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Soo, I know all the information we have on Infinity War does not show Thor on Earth or even having a breather between Ragnarok and Infinity war, but, sue me.
I also own nothing.
*****
Heimdall knew where she was, which wasn’t even remotely a shock- he knew where everyone was. Perhaps a bonus, too, considering most of New York was still a strange land to him. That, and, he was still trying to figure out the internet world.
Maybe this wasn’t the right time, and he acknowledged that. But, with that they- he and anyone else he had met in the last half dozen years- were facing, this could be the only time. He could spend the next life (if there was one) regretting not showing up at her door.
And at her door he was. A cramped building that looked like all the others on his walk over there- quite a walk from the hide-out he had come from. He believed that he was still in Manhattan, but, could not be sure if he would be able to find his way back without some sort of artificial intelligence.
He could hear a television, but wasn’t sure if it was coming from her thin walls or another. It was Sunday, and it was late, and it could have easily been a bad time.
He calmly, though also firmly, nocked on the door.
No matter what, it was going to be a bad time.
There was no response, so, he did it again.
The lock on the other side of the door moved before it swung open, and there she was. Just as tiny and fierce as he would never forget. She looked mad, but not as mad as the last time he saw her. It was her preferred state.
“ If you’re looking for Regina, she’s down the hall. 1A.”
She moved quick to close the door, but he was quicker- stepping forward and blocking it with his foot.
“ I’m looking for you, Jane.”
The action brought hi out of the darkness of a poorly lit hallway and in to her doorway. He watched her expression change from dull annoyance to absolute shock- will still some slight annoyance. Her mouth slowly fell open and she kept studying him. Like he was a ghost, or one of her machines that he never understood.
The silence, and the shock, were eating away at him.
“ Jane, I...”
That was all he got out before the slap that turned his head before he could even register that it had happened.
“ I think we should find you a different method of verification,” he winched.
“ It is you,” she gasped.
Thor cranked his jaw a few times before facing her- initiating another gasp.
“ I can’t...I don’t understand.”
Her small hand came up to touch his face. The stubble, the healing marks (scars that would not heal), the eye patch.
“ How is this possible?” Her fingertips traveled to his hairline. “ what happened to you?”
He sighed, “ it’s a long story..followed by a longer story. And then, the one that is currently ongoing.”
“ I didn’t think I would ever see you again.”
“ I thought the same.”
“ I thought you were dead.”
“ I...was fairly confident you were alright.”
Jane stepped away, though he wasn’t wrong in said assumption. “ After nothing for a year, no contact, I just didn’t know what else to think. Loki had died, so...”
Thor opened his mouth to correct the last part, but decided otherwise rather quickly. He didn’t want to spend any of what little time they had explaining that. And, with how things had recently gone, maybe Loki was dead.
With her back to him, he took a small step towards her- one that went unnoticed. “ If there was a way to have contacted you...”
“ I thought Heimdall could see what was going on down here.”
Another explanation not worthy of this delicate time. “ I hadn’t seen Heimdall in the past year. Not until recently.”
“ I haven’t seen YOU in the past year,” she lightly bit at her lip, “ I wasn’t ever expecting to see you again. And not like this. This isn’t how I remember you.”
“ You are exactly how I remembered you.” Maybe she was a touch more...well, he couldn’t pin point it. There was something, but everything else was exactly the same.
Then came a sound- a slight, faint squeak. He didn’t recognize it, but her eyes squeezed shut and she groaned, so it wasn’t just him. There it was again- a struggling whimper, and a weak one at that.
“ Don’t go anywhere,” Jane mumbled, disappearing down the hallway from the living spade where they stood (like he had anywhere to go).
Thor could hear her voice softly speaking in another room. Though he couldn’t hear what she was saying, it sounded clearly like she was speaking to someone else. There wasn’t another moment to compute before she then emerged, carrying a blanketed bundle in her arms.
A few steps later, and he was able to confirm that it was a baby. Jane was holding a baby, a baby that she was smiling down at, gently stroking the side of it’s cheek. The baby squeaked, and his blood went cold
“ I was hoping Heimdall was going to tell you, because I was never sure how.”
