Somethings were inevitable, and I knew this was going to be one of them. It had taken him a few hours to get here, so for a time I had peace and silence.
Ajak had done what she could with Ava, and had left the girl to sleep on my graciously offered bed, and it had led the two of us to remain behind and awake.
She sat on the porch, while I stood resting on the pillars that held up the building, yet I was careful with the way I pressed against the structure, knowing that the slightest force could collapse a great part of the building on the head of our new tenant.
"This little family of ours is growing big, don't you think?"
My reply was a grunt as I stared into the horizon. Family. A word with a twisted concept, yet one that I was slowly coming to yearn for once more.
"I can't wait to introduce the two of you to the rest of the Eternals, although..."
"I won't be staying for much longer."
Ajak turned to me, the question on her face as clear as the skies. "Do you think you are ready?" There was no judgment implied in the question, so I eased myself off the pillar before replying.
"I don't. But I will be, soon enough."
"I see. I would miss you."
I turned to her at that with a raised brow, causing her to let out some small laughter in response.
"Forgive me, you've imprinted upon me, and I've slowly begun to look at you like one of my children. One of my Eternals. It had hurt to let them go the first time. I suppose that is a pain every mother must face."
"It will not be in a day, a week, or month," I replied instinctively in an attempt to soothe the fact that it will be happening regardless. "I will have the chance to meet your Eternals, but I cannot remain here forever, not when I know what comes soon."
"This mad Titan you've spoken of," Ajak asked, her question rhetorical. "Thanos, was it. I'm not familiar with the name, but I'm familiar with his people. Titans from planet Titan are considered an endangered species, a species brought to ruin by overpopulation caused by their strength, for they proved too strong to be conquered, yet too meek to leave their planet and conquer others in a bid to solve their population crisis."
"I should not be surprised you know so much, yet I am."
Ajak smiled in response. "We Eternals can be found on most worlds bearing seeds." Her voice turned somber, no doubt remembering just what each planet they played gardeners over bore. "Prime Eternals are able to communicate over vast distances using our master as an intermediary, so I know so much of them due to Eros, an Eternal who had been stationed on the world."
It took me a second to remember the name. Starfox. Thanos's half-brother. The post-credit scene at the end of the Eternals movie. It made sense in some way. Using the Celestial communication sphere. It was supposed to help communication between Celestial and Eternal, but I didn't see any reason why it could not be modified to work between two Eternals, and I remembered that both Ajak and Eros had one.
"When he brings the war you believe he would bring with him, you realize that we cannot... I cannot aid you. Our master forbids it."
"I understand," I grunted in reply. "I believe it is stupid, for there should be some flexibility in your orders to leave humanity to grow on their own, and the coming battle is not just for humanity, it is for the entire universe." I looked back at her so she could get my point clear. "So, it is stupid."
Silence reigned.
"You're not curious?" Ajak suddenly asked. "Of who this master I've spoken about is?"
During our time together, just like I had communicated and informed her of what was to come, of Thanos, of a universe-spanning war in search of the stones, Ajak had let some things slip as well, and her mysterious master was one. She had never named him, but she had never needed to. Arishem the Judge.
"I fear that curiosity is not one of my vices." I started, only to stop halfway and look into the distance. "I'll be back," I finished with a crack of my neck, my interest in the conversation waning as I felt it once more. Something flying through the air, cutting through the clouds, and it was coming from the small town. It was heading here. It seemed like Tony had taken his time.
My feet took me forward as I made distance from the homestead,, and I finally saw him coming through the clouds. He spotted me, judging by the way his angle of flight changed as he shifted trajectory from the homestead to me, before slowing down to reveal himself and the person he carried in his arms. A weary and tired-looking Jane Foster, with her hair a tangled mess from flying through the sky.
This was not a conversation I had any interest in, yet I knew it was not one I could avoid, and however this played out would determine my stay on earth.
The armor landed with practiced ease, repulsors hissing as Tony set Jane down. The woman stumbled, her legs unsteady, and I felt a flicker of amusement. Flying while being carried was never comfortable. I knew that from experience, having carried more than a few mortals in my time.
Tony's faceplate melted away, revealing the face I'd seen in movies and confirming what I knew about the smooth-looking armor. Nanotech. He looked older in person than on screen. More lines around the eyes. The weight and burden of responsibility hidden behind smirks and sarcasm. Cursed with Knowledge, Thanos had called it.
