Thor Odinson, God of Thunder, King of Asgard (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
pirateangelbaby) wrote2019-09-15 12:56 pm
pirateangelbaby) wrote2019-09-15 12:56 pm
You Can't Go Home Again
[Trigger warning: non-explicit suicidal thoughts]
There's a part of Thor that has never really believed that this will work. Sure, he was in the room when Barton had reduced down to nothing and popped back holding a baseball glove he hadn't had a moment before, but surely that was a fluke. Some kind of trick, or just a lucky shot. It's not that time travel can't be real, but after everything that's happened, everything they've endured... having one last shot to set it all right is too good to be true.
Something has to go wrong. He can't get his hopes up again, only to have them dashed to pieces again. He only narrowly survived his failure the first time, and if he allows himself to believe they will succeed, only to have it snatched away again... living would be too much to bear.
So he stubbornly refuses to let himself believe it, even as he follows the others up the ramp to the time machine platform, and seals his helmet in place to usher him safely through to the other side. He refuses to believe it even as the world suddenly leaps and grows around him, spiraling down into a realm made of shapes and colors for which there are no names, hurtling through a tunnel toward a golden light.
He refuses to believe it, until he opens his eyes and finds himself standing in an alcove in Gladsheim.
He'd forgotten the gleam of gold, the solid weight of stone above his head. The smell of incense burning with pine and sandalwood and dragon's blood, a light breeze carrying scents of lilies from his mother's garden and the frosty bite of a gathering snow shower. The sound of footsteps echoing through the hollow spaces of the palace, the calls of birds that have been extinct since this entire realm burned to ashes. The way the world is flush with seidr, plants and animals and people whose very essences overflow with life going back a thousand unbroken generations, since before humans had ever discovered fire.
And all of it, gone.
Thor barely notices his white quantum suit folding away into its strange pocket dimension, leaving him in the same Midgardian clothes he'd been wearing at the Avengers complex, and it does not occur to him to summon the armor he has not worn since the Garden. His lungs are squeezing in his chest, his breath speeding up, and he fights back against the rising panic as hard as he can.
Oh Norns. This was a terrible idea.
Rocket is talking, but Thor isn't listening, his one-eyed gaze darting around the hallway as if it might reveal itself to be a trick if he looks hard enough. But it's so very real, and the stone column is solid under his back as he presses himself against it when the sound of footsteps comes closer, and a familiar voice floats to his ears and makes his heart race in his chest.
He knows that voice. Has a handful of years really been enough to make him forget? But now that he's heard it again, he recalls the sound of childhood lullabies sung to a pair of fussy young princes, of wise words spoken to adolescent brothers, of reassurances given to a crown prince on the eve of a coronation that was not to be.
Frigga walks past where Thor and Rocket are hidden, speaking to her attendants, giving instructions to bring Loki food and books where he sits imprisoned in the dungeons, and Thor bites his knuckles to stifle the sob that threatens to burst from his chest as he realizes his entire family is alive and well in this palace, right now. Frigga, Loki, Odin... the Warriors Three... tens of thousands of Asgardians who met their ends in Ragnarok and... and what came after. Asgard is here, and real, and in only five years they will all be dead and gone. And Frigga... Frigga dies today.
The grief wells up in him, deep and black and hollow in his chest, and he doesn't notice that his mother's footsteps have not left with the others until suddenly he becomes aware of a familiar presence at his elbow, a familiar voice in his ear. "Are you all right?" Frigga asks, her hand touching the sleeve covering his prosthetic arm, and Thor damn near leaps out of his skin.
The force at which he throws himself away from her, the cry that rips from his throat, startles Frigga as much as himself, alarm ringing through him with every beat of his heart. He's not supposed to let anyone see him. He's not supposed to interfere. He could rip the timestream apart with a careless word, or if he's seen where he shouldn't be, and now his mother is standing right in front of him and Thor has no idea how he is supposed to talk his way out of this.
