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bedlamsbard · 2 months

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Some Yonderverse concept writing! This is for a potential sequel to The Horizon Line, set about four years before On Yonder Hill (a.k.a. eleven months post-Snap, four months after the end of Horizon).

About 4.3K below the break.

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“How is he?”

There was only one he anyone even remotely associated with the Avengers meant these days. Six months ago it would have been Loki; since the Tower, it had been Steve Rogers.

Natasha chewed on a fingernail and shot a glance at the Quinjet’s closed hatch, even though she was alone in the vessel and the only people visible through the viewport were a couple of Asgardian teenagers carefully coaxing a dozen strayed miniature sheep back in the direction of the flocks. She had no doubt that they knew she was there, but the Asgardians were pretty good about not bothering anyone other than Loki, who after almost a year was still their first go-to for anything and everything.

“Natasha?” Rhodey prompted when she didn’t say anything.

“Not good,” she said finally. “Not – not good.”

There was a long silence on the other end of the call, then Rhodey asked carefully, “How bad is it?”

It was a question whose answer varied from day to day, though sometimes it was hard to tell with Steve, since the worse he was doing the more he shut down. She couldn’t tell if being in New Asgard was making it worse or better, since everyone there was already traumatized and depressed to the point of daily tears and nightmares. At least the Asgardians had some kind of cultural context for what had happened to Steve, which did seem to help.

“Well,” Natasha said, “I think Loki is the most emotionally stable person here, so that might be your answer.” Or at least that he was the best at pushing through the absurdity of daily life post-Snap, which these days amounted to the same thing. She was aware that it might end in him having a messy breakdown with a body count later on, which was evidently what had happened seven years prior, but that was a problem Natasha and the Avengers would deal with when and if it happened. At this point she didn’t think it would, or at least that if it did Loki would go off and do it on some other planet instead of on Earth, which Natasha probably should have been more concerned about but which she didn’t have the energy to deal with now.

She took a deep breath, then asked, “Does the President want us back in the States? Or is Secretary Ross –”

He’d wanted to put Steve back in a lab as soon as he had come out of the Red Room, ostensibly on the grounds of replicating the serum; Natasha was certain that if he’d gotten his way, it would have resulted in a lot of dead scientists. Steve hadn’t even been able to go into the laboratory wing of Avengers Compound.

“No,” Rhodey said swiftly. “No, nothing like that. Just –” He took a deep breath of his own, then asked, “Is he anywhere nearby? Anywhere that he can hear?”

Natasha shook her head, remembered that he couldn’t see her, and said, “No, he’s out with Loki looking at some field with the harvest goddesses. I’m in the Quinjet with the hatch closed. What is it?”

“I’ll leave it up to you whether to tell him or not, but –” Rhodey sighed heavily. “Bruce and I just confirmed that Samuel Sterns survived.”

Natasha went absolutely still.

“Natasha?” Rhodey said after a minute of silence.

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah. We’ve got footage and eyewitness confirmation. Bruce and Betty are back at the compound now going through it all.”

“How?”

“We don’t know, but he’s a Hulk mutate, so…”

“Hard to kill,” Natasha said bitterly. She bit down on her thumbnail, worrying a little strip of it free before she bit it off and spat it aside. “God, I can’t tell Steve, he’ll never sleep again, and he doesn’t sleep through the night now. I have to tell Loki – where was he? America?”

“Brazil.”

Which was at least on the other side of an ocean from New Asgard, though with planes that didn’t mean much.

“God,” Natasha whispered again. “Son of a bitch. Why won’t he just die?”

“It gets worse,” Rhodey said after a moment. “Ross knows.”

“Son of a bitch!” Ross would want Sterns alive and working for him. Worse, if he got his hands on Sterns, he would find out what he had done to Steve. In all likelihood Ross had guessed some of what had happened to Steve in the Tower, but guessing was one thing; knowing was another. And he couldn’t be allowed to know if there was any way around it.

Natasha shut her eyes and slumped against the back of the pilot’s seat. “I can’t keep this from Steve,” she admitted. “He’ll never forgive me. But I can’t – Rhodey, he’s terrified of Sterns. The man drugged him, stuck him in a glass box, implanted a chip in his brain stem, spent a month cutting off bits and watching them grow back, and tried to peel his mind like an onion and got closer that anyone will admit.”

“I know,” Rhodey said grimly.

“Did you tell Tony?”

“Yeah. We’re using the SI satellites to try and find him.” He sighed. “Ross is probably going to want you two – maybe you three – back here sooner rather than later, but not if he can get his hands on Sterns first. He has to know that we won’t let him take Sterns alive.”

“Preferably mashed into a fine paste,” Natasha muttered. Louder: “How much time do you think we have?”

“Couple weeks?”

Natasha massaged her forehead. “I’ll tell Steve and Loki. If nothing else, Loki will probably want to up the security on New Asgard, which will make me feel better and might make Steve feel better.” Though at this point she suspected nothing was going to make Steve feel better. “Keep me updated.”

“Will do. Take care of yourselves.”

“You too.” She ended the call and tossed her cell phone onto the jet’s dashboard, staring bleakly out the viewport. The little sheep were still frolicking gleefully on top of the snow, ignoring the Asgardians’ patient attempts to herd them back towards the flocks. Unlike nearly every other animal in New Asgard, most of which tended to be half-again as large as their Earth equivalents and some of which were even bigger, the sheep only came up to Natasha’s knees and looked outright comical next to Steve and Loki.

“God damn it,” she whispered, and thumped her closed fist down on top of her thigh. “God damn it!”

All she could think about as she trudged back along the path to the settlement was how frightened Steve had been when they had taken him out of the Tower, away from Samuel Sterns and the Red Room. It had been the first time in her life that she had ever seen Steve Rogers afraid. In the four months since, he hadn’t slept through the night once; on his worst days he didn’t sleep at all and he couldn’t be touched. He didn’t react violently to it, he just froze, his eyes huge and terrified as he waited miserably for whatever was going to come next. Since Natasha was both the most likely person to touch him and the only person in New Asgard who might have been seriously hurt if he lashed out, that was probably for the best, but on the whole she thought she would have preferred violence. The unthinking resignation was worse.

Despite the construction of several houses in New Asgard, most of the Asgardians still slept either in Gimlé or Iðavoll. Natasha passed the great meeting-hall with its gilded rafter-ends, Ullr’s forge, the recently-completed loom-house, and the public baths, all of which were already lit up from within. Iðavoll’s elaborately carved doors were closed against the cold of a Norwegian March, but they opened easily at her touch, letting out a blast of warm air from the firepit that ran down the center of the great hall. At this hour the big room was mostly deserted except for the usual assortment of dogs and cats, but Loki and Steve were sitting at the long table at the back of the room, Steve working in his sketchbook and Loki going through his mail. Natasha still wasn’t sure how the mail was arriving in New Asgard and was afraid to ask.