"Sorry about the turbulence," he said, not sounding sorry at all. "Next time I'll remember to pack airsickness bags."
Jane shot him a glare that would've been more effective if her hair weren't sticking up in six different directions. "Next time, warn me before you grab me and fly across three states."
"I warned you. You just weren't listening." Tony's attention shifted to me, and I watched his expression change. The smirk remained, but I could tell it was a mask as clear as the one he had just pulled back. His eyes were narrowed and analyzing. "Besides, we had more important things to discuss than your comfort."
I understood the look. He was weighing me, analyzing as well as measuring the threat I posed, but also calculating his odds of survival if things went wrong, and judging by the way his eyes tightened, whatever his calculation had resulted in was not very favorable.
Smart.
"Stark," I said, trying to keep my voice neutral, non-threatening. I'd learned over the past month that my size alone was intimidating. Adding aggression to it would only make things worse. My effort was a waste, because my voice still rang like boulders crashing.
His faceplate instinctively formed over his face once more for better protection, and his eyes glowed, no doubt running deeper scans. Energy signatures. Threat assessments. I could feel the sensors washing over me, cataloging my power output. Let him look. Let him see what I was. Better to establish that now than have surprises later.
"That's me," Tony replied, his voice casual despite the tension in his shoulders as his faceplate melted off once more. "Tony Stark. Genius, billionaire, philanthropist, occasional superhero. And you are...?"
"Thor Odinson."
I watched the words land. Saw the surprise, the way his jaw tightened slightly. He did not believe me.
"I don't know how Asgardians grow, or even what they eat, but I like to think I would recognize Point Break even after a year, and you, my dear red-haired hunk of fat and well-sculpted muscle, I've to admit, are not him."
"Believe it or not, it matters not to me," I replied with another gravelly shrug as my attention went to the woman giving me a weird look. There was a brief tense standoff as Tony looked at me, annoyance and confusion warring for dominance on his face. I could almost feel him work that massive brain of his as he sought an answer to the paradox that was my existence.
I could tell when he came to an answer. It was slow, but the realization in his flickering eyes was rapidly coming to a conclusion. However, he was outsmarted, as Jane Foster's eyes widened first in shock.
"I was right!" She exclaimed with a hop and a shout of joy. "Screw those CIA spooks and their smooth-brained eggheads, goddamn it, I was right. This is a convergence, or a kind of. He fits the mythological descriptions way more than our Thor ever did. The hair, the body type, the tattoos, the scars. He might be Thor, just not the Thor we know."
"If we follow your theory, which says our Earth has converged and merged with another alternate Earth, then perhaps it makes some sort of sense that this is some alternate Thor," Tony agreed, coming to the same conclusion. Still, there was some doubt in his eyes as he continued. "However, despite Ginger's claim here, there is no real proof that he is Thor. I would've expected him to..."
"I tire of this."
With that statement, I snapped my fingers, and a bone-rattling hum filled the air. Tony Stark's nanomachines came to life once more, immersing his face in plate as he immediately moved to stand before Jane Foster, his two arms held up and slowly merging into what looked to be a massive cannon.
Yet despite the beam weapon forming before my face, there was no sign of worry on my features. My hand snapped out as Mjolnir slammed into my palm with a meaty thwack. The dwarf-forged rune hammer came to life with a great and terrible hum that made even my teeth clench as the skies above us darkened, ozone filled the air, and my heart beat like a miniature engine reactor.
"Badhump"
I stared down at Tony Stark, giant-killing hammer in hand, my eyes spitting lightning under darkened skies, and dared him to doubt my identity once more.
"I believe that is enough reason to believe him, and I also think he's waiting for an apology, Tony. So please apologize to the red-haired eight-foot-tall god of thunder, pretty please."
Stark looked at me, and even behind the mask I could almost feel him swallow spit. "I don't suppose I can call you Point Break without you smiting me dead, can I?" Humor as a defense for fear. I was not surprised. Perhaps he needed more proof that I was who I said I was. I didn't even need to kill him. He had survived Thor's lightning strike once. Now to see if he could survive mine.
