasn't an Asgardian, luckily, but sadly it was Rocket. This was to be expected of course, since he's the smallest amongst us, he does get kinda annoying when he is drunk though... He didn't get much chance to be annoying though, because it was already kinda late and Groot, grumpy teenager that he was, wanted to go back to the ship and, smart that he was despite being grumpy, he decided to take Rocket with him.
After that it was just me, Peter, Drax, Mantis, Nebula and the Avengers and co. Miraculously the second one to get drunk was Drax... okay, that wasn't much of a miracle since that guy can drink like crazy, but... he was the second one to get drunk and it was annoying. Being drunk makes him even more rude than usual. And he is usually pretty rude. I don't think that he realizes he is rude though. I think this is just the way his people are. Rude, completely literal and with little knowledge of personal space.
After Drax got drunk I didn't care much more for who got drunk and who didn't. I just concentrated on Peter. On our conversation and our jokes. On how cute he looked when he laughed and how handsome he looked when he smiled at me.
At the end of the night we walked back to the ship together, him less drunk than me. Me still ending up in his room despite him not being that drunk. Needless to say that things got a little... hot that night... and that we both woke up on his room naked, only covered by blankets. I honestly didn't care that much... I mean about the fact that we did it while I was drunk, I might have done it while I was sober as well.
"Well... that was great last night." "Hmmm... I don't remember much of it," I told him honestly. "Yeah, you were pretty drunk... you don't mind that, do you?" You would have known already if I did." "Yeah, I guess so." "It's kinda sad though that I don't really remember it." He looked at me with some kind of hunger in his eyes, "You... want me to refresh your memory?" "That... would be nice yes." He pulled me on top of him and kissed me.
Hill
The day after the party everything was back to normal. Or at least as normal as it gets with the Avengers, which honestly isn't very normal at all. Especially since there were some aliens around, one of them a talking raccoon and another one a talking tree. Anyway, everything going back to normal meant one thing: training while waiting for the enemy to show up. Which also meant nothing interesting happened. Yeah, sometimes life is boring at the Avengers headquarters, that's just something you gotta deal with. Okay, maybe a few interesting things happened, but... you know, most of it is none of your business.
The first kind of interesting thing to happen was Thor bringing his twins over. We were all very surprised when we heard about the kids. Especially the men, who were also kinda surprised that Thor and Jane had had sex. The women could understand that part of the story quite easily. I mean, have you ever looked at Thor? That guy's got biceps bigger than my head! Anyway. Thor brought his kids over the weekend after the end of summer buffet. There was nothing too special about them. I mean, you know what babies look like, right? Well, that's what they looked like. The proud dad asked everyone if they wanted to hold them, which I declined, babies aren't really my thing.
The next kind of interesting thing happened that same day. I was training, with which I mean I was beating the shit out of a punching bag, you'd be surprised how satisfying that can be, when Sam walked in. Yeah, Sam Wilson, bird guy and also kinda my movie buddy walked into the training room. "What's the punching bag done to you?" he asked. "He left me hanging," I joked. He smiled slightly, "That's a terrible joke." "Then why are you smiling?" "I never said I had good humor." "So you got bad humor?" "Yeah, a little." "You know, there are more punching bags, if that's what you're here for." "I was actually hoping to find someone I could spar with." "That's fun too." I stopped punching the bag, "You think you could hold your own against me?" "Are you challenging me?" "I think I am, yes." "Well... bring it on then."
So it came to be that Sam and I sparred together. It was quite nice to be fair with you. He's stronger than me, but I'm quicker and more flexible, which turned it into quite the challenge. We eventually stopped because we were getting tired. But while we had been sparring more people had gathered in the training room. Some were training with each other, like Nat and Melinda, others were watching the people who were training, probably for observation, like Pepper and miss Lewis... what was her first name again? Darcy, right? Yeah, that was it. Anyway, Pepper was observing me and Sam for some reason.
"Well... that was... a good fight... you put... up," Sam said panting. "Thanks... you too." We stood there for a little while longer, both trying to calm down our breathing. Sam was looking at me the whole time, which was almost making me uncomfortable. Then, when he caught my eye he turned away and walked off while announcing that he was gonna take a shower. Well... that was kinda weird. I thought.
"That was interesting," Pepper told me as she approached me. "Huh? Why?" "He was... staring." "Yeah, so?" "Mostly men stare when they think you're good looking." "I don't need a man to tell me I'm good looking. I already know I am." Pepper rolled her eyes, "You know it's more in a, "I'd like to date her" kind of way, right?" "Yeah, no." "Oh please. You know he knew he'd find you here, right?" "What?" "He literally asked me if I knew where you were." "Really?" "Yeah. I think he kinda likes you." "Well... fuck." "Is that a bad thing?" "Yeah." "Why?" "I don't date people I work with, Pepper." "Why not?" "Because... I don't know. I just don't." "He is kinda cute though, isn't he?" "How about you just shut up?" "Yeah, I thought so."
The third and last kind of interesting thing was that some of the cats walking around turned out to be pregnant kitties. Nobody knew for sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing. Because we already had a lot of cats walking around, then again, is there anybody who can actually resist baby animals? I mean, I can resist baby humans just fine. Same goes for baby half gods. But baby animals, puppies, kittens, ducklings, even baby alligators are cute. No, I cannot resist baby animals, they're one of my few weaknesses. No, that isn't a bad weakness. It's an amazing weakness. Baby animals are the greatest thing on the internet and they cheer up a lot of people. Why am I defending myself for liking baby animals? Good question, I don't know. Anyway, baby animals bring joy to this world and I will defend them with my life. Okay, that's dramatic. I will defend them though, but seriously, who wouldn't?
Steve
Two weeks after Thor showed off his kids, which was also the second weekend that they spend at the Avengers compound, something showed up on the radar. It was something big, a space-ship. "That won't be good," I said to myself. Then I got up from my desk to warn the others about the coming threat.
(I am aliiiiiiiiiiiiveeeeeeeee. And I'm back. Ain't that just wonderful? Ain't it great to finally have me and my fanfiction back with a new chapter? Yeah, maybe not. Anyway, for the fans, here's the new chapter. It took me some time cause... I don't know, stuff happened. Nothing bad though, mostly I just didn't feel like writing because I was reading. I finally read all the Game of Thrones books.... Yeah, so... I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter. I'll try to be more active. ~Moomwolf)