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The last of the Valkyrior, she thinks, sending the sharpened dagger spinning from her fingertips and watching it miss the target by six inches to the left. What a fucking joke.
Time was she could have struck a perfect bullseye blindfolded from horseback — could have traced a connect-the-dots pattern with steel-tipped knives or played surgeon from fifty yards back. Versed in every weapon known to the Nine Realms and no less deadly with bow or battle-axe or jagged edge of a broken bottle, she still remembers when her reflexes were faster than the blue-white bolts the god of thunder pulls down from the heavens, when drawing her sword was enough to inspire any ill-fated enemy of Asgard with a frostbite shock of fear.
She remembers who she was then, but that was before grief and Sakaarian gin slowed her muscles and dulled her reflexes and watered her down from a Valkyrior of Asgard to Scrapper 142 — a stray dog who played fetch for a feckless tyrant, gold-painted and hedonistic and the kind to kill while flashing a white-toothed smile. And she hadn't even cared, not when he served as a source of units to keep the liquor flowing a little longer.
The rest of the Valkyrior would be ashamed of how she'd fallen, she thinks, jaw set in a tight line as she walks towards the practice dummy to collect her off-target collection of knives, and it'd be no less than she deserves. She's not just a coward and a runaway, but slower, and out of practice, and the fact Hela didn't cut her down on the bridge is more a byproduct of luck than anything else.
Most days, she barely feels worthy of the tattoo on her wrist. Most days, she wants nothing more than to search out the Grandmaster's stash of booze and drink until she doesn't remember enough to feel ashamed.
Instead, she drags herself down to the makeshift training court she's built in the hold of the ship, and she practices drills that used to be burned into her muscle memory and now feel more like a half-forgotten dream — paying for penance in checks of sweat-soaked skin and blistered hands, fighting to prove herself worthy of the Valkyrior's legacy.
Days like today, it's an effort to remind herself what she's still fighting for.
She's just pointed her toes behind the line and sent another dagger spinning towards the dummy—hitting her target this time, albeit off-center—when she hears the sound of someone's steps behind her, spinning on her heel with the next knife raised only to see Thor leaning against the wall, hands held up in surrender.
"Looking to get yourself stabbed, Your Majesty?"
"Hardly," Thor says, tone easy as anything. "If I was, I'd have let Hela take all that’s attached instead of stopping at my eye.” He pushes off from the wall, nodding at the knife held loose between her fingers. “You know, Loki's a fair hand with a dagger if you're looking to train."
"Don't take this the wrong way, Your Majesty," Valkyrie says, turning back to her target and lining up the next shot, "but I find I prefer your brother best in small doses."
Thor laughs at that, and Valkyrie finds herself smiling too as she lets go of the next knife and watches the blade sink into the target (only two inches off the bullseye, she notes, which is some measure of improvement).
"Banner says you're here most days," Thor muses, walking over to stand next to Valkyrie on the throwing line. She looks over at him, waiting for whatever follows that thought until she realizes he's holding out for her confirmation.
"Banner's not wrong," she says after a beat, tone somewhat cautious as she watches for Thor's reaction. But he's just staring at her, thoughtful, and she's not quite sure what to make of that. “I’m trying to play catch-up, I guess,” she says, a little quiet, and it’s a toss-up whether the words are meant more for him or for her. “Turns out all those millennia slumming it in a Sakaarian junkyard took their toll.”
Her next throw moves a little further out from the center, as if proving her point.
“Interested in a partner?”
"What — in life?” Valkyrie shoots back, eyes still trained down the length of the range.
“In training.”
Valkyrie shrugs, focusing on her next throw and still not looking his way. “I already beat your brother once back on Sakaar. I don’t need to prove I can do it again.”
“And I've no doubt that you could, but I wasn't actually thinking of Loki.”
That gets her attention — catches her off-guard enough for her to set down the next knife and turn to face her king, arms folded across her chest and expression flat and disbelieving.
"You?"
Thor nods back, offering a smile in the face of her skepticism.
"Me."
She tilts her head, considering, face carefully blank while Thor waits for her response.
"And what sort of training were you thinking, Your Majesty?" Valkyrie asks, tone almost curious for all that her expression is still statue-smooth.
"Nothing fancy — doesn't have to be more complicated than a one-on-one," he says, easy. "You're not alone in wanting to stay in shape."
"No, but of the two of us, I am alone in not being able to conjure lightning from my fingertips—" she pauses, lending a wicked edge to the curve of her smile, "—Lord of Thunder."
Thor looks equal parts amused and briefly exasperated, but doesn't take the bait. "We'll leave lightning off the table then, and whatever else you'd like. Winning's not the point so much as practice."
