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Oct. 5th, 2020 at 10:15 AM
Who: Dudebrocheezwizard and Valkyrie
Where: Saks Fifth Avenue
What: Fight things.
When: Right after Tony's announcement.
Status: Complete
Warnings: Y'all Asgardians play hard. There are entrails. And bits of brain. Booyah. Thor and Valkyrie did not kill one another.
Saks under attacks
Mjolnir in one hand, Stormbreaker in the other, it had only taken Thor a few minutes to realize that Midgard had been invaded. Not by mere mortals, evil though they might be, but by creatures so foul that their reek had altered him to their arrival almost immediately.
Leaving the tower, Thor heard the unmistakable, deep throated bellow of a Bilgesnape..... and then a moment later the answering roar of a fire troll. The thought of what those beasts could do to the fragile bodies of the Midgardian people enraged him.
Striding up Fifth Avenue, he felt the presence of another, "Shield Maiden," he acknowledged as they approached Saks and the chaos that had erupted in front of it.
He gave her a brilliant smile, "After you," as the familiar rush of lighting crashed through his veins.
Where: Saks Fifth Avenue
What: Fight things.
When: Right after Tony's announcement.
Status: Complete
Warnings: Y'all Asgardians play hard. There are entrails. And bits of brain. Booyah. Thor and Valkyrie did not kill one another.
Saks under attacks
Mjolnir in one hand, Stormbreaker in the other, it had only taken Thor a few minutes to realize that Midgard had been invaded. Not by mere mortals, evil though they might be, but by creatures so foul that their reek had altered him to their arrival almost immediately.
Leaving the tower, Thor heard the unmistakable, deep throated bellow of a Bilgesnape..... and then a moment later the answering roar of a fire troll. The thought of what those beasts could do to the fragile bodies of the Midgardian people enraged him.
Striding up Fifth Avenue, he felt the presence of another, "Shield Maiden," he acknowledged as they approached Saks and the chaos that had erupted in front of it.
He gave her a brilliant smile, "After you," as the familiar rush of lighting crashed through his veins.
Comments
Her head inclined to Thor as she came across him. "Thunder God." The words said with a smirk as she fell into step with him.
"I smell things most foul. What say we remove them from this realm?"
He swung Mjolnir around, feeling his shoulder loosen as the hammer arced over his head. Striding toward the sound of screams and the crash of concrete, Thor looked at Valkyrie quizzically.
Then she looked at him, "what is that look for, Thor?"'
"You can have the little one,"
But his gut was right, and her fingers wrapped around the handle, catching it and not dropping to the ground like a stone. She stopped moving, though, as she processed the whole moment. "Norns." She breathed out, then she lifted her head, the grin back and wilder than ever.
"What do you know, just my size." Her eyes gleamed as she spun it once then was on the move.
"Like it was made for you," Thor lifted Mjolnir skyward and ascended rapidly. Mere seconds later, he landed on the pavement in front of Saks, muscle memory taking him to one knee. Lightening crackled around him, as he sent hammer careening toward the first fire troll, sending it to its knees.
As Mjolnir returned to his hand, Thor called out to the crowd, "Begone from this place," while thinking New Yorkers. Ugh. He sent Mjolnir screaming towards another fire troll to distract it so a small group of people could retreat.
He rose into the air and checked for Valkyrie's position, "Point, I presume?"
But she also moved with the agility of a gymnast, using Stormbreaker to merely guide her then using her own ability to get her where she wanted, which for the moment was a top a light pole.
His only answer was a laugh as pure as it was wicked as she leapt from the perch, dropping to land on the shoulders of a fire troll, embedding the axe in it's shoulder. There was very little that she enjoyed more than fighting.
Adrenaline and lighting coursed through his veins. He felt alive. The sound of a fire troll howling it's misery drew his gaze. His eyes traveled over Valkyrie's lithe form as she made destruction look like a dance. His brain searched for a word to describe her. Gorgeous did a Shield Maiden no credit. Ravishing would make her laugh her ass off the pole. Then it came to him, as he Stormbreaker sang in her hand,She is formidable and incandescent and effortlessly dangerous.
A Bilgesnipe, taking advantage of Thor's momentary distraction clamped down on the god of thunder's leg. Thor quickly punched it in the head, hit it with the butt of the hammer and kicked it off. Laughing at himself he shoved his hair back from his face and waded into the fray.