They both looked up as she came in. Natasha paused just inside the door to scuff the snow off her boots, then went to join them. She touched a brief kiss to Steve’s lips as she sat down next to him, relieved when he put his arm around her; that meant he was having one of his good days.

Loki was frowning at what seemed to be an enormous scale the size of two cupped hands. When Natasha leaned over to peer at, she saw that one side of it was covered in dense runic writing in gold-colored ink. It was glowing faintly. After a moment he tossed the scale down with a clatter and picked up an ordinary envelope, slitting it open with a dagger. He read the contents, rolled his eyes, and stuck envelope and letter together into the nearest candle flame.

“More hate mail?” Natasha asked. There was already a dusting of ash on the table.

“More hate mail,” Loki agreed. He let the letter burn down to his fingers, then dropped it into a bowl and picked up a roll of parchment, leaving sooty fingerprints behind as he pried the wax seal off with the tip of his dagger and flipped it aside.

Steve had a small pile of opened mail set to one side of him, and another pile for Natasha. As he went back to sketching, Natasha began to sort through her own mail. Most of it was either hate mail or fan mail; some of the fan mail probably qualified as hate mail too. There were a couple of advertisements and a letter from Alexei, which she set aside to read later.

She jumped as Loki snarled a curse in Asgardian, the Nordic syllables harsh, and slapped a hand down on the table. Natasha grabbed for the candle as it started to fall, getting drops of hot wax on the back of her palm before she righted it.

“Kin-slaying be damned, I knew I should have had that son of a níðingr whore killed,” Loki said through clenched teeth. He snapped his fingers with a glitter of green-gold magic and said, “Forseti, Ullr, I need you now. Brunnhilde and Eir if you can be spared.”

Steve and Natasha stared at him as he tossed the parchment down onto the table and flattened his palms on top of the planed wood, flexing them as if he would have preferred to wrap them around someone’s neck.

“What’s wrong?” Steve asked.

“Family disagreement,” Loki said.

Natasha blinked. “I thought –” she started to say, then stopped herself.

“That everyone was dead?” Loki finished for her. “I could be so lucky. That bastard would never have done this to Thor.” He slapped his hand against the table again, furious.

The great hall’s door opened to admit the Valkyrie and Ullr, with Forseti and Eir just behind them. As soon as they were within earshot, Loki wadded the parchment up into a ball and tossed it to Ullr, who caught it and straightened it out as Loki slumped back in his chair.

“Is he mad?” the blacksmith demanded, then passed the letter to Forseti.

“Well, given that side of the family, I certainly wouldn’t be surprised to hear it,” Loki said.

Forseti handed the letter to Eir; the Valkyrie leaned around her shoulder to read it too, then blinked and looked up at Loki. “Who the hell is this?”

“My cousin,” Loki said bluntly. “Or Thor’s cousin if we’re going to be exact about it, as he’s being – on my father’s side,” he added for Steve’s and Natasha’s benefits, and presumably the Valkyrie’s. “Son of my father’s younger brother Vili. And an ass. He always has been, ever since we were children.”

“What does he want?” Steve asked.

“Asgard,” Loki said bluntly. He sat clenching his fist on top of the table, white-knuckled and clench-jawed with fury. “He wants Asgard.”

Natasha and Steve exchanged a puzzled look. She would have expected Loki to just dismiss the possibility, but his reaction suggested that there was something else going on. “Can he do that?”

“Yes,” Loki said through clenched teeth. “I do not have time for this nonsense and the Conclave will treat it seriously for the sheer pleasure of dragging Asgard through the mud. Thor or my father could have gotten away with ignoring it, I can’t. Not now, at least. I should have had him killed years ago.”

“The…Conclave?” Natasha said.

“Of the Nine Realms. Get off, greedy one,” Loki added as Freki jumped up onto the table and sniffed at the remaining mail. She ignored him and batted a paw at the candle flame, then sat down on some of the opened mail and stared at him.

“Why can’t you ignore the Conclave?” the Valkyrie demanded. “They’ve never had any real power – not over Asgard, anyway.”

“Because I’m not Asgardian,” Loki said through his teeth. “As dear cousin Baldur takes such care to point out, I’m defiling our people by planting my Jotun-born arse on Hliðskálf, though I don’t think he knows Hliðskálf didn’t survive Ragnarok. Idiot. And if I ignore him, some of our people might start listening to him – the Realms might anyway, the House of Odin hasn’t exactly endeared itself to most of them over the course of the past few millennia. I’m not letting him have the last word.”

“So you’re just going to take him seriously?” the Valkyrie demanded, at the same time that Ullr said, “If the Conclave and the vǫlur decide against you –”

“And have to deal with Baldur for the next six thousand years?” Loki scoffed. “Even they’re not that stupid.”

“What are you talking about?” Steve said.

“My cousin is suing for rule of Asgard,” Loki said. “On the grounds that I’m not Asgardian enough to have a right to the throne. I’m not sure he knows how few of us there are or if he just wants the prestige of it. He’s already called it up before the Conclave of the Nine Realms, the rulers of the Nine and some of the protectorate worlds, as well as the vǫlur. They deal with inter-realm disputes and certain issues of inheritance at the highest levels, or at least they’re supposed to; my father used to rule them with an iron fist.”

Steve and Natasha stared at him. After a moment, Natasha said, “You’re getting sued?”

“Yes,” Loki said. “Isn’t civilization lovely? I should have stayed evil.”

Loki was so furious that Natasha didn’t have a chance to bring up Sterns’ survival to him and Steve until late that evening. By then rumor had already spread through the settlement and New Asgard was in a state of high panic over the possibility that Loki might be deposed; Natasha wouldn’t give a fig for his cousin’s life if he ever came within spitting distance of New Asgard. Every Asgardian there had crowded into the great hall for dinner and there was a buzz of sound throughout the building, all of them watching Loki, who slouched in the high seat on the dais and worked his way through two bottles of wine without blinking or looking noticeably inebriated. He did get increasingly sarcastic as the night went on, though without the sharp-edged cruelty that Natasha remembered from the helicarrier.

“Didn’t the coronation put an end to this?” Natasha asked Forseti quietly at one point, while Loki was busy adjudicating some sort of disagreement over a goat. “He’s already been crowned king, hasn’t he?”

“Yes,” Forseti said. “He’s been elected by the Althing, acclaimed by the Aesir and recognized by the Æsir, but Baldur’s challenging that he has no legal right to stand for election or to hold the throne.”

“But he already has the throne,” Natasha said, puzzled. “And he’s Thor’s brother and Odin’s son, isn’t he?”