It sounds like the kind of statement from someone accustomed to victory, Valkyrie thinks idly, but she's already picking up another dagger from the rack and turning it over in her hands. "Knives or unarmed?" She asks, telling herself it's about curiosity and not committing herself to whatever Thor has in mind — even if the thought feels at once like a lie.
"Neither."
"What, then? A staring contest?"
"I was thinking swords — if you're interested," he says, eyes glancing over briefly to where her own blade is sitting up against the wall and still snug in its scabbard. Valkyrie follows his stare, letting her own linger, an answer caught somewhere in the back of her throat and mind distracted enough that she doesn't notice when her grip on the dagger tightens enough to bead a drop of blood from her fingertip.
Thing is, it shouldn't be a question — shouldn't even be a thought. He's offering to play this out with her weapon of choice and Valkyrie can recognize the gesture that's buried under the words and there's no good reason not to say yes except she fucking can't.
She doesn't know how to explain to Thor that, even if she's brought her blade to each one of these makeshift training sessions, she hasn't held the thing unsheathed since going toe-to-toe with Hela on the bridge. Doesn't know how to explain that she's spent centuries feeling unworthy of the sword she fought so fucking hard to earn. Doesn't know how to have him understand that she's still stuck with the too-fresh memory of watching the Valkyrior fall around her — pierced like pincushions by Hela's black-bladed rain and her own mount glassy-eyed and tumbling out of the sky and Valkyrie with her sword in her hand and surrounded by the dead and feeling so fucking helpless.
And even if she could somehow put any of that into words, she thinks it'd take a tongue soaked in whiskey to get them out.
So she hesitates, for all that she wants to say yes, sitting with this self-doubt and quietly thankful for Thor's tact in not pushing the matter any further. Leans in favor of coming up with some bullshit excuse to sidestep the offer—one he'll surely see through, but she doubts he'd challenge—and then she can go back to practicing in peace and privately earning back her sense of surety in slow and painstakingly won inches.
It's the simpler choice, but even still, she finds she doesn't want to say no — recognizes she'll never get past this stumbling block if she waits to pick up the weapon until the next time adrenaline and necessity throw up blinders to the emotional baggage still weighing heavy on her shoulders. She wants to prove herself worthy of the Valkyrior's legacy, and it'd be evident even with the world blurred by a dozen drinks that she'll never do so if she keeps letting this exercise in guilt and shame have a stranglehold on the process of moving forward.
So maybe this can be her first step. Maybe it's time to honor the Valkyrior with the edge of her steel instead of self-pitying nights she doesn't remember in the morning.
Still, it's not an easy decision, for all that it feels like the right one.
"You know," Valkyrie says with a slow exhale, walking to where her sword's leaning against the wall — keeping her face turned away so Thor can't see whatever uncertainty is lingering in her expression and fighting to suppress a tremor from her words. "It goes against the Valkyrior's oaths to turn a blade against Asgard's king."
She does her best to lend the intended teasing edge to the words, to color them with confidence so he doesn't hear the doubt underneath, feeling only half-successful as her unpracticed hand closes around the sword's hilt. As she turns back to look at Thor, she sees him unbuckling the broadsword strapped to his back, drawing his own blade and looking at her with a reassuring smile.
"I have a feeling that, this time, he won't object," he says, tone easy and sword held loose in his hand.
Valkyrie gives a half-smile at that, no more than a fractional curve of her mouth, appreciating Thor's efforts even if she can't focus on much more than the sweat beading in the creases of her palms, slick against the metal of the hilt. She gives the blade an experimental spin in her hands, feeling the weeks it's been since she last held the thing and wondering how her skills will hold up when the fight isn't fast-paced and desperate and focused mostly on just holding back the tide of Hela's forces. Her steps still somewhat hesitant, she follows Thor to the middle of the room, the empty stretch of floor carved out enough to offer some approximation of the training courts at Asgard.
"Ready when you are," he says, hand adjusting around the grip as he raises his sword.
Valkyrie mirrors his motion, shifting her weight back-and-forth, thinking she's not really sure she'll ever be.
Not long after she's settled into her stance and nodded her head, Thor's first strike comes in fast — a wicked sideways slice that has her throwing up her own blade in a last-minute parry, imprecise enough to underline all the drills she needs to be running if she wants to earn back her old skills. He's quicker than she expects, too, and she can't help but remember sitting on the edge of her ship overlooking the Grandmaster's coliseum, watching him in his flimsy gladiator get-up and holding his own against the Champion and thinking—for the first time, though not the last—the she might be likely to lose the units she bet against him.