As she regained her footing she swung the axe up in a graceful arc and split his skull. Lightning crackled around her as she pulled it free, blood splattered across her face. Leaving the corpse behind she slid under another troll, taking the hamstrings. The effort cost her as another grabbed her by her leg.
Then tried to crush her calf. The bone crunched, skin burned, and the troll had a foot through his face before he could do more. She sent Stormbreaker flying at the one she hamstrung while she pulled the fingers off her leg.
The injury only made her angrier, and as the axe returned she climbed the pile of trolls. Her eyes fixed on a bilgesniolpe, her grin wide, "You die next." She told it as she danced back into the mess, blood dripped from various small cuts, and despite the fact she didn't care, she did limp. It didn't make her any less deadly. She threw the axe too embed in a skull of a troll lumbering up on Thor. "Hey, watch your back, Thor, or I'll be picking you out of a trolls teeth!" She was radiating crackles of lightning, her face splattered with red, her leather stained, but her eyes were wild.
He ducked under the arm of a fire troll, plunged his hand around its throat and watched as it struggled within his grip, the flames a minor irritation as he wrenched it's head from it's neck, its body slowly crumpling to the ground.
He tossed the still burning skull at a Bilgesnipe, laughing as it howled in fury. "Shield Maiden," Thor ducked as another troll swung for his head, "you are too kind."
Sweat dampened his hair, the stench of Bilgesnipe and flecks of troll brain clung to him as lightning arced between his hands and illuminated his face. He sensed, rather than saw the troll reach for him, and felt the satisfying crack of a shattered hand as he crushed it within his own. Not letting it go, Thor swung the troll over his head and hurled it to the ground, reminding himself that the battle had to end before he could indulge his desire to imagine Hilde under a shower of water washing away blood and sweat.
She plucked an intestine from her hair. "They still smell awful." She hopped up into the shoulder of a troll, bracing her injured leg on its head even as he struggled, trying to get a grip on her.
She surveyed the area from his shoulders, they'd thinned the herds out pretty well. She crouched down, and stuck her fingers through its skull to kill him before hopping free, landing on one leg.
"Mmm. I'm running out of trolls."
He circled around so he stood at Valkyrie's back, reached down and grabbed the pack leader of the Bilgesnipes by the neck and brought it to eye level," I do not know what brought you here, but give my sister my best regards." He broke the beast's spine over his knee.
She was breathing heavy but in that way she was enjoying herself far too much. Dark eyes glittering as her face dripped blood, gore in her hair, entrails draped over her shoulder.
And one leg looking levels of broken, but she was ignoring it all the same.
He pivoted, took a closer look at Valkyrie's leg, and looked at her skeptically. Thor knew well how adrenaline masked pain and how much damage could be done while it coursed through one's veins. He'd seen enough wounds on the field of battle to know that it was an injury that even an Asgardian would need time to heal. "Heimdall would do me the honor of letting me help him off the field, will you?"
Oh, it hurt. She knew it hurt. She was just refusing to acknowledge the fact it hurt. She wanted to tear it off and start new. The urge to ask if he wanted to join the trolls on the ground was high but she bit it back, "Fine. But it is really fine."
"We will get you your spear, but first, let's get back to the tower. Are we walking, hailing a ridiculous cab or do you let me fly us back to Stark's?". Thor wanted to just pick her up and fly back to the tower. He knew that doing so would likely result in her attacking him, thus doing more damage to her leg, but would also likely result in her ignoring him for at least a century. He waited patiently, picking a skull fragment from his cloak and flicking it to the ground.
"I will let you fly us back." Knowing that he wanted to, and that she was in no shape to walk that far. Had he just done it, she would have ignored him for a century. But she agreed.
As he raised Mjolnir, he pulled her more firmly against him, "I cannot drop the Queen of the Asgardians." They shot into the air instantly.
"You did not guess." She repeated back to him, "Norns, I should not have been able to." Valkyrie shook her head, sending a splatter of Bilgesnipe brain to the ground. The blood was starting to dry and all she wanted was a hot shower then a long bath.
A long bath.
Edited 2020-10-06 03:49 am (UTC)
"If you force it to bear weight, you will damage it further," his voice was quiet. The wind on the roof of the tower whipped his cape around them both.
"Will you let me help you?" He picked a piece of congealed brain out of her hair and tossed it to the ground.
She really hated admitting something hurt. And this was getting to be exhausting. "You do not need to lecture me on injuries. I have been fighting for a very long time." Her tone was clipped but she wasn't mad at him.