Her eyes sweep over him from head to toe even as he tries to turn away, as if that would prevent her from seeing the gleam of metal of his left arm, the dark patch where his right eye used to be, the fullness of his beard and the alien clothes he had never worn on Asgard. And through the sheer panic filling the void where rational thought once was, Thor finds himself responding on reflex, on instinct, plastering a smile on his lips and a thoughtless, pathetic excuse on his tongue.
Frigga's hand rests against his cheek and gently turns his head so she can look him in the eye, inspecting the scar that cuts from forehead to cheekbone, and though she cannot possibly know all that's happened - what he's become - he expects to see condemnation on her face, the same blame he sees in everyone whether it is there or not. But she smiles, and shakes her head sadly, and her compassion is so potent that it wraps around him like a cloak, or a mother's hug. "You're not the Thor I know at all. The future hasn't been kind to you, has it?" she asks, already knowing the answer, and she raises a finger to hush him when he stammers, trying to deny it. "I was raised by witches, boy. I see with more than eyes."
There's no way out. Nothing he can say will excuse this, will distract her from the truth that she's already figured out on her own, nothing to convince her to turn around and forget she ever saw him. And never in his life has Thor needed his mother more.
Timeline be damned. Thor breaks, a miserable gasp escaping him as his good eye wells with tears. "I'm totally from the future," he chokes out, and something warm and painful swells in his chest as his dead mother wraps her arms around him for the first time in six years. In this moment, he is neither king nor Allfather, but the little boy who Frigga raised at her knee. He buries his face in her shoulder, breathes in her scent, and cries as his mother rocks him gently, full of nothing but love for her heartsick mess of a son.
He doesn't hear what she says to Rocket, or him to her, but by the time Thor's vision clears his friend is gone somewhere, leaving the two of them alone.
Frigga leads him to her chamber, away from prying eyes of anyone who should happen to wander through and see something they should not. And seated on her couch, a small flask of mead in hand to fortify his spirit, the story spills from him in disjointed fits and starts. Of Thanos, and the infinity stones, and how Thor's grief-fueled lust for revenge had led to the deaths of trillions. Of how they had sought to undo it all, only to fail again, and how killing the Mad Titan had done nothing to relieve the guilt that has crushed Thor from within ever since that day in Wakanda. Never once does Frigga seem to mind him rambling on, no matter how incoherent and mad he must sound at times, but simply sits at his side and listens with eternal patience as she runs a brush through his hair and plaits it with little braids at his temples, drawing them to meet at the back of his head like a crown.
"It's... it's my fault," he concludes at last, tears shining on his cheek and darkening the side of his beard, his missing eye aching fiercely at its inability to cry with the other. "I should've noticed he had them all. I should've... should've gone for the head and been done with it. But I was an idiot."
Frigga smiles slightly, and the sympathy and concern in her eyes has not wavered one bit throughout the jumbled weaving of his tragic tale. "You're no idiot," she tells him, warmth and understanding in her voice. "You're here, aren't you? Seeking counsel from the wisest person in Asgard."
It hadn't been his intention, and it certainly hadn't been the plan. But here he is regardless, and he nods mutely in agreement.
"An idiot, no. A failure? Absolutely." Her words cut him deep to his core, a blade to the heart, and though it's nothing he hadn't already known, Thor's breath hitches as his chest tightens. But Frigga is not done, sitting at his side and rubbing soothing circles on his back. "Do you know what that makes you? Just like everyone else."
What? He lifts his head to look her in the eye, distraught and confused, but he sees no hatred there, no pity or disapproval. "I'm not supposed to be like everyone else," he manages. A king, a god, the Allfather of the Nine... which thing doesn't matter. He is supposed to be above this, and he isn't.
Her smile does not leave her, and his mother's magic seeps through her touch, warm and comforting, just how she had once soothed him to sleep as a young boy, chasing away nightmares with her love. "Everyone fails at who they're supposed to be, Thor. The measure of a person - a hero - is how well they succeed at being who they are. Yes, you made a mistake. A disastrous one. But punishing yourself will not change the past. Be kind to yourself, and learn from your mistakes. You're a good man, Thor, with a good heart. You wouldn't hurt so much if you didn't." She smiles, and strokes his hair back from his face. "I'm proud of the man I see before me now. Never doubt that."