“By law-right, yes, and by kin-right,” Forseti said, as Steve leaned in to listen. The Valkyrie was sitting on Loki’s other side, but she turned her head too, clearly using her superior Asgardian hearing to eavesdrop on the conversation. “But not by blood, which was never public knowledge. We won’t know for sure until we stand up in front of the Conclave –” Natasha took that to mean that she was expecting to act as Loki’s lawyer or whatever the Asgardian equivalent was. “– but my guess is that Baldur Vilison is arguing that because His Majesty isn’t born-Aesir he has no right to the throne.”

“Baldur,” Steve said thoughtfully. “Isn’t he the one in the myths who…” He let the words trail off, exchanging a look with Natasha.

She glanced at the wall behind the dais, where Mistilteinn hung along with one of the ulfheðnar’s wolf-headed shields and a pair of short swords, all ready for Loki to snatch up at need. She had read the same myths as Steve. On the other hand, they all knew how accurate those myths could be, which usually wasn’t very.

Forseti waved that aside. “They were children. Eir can tell you the story; she was there.”

“That doesn’t sound good,” Steve said, his eyebrows going up.

“Oh, please, he was fine,” Loki said, glancing at him. “It was barely a scratch a thousand years ago. It’s not my fault he and Höd hold grudges.”

“This isn’t sounding better,” the Valkyrie pointed out.

“What is he the god of?” Natasha asked.

“Light,” Forseti said.

Natasha had no idea what that meant on a practical level, though even after nearly a year she still didn’t quite understand what Asgardian godheads entailed.

Loki scoffed. “He’s barely Aesir, that hardly counts. I wouldn’t be surprised if what’s left of the Triumvirate talked him into this, I’m not sure he’s smart enough for it on his own.”

“His mother is Rind, younger sister of Freyja and Frey from the Ruling Triumvirate of the Vanir,” Forseti interpreted for Natasha and Steve. “Odin arranged the marriage soon after he became king. Vé’s too – that’s Vili’s twin; he married twice on Ria, but there were no children from those. He has three bastard daughters, all with different mothers.”

“Does Baldur actually have a claim to the throne?” Natasha asked curiously.

“Kin-right, not law-right,” Loki said, scowling. “My father made certain of that when he married off his brothers. None of my cousins even have a vote in the Althing; they’re not Asgardian by law.”

One thing that Natasha had figured out over the past eleven months was that Asgardian law was insanely complicated and got more so when it intersected with the laws of the other worlds in the Nine Realms. There was no overreaching law in the Nine Realms; Asgardian law applied to a certain sector of the population on the planets ruled directly by Asgard, but otherwise local laws dominated. There were ways to argue that one set of laws should apply over another, several cases of which Loki had already adjudicated, since the King of Asgard was the highest authority in any law case that involved Asgardians.

Loki knocked back his wine glass and picked up the bottle again, shaking it experimentally before setting it back down with a sigh; apparently it was empty. He turned his attention to another Asgardian standing in front of the high table, saying something to her that Natasha didn’t catch.

Natasha sat back in her chair, thinking about what it might mean for Earth if Loki did lose the Asgardian throne. The Asgardians were on Earth because Thor had wanted them to be and Loki was determined to follow his brother’s last wishes; knowing the general Asgardian opinion of Earth, she doubted that anyone else would be all that interested in carrying on with the New Asgard experiment. Most human politicians would find removing the Asgardians from Earth a preferable option to keeping them here. On the other hand, unlike Loki, Baldur had no reason to want to keep on Earth’s good side, and the last thing they needed was another inter-planetary war.

There were more Asgardians bedding down in the great hall than there had been lately by the time Loki finally pulled himself free and retreated to the room in the back of the building that he shared with Steve and Natasha. It was a long room that ran behind the great hall, divided by folding screens and warmed by braziers filled with magically heated stones. Loki sat down heavily on the futon-like quilted mat he slept on and rubbed his hands over his face, some of his anger and frustration dropping away. When he looked up again, his expression was weary.

“Is it actually serious?” Natasha asked him.

He nodded. “The Conclave doesn’t have any real ability to enforce anything it decides, but Baldur has close ties to the Ruling Triumvirate of the Vanir, and Freyja and Idunn could decide to enforce it if the Conclave decides in his favor. That would mean war, since I doubt my people would simply accept Baldur’s claim even if I did. Traditionally Asgard has never given much weight to the Conclave, since for many millennia we were the only ones who enforced anything across the Nine.” He drew his knees up and rested his folded arms over the top of them. “Baldur would very likely take my people to Vanaheim as well. It would have been different if there was still an Asgard, but…” He shook his head. “In half a century, they wouldn’t be Asgardian anymore, they’d be Vanir, and Vanaheim would have the Protectorate, not Asgard.”

“What would it mean for you?” Steve asked, sounding worried.

Loki lifted a shoulder in a shrug. “I could go to Vanaheim with the rest of my people, I suppose, if Baldur didn’t have me outlawed. I could go elsewhere in the Nine; Eitri would probably take me in. I could stay here. Or I could leave the Nine. Or, well, there’s the lovely and more likely option of civil war. I don’t know that the Vanaheim garrison would side with Baldur over me – Thor, certainly, but to them he’s just another Vanr, not an Ás. Though I’m not sure they’re convinced I’m an Ás, though they wouldn’t be wrong there. Of course, they don’t get a vote, so what they think doesn’t really matter unless we do get that lovely civil war.”

He held out a hand to Freki as the cat walked in through the closed door, which never failed to disturb Natasha. Freki butted her head against his fingers, then curled up against his left ankle as he stroked her back.

“So basically the Conclave is the space UN,” Natasha said thoughtfully. “Or the World Security Council.” Before Alexander Pierce had blown the World Security Council to hell.

Since Loki had spent the better part of a month arguing with the UN, he couldn’t fall back on his usual tactic of pretending he didn’t know how Earth governments worked. All he said was, “Roughly,” and rubbed at his face with the hand not involved in petting Freki.

Natasha bit her lip, not wanting to make Loki’s day worse, but if she put this off any longer then it would go worse for everyone involved. She caught Steve’s eye as he started to move towards the opposite side of the room where they usually slept – they slept with Loki occasionally, but not that often – and he stopped, looking at her inquisitively. “What is it?”

Loki looked up again. “I take it that I’m not the only one who got bad news today.”

“No,” Natasha said. “I got a call from Rhodey earlier.”

“I cannot go to America right now, even if it’s being attacked by robots again –” Loki began.

“It’s not about that,” Natasha said. She took a deep breath, then said, “He and Bruce just confirmed that Samuel Sterns is still alive.”

Steve went dead white. He took a step away from Natasha, his shoulders bunching up as if he expected to be hit and he was trying to brace himself for the blow.

Loki cursed wearily in Nordic-sounding Asgardian syllables that made Freki sit up and hiss. “How?”

“They don’t know,” Natasha said. “They’re trying to find him before –”

“Before he finds me?” Steve said. “I’m not exactly hard to find.”