"Ugh that? Actually a little gross." She said as she watched the congealed brain splat. Then she looked back up at him, reaching up to pluck another bone fragment out of his hair. Then dropped her hand because that was dangerously close to feels. "Tell anyone that I allowed you to assist in this and I'll break your leg."
"Where are your quarters?" He began helping her towards the door which led inside the building.
She adopted a walk that put weight on her toes, not her foot, and kept most of it off her calf, but she was sweating by the time they got to her rooms. "Sweet Norns, this is ridiculous." She opened her door and let him guide her inside, elbowing the door shut.
Then, and only then, did she gracefully collapse (it was not, in fact, graceful) into a heap on the couch, fingers already moving to unbuckle her boots and take them off, Stormbreaker rested against the side of the couch. "Knife from the kitchen, there's a med kit in the bathroom." she didn't even think to say please, just rattled off what she needed to deal with this mess.
By the time he got back she was sitting on the couch in a bra and underwear (she did not wear anything fancy enough to be called panties, let's be fair), leg propped up on a table, twisted so she could look at it. It was ugly - the troll had cracked the bone, burned her skin, and it was purple even under the dark warm tones.
He'd seen worse, but this looked both painful and potentially nasty if they didn't take care of it. He opened the medkit and began looking through it, "Do you want a drink now or after?" He said as he searched through the supplies.
When he handed her a bottle of something to drink, she handed the washcloth to him, it cost her a touch of pride to admit having help was useful. "Bone's fine. It'll heal straight. But Bilgesnipes are not clean creatures and I waded through enough of them to fill a pool." she lifted her leg so he could actually see what he was doing even as she leaned over to dig through the box. "Note to self: Valkyrior salve is a must. This shit just isn't going to do enough." She pulled out the aloe for the burn, then dug around for an ace to wrap it and non-stick gauze, while trying to keep the leg still for him.
After trying to get the same spot clean three times in a row only to have her move as she dug through the kit, Thor stopped and looked up, "Valkyrie, just drink and let me attend to your leg."
He wished that he could do something that would ease the pain she was in, instead he raised an eyebrow, "This would not be a girlish ploy to keep me kneeling before you, would it?"
He pulled the medkit out of her reach and began applying ointments and aloe, "You can kick me if you like, but I will remind you. I have a very hard skull and it could easily result in a need to reset the bone "
His words made her stop moving. She bit back an apology as she tilted the bottle back to take another drink. This was clearly harder than it looked, letting someone else take care of her. It went against everything she'd ever been about. Odin wrecked her sense of trust and Sakaar had not rebuilt it. A muscle in her jaw twitched as she held perfectly still besides lifting the bottle to her lips.
Valkyrie paused to look down at him. "Now there's a thought." she set the bottle down and leaned back just a bit on the couch, giving him a wicked grin. "Might be worth it to have you on your knees."
"Hilde, you have me on my knees already." She reminded him of Aragorn....always on guard, always ready to bolt.... ever watchful, easily startled into ferocity.
He gestured toward the bottle, "Will you share or do I forage for my own.l
A beat. "Might be worth it to keep you there."
Valkyrie was the rattler coiled in the tall grass. Calm but ever watchful, ever wary. One misstep would end with her lashing out. She might be injured but that only meant she was more deadly.
As a gesture of goodwill, or that's what she told herself, she held the bottle out to him. "I will share tonight."
"And what would make me worthy, Hilde?" He thought of how she had looked as the sun risen over the horizon and how she looked now, seeing the beauty in both. Taking another swallow, feeling the warmth burn down his throat, he handed it back to her.
She took the bottle back and took a drink for herself, dark eyes closing for a moment. Savoring the burn as it slid down her throat. Then slowly she opened them, looking more like a wild predator as she leaned forward, invading his personal space. "You already are worthy. The question is how hard you'd work to stay there."
Things were getting into serious territory, which made her want to bolt. She stood, metaphorically speaking, her ground instead. "I don't let the unworthy lay their fingers upon my leg." Her hand shot down to wrap her fingers around his, dragging it up off the injury to her knee.
This woman had once tossed a net over him, slapped an obedience disc to his neck and dragged him in as bounty. She'd also stood shoulder to shoulder with him and his brother as their world crumbled to ash.
He let his hand rest where she'd put it, "Working to remain worthy is all I can do, Hilde. It's all I have left to do." Thor's smile was self deprecating, "...it is obvious, I have much work to do."