Another sob rises in his throat, choked by bewildered relief. For months he has convinced himself that his parents would be disappointed in how he has failed to live up to his father's legacy, in how he has failed their people, in how his mind has splintered under the weight until he still does not truly recognize himself anymore. But he cannot see any trace of that in his mother's eyes, and he leans into her touch, resting his forehead against hers. "I've really missed you, mother," he breathes, and her arms simply tighten around him, anchoring him to what is true and real.
More than anything, Thor wishes that he could make this moment last. But even with a time machine at their disposal, time continues to tick forward, ever closer to the invasion of Asgard. Even now, perhaps, the monster that is to slay his mother is in the dungeons, waiting to make his move.
He can't change the past. Thor knows this. But impulse seizes him, and he draws back to look her in the face, old grief and desperation carved into the lines of his own. "There's something I need to tell you, about today."
But Frigga stops him there, raising a finger to his lips to hush him. "You're here to fix your future, not mine," she says, and when he makes a noise of protest, she smiles sadly. "I know what it is you want to tell me. It's all right, Thor. The Norns have a path for each of us to walk, and I embrace mine with open eyes. Have faith, and I will see you again, when your time comes. But not before, do you understand?"
He shouldn't. He hadn't. But she knows, as a mother would, and his eye brims with tears anew as she tugs gently on a braid she's left hanging free by his left temple, and shows him the golden lock woven in among his own, one that matches the wavy tresses cascading down her back. "I'll always be with you, my darling boy. We all will."
Thor's fingers ghost over the little braid, recognizing the faint wisp of her seidr clinging to it, as he had once carried a lock of Loki's hair when he'd thought his brother dead. It had brought him comfort then, and after Sakaar and what followed, he'd thought he would never have a piece of his family to carry with him again. He gives her a watery smile, his heart full in a way it has not been in what feels like centuries. "Thank you."
The moment is broken by the sound of tiny boots on stone, and Rocket dashes in on all fours, clutching a syringe that glows red from within. He pulls up short at the sight of the two of them, and holds it up. "Thor, I got the thing. We gotta move."
It's too soon. Too soon to say goodbye to his home, his mother, reducing them to only memory. But he can't stay here forever, no matter what he wishes. This is the past, and it needs to remain so. "I wish we had more time," he tells Frigga as they rise together, hands clasped.
But she shakes her head and smiles, and lifts her hand to cradle it against his cheek, lightly brushing the tears from his eye before they can fall. "No. This was a gift. Carry it with you as you go."
One last hug, and it feels as though his heart will burst in his chest from sorrow and gratitude both, memorizing this moment until he feels as though it will stay with him forever. It takes all his willpower to pull away, standing clear, readying himself to be transported back to the future.
And then a thought strikes him like a bolt of lightning. His family are not the only ones who still exist here and now, and despite everything his mother just told him, part of Thor still clings to the doubt and shame, not so easily shaken off. Words are words, but magic... it cannot be tricked, or tell you what you want to hear, regardless of the truth. He has to be absolutely certain.
"Wait!" he cries out to Rocket, and thrusts out a hand toward the open window, reaching deep down inside himself to a silver thread he has not touched since Sakaar, pulling on it and praying. He waits, and waits, and dread begins to creep in moments before a handle slams solidly into his palm, the rectangular head of his beloved Mjolnir gleaming silver and whole in the sunlight, and thunder rolls across the sky as the hammer's warm, familiar presence settles into his head. Relief crashes over him like a breaking wave, affirmation that everything his mother told him was true, that despite his failures and brokenness... "I'm still worthy," he whispers, and the tears that threaten to fall now are happy ones, his heart swelling not with grief but joy for the first time in so many months.
He's still worthy.
Thor smiles at Frigga, overflowing with relief and light, and she smiles back. "I love you," he says to her, and her to him, and if it is the last thing that is ever spoken between them, that is enough.