“He can’t cross the land-wards,” Loki said. “And if he tries, the Valkyrie will dismember him.” Freki hissed again and Loki glanced down at her, smiling wryly. “Assuming the greedy one here doesn’t get him first.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Steve said blankly. “Ross will call us back, or he’ll use it as an excuse to –” He had started to shake again, but when Natasha put out a hand to him, he pulled away.

Loki chewed his lower lip, then shrugged suddenly and said, “Then don’t be here. Come to Nornheim with me; Midgard does technically have a seat on the Conclave and you might as well remind the rest of the Nine exactly who put an end to Thanos. They could use the reminder that humanity is no longer Yggdrasil’s plaything.”

Natasha looked at him in surprise. “Nornheim?”

“The vǫlur host the Conclave at the ruins of Urðarbrunnr on Nornheim,” Loki explained. “It’s considered neutral by all Nine Realms and the rest of the Protectorate.” He frowned thoughtfully. “The vǫlur might side with me; my mother was patroness to them. On the other hand, I’m fairly certain that my sister is the reason Urðarbrunnr is in ruins, so perhaps not.” His gaze flickered upwards again. “Regardless, there’s no way that Sterns will be able to reach it.”

Natasha glanced at Steve. After a moment he nodded and she said, “I guess we’re going to Nornheim.”

#cut scenes and concept writing #grim from the reaping #roleswap endgame au concept #as always comments are appreciated

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randomidiocyncrazies · 8 months

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N P T Y!

thanks for the ask! i kinda went ham on the AU question lol

N - Name three things you wish you saw more of in your main fandom (or a fandom of choice).

oof this is hard! the thing is. i'm an extremely fickle mistress, so i don't really have a 'main' fandom? also i think most of what i want from fandom is extremely generic (more gen fic, more femslash, more AUs with interesting worldbuilding, more rarepairs etc etc) and most of my specific comments are aimed more at the source material than at the fandom

(that said, if anyone writes political intrigue and/or the mundane stuff of nation building about the Kree/Skrull Alliance please please please link! there's so much story potential there..............)

P - Invent a random AU for any fandom (we always need more ideas).

okay so i LOVE most AUs, but my favorite are well-done roleswaps (by which i mean the characters' core personalities are intact, it's just that their circumstances have changed). I mean... i still lowkey think about the Persona 4 adult investigation team AU a friend and I talked about almost 10 years ago lol

(oh! speaking of the Persona franchise, i've always kind of wondered what would happen if P4 protag moved to Sumaru City after P4 and gets Jun Kashihara from Persona 2 as his homeroom teacher, and one way or another accidentally triggers a way for Nyarlathotep to return (most likely with P4 protag coming into contact with Tatsuya by chance through Jun)—after all, the theme of Persona 4 is to lift the fog of deceit, but not all truths should be remembered... though I guess this isn't really AU since it could theoretically happen as long as you handwave the mechanics about how personas/Nyarly and Philemon work)

my other pet AU is the Appmon Utena AU because narratives about roles and agency fascinate me! (appmon and utena endgame spoilers in linked posts)

as for something that I'm mostly making up right now........... uhhhh Loveless AU for Oda and Aoki from 2.43 Seiin High School Men's Volleyball Team, but only about the concept of Fighter-Sacrifice pairs and not... everything else (I have not read Loveless but it's got A Reputation)—mostly because i think it'd be so interesting if their pair name is "Selfless", seeing as Oda tends to think of himself as selfish in the novel, while Aoki's speech about "no need to thank me, I'm doing this because of ulterior motives" and his utter devotion to Oda's cause makes me kiiinda feral. (and from what little i understand about the general power dynamics of Fighters and Sacrifices, i think it makes sense for Oda to be the Sacrifice and Aoki the Fighter? idk)

i haven't thought of why they're marked, since they're meant to be Just Some Guys in 2.43 (i.e. not one of the star players on the team)

T - Do you have any hard and fast headcanons that you will die defending?

i'm not willing to die on this hill, but i have this entire elaborate headcanon about Euanthe from Counter/WEIGHT having a dead fiance and them being essentially an anti-stratus due to the programming language disconnect between the Divines and the Apostolisian mechs. both are just something i pulled completely out of my ass tho (note: Twilight Mirage is the last sci-fi season from friends at the table that i've completed)

as for something i'm slightly more willing to die defending: Yukiko and Chie from Persona 4 lived on takeout for like 4 months after they got their own place, before grudgingly learning how to cook at the Inaba community center (also Yosuke heckles them about it and sends shitty pics of his humble homemade dishes at ridiculous hours to taunt them about it—at least, that's how they interpret his gesture

and i mean. they aren't entirely wrong about that.)

Y - What are your secondhand fandoms (i.e., fandoms you aren’t in personally but are tangentially familiar with because your friends/people on your dash are in them)?

oh boy most popular media is like that for me... i feel like ORV is one of these even though i did read some of it? (and i mean. i do plan on reading past ch 75 of ORV one of these days.) i've heard stuff about SVSSS (about a rarepair/side character) and the Owl House seems interesting from the general impression i get from my dash

I guess i also. learned about SPN on tumblr (and know more than I want to, even though in the grand scheme of things it's not much at all)

[ask prompts here!]

#replies #Anonymous

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bedlamsbard · 2 months

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snapped and wrote 2.5K of Horizon sequel/Yonder prequel

At this hour the big room was mostly deserted except for the usual assortment of dogs and cats, but Loki and Steve were sitting at the long table at the back of the room, Steve working in his sketchbook and Loki going through his mail. Natasha still wasn’t sure how the mail was arriving in New Asgard and was afraid to ask. They both looked up as she came in. Natasha paused just inside the door to scuff the snow off her boots, then went to join them. She touched a brief kiss to Steve’s lips as she sat down next to him, relieved when he put his arm around her; that meant he was having one of his good days. Loki was frowning at what seemed to be an enormous scale the size of two cupped hands. When Natasha leaned over to peer at, she saw that one side of it was covered in dense runic writing in gold-colored ink. It was glowing faintly. After a moment he tossed the scale down with a clatter and picked up an ordinary envelope, slitting it open with a dagger. He read the contents, rolled his eyes, and stuck envelope and letter together into the nearest candle flame. “More hate mail?” Natasha asked. There was already a dusting of ash on the table. “More hate mail,” Loki agreed. He let the letter burn down to his fingers, then dropped it into a bowl and picked up a roll of parchment, leaving sooty fingerprints behind as he pried the wax seal off with the tip of his dagger and flipped it aside.

#adventures in accountability #roleswap endgame au concept #I default back to yonderverse when I'm stressed #when I go too long without writing it all bursts out

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bedlamsbard · 5 months

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Have a little Yonderverse ficbit of Thor and Loki and some of New Asgard's animal life. (Freki is the cat on the table.)

About 850 words below the break.