I took a step forward, and his merged hand cannon glowed brighter in response, but before anything could escalate, a soft hand grabbed me by the forearm, and I looked down into Ajak's eyes. It was a stare-down that lasted only a second, and I could see the way she besmirched me to calm my temper with that single look, so I did.
I let out a breath, and the clouds seemed to breathe with me as the gathering storm began to disperse, and the hum that Mjolnir let out began to shift from bone-rattling to simply a dull sound in the background. Tony took the truce for what it was as his hand cannon powered down, and his hands shifted once more, nanoparticles coming to life to separate the limbs.
"You're definitely scarier than our Thor, I'll admit."
My response was a simple grunt until Ajak poked me in the side with an elbow. So I hooked Mjolnir on my belt as I turned away.
"I'll make tea."
I made my way back to the homestead with those words as Ajak began to speak to Tony and Jane as they trailed behind me. My first meeting with the first Avenger, and I had almost struck him. That was better than either Thor could claim.
See, I could be a calm and reasonable person.
__
Tony Stark
Tony stood in the middle of the sitting room, arms folded. He was not sure what to feel. He knew magic was real, or at least some sort of magic. No simple technology could explain Wanda Maximoff, nor Loki, nor the many other instances of magic he knew of. Hell, since the Earth grew bigger, there had been more than one report of sightings of the group of strange Hogwarts rejects fighting trolls and werewolves.
However, what he was being told now broke the scale of whatever he could envision.
The only person who seemed animated in the sitting room was Jane Foster, who was as jittery as a rabbit that had been fed a mixture of heroin, speed, and crack cocaine. The woman could barely remain in her seat, her whole body wired to explode into motion from the sheer joy and amazement that was hearing this story. He was certain that the only reason she had not spoken yet was because she had not decided on what to start with. Fortunately, Tony had no such problem.
"So let me get this straight," Tony started, crossing his arms. "You're Thor. From another reality. You crashed here a while ago, have been living with..." He glanced around the house and the woman who had identified herself as Ajak and was giving him a kind smile. If he had not had FRIDAY scan her, he would've mistaken her for a simply kindly woman. She was not. "Some very mysterious people, and you just happened to punch out Crusher Creel when he tried to steal a car."
"Not a very accurate summary, aye, but close."
"And the whole Earth growing forty percent thing?"
Ginger shrugged, and Tony was sticking to Ginger because he found it surprisingly difficult to refer to the red-haired scary giant as Thor. His Thor had been a sexy-looking supermodel with a charming smile, bright blue eyes, and blonde locks. This Thor... well, if Tony got out of this encounter unscathed, let's just say he was going to be building a brand-new armor just to survive him, because FRIDAY had told him his odds if things had actually come to blows a few minutes ago, and they were not good.
"That was not my doing, or at least not directly." Ginger paused, considering his words. "My people were in danger. We performed a spell, a working of great magnitude. We moved the Nine Realms themselves to escape inevitability. It seems that the result of the spell was anchoring our reality to yours."
"You moved nine entire realms," Jane breathed, her eyes wide with wonder and horror. "That's... that's not just impossible, it's insane. The energy required alone would be..."
"More than any one being could provide," Ginger agreed with that rumbling voice of his. "Which is why it took hundreds. Everyone with even a spark of power. Giants, gods, elves, humans. We poured everything we had into the spell." Ginger's hand moved unconsciously to his side, to the hammer, and wasn't that a trip. He had recovered pieces of Mjolnir, when he got to the crash point a month ago, and had locked it up to study. So seeing another Mjolnir was a shock even if it was clearly different, because just like its owner, there was something very brutal about its look. "And we paid the price for it."
"This inevitability you mentioned," Jane continued. "Ragnarok?"
"Aye."
Tony watched the woman's face twist as understanding dawned. "The prophesied end of Asgard. Twilight of the gods." Her voice was distant, academic. "Norse mythology speaks of it, but I never thought... Thor never said anything about it."
"It happened," Ginger stated flatly. "In your reality and in mine. I believe that was what allowed the spell to work. The loop that allowed the anchor to lock."
Jane's expression twisted into worry. It seemed like she had not missed the insinuation.
"You mean our Asgard just suffered Ragnarok?"
"What happened to them? To Asgard. Our Asgard. What happened to our Thor?" Tony took over the questioning to spare Jane Foster, and all the brute did was shrug before an elbow to his ribs forced him to grunt in annoyance and speak.