The last thing he sees as the world pulls itself apart around him is Frigga's face, smiling proudly at him. And then he is gone, leaving Asgard for the future that awaits.
There's a part of Thor that has never really believed that this will work. Sure, he was in the room when Barton had reduced down to nothing and popped back holding a baseball glove he hadn't had a moment before, but surely that was a fluke. Some kind of trick, or just a lucky shot. It's not that time travel can't be real, but after everything that's happened, everything they've endured... having one last shot to set it all right is too good to be true.
Something has to go wrong. He can't get his hopes up again, only to have them dashed to pieces again. He only narrowly survived his failure the first time, and if he allows himself to believe they will succeed, only to have it snatched away again... living would be too much to bear.
So he stubbornly refuses to let himself believe it, even as he follows the others up the ramp to the time machine platform, and seals his helmet in place to usher him safely through to the other side. He refuses to believe it even as the world suddenly leaps and grows around him, spiraling down into a realm made of shapes and colors for which there are no names, hurtling through a tunnel toward a golden light.
He refuses to believe it, until he opens his eyes and finds himself standing in an alcove in Gladsheim.
He'd forgotten the gleam of gold, the solid weight of stone above his head. The smell of incense burning with pine and sandalwood and dragon's blood, a light breeze carrying scents of lilies from his mother's garden and the frosty bite of a gathering snow shower. The sound of footsteps echoing through the hollow spaces of the palace, the calls of birds that have been extinct since this entire realm burned to ashes. The way the world is flush with seidr, plants and animals and people whose very essences overflow with life going back a thousand unbroken generations, since before humans had ever discovered fire.
And all of it, gone.
Thor barely notices his white quantum suit folding away into its strange pocket dimension, leaving him in the same Midgardian clothes he'd been wearing at the Avengers complex, and it does not occur to him to summon the armor he has not worn since the Garden. His lungs are squeezing in his chest, his breath speeding up, and he fights back against the rising panic as hard as he can.
Oh Norns. This was a terrible idea.
Rocket is talking, but Thor isn't listening, his one-eyed gaze darting around the hallway as if it might reveal itself to be a trick if he looks hard enough. But it's so very real, and the stone column is solid under his back as he presses himself against it when the sound of footsteps comes closer, and a familiar voice floats to his ears and makes his heart race in his chest.
He knows that voice. Has a handful of years really been enough to make him forget? But now that he's heard it again, he recalls the sound of childhood lullabies sung to a pair of fussy young princes, of wise words spoken to adolescent brothers, of reassurances given to a crown prince on the eve of a coronation that was not to be.
Frigga walks past where Thor and Rocket are hidden, speaking to her attendants, giving instructions to bring Loki food and books where he sits imprisoned in the dungeons, and Thor bites his knuckles to stifle the sob that threatens to burst from his chest as he realizes his entire family is alive and well in this palace, right now. Frigga, Loki, Odin... the Warriors Three... tens of thousands of Asgardians who met their ends in Ragnarok and... and what came after. Asgard is here, and real, and in only five years they will all be dead and gone. And Frigga... Frigga dies today.
The grief wells up in him, deep and black and hollow in his chest, and he doesn't notice that his mother's footsteps have not left with the others until suddenly he becomes aware of a familiar presence at his elbow, a familiar voice in his ear. "Are you all right?" Frigga asks, her hand touching the sleeve covering his prosthetic arm, and Thor damn near leaps out of his skin.
The force at which he throws himself away from her, the cry that rips from his throat, startles Frigga as much as himself, alarm ringing through him with every beat of his heart. He's not supposed to let anyone see him. He's not supposed to interfere. He could rip the timestream apart with a careless word, or if he's seen where he shouldn't be, and now his mother is standing right in front of him and Thor has no idea how he is supposed to talk his way out of this.
Her eyes sweep over him from head to toe even as he tries to turn away, as if that would prevent her from seeing the gleam of metal of his left arm, the dark patch where his right eye used to be, the fullness of his beard and the alien clothes he had never worn on Asgard. And through the sheer panic filling the void where rational thought once was, Thor finds himself responding on reflex, on instinct, plastering a smile on his lips and a thoughtless, pathetic excuse on his tongue.