*****

The third night Thor woke up with three hounds and two cats tucked in around him, he finally snapped and demanded, “Where did the animals come from? They weren’t on the Statesman with us.”

He wasn’t exactly opposed to the company – he liked animals – but he had no idea where they had come from. Given how efficiently and ruthlessly Loki seemed to have micromanaged all of New Asgard over the course of the past five years, he also had no doubt that Loki knew exactly where they were from. Probably each and every one of them, individually, down to the damned Álfar geese that seemed to be running rampant across the thorp.

His brother didn’t bother to glance up from the glowing model of the settlement that he had set up in a corner of his study. There was another cat perched on top of his desk, studiously cleaning a paw, and a hound sprawled on the floor in front of one of the room’s several braziers, its tail and hind legs twitching a little as it dreamed.

“Here and there,” Loki said.

“Loki,” Thor said meaningfully. “These aren’t from Earth.”

Loki finally raised his head and looked vaguely around the room, then pointed at the hound and said, “Those are from Earth.”

Thor looked at the hound, which looked like the most common kind of Asgardian or Vanir hound – big, wolf-like, with a plumed tail and a thick ruff of fur around its neck. “That dog is not from Earth.”

“Not the dog,” Loki said meaningfully. When Thor stared at him, he let out a little annoyed huff and came out from behind the model, crossing to the dog and crouching down in front of it to rub at its ears. The hound woke up, thumped its tail, and raised its head, revealing three small kittens that had been nestled between its front paws, hidden under its chin. Loki handed one of the kittens up to Thor.

It fit neatly into the palm of his hand, about half the size of an Asgardian kitten of the same age, but was old enough that its eyes were open and it had a little white stub of tail. It made a mewling sound as Thor ran a finger down the soft fur of its back, making the big cat on the desk stand up and fix a meaningful glare on Thor. After a moment she leapt down to the floor and trotted over to them, touching noses solemnly with the hound before settling down to groom the kittens. The contrast in size made Thor smile before he crouched to put the kitten he had been holding down beside her.

“All right, those are from Earth,” he agreed. “Where did the other animals come from?”

Loki sat back on his heels, resting his wrists on his knees. His mouth twisted a little, like he was trying to decide what to say, then he shrugged and said, “The destruction of the Infinity Stones five years ago split open the world-paths in Yggdrasil. They’re not impossible to wander into normally, but it’s difficult. For a time it became less difficult. There were also a large number of animals in the Nine who suddenly found themselves without their caretakers. The settlement had certain needs, so I sent out a calling.” He shrugged matter-of-factly. “The world-paths went back to more or less their former state a few years ago, though we still get the odd newcomer.”

Thor stared at him. “You stole people’s pets? And livestock?”

Loki looked aggrieved. “I’ve never gotten any complaints. And even if I had, stealing cattle is a time-honored tradition of our people.”

“All of those animals’ owners are back now!”

Loki stroked a hand down the cat’s back. “They’re welcome to come here and take it up with me,” he said, thought about it, and then added, “And the animals themselves, of course, I wouldn’t keep them here if they wanted to leave.”

Thor dug a thumb into his forehead. “Brother…”

“It’s not as though the animals couldn’t have left on their own if they were so inclined,” Loki said pointedly. “The world-paths go both ways. And honestly I wish the damned Álfar geese would go, but having been the bane of my existence for the past five years I’m glad that they’ve at least moved on to tormenting you too.”

“Thanks,” Thor said dryly. “Where did these cats come from? The ones from Earth.”

“Darcy brought them by when she visited last week,” Loki said, his expression saying, obviously, you oaf. “I think you were out.”

Thor stared at him. “Since when do you know Darcy?”

Loki raised his eyebrows. “You were busy being dead. What, I can’t make friends?”

Since Thor had spent the past few weeks trying to shake the uncharitable feeling that Loki had not only stolen all of his friends but also his life while he had been dead, he didn’t have a good response to that. He just shook his head and reached out to scratch the dog’s ears as it thumped its tail against the floor.

#cut scenes and concept writing #roleswap endgame au concept #as always comments are appreciated

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bedlamsbard · 6 months

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my next fic probably isn't going to be the Yonderverse "Loki organizes Steve's and Bruce's dual stag party and it goes, uh, well, Things Happen" but it COULD be.

peak comedy: Steve, Bucky, Loki, Thor, Clint, Rocket, Sam, Rhodey, Scott, and Bruce getting into Trouble In Space while Steve and Bruce just want to go home and make out with their respective brides-to-be. (Tony was invited but opted out, saying he had had enough of space and someone had to hold down the fort on Earth.)

#this is where that clint ficbit with the pied raven would go #nat's and betty's hen do is either equal amounts of trouble or all the girls are just doing shots in a bar in norway like normal people #or possibly both #adventures in accountability #roleswap endgame au concept #I don't do pure comedy well so it's unlikely but it's one of several ruminating fic bunnies

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bedlamsbard · 7 months

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Some concept writing! Back when I was working on On Yonder Hill I toyed with the idea of sending the Chaos Trio (Steve, Natasha, Loki) universe-hopping instead of having the Time Heist work as planned (more or less). I ultimately pulled back from that in favor of sticking closer to canon with the Time Heist, but the idea stuck with me and I found a little concept writing from back then. I am at all times keeping myself from doing more worldbuilding for this AU (or any AU, tbh).

About 1700 words below the break.

*****

Something’s wrong, Natasha thought in the split-second between the quantum tunnel activating and reality twisting around her. She didn’t know what had keyed her; she certainly had no idea what transiting the quantum realm was supposed to feel like. Shit, we should have found a way to practice this, someone has to have been able to replicate Pym particles –

Then the quantum realm spat her out.

Natasha, remembering Clint’s return from the one practice run they had been able to do, had been braced for disorientation and was almost more surprised not to have it than she might have been otherwise. She hit a hard metal surface that definitely wasn’t the New York alley they had been aiming for and came up on one knee as her quantum suit slithered back into the wristlet, her widow’s bites sparking.

“Steve?” she said, trying to blink the glitter of the quantum realm out of her eyes. She could tell there was someone else there with her besides her partners – several someones, from the sound of it. “Loki?”

“I’m here,” Steve said.

“I am going to kill Stark and Banner both,” Loki said through his teeth, in the tone he used when he wanted to remind people that he had tried to take over the planet once and was fully willing to take another stab at it. “And possibly Lang.”

“Well, that’s terrifying,” said a very familiar voice that definitely wasn’t supposed to be here.

“Oh, good, I can start now,” Loki said.

The glitter finally faded from Natasha’s eyes as a gun cocked – nearly right in her face. She looked up at the barrel and then past it, to her own green eyes and determined expression, minus eleven years and some hard wear and tear. Past her younger self she could see Tony and Bruce, curious but standing prudently back. Definitely younger, not to mention it was Bruce instead of the Hulk; the last ten years hadn’t been kind to anyone.