"Your Asgard should be destroyed if they didn't have the means to escape like we did. Ragnarok is an inevitability. Your Thor might be alright, as should the Asgardians. However, that is all I can say, or claim to know."
The silence that followed that admission was long, and the only person who seemed comfortable in it was the same person who had dropped the bombshell. Even the matronly woman who had resolved to stay silent after offering them tea had a strange look on her face as they all digested the words.
"I have a question," Jane spoke up, drawing everyone's attention. "This spell you mentioned, the one that moved the Nine Realms. It created a dimensional overlap, didn't it? Your reality and ours merged at specific points?"
Tony instantly understood what she was doing. She was running, running away from the vague chance or probability that the Thor she knew, her Thor, was dead. Instead, she was focusing on what she could control and understand. He approved.
Heavy blue eyes turned to the woman, making her shrink back instinctively.
"Aye. The spell was designed to anchor our realms to a reality where Ragnarok had already occurred, thereby fulfilling the prophecy without destroying our people. I don't know the details. What I know is our realms seem to have merged with yours. Our Midgard became part of your Earth."
"Which explains the landmass increase," Jane murmured, her scientific mind already working through the implications. "New continents, new regions, all perfectly integrated as if they'd always been there." She looked up at me with wide eyes. "That's reality manipulation on a cosmic scale. You rewrote the fundamental structure of this universe to make room for yourselves."
"I did not do anything," Ginger grumbled. "I merely bought the time for it to happen. Others did the work. I simply stood in the way of the end while they did."
"So what now?" Tony found himself asking.
"I don't suppose you have already made contact with a certain red cloaked sorcerer with a penchant for mouthing off, and more pride than even you posses, have you?"
Tony frowned in confusion and disbelief at the thought that there was someone out there more proud than him, and that was all the answer Ginger needed.
"Figures. It's not time yet, but it would've made things easier," Ginger muttered to himself, but considering his voice, he might as well have shouted it out loud.
"Now that things have calmed a bit and we understand ourselves better, you can take what Thor had been kind enough to retrieve from the thief a few days ago. I believe it belongs to SHIELD." The woman finally interjected herself into the conversation. "After that, the true question is what do you want to do now with the information available to you?"
Tony hummed in response. The information load and density was a lot, and he could sort that out at his convenience, preferably when he was not in the same room as the man. FRIDAY's calculation was telling him he could probably fold him in half even while he was in armor. The second priority remained what to do with him. So far, the man was no danger to anyone, at least not yet, and while Tony didn't trust him, he trusted that Thor, even a strange alternate Thor, would not start wanton killing, especially since he had proven himself by going over a month without any issue, which meant there was nothing he could really do.
"Do you have a way to contact Asgard? I would like to know about what has happened there," Jane was the one to speak up.
Ginger simply stared at her for a few seconds before grumbling a reply. "There should be a sorcerer on this Earth by the name of Strange. Find him."
"All right then," Tony finally said with a clap. "So you're not a threat, everything is fine, and we need to find a magician by the name Strange. I'm guessing he can help you get back home too. That should be easy enough. I don't suppose you have a phone number, do you?"
Ginger gave him a look, and he gave a nervous chuckle in response. "Didn't think so."
"I do," Ajak said, throwing him a lifeline, and he smiled once more. "Excellent. You'll be our point of contact. If you need anything, call me, and FRIDAY will make sure I receive it right away." He flicked a finger, and his number shot out digitally into the woman's phone resting quietly in her back pocket.
"If there is nothing else, we have to leave now. As soon as we find this magician, we'll let you know. In the meantime, I'm sure you'll manage well enough."
He was about to turn away, grab Jane Foster, and send himself rocketing out of the oppressive atmosphere when Ginger stopped him with an arm on his shoulder that froze him in place. He stared down at Tony with a weird look on his face, and Tony could see the moment he came to a decision.
"Prepare yourself and your world, Tony Stark," the red-haired giant rumbled out. "Something is coming, something that might spell doom for your planet."
His features hardened at once beneath his visor. "What do you mean? How do you know?"
"You're not the only one cursed with knowledge."
Then the pressure was gone, and he was left reeling once more as the red-haired giant walked away to retrieve the package that Creel had stolen, and Tony Stark was left reeling with a sense of déjà vu.