Except now she needs to focus, because even this is a step up from Sakaar, and he's not wielding a glorified club salvaged from the coliseum armories but a blade that fits comfortably in his palm — one he handles like it's something familiar.
Winning won't be easy, Valkyrie thinks, disengaging for a counter-attack that sends her length of pointed steel snaking past his own, but she realizes in that moment just how badly she wants to.
From there, the back-and-forth is rapid fire and fucking relentless — each of them trading turns on taking the attack and the ringing of clashing steel setting the walls singing. And it's not long after they're off that Valkyrie can start to feel the muscles in her arms burning, the effort to hold off Thor's strikes taking its toll from her shoulders and back (and—fuck—she thinks, eyeing the flex of his forearms when his sword arcs down in an overhead slice, what she wouldn't give for some of his strength right now). Soon, the sweat of nerves on her palm is replaced by that of exertion, and she can feel it running rivulets down her spine as she takes advantage of their brief disengagement to dry her hands on the fabric of her pants. Even with a few feet of distance between them, she can hear Thor's breathing as heavy and ragged as her own, and takes some small comfort that he's feeling the effort as much as she is.
But all that really means is they're evenly matched enough for neither to have pulled out a win — a couple of Valkyrie's subtler maneuvers coming close but her speed dulled just enough for Thor to throw up a block before their finish.
And, in the midst of running another bullet-fast round of blows, she can't help but think about how easily she should be winning this — how it wasn't so long ago that she would've had her sword tip kissing his windpipe and sent him tumbling to the floor for good measure. That she's been running these steps and earning her battle scars since he was a rosy-cheeked child, and that it says something about the way she's wasted her years that he's still managing a hold on his hilt and occasionally putting her on the defensive. At the same time, for all the exhaustion weighing heavy on her muscles, it's hard not to feel something close to satisfaction as half-remembered moves start to sing a little faster through her limbs, as centuries of hard-earned muscle memory kick in and the whole thing starts to feel less like a reminder of that first failure against Hela and more like a dance — her sword weaving through Thor's like links of fine-mesh chainmail and catching glints of the overhead lights like the sparking bolts she catches sometimes skipping over his fingertips.
She doesn't even notice when she starts to smile.
"If I lose," Thor says, fending off a chained sequence of attacks that Valkyrie sends his way with a series of fractionally slower blocks, "will you let me chalk it up to being out of practice?"
"If you lose?" She asks, an amused edge to her smile and eyes glinting something bright. "Besides, Your Majesty, what happened to this not being about winning?"
"Yes, well, forgive me for wanting to retain some small measure of pride."
"All due respect, Your Majesty," Valkyrie says, seeing the opportunity for a disarming strike, "but not a fucking chance."
Countering his last attack and moving too fast for him to follow, Valkyrie's sword whispers through a silver-streaked pattern that sees Thor's heavier blade knocked from his hand and sent clattering to the floor. By the time his eyes have finished following its path and glanced back to Valkyrie, she's got her own sword tip levelled at his chest and she's wearing a proud grin. Nevermind it's a maneuver she should've managed from the fight's opening steps, and nevermind the breathing she can feel that's too fast and too ragged in her lungs — she'll take the victory as a deserved win for no other reason than the minutes it spared her from being submerged in guilt, for offering her a handful of moments where she thought of nothing but the next steps of her feet and the feel of the hilt in her hand and cutting her way through the steel-tipped thorns of Thor's defense to find her winning shot. As good as it had felt to face down Hela's forces with a sword in her hand and carrying the familiar weight of her plated armor, her senses had been flooded by enough adrenaline to keep her from noticing little more than the next green-eyed skeleton staring her down — but this? This was stretching her skills for their own sake, bringing back memories of the Valkyrior training yards with nothing but nostalgia and all measure of self-pity left behind.
Fuck — she'd missed this.
Valkyrie lowers her blade from where it's tilted at Thor's chest and walks over to where his is still resting on the ground, levering the tip of her own sword under it and flicking the hilt up and into her hand.
"Well fought, Your Majesty," she says, flipping it so the blade is pinched between her fingers and holding it out in his direction, "...for all that you are out of practice."
He answers her words with a broad smile, accepting the sword with a slight incline of his head to acknowledge his defeat. As he does, stowing the blade back in its sheath, she can see there's sweat beaded into the temples of his still uneven haircut, and she finds herself noting idly that there's something about the way it's buzzed close to his scalp that seems to suit him better than the fairy-tale look he'd had when she'd first found him in the junkyard and delivered him to the Grandmaster — like in losing his hair, he'd shed the skin of Asgard's golden prince for that of a fighter who wore battle scars for his crown.