Natasha deactivated her widow’s bites and held up her empty hands, which didn’t have any effect on the gun in her face. She turned her head a little to see Nick Fury with his own sidearm out and pointed at Steve, who was kneeling beside Natasha with his shield out before both of them.

Loki was on her other side. He had managed to stay on his feet and had his hands up, glowing with his green-gold magic, but his eyes were wide with disbelieving shock as he stared at the man in front of him.

“Brother?” Thor said.

“Steve?” said the last person in the room. He was short-haired and cleanshaven, wearing a dark blue uniform with red and white stripes that Natasha had never seen before, though it had the distinctive star from all of Steve’s uniforms on the chest.

Steve twisted to look at him, ignoring the warning sound that Fury made. “Bucky?”

“Oh, shit,” Natasha said.

“I’m going to kill Stark,” Loki said again, not taking his eyes off Thor. “I told you this was an incredibly stupid plan.”

“You agreed to it,” Steve said.

“You told me you had this part sorted out.”

“Could you please both shut up?” Natasha said. She turned on her knees towards Fury, careful to keep her empty hands in plain sight. “Sir, I can explain,” she said, thought about it for a moment, and added, “And I am Natasha Romanoff. That’s Captain Steve Rogers,” she jerked a thumb over her shoulder and waggled it in first one direction, then the other, “and King Loki of Asgard.”

“King?” Thor said sharply.

“By election of the Althing,” Loki said shortly. “Quite properly and legally because everyone else is dead.”

“Steve Rogers is dead,” Bucky Barnes said, his hands clenched into fists at his sides. Neither of them, Natasha was interested to see, was metal. “And has been since 1945.”

“What?” Steve said.

“The many worlds theory is true,” Tony said in tones that suggested he had just seen the face of some god other than the god of mischief. “This is the best day of my life. If His Nibs over there would stop talking about killing me.”

“Weapons on the floor,” Fury said. “No funny business.”

Natasha sighed. This was going to take a while. She slipped her bites off and set them down, then her baton harness, followed by her pistols, and unbuckled her belt rather than empty every pouch. Her holdout knives went on the floor next, and the garrote in her boot. Her counterpart moved forward enough to nudge the pile out of Natasha’s reach with her foot, the gun in her hand never leaving Natasha’s face.

Loki looked annoyed, but set Mistilteinn down anyway, which made everyone do a double-take – Natasha suspected they had assumed it was the scepter before getting a closer look. He apparently did have a number of knives actually on his person rather than tucked away in his pocket dimension, since he laid down several daggers, a brace of throwing knives, and what looked like a single-edged Finnish puukko knife he had had in his boot before crossing his arms over his chest.

Steve just put the shield down on the floor in front of him.

“Holdouts,” Bucky said with a note of challenge in his voice.

Steve shrugged in a “gee shucks, officer, I clean forgot all about it” kind of way and pulled his holdout knives out of their various hiding places, the garrote from one of his belt-pouches, and then the little two-inch blade in his collar, setting them all down on top of the shield.

“You’ve been holding out on me, Steve,” Loki said, looking a little fond. “And here I thought you just punched your way through everything.”

“Okay, hold up,” Tony said, coming forward. “So I’m guessing you guys are from an alternate universe where Steve Rogers didn’t die –”

“What?” Natasha said.

“– and it was the OG Cap who went into the ice, instead of Chuckles here.”

Bucky gave him a disgusted look. “I’d remember that your dad was Steve’s friend, not mine, Stark.”

Tony gave him an equally disgusted look in response. “Not forgetting that one any time soon.”

Steve pressed his fingers to his forehead and repeated, “What?”

“Is that actually possible?” the other Natasha asked. “That they’re from another universe?”

“Theoretically,” Bruce said; he was staying well back from them.

“We’re also from the future,” Natasha said, since they were already into it and they might as well put it all on the table at once. “2023. April, for whatever that’s worth. We’re supposed to be in May 2012 –”

“Yep,” Tony said.

“– our May 2012,” she clarified.

“Nope,” Tony said. “I mean, just guessing, going by Cap One and Cap Two. And the god of crazy.”

“No, I also tried to invade Earth in 2012,” Loki said unhelpfully. “Things have changed.”

“Could you maybe just – not talk?” Steve told him. “For a minute or two while we try to sort this out?”

“I don’t see what needs to be sorted out,” Loki told him. “It seems simple enough to me. Scott, Tony, and Bruce made the mistake of believing that the past is one thing, whole and entire, and that entering the quantum realm would only allow us to move backwards through our own timelines. I didn’t make the connection because you mortals use quite different language for it than we do, not until we were actually in it – Mimameid, we call it, the Cosmos Tree that passes over all the realms.”

“You traveled through Mimameid’s branches?” Thor half-yelled, making them all wince.

“Mee ma – what now?” Bucky said.

“Mimameid,” Loki said. “The Cosmos Tree to Yggdrasil’s World Tree.”

Steve and Natasha both turned to stare at him. “You couldn’t have mentioned this before?” Steve said.

“Well, I didn’t realize that when Scott was talking about the quantum realm he meant Mimameid!” Loki said. “You humans are very efficient; for all I knew you had discovered something new, and I was a little busy trying to make certain that all of my people don’t die instantly in the cold vacuum of space if this mad plan of yours worked, which apparently it doesn’t! Forgive me for actually trusting you for five minutes!”

“What...the hell,” Bruce said helplessly.

“Look, it’s quite simple,” Loki said. “The Avengers had a plan to use the quantum realm as a means of traveling through time in order to temporarily retrieve the Infinity Stones from their own – our own – history, so that a certain wrong could be undone. However, instead of traveling only back through our own past, we traveled from our branch, our world tree, to another one and ended up in the history of that branch instead. Very similar to our own, but –” He glanced at Bucky and Steve, “– not quite identical.”

“Can you get us back?” Steve said.

Loki frowned. “Possibly. It’s not something I have any experience with because as I have continually warned you messing about with time is a terrible idea.”

“What’s an Infinity Stone?” the younger Natasha asked.

“It’s kind of a long story,” Natasha said, then, given their location, looked hastily around and winced when she saw the scepter sitting on the lab table behind them. Loki followed her gaze and looked resigned; Thor followed his gaze and looked wary.

“Can we back up to the part where Steve’s alive?” Bucky said. He had the same pained, desperate expression Natasha remembered seeing on Steve’s face back in Washington all those years ago.

“Can we back up to the part where I got three time-travelers from another universe on my boat?” Fury said. “Including one of my agents, the crazy god whom I’m supposed to have locked up in the other room, and a super soldier who died of falling off a train in 1945?”

“Hey!” Bucky said. “Can we be a little nicer about the worst day of my life?”

“Falling off a –” Loki said, confused. “Don’t you regularly jump out of aircraft without a parachute?”