Frigga's hand rests against his cheek and gently turns his head so she can look him in the eye, inspecting the scar that cuts from forehead to cheekbone, and though she cannot possibly know all that's happened - what he's become - he expects to see condemnation on her face, the same blame he sees in everyone whether it is there or not. But she smiles, and shakes her head sadly, and her compassion is so potent that it wraps around him like a cloak, or a mother's hug. "You're not the Thor I know at all. The future hasn't been kind to you, has it?" she asks, already knowing the answer, and she raises a finger to hush him when he stammers, trying to deny it. "I was raised by witches, boy. I see with more than eyes."
There's no way out. Nothing he can say will excuse this, will distract her from the truth that she's already figured out on her own, nothing to convince her to turn around and forget she ever saw him. And never in his life has Thor needed his mother more.
Timeline be damned. Thor breaks, a miserable gasp escaping him as his good eye wells with tears. "I'm totally from the future," he chokes out, and something warm and painful swells in his chest as his dead mother wraps her arms around him for the first time in six years. In this moment, he is neither king nor Allfather, but the little boy who Frigga raised at her knee. He buries his face in her shoulder, breathes in her scent, and cries as his mother rocks him gently, full of nothing but love for her heartsick mess of a son.
He doesn't hear what she says to Rocket, or him to her, but by the time Thor's vision clears his friend is gone somewhere, leaving the two of them alone.
Frigga leads him to her chamber, away from prying eyes of anyone who should happen to wander through and see something they should not. And seated on her couch, a small flask of mead in hand to fortify his spirit, the story spills from him in disjointed fits and starts. Of Thanos, and the infinity stones, and how Thor's grief-fueled lust for revenge had led to the deaths of trillions. Of how they had sought to undo it all, only to fail again, and how killing the Mad Titan had done nothing to relieve the guilt that has crushed Thor from within ever since that day in Wakanda. Never once does Frigga seem to mind him rambling on, no matter how incoherent and mad he must sound at times, but simply sits at his side and listens with eternal patience as she runs a brush through his hair and plaits it with little braids at his temples, drawing them to meet at the back of his head like a crown.
"It's... it's my fault," he concludes at last, tears shining on his cheek and darkening the side of his beard, his missing eye aching fiercely at its inability to cry with the other. "I should've noticed he had them all. I should've... should've gone for the head and been done with it. But I was an idiot."
Frigga smiles slightly, and the sympathy and concern in her eyes has not wavered one bit throughout the jumbled weaving of his tragic tale. "You're no idiot," she tells him, warmth and understanding in her voice. "You're here, aren't you? Seeking counsel from the wisest person in Asgard."
It hadn't been his intention, and it certainly hadn't been the plan. But here he is regardless, and he nods mutely in agreement.
"An idiot, no. A failure? Absolutely." Her words cut him deep to his core, a blade to the heart, and though it's nothing he hadn't already known, Thor's breath hitches as his chest tightens. But Frigga is not done, sitting at his side and rubbing soothing circles on his back. "Do you know what that makes you? Just like everyone else."
What? He lifts his head to look her in the eye, distraught and confused, but he sees no hatred there, no pity or disapproval. "I'm not supposed to be like everyone else," he manages. A king, a god, the Allfather of the Nine... which thing doesn't matter. He is supposed to be above this, and he isn't.
Her smile does not leave her, and his mother's magic seeps through her touch, warm and comforting, just how she had once soothed him to sleep as a young boy, chasing away nightmares with her love. "Everyone fails at who they're supposed to be, Thor. The measure of a person - a hero - is how well they succeed at being who they are. Yes, you made a mistake. A disastrous one. But punishing yourself will not change the past. Be kind to yourself, and learn from your mistakes. You're a good man, Thor, with a good heart. You wouldn't hurt so much if you didn't." She smiles, and strokes his hair back from his face. "I'm proud of the man I see before me now. Never doubt that."