Jane moved the blanket for him to see those big blue eyes that stood out in contract with fair skin and fine hair (what little of it there was). The baby stared right at him, like it knew something he didn’t. Jane watched the stare down, both bugged eye and barely blinking, and she could practically see the kinks working themselves out in his head (where his right eye use to be).
“ She’s yours,” Jane stated, with the blunt force to push him to that finish line that he was looking for.
“ She’s my what?”
There was that sour look again.
“ She’s your daughter, Thor.”
The tone surely snapped his trance. Sort of.
“ I...,” the rest of that intended sentence died in a huff, “ okay.”
“ Okay,” Jane nodded, repeating him in the same dull tone, before her eyes watered in an instant. “ I don’t know what I expected, but I didn’t expect this.”
Neither did he, but he wouldn’t dare say that aloud. “ This is just very hard to, to understand.” That, wasn’t exactly better.
“ We had sex, you were there. I’m sure you remember.”
He nodded.
“ When you were in London, last year. And then you left, again, to find those rocks or whatever. A couple of weeks after, I found out I was pregnant, and I couldn’t find you.”
Jane moved the baby to rest over her shoulder when the infant began to fuss. Thor took note of how much smaller she was outside of the blanket, and in her one piece jammies that almost didn’t fit.
“ I tried everything- breaking out my old equipment, anything. I didn’t know what to do. And then, she was here, stubborn and strong, just like you.”
He saw the tears forming again even if she tried to hide it while lightly bouncing the baby in her arms.
“ Jane, I’m so sorry.”
“ You didn’t know. And how could I blame you?” she sniffled a bit, “ I really don’t. I didn’t even think I could get pregnant, because,” she gestured her free hand between the both of them, “ you know.”
He knew. Ah, the ancient belief that an Asgardian couldn’t produce a child with a Midgardian that was now very much just a myth. The proof of that had just spat up on her mother’s shoulder.
“ This is a staple in our last couple of months.”
Thor grabbed a small, colorful blanket off of the arm of the couch behind him and handed it to her to tend to the mess.
“ You two have been alone.”
“ We’ve been alright.”
He continued to watch in aw, and completely unsure of what to do with himself.
“ May I...hold her?”
Jane’s face lit up a touch at his request- thrilled that he would even ask, or have such a chance. “ Yes, of course.”
They each took a step towards one another, meeting in the middle. Jane dipped on to her forearm, and then to slide her in to his.
“ Just make sure you support her head.”
Thor obeyed orders, nestling the baby’s head in the crook of his elbow. Her entire body was not even the length of his own forearm, and despite how secure she was, he still kept his left arm under her as well. He would not have been able to describe anything were she to ask.
“ She’s so tiny,” was his first comment.
“ She was a week early and barely seven pounds. Guess she didn’t have a lot of room in there.” Jane waited another moment, letting his admiration continue before adding, “ she was born during a thunderstorm.”
The corner of his mouth tweaked. The pad of this thumb stroked her soft, plump cheek as she watched him with her big eyes. Eyes that matched his own. She was skeptical of the stranger holding her, but eventually became contest with his strong hold and elevated body heat.
“ What is her name?” he spoke so quietly, noticing that the baby was slowly drifting off in his arms.
“ Hanna. It means Goddess of People, so, I thought it would be fitting.”
“ It’s a beautiful name. Hanna.”
“ Her middle name is Frigga.”
He looked up at her for the first time since being handed their child, “ thank you.”
And she knew how much that had meant, and was going to mean when she made the decision. “ I- I wasn’t sure how to give her your last name. I wasn’t sure how the naming scheme worked, and, everyone would probably think I was crazy saying that the God of Thunder knocked me up.”
“ I did what?”
She shook her head, “ you got me pregnant.”
“ Oh, right.”
Hanna snoozed away, her face tucked in to the borrowed hoodie that he wore.
“ All the reckless thats I’ve done. All while she was here,” he glanced at her, “ and you.”
“ It’s not something I blame you, or resent you, for. You didn’t know, how could you?”
In a better situation, Heimdall. But, that wasn’t an option.