"Shall we?" He asks, interrupting her still-wandering thoughts, and it takes her an extra second to see that he's tilting his head towards the wall of the training room and to understand the question he's asking.
"After you," she says, stowing her own sword and following his lead as he walks over and takes a seat on the floor, sighing heavily and leaning his back against the metal, forearms propped up on his knees. She finds her own spot to the left of his, leaving just enough distance that they're not quite brushing elbows, and tilts her head back until it's resting on the wall, eyes falling shut and heartbeat loud in her ears.
It's peaceful in a way she doesn't expect — comfortable in a way she couldn't have anticipated.
"I know we won," Thor says into the silence, his words a little quiet and breathing still a little unsteady, "but there are days when it doesn't feel like that's true. Hela may be gone, but so is Asgard, and, even if I'm still convinced it was the right decision—even though Asgard's people are safe and that 's what's most important—there's still the matter of what comes next. Surviving Ragnarok won't mean a damn thing if I can't find a way to rebuild Asgard as something better — to find a way to protect the future of our people.
"It's not fair to put any of this on your shoulders," he says, and when Valkyrie blinks her eyes open, she sees he's looking over at her. "And I want you to know that's not what I'm intending to do, right now. This isn't your burden to carry, nor your problem to solve. I just—" he lets out a slow exhale, absently rubs a hand over the back of his neck, "—just wanted a moment to set that all aside." A small smile pulls at the corners of his mouth. "Even if I did spend it getting my ass handed to me."
"My pleasure, Your Majesty," Valkyrie says, bumping her shoulder against his. There's a quiet that falls after her words, one that feels heavy with all the things she does and doesn't want to say.
"If it helps," she says after a beat into the silence, seeing Thor glance over in her periphery and keeping her eyes focused down on her loosely interlaced fingers, "it's not like I've made this room my new vacation home because of all the rose-colored thoughts I've been having about the future." Her thumb traces a line across the calluses of her palm, trying to massage some of the still-developing ache from the muscles. "The Valkyrior are meant to be the defenders of Asgard, and I abandoned my home for fucking years." The words taste something bitter on her tongue, and she focuses on mapping out every crease and microscopic fissure on the skin of her hands to keep from seeing whatever look Thor's giving her. "Most days, it feels like little more than luck that as many of us made it off the bridge as we did. Luck and Banner, I guess.
"And it's not like I'm spending any time wishing any of it had turned out different, but it's only a liar or a fool who'd think Hela's the worst thing that will face Asgard. If the centuries I spent serving under your father or rotting on Sakaar taught me anything, it's that the universe always has one more wild card up its sleeve — some new kind of world-ending threat you can't know how to prepare for and that arrives sooner than you'd expect. Once, that was Hela, and me as the only Valkyrior standing against her this time on the bridge says something about how that first fight ended.
"Whatever's next is already on its way," Valkyrie says, "and I'd bet on that with all the booze left on this ship. But I don't know if we're going to be ready when it does — don't know if I'm going to be ready when it does. And I don't think I could survive it a second time, if I had to play witness to another lost battlefield. If I end up the only one to walk away."
It's the first time Valkyrie's really given voice to the thoughts she's been carrying since they left Asgard burning, and she's not quite sure what to do once they've been said. Isn't really sure she feels better, but at least supposes she doesn't feel worse.
"So," Thor muses, tilting his head, considering, "I'm worried I'm going to lead our people to ruin, and you're worried you're going to let us all die." He gives a slight smile. "Quite a pair we make."
"Asgard's lucky to have us," she says with a humorless laugh.
Thor looks over at her, and she meets the stare he's offering with a level look of her own, and, even with the sense of authority he seems to wear like a second skin, she sees in him her teammate rather than her king. Grab Banner and Loki to round out the crew, and that's who she has to call her allies, now, isn't it? The Revengers, and Valkyrie proud to count herself as one of them — for all that the name is fucking ridiculous.
Even with unspoken responsibilities sitting heavy and ever-present, Thor makes no move to stand, and so neither does Valkyrie. Doesn't know whether to call it hiding from her duties or finding peace in one precious moment or rest — and, honestly, doesn't much care about the distinction. Instead, she listens to the rhythmic beat of her breathing, the hum of the ship's thrusters thrumming through her limbs and Thor a steady presence she can feel on her right.
It's not quite what she expected from her return to Asgard—what of it she dared to picture when too drunk to disregard the impulse—but so much better for the fact that it's real. And so Valkyrie gives herself the gift of not questioning the facts of the circumstance, offers herself permission to set aside her guilt for however long the moment might last.
Wonders if—in Thor and in Banner and, gods help her, even in Loki—maybe she's found some new kind of home.