Another sob rises in his throat, choked by bewildered relief. For months he has convinced himself that his parents would be disappointed in how he has failed to live up to his father's legacy, in how he has failed their people, in how his mind has splintered under the weight until he still does not truly recognize himself anymore. But he cannot see any trace of that in his mother's eyes, and he leans into her touch, resting his forehead against hers. "I've really missed you, mother," he breathes, and her arms simply tighten around him, anchoring him to what is true and real.
More than anything, Thor wishes that he could make this moment last. But even with a time machine at their disposal, time continues to tick forward, ever closer to the invasion of Asgard. Even now, perhaps, the monster that is to slay his mother is in the dungeons, waiting to make his move.
He can't change the past. Thor knows this. But impulse seizes him, and he draws back to look her in the face, old grief and desperation carved into the lines of his own. "There's something I need to tell you, about today."
But Frigga stops him there, raising a finger to his lips to hush him. "You're here to fix your future, not mine," she says, and when he makes a noise of protest, she smiles sadly. "I know what it is you want to tell me. It's all right, Thor. The Norns have a path for each of us to walk, and I embrace mine with open eyes. Have faith, and I will see you again, when your time comes. But not before, do you understand?"
He shouldn't. He hadn't. But she knows, as a mother would, and his eye brims with tears anew as she tugs gently on a braid she's left hanging free by his left temple, and shows him the golden lock woven in among his own, one that matches the wavy tresses cascading down her back. "I'll always be with you, my darling boy. We all will."
Thor's fingers ghost over the little braid, recognizing the faint wisp of her seidr clinging to it, as he had once carried a lock of Loki's hair when he'd thought his brother dead. It had brought him comfort then, and after Sakaar and what followed, he'd thought he would never have a piece of his family to carry with him again. He gives her a watery smile, his heart full in a way it has not been in what feels like centuries. "Thank you."
The moment is broken by the sound of tiny boots on stone, and Rocket dashes in on all fours, clutching a syringe that glows red from within. He pulls up short at the sight of the two of them, and holds it up. "Thor, I got the thing. We gotta move."
It's too soon. Too soon to say goodbye to his home, his mother, reducing them to only memory. But he can't stay here forever, no matter what he wishes. This is the past, and it needs to remain so. "I wish we had more time," he tells Frigga as they rise together, hands clasped.
But she shakes her head and smiles, and lifts her hand to cradle it against his cheek, lightly brushing the tears from his eye before they can fall. "No. This was a gift. Carry it with you as you go."
One last hug, and it feels as though his heart will burst in his chest from sorrow and gratitude both, memorizing this moment until he feels as though it will stay with him forever. It takes all his willpower to pull away, standing clear, readying himself to be transported back to the future.
And then a thought strikes him like a bolt of lightning. His family are not the only ones who still exist here and now, and despite everything his mother just told him, part of Thor still clings to the doubt and shame, not so easily shaken off. Words are words, but magic... it cannot be tricked, or tell you what you want to hear, regardless of the truth. He has to be absolutely certain.
"Wait!" he cries out to Rocket, and thrusts out a hand toward the open window, reaching deep down inside himself to a silver thread he has not touched since Sakaar, pulling on it and praying. He waits, and waits, and dread begins to creep in moments before a handle slams solidly into his palm, the rectangular head of his beloved Mjolnir gleaming silver and whole in the sunlight, and thunder rolls across the sky as the hammer's warm, familiar presence settles into his head. Relief crashes over him like a breaking wave, affirmation that everything his mother told him was true, that despite his failures and brokenness... "I'm still worthy," he whispers, and the tears that threaten to fall now are happy ones, his heart swelling not with grief but joy for the first time in so many months.
He's still worthy.
Thor smiles at Frigga, overflowing with relief and light, and she smiles back. "I love you," he says to her, and her to him, and if it is the last thing that is ever spoken between them, that is enough.
The last thing he sees as the world pulls itself apart around him is Frigga's face, smiling proudly at him. And then he is gone, leaving Asgard for the future that awaits.