“Not regularly,” Steve said. “Wait, did you say –”

“Oh, shit,” Natasha said. She and Steve exchanged horrified looks, while Loki looked a little bewildered at their reaction.

“What?” the other Natasha demanded.

Steve’s gaze skated over Fury, went hard with remembered suspicion, and turned towards her. “Tell me about the Winter Soldier,” he said.

#cut scenes and concept writing #roleswap endgame au concept #as always comments are appreciated

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bedlamsbard · 6 months

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500 words written today -- some concept writing, some Home. I am in A Mood, which is extremely unpleasant and extremely unhelpful, but it is what it is and I can't do much about being grumpy. Everything is annoying me today and my inability to commit to anything is spiking.

Snippet from Yonder sequel AU concept 2.

Steve blinked, then blinked again. “Have you ever actually been to New Asgard?” “Sure, we went out a couple weeks ago for the wedding.” This time it was Scott’s turn to blink and peer closely at Steve, like he was looking for something, then he tried to cover it up by stuffing the pizza into his mouth. Steve looked over at Hope van Dyne instead. “Wedding?” Her gaze flickered down to his left hand, then up to his face again. Then she looked at Scott, who shrugged in response, but swallowed and said, “You – I mean, Steve – I mean, our Steve, the real – not that you’re not real, I mean –” “Scott,” Steve said tiredly. “Right. Uh –” “Steve Rogers and Natasha Romanoff got married three weeks ago in New Asgard,” Hope finished for him. “We were there.” “The best man punched out the father of the bride,” Scott said, and when she glared at him, added, “What? It was memorable! Thor and Loki had to pull them off each other!” “What?” Steve said, his mind still back on Natasha’s name. “Nat’s alive?” Scott and Hope both looked at him, badly startled and said, “What?” in poorly overlapping unison. Scott finished by saying, “Should she…not be?” Then he looked horrified at the phrasing.

#daily fic snippet #roleswap endgame au concept

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bedlamsbard · 4 days

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(Yonderverse) Ross has trouble taking Loki seriously as A Former Villain because he's always seeing Loki get bullied by various Asgardian animals. He arrives in New Asgard for a surprise visit just in time to watch Loki throw a goose out of one of Idavoll's upper windows and yell at it in Asgardian. (The goose is fine. It has wings.)

#roleswap endgame au concept

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bedlamsbard · 9 months

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Some concept writing! This is a scene that I've been thinking about for a while but haven't had anywhere to use it; I might do a bigger wedding story at some point, which is why this isn't going to AO3 as a standalone. This is set several months after On Yonder Hill/Endgame in the Yonderverse timeline. (Note that the timeline doesn't quite match up with the sequel concept, which is why it's all concept writing.)

Steve/Nat, Bruce/Betty, and Clint/Laura all referred to. Pied ravens are an extinct color morph from the Faroe Islands.

Just over 2K under the break.

“Dad?”

There was a nervous edge to Lila’s voice that made Clint’s hand tighten on his razor. He flinched an instant later as the twitch opened a thin cut on the underside of his chin. Wiping the blood and the last of the soapsuds away, he called back, “Yeah, sweetie?”

He had to fight to keep his voice calm and finish wiping his face dry, rather than rushing downstairs immediately. Since the Blip he had been hovering in a way that he knew made them all nervous, not dissimilarly to the way he had hovered when he had first retired after the Ultron debacle. Only back then it had been because he didn’t really know what to do with himself when he didn’t feel like he was counting time until his next deployment; now it was because he couldn’t bring himself to believe that they wouldn’t all vanish if he turned his back. He was doing his best.

“Dad, there’s a – a bird.”

Clint stopped with the water running across his hands. “A bird?”

“Hon, I think you’d better come down here,” Laura added. From the sound of it she was standing at the bottom of the stairs. “I think it’s for you.”

He heard Nathaniel say, “Why would a bird be for Daddy?”

“Jesus,” Clint muttered, turning the water off and wiping his hands dry. “I’m going to kill that son of a bitch. Coming to my house –”

He took the stairs two at a time on the way down and arrived in the kitchen to find Laura and the kids clustered on one side of the room and a big black-and-white bird perched calmly on the back of a chair. The back door was open behind it.

Because of the color, it took Clint a moment to identify the bird as a raven. It was half again as big as the next biggest raven Clint had ever seen, which was pretty damn big. It had the same indefinable air of being faintly alien as the handful of Asgardian animals he had seen, maybe something about the glossiness of its piebald feathers or the curvature of its beak.

Clint eyed it warily. He had grabbed one of his holdout pistols on his way downstairs and was holding it down by his thigh where the kids couldn’t see it, just in case he had guessed wrong and the damn thing wasn’t Asgardian after all; if it was Asgardian he doubted bullets would have all that much effect on it.

The raven eyed him back with what seemed to be equal suspicion, then let out a single quork and turned its head. There was a glitter of green-gold energy as it turned back with a thick envelope held in its beak.

Clint gritted his teeth and tucked his gun into his waistband, pulling his shirt down to cover the grip. “You tell Loki,” he informed the raven as he crossed the kitchen, “that the postal service exists and it’s very reliable. Don’t tell me he’s too cheap to buy an international stamp.” He took the envelope a little gingerly from the raven, then resisted the urge to flinch as it repeated the motion, this time with what seemed to be a tightly rolled scroll. It settled back on the chair and watched him after he took it.

“What?” Clint asked it. “What do you want? A prize? Go on, shoo.”

The raven ruffled its feathers and didn’t move.

“Jesus,” Clint muttered, taking a wary step back from the bird and putting himself between it and his family. He opened the envelope first and pulled out a perfectly ordinary sheet of heavy embossed paper, reading out loud, “You are cordially invited to the wedding of Robert Bruce Banner and Elizabeth Lee Ross – Bruce is engaged to the Vice President’s daughter,” he informed Laura, passing her the invitation as she came up behind him. “The weddin’s going to be in some church in Virginia, which makes me wonder why the hell Bruce has Loki’s menagerie delivering his mail.”

The raven quorked at him again, sounding annoyed.

“That’s wonderful,” Laura said, reading the invitation. “What’s the other one?”

“Ross must be losing his mind,” Clint said as he unrolled the scroll. “He hates Bruce. He – holy shit!”

“What?”

“Nat’s getting married!” Clint said, staring at the sheet of parchment or pressed wood paper or whatever it was the Asgardians used.

Laura snatched the scroll out of his hand. “To who? I didn’t even know she was seeing anyone!”

“Aunt Nat’s getting married?” Lila said, venturing closer with a wary look at the raven.

“Nat’s getting married to Steve Rogers?” Laura said, staring at the scroll. She stared accusingly up at Clint and said, “Did you know about this?”