Thor knew what it was like to feel as if rage and pain were the very fibers that held the fragments of yourself in place, he knew that unwinding those fibers was not easy.
Taking a deep breath, Thor said evenly, "I think the question you are asking me isn't whether or not I will work. It's whether or not If I will wait that matters." He looked down at his calloused hand on her knee, knowing what it had taken for her to move it there, rather than slap it away, "Will I wait for you to decide whether or not I can be trusted and in what matters."
His voice was gruff as he gently took the bottle from her, took another drink and handed it back.
For the briefest of moments, she thought about everything that had happened over the years - she'd dragged him in as a bounty, sold him, helped his brother, then stood with them both as their world crumbled to ash, burned as if there was no tomorrow. Something inside cracked - She hadn't really grieved for the loss of Asgard, or the loss of Loki. She'd stuffed it all down because she had a job to do. She had a people to take care of.
And suddenly she felt the weight of the losses crush down on her shoulders. She found she had always had room in her heart for both of them. She had a unique bond with Loki, but Thor had worked his way in without even trying and now, years after she'd lost one brother, she was staring down the other. And part of her didn't know what to do with this situation.
"You are not the only one with work to do." Val ran on spite, anger, pain, and alcohol. That was what made up the entire core of her being, pulling that apart to admit anything else was hard and unwinding the fibers that made her soul up she had a lot of introspection to do.
"Thor," she said with a roll of her eyes, "I suppose, that might be one of the questions, sure. And that? That is on you." she stared down at him, canting her head a little. "You have to decide what you want. You know me, I am an honest person - what you see is what you get," not entirely true, "I do not play games, I absolutely refuse to do that."
"What you let others see is a very small portion of what I want from you, Shield Maiden." He kept his hand still despite the urge to slide it further up her muscular leg.
"I do not play games with people, Hilde." He noted the amount of alcohol left in Valktire's bottle, levered himself off the floor, "Where is the rest of the alcohol, Valkyrie."
She couldn't deny the fact when she felt anything it was with the full force of her ability. She did nothing in halves. She looked at him, as if puzzling something out, sorting out something that shook loose things she hadn't let loose in a very long time. "A very small portion, hmm?" she repeated back carefully, amused, the lilt of her tone gave that away. And intrigued.
"Kitchen, bottom cupboard, left of the sink." She had well stocked herself, thank you, there was plenty in there. And most of it as hard as she could have purchased in the state. She pushed herself up after him, glad his back was to her as she wobbled a step then sat back down with a huff.
"Oh, Valkyrie. I have dared many, many things. I do not trifle with you, not out of fear, but because, " He took a long drink, belched, "TO ASGARD"
"Because we have stood together in the best of times and the worst of times."
He leaned back against the couch and stretched his long legs out in front of him. "A very small portion."
"Of course." She gestured to the cushion beside her. "To Asgard." She took a pull from the bottle, then looked sideways at him.
"We have, and that's unlikely to change." Though now she was watching him through partially closed eyes, curious and thoughtful.
She stretched out, inwardly grumbling that she was so short, how was that even fair? "I'm going to need a new couch," she remarked as they got comfortable, both still covered in gore.
Valkyrie examined her bottle, before she addressed him, still looking at the bottle. "There is a lot no one sees. It isn't all pretty."
"Do you remember, Jane?" Thor took another drink, smiling at the way that the warmth had begun to pool in his stomach, "She was uncomplicated. She was very pretty."
He made a circle with his the fingers of his left hand, miming Korg's second favorite pastime. "After a very short while, pretty becomes dull."
The lines around Thor's eyes crinkled, "You are never dull, Hilde."
Valkyrie looked at him sharply, trying to figure out where he was going with this "Well. No. I never met her. But I've heard about her." But she knew of her, and she knew their past.
"Pretty is good for people who live simple lives." She noted after a moment, knowing full well they did not lead simple lives.
"I couldn't be dull if I tried," then a slow dawning realisation across her face, "Oh."
"Yes, also true." His face itched weirdly, Thor scrubbed the back of his hand over it and managed to wipe off a chunk of what looked like Bilgesnipe gall stone from his cheek. Wiping it on his sweats, he took another drink.
She tipped her bottle back as she sat with that knowledge for a moment then side-eyed him. "I need to buy incense. My apartment is going to stink to Hel." she grumbled as she settled in.
Having someone to fight with was a really fun thing, and while things might be a little awkward feeling, she was overly pleased to have someone here with her who understood her.