Always Mine (An MCU Fanfiction)

37. The Hammer Shattered

The wind picked up around us, whipping through the grass as dark clouds rolled overhead and swallowed what little sunlight remained. Thunder rumbled in the distance, low and ominous.

Beside me, Thor's grief was becoming something physical. Blue sparks danced across his hands and crackled around his clenched fists.

"Brother," Loki started, gesturing toward the electricity gathering around him.

I knew that look.

The anger. The heartbreak.

Thor had just lost his father. And despite everything Thor and Loki had been through, I couldn't imagine what that felt like. Odin hadn't been perfect, but he was still their father. Losing him felt wrong. Too sudden. Too final.

For a moment, I wasn't standing on a cliff in Norway waiting for a legendary goddess of death to appear. I was back in that terrible moment when I'd learned my parents were gone. The helpless rage. The desperate need to blame someone. To make someone pay.

It wasn't hard to see where Thor's emotions were headed.

Thor slowly turned, glaring at Loki. "This was your doing."

The accusation hung heavily between them.

I shrank back a little and kept my mouth shut. Thor wasn't thinking clearly. Grief had its hands around his throat.

A sudden burst of green light cut through the gathering storm. A black portal appeared several feet away.

My stomach dropped. Part of me had hoped Odin was wrong. That somehow Hela would stay trapped wherever she'd been all these years. Looking at that portal, I knew better. The threat we'd barely had time to process was already here.

Odin's final warning echoed in my mind. His life had been the only thing keeping Hela imprisoned. Now that he was gone, there was nothing left to stop her. The discussion between the brothers would have to wait.

Thor stepped forward.

At the same moment, Loki's Midgard clothes shimmered away, revealing his Asgardian leathers. Thor slammed Mjolnir against the ground, and his armor and red cape materialized around him.

The portal widened. A woman emerged from the darkness. Long black hair framed a pale face. Green eyes studied us with unsettling calm.

I didn't need an introduction to know who she was. This was Hela. And every instinct I had was screaming that we were in trouble. Not ordinary trouble, either. Not "Avengers assemble and save the day" trouble. The kind of trouble that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up and told me survival wasn't guaranteed.

Loki subtly stepped in front of me, positioning himself between me and the newcomer. A ridiculous part of me wanted to tell him I could take care of myself. The larger, more sensible part appreciated the gesture and stayed exactly where I was.

"So he's gone," Hela stated as the portal that had been her prison for some eons vanished. "That's a shame. I would've liked to have seen that." 

"You must be Hela," Thor started. "I'm Thor, son of Odin."

"Really? You don't look like him."

"Perhaps we can come to an arrangement," Loki suggested as he kept his cool.

"You sound like him," Hela complimented him before her gaze shifted to me. "And you must be new."

"Not completely," I replied evenly, refusing to let her see how nervous I was. If she was Odin's firstborn and the being he'd warned us about, showing fear felt like the worst possible thing I could do.