What up I'm Loki, I'm over a thousand and I never fucking learned how to talk to Valkyrie

-

"Peter, you need to get home." Potts said, checking the time on her phone.

"Can't I just meet the other Asgardians first? It'll only be twenty minutes!"

"Kid, your aunt will kill me if you're home late." Stark said reluctantly.

"I'll only stick around for a few minutes! I'll call my aunt first and everything!"

Stark and Potts shared a look and sighed simultaneously. "Call your aunt." Stark said.

Potts kept her face stern. "But if she says you go home, you go home."

Peter agreed and went off to call his aunt. Loki remained sitting cross-legged in the couch, observing even if she was occupied with her thoughts.

She wasn't sure how the other Asgardians would treat her. Sure, she was still their princess (queen now?) but she had betrayed Asgard constantly and had unknowingly abandoned the survivors of Thanos' attack.

Heimdall seemed to treat her the same, but the gatekeeper never let his emotions get the better of him.

She was a tad bit worried about the Valkyrie. If the woman chose to take out her anger out on her, Loki wasn't sure she could do much to stop her.

Rhodey sat down beside her. "So, uh, what kind of people should we be expecting? Are they all... like Thor? Or-?"

"I can only remember two warriors being on the ship: Heimdall, guardian of the Bifrost, and the last Valkyrie. They can help us in the fight against Thanos, but the rest? Most might be able to swing a sword, but they aren't warriors. They'd die if they tried to go up against Thanos' army."

Rhodey put his hand on her shoulder. "I'm sure we'll find a place for them to go."

"For repayment to whoever houses the asgardians, we can give out knowledge. Our healers are light years ahead of your's, and I recall a few physicians being on board who might've survived. We could probably tell you about the other areas of space? To prepare you for any other attacks." Loki began.

Rhodey smiled. "We can discuss that later. Tony should be able to keep them housed for a while before Asgard has to become self sustainable again. We'll kick Thanos' ass and then you can freak out about housing issues."

She thanked him, and he patted her shoulder and stood up.

Peter vaulted over the couch and landed next to her. "My aunt says I can stay for another hour!"

Loki smiled. "Magnificent. I'll introduce you Heimdall when he arrives. I believe he'll like you."

"Really?" Peter exclaimed.

She nodded. "He was always fond of Thor, and you're rather like him, I think. Very... kind hearted and determined."

"You think so? Thor is my favourite avenger-"

"Hey!" Stark cut in, who appeared to be listening.

"- do you really think I'm like him? I don't even have a magical hammer."

"Neither does Thor, remember? Mjolnir was shattered. Besides, a hammer really wouldn't suit your aesthetic. I'm guessing you're agile and quick - like me? I'll start teaching you how to work with knives if you'd like."

Stark cut in again. "Woah, woah. No knives! What do you think May would do if Spiderman became the next David Adamovich?"

Loki frowned. "At least let me train him with a sword? Or the Valkyrie can. He should be proficient with a blade of some sort."

Peter laughed. "While you were collecting infinity stones, I studied the blade." Loki was sure he was making a joke, but she had no idea what it was.

"No blades of any kind." Stark said. "Not without May's permission. That woman is seriously scary."

Loki looked at Stark with exaggerated distaste. "You're a coward and I hate you."

Stark laughed. "I'll deal with it."

It wasn't much longer before the asgardians arrived, grass stems and trees bending away as the escape pod lowered to the ground, its engine loud and low. It was quite big, for an escape pod, but she supposed the ship it came from was rather big in the first place.

Loki had placed herself at the front of the group as they waited outside the ship for the passengers to exit. Everyone else stood a little while back.

The doors opened with a whoosh and the Valkyrie was the first out. She marched up to Loki and stopped just before her.

Loki gave a mocking bow and grinned up at her. "The last Valkyrie. How lovely it is to see you again."

As soon as she stood straight, the Valkyrie decked her in the face. She landed rather roughly on the ground and her nose hurt like Hel, but she just smiled, ignoring the comotion starting behind her. She had expected such a greeting after all.

"Now I remember why I missed you." She said.

The Valkyrie rolled her eyes and held out her hand. Loki grabbed it and was heaved back up to her feet. "You deserved that." She said, letting go of her hand. "And you can call me Brunnhilde. Everyone else is doing it."

"I suppose I did." Loki said, touching her stinging nose nonetheless.

Brunnhilde lowered her voice. "Thanos planned to blow up the ship. We had to move fast to avoid the explosion. We didn't know if Thor was alive or not, but we didn't have time to pick him up."

"Yeah, don't worry about it." Loki said, keeping her voice even. "I kinda figured that'd be the case."

She placed a hand on her shoulder as she moved past her and pushed a little too hard, causing Loki to stumble a bit. She heard Brunnhilde laugh before she called out. "I need to get wasted before I can stab Thanos up the ass. What kinda booze do you have on this shit-hole planet?"