“No!” Clint protested. “I had no idea that they were –” Several dozen observations from his month at the compound while they had been working on the quantum tunnel and the Time Heist snapped together. He had written them all off as coincidence; Steve and Natasha had been weird about each other since they had gutted SHIELD together nine years ago. Hell, they had been weird about each other since the Chitauri invasion back in 2012; Steve had apparently taken one look at Natasha on the helicarrier and decided that she was the only person there he trusted. Clint still remembered seeing him for the first time back in that cell-cum-cabin and the wordless question-and-answer that had passed between Steve and Natasha about him. From his best calculation they had known each other for about twelve hours at that point. “I’m an idiot.”

Laura gave him a dry look. “I thought you were living with them at the compound.”

“I wasn’t paying attention to who was sleeping in whose room!”

“So we’re going, right?” Lila said, reaching for the scroll; Laura relinquished it to her after a moment and the kids all clustered around it. Clint wished them luck at reading Loki’s ornate, runic handwriting; at least the damn thing was in English. Why Loki was writing Steve and Natasha’s wedding invitations was anyone’s best guess.

“The wedding’s going to be in New Asgard,” Clint said. Although he had scouted the borders during the Snap, he had only been out to the settlement once and wasn’t sure how he felt about it; his visit had been soon after the Blip and Loki had been busy organizing it with ruthless efficiency, backed up by its original residents. Clint still couldn’t decide if Thor hadn’t been able to get a word in edgewise or if he had been content to let Loki have his way.

“So?” Cooper said. “New Asgard’s cool. I’ve seen pictures on the internet.”

Clint exchanged a look with Laura. He didn’t like the idea of letting his kids anywhere near Loki, no matter what Loki had been up to during the past five years.

“I mean, if aliens attack again, New Asgard’s got to be the safest place to be, right?” Cooper insisted.

It had been eleven years since the Battle of New York and Clint still couldn’t get over the fact that that was a concern that kids just had these days. “New Asgard’s full of aliens, bud, that’s why it’s got the words ‘new’ and ‘Asgard’ in the name.”

“But all the Avengers are there too.”

“Probably just to spite Ross,” Clint muttered; for better or worse Steve and Natasha were currently running the active Avengers team out of New Asgard. It cut down on the paparazzi, anyway.

Laura put a hand on his arm and said, “It’s Nat, Clint. And Steve,” she added as an afterthought; she liked Steve but knew him less well than she did Natasha.

“Yeah, yeah, of course,” Clint said; the outcome was a foregone conclusion and they didn’t need to have a debate about it. He looked back at the patient raven and said, “Are you waiting for an RSVP or something?”

It quorked again.

“Right,” Clint muttered, then, louder, “Yes on both, party of five.” He took the RSVP card that had been in Bruce’s envelope, found a pen, and scribbled his response before holding it tentatively out to the bird, which took it in its beak and made it vanish in a little flicker of green-gold magic. “Is there one for Steve and Nat?”

The raven made what he assumed was a negative gesture. It spread massive wings and hopped into the air, gliding out through the open door. They all rushed after it, getting to the door just in time to watch it vanish in another flash of green-gold energy.

“God, everything about Asgard is so weird,” Clint said. “I gotta make a phone call,” he added, and went upstairs to find his cell phone. He checked the time in Norway before he hit the call button, then said, “You’re getting married? I had to find out from one of Loki’s wild animals?”

“Hello to you too,” Natasha said. “I was going to call, Loki just moved faster on the party-planning than I thought he would.”

“Since when have you and Steve been – uh –” Aside from a few ill-fated attempts that Clint and Laura had arranged in the first year after her defection and the disaster with Bruce in 2015, Natasha didn’t date. As far as Clint was aware, Steve didn’t either.

“Seven years,” Natasha said, after a brief pause.

“What?” Clint almost yelled. “You didn’t say!”

“I thought you were supposed to be observant, Hawkeye! I didn’t realize we were supposed to send out a press release!” She took a deep breath and then added more calmly, “I thought you knew.”

“I found out now,” Clint said. “You guys aren’t really, uh, demonstrative.” He bit his lip; thinking back on it, he was pretty sure that Steve had been sleeping in Natasha’s room at the compound nine nights out of every ten. “So, uh, why now?”

“Steve really wants to. He wouldn’t have pushed if I didn’t, but – I do too,” Natasha said. There was a little bloom of heat behind the words, like any other woman who was in love; Clint just wasn’t used to hearing it from Natasha. “It’s like – like everything was on pause during the Snap and we just couldn’t think about it then.”

“Yeah,” Clint admitted; he knew what that one was like. “Why New Asgard, though? Isn’t Steve Irish Catholic? He could get St. Patrick’s or St. Matthew’s for the asking. Or whatever the cathedral in Brooklyn is.”

“St. Joseph’s,” Natasha supplied. “He says he doesn’t care and if we have a wedding in the States then it will be a sideshow.”

“And having one in New Asgard won’t be?” Clint said dubiously. “You know what Asgardians are like –”

“I know better than you do,” Natasha pointed out. “You know what New York has that New Asgard doesn’t? The press. It’s mostly an excuse for Loki to throw a party, anyway.”

Clint bit his lip, then went over to shut the bedroom door. “I don’t like the idea of bringing my kids to New Asgard, Nat.”

There was a long pause before Natasha said carefully, “You’re not coming?”

“No, of course we’re coming,” Clint reassured her. “Just, you know. St. Pat’s would have been a lot easier.”

“For you,” Natasha pointed out. “We’re going to have enough trouble getting Loki into the country for Bruce’s wedding. Bucky’s already started a betting pool on who’s going to punch out Ross.”

Clint snorted. “Who’s in the lead right now?”

“Betty. You haven’t met her, have you?”

“Nope, but I read her file. When did you meet her?”

There was another long pause. “We had an op five years ago, about six months after the Snap, and she got brought in on it. I don’t want to talk about it on the phone.”

Clint bit the inside of his cheek. “Was that the thing in New York when the Tower got blown up? I saw it on the news.”

“That’s the one.”

Clint was well aware that he had fucked up by not linking up with the remaining Avengers after the Snap. To his grief-stricken mind it had seemed like the best idea for everyone at the time, but in actuality it hadn’t been good for anyone, him included. He had been able to tell from the news reports about the New York op that there was something big missing and no one had any idea what it was. That usually meant that something had gone very, very wrong.

He cleared his throat and said, “We’ll be there. For Bruce and Betty too, tell them I said hi. I gotta go have breakfast.”

“Okay,” Natasha said, sounding a little relieved not to have to talk about whatever disaster had happened on the New York op. “Give Laura and the kids my love.”

“Will do. Talk to you later.”

He ended the call and sat down heavily on the bed, tossing the phone to one side. “Damn,” he said eventually, feeling more than a little astonished. Clint might not have gotten snapped, but he had missed a lot anyway.

#cut scenes and concept writing #roleswap endgame au concept #as always comments are appreciated

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