“ I resent myself,” she whispered.
“ Why?” he was just as quiet as her in his response.
“ For not being enough, for her. Her birth was so hard, oh my god, it was so bad. It got to the point where I begged my mom to find you- I didn’t care how. I was hoping maybe you would have just known somehow.”
The baby whined in his arm, her own stretching towards him and her tiny foot kicking upwards. Thor maneuvered her so that she was now propped against his chest, and his arm now under her bottom. It was a swift move, like he had always known how to do that. Hanna now clutched to the loose fabric on the front of the sweater.
Jane erupted in tears, tucking her head down and in to bawl.
Thor stepped forward and curled his arm around her shoulders, pulling her towards him. She went willingly, pressing against him. He felt her arms around him, a feeling he didn’t know he had missed until just that moment. She could argue the same.
“ It’s alright,” he murmured, “ it’s going to be alright now.”
“ No, it’s not,” she sobbed, face buried in the fabric, “ I get updates from Stark, I know what’s coming, and what you have to do.”
He paused for a moment, “ you communicated with Stark?”
“ He doesn’t know about Hanna, if that’s what you mean. Just anything that could be related to you.”
She continued to cry, and he lightly caressed her back.
“ I promise I will do everything in my power to come back to you, to both of you. Then we can figure out the next steps. As a family.”
“ You can’t promise anything.”
“ I can try.”
Jane calmed herself enough to speak clearly, after a few sniffles. She watched their daughter slumbering next to her, in her father’s arm, and dared to ask-
“ How long do we have you for tonight?”
He held her tighter for another moment, “ as long as I can.”
*****
Hours had passed- at least that was his guess. The three of them laid in Jane’s bed- Jane tucked in to his side and Hanna on his chest. Both were asleep, Hanna long before Jane, who had stayed awake some to tell him about all he had missed. Her work, Darcy falling in love with an English politician, and everything there was to know about Hanna. He chose to not do the same.
Even though Hanna was asleep, but Thor felt as though he was alone with her. He brought his pinky to brush along Hanna’s tiny first. The hand eventually opened and clutches his finger with determined strength.
He chuckled, “ good. You’re going to need that to help mommy, and when you’re older, and there’s boys. And there will be, trust me, I was one of them.”
She didn’t respond, so he continued.
“ It took a few weeks to realize I loved your mother,” he quickly glanced over at a sleeping Jane, “ and she knows that. You, though, you are instantaneously. And I don’t want to leave and risk missing anything else. But, I think I have to, to make sure this world is safer for you. I’ve never had a greater reason than right now.”
There was early daylight beginning to creep through the blind covered windows. It was time to go, and he couldn’t bring himself to wake either of them.
He sat up in the bed, holding Hanna to his chest. There was a crib under the window that he laid her in after delivering a kiss to the top of her soft head. She squirmed after being placed down, but eventually re-adjusted when covered with another blanket. He was already missing the small weight on his body.
He made sure Jane was covered as well, before heading out. He stopped in the doorway for one more look before leaving.
“ You won’t be alone. I will make sure of that.”
*****
Thor returned to the hideout shortly after, and made a beeline for Tony Stark himself.
“ Point Break, I was about to call for a search party.”
A dire time of need was no excuse to slack on the comedic commentary, even for Tony, who was continuing to back a crate for the quinjet.
“ I need you to do something for me, should anything happen. And I need you to promise.”
Tony heard the usual serious tone that Thor possessed, had grown deeper.
“ Jane, right?” You got it, buddy.”
“ It’s not just Jane anymore.”
The two men exchanged stares for a moment, but no words just yet. Tony nodded once it clicked, but never verbally confirmed.
“ Hey, I don’t want to damper the mood or lower morale, but, there’s a type of...life insurance in place, for all of us. Anything happens, she- or, whoever- will be taken care of. Even if something happens to me, too. Pepper, or someone, will take care of it.”
There was a slight crack in his voice when providing that explanation. But, he remained firm none the less.
“ Thank you, Stark. I will hold you to that.”
“ I expect you to.”
Thor began to walk away, and Tony checked their surroundings before calling out-
“ Congrats, dad.”