She vaguely registered Stark laughing and saying something in response, but was too busy being surprised to pay attention when heavy rock hands were placed on her shoulders.

"I hear we're starting another revolution?"

Loki spun around to face Korg, a little surprised to see the dumb pile of rocks had managed to stay alive. "You could call it that if you want."

"I think I will. Revolution sounds much better than 'fight or the universe ends'. It has much more historical use and looks better on pamphlets."

"Still set on the idea of pamphlets then?" Loki asked with a grin.

Korg looked at her, fully serious. "If Thanos manages to kill me, I assure you it's because I haven't printed enough pamphlets."

"Fair enough," she said, "how about you tell my companions of your plan? I'm sure Stark can print out more than enough for you."

Korg seemed satisfied with that, and bounded up to the group of humans with more bounce in his steps than a pile of rocks should be able to have. Peter looked very excited.

She finally saw Heimdall, exiting the ship slowly. He was leaning too much on one side, something she hadn't noticed before.

When Heimdall reached her she bowed again, less mocking than she'd been with Brunnhilde, but mocking all the same. "Good Heimdall."

"Curator." He greeted, his voice tinted with amusement.

"You're hurt." She straightened up. "Badly?"

"I'll survive. Without healers, I might not have, but we were lucky. There was a lot of people that needed to be healed though, a good half of us still carry fatal wounds - the healers did their best, but they need rest as much as any of us, more so, even."

"The Midgardian doctors can handle it. Their technology may not be as advanced as our healing magic, but it'll keep everyone alive until our healers rest." Loki said.

Heimdall nodded. "I'm glad that we will be able to fight side by side, to avenge the lives taken by Thanos' hand. We will defeat this threat," he lowered his voice, "your highness."

Loki nodded. "Come, let me introduce you to some of Midgard's heroes. I promised Peter I'd introduce you two, and I'll see how fast Stark's money can get us some doctors."

Loki began leading the man to the group, almost smiling as she saw their interactions. Stark seemed to be asking Korg a million question, poking at his rocks curiously, while Brunnhilde was showing Peter her sword, a concerned Potts close behind him.

Perhaps they would all die soon, but they would put up a good fight.

-

Loki was dragged into an empty room by Brunnhilde. "I'm hurt."

They narrowed their eyes at her. "So find one of the healers."

"Other people need them more. It's only a tiny cut."

Loki didn't know what her game was but sighed in defeat. "Let me see."

She lifted the light undershirt she wore - looking strange without her armour - enough to reveal a lengthy wound that stretched across her side. "The healers found out that some of our cuts were hit with something that stopped them from healing."

Loki examined the cut. It was nothing that an asgardian couldn't handle normally, but it would become prone to infection if Loki couldn't get Brunnhilde healing again. "I can probably rid you of whatever poison prevents your healing, your body can handle the rest."

She nodded and Loki set to work. They placed their hand over her wound and tried to search for whatever had stopped the healing process.

"So, Loren, what happened to always being Loki?"

They shrugged. "I'm still Loki. It was necessary to gain the midgardians trust. I haven't exactly given them reason to accept my word otherwise."

Loki found what they want ere looking for, something in the bloodstream that didn't belong there. They tried to talk to the Valkyrie's natural defences, pointing them towards enemy and lending them some of their own energy to fight better.

"I heard." Brunnhilde said. "Heimdall told me about what you did to this realm."

Loki looked up at her and smiled. "And yet you come to me and reveal your weakened state? Did he not tell you enough to inflict your disgust? Did he tell you that I'm nothing more than the abandoned runt of a dead Jotunn king? That I destroyed the very realm that I came from and the father that gave me life? That I threw my father to Midgard and didn't look back? Caused my family to mourn for me twice-over?"

Brunnhilde didn't looked surprised. "Yeah, he told me all that stuff." Loki didn't reply and so she continued. "I abandoned Asgard because I was afraid. For years - norns knows how many - I was a scraper for the grandmaster. You know what I did. I captured more people than you could imagine, brought them all to their deaths. For money, for booze. Thor told me that Hela was going to destroy Asgard and I turned away. It wasn't until you reminded me of what Hela took that I even cared about her return."

She took a deep breath. "I'm a shitty person. You are too. But we both came back to save Asgard in the end."

Loki removed their hand from Brunnhilde's side. "You're a fool to trust me, Valkyrie."

"I don't trust you, trickster, but I think you cared about Thor... in your own weird way. I think you care that Thanos killed innocent people, innocent children. And I think you want to kill Thanos as badly as I do."

She grabbed their forearm. An offering, a promise. "We're still the revengers."

They hesitated, but grabbed onto her forearm with their long pale finger and smudged black nail polish. "Let's get this bitch."