Chapter Text
Brunnhilde sighed as she watched Thor trudge toward the waiting ship, shoulders slumped and steps heavy, having just handed her the leadership of New Asgard. On the one hand, she was annoyed that this job was thrust upon her while Thor shirked the duties he had been born into. She had never asked for the crown, had never dreamt that someday she would be in this position. She hadn’t even set eyes on Asgard since he was a small child, yet here she was, saddled with the fate of her people after the complete destruction of their realm.
You enslave a guy once and he returns the favor by dropping the responsibility for an entire kingdom in your lap.
However, Thor’s words had disturbed her: For the first time in a thousand years, I have no path. He had given up. By no stretch of the imagination was he fit to rule right now, but if he could not find purpose among his people as they rebuilt their society from the ground up, what kind of path could he hope to forge among the stars?
What did he hope to find there?
When she and the rest of the Asgardian refugees had arrived on Midgard a couple of months after the Snap, half-starved and nearly out of hope, Thor had been there to meet them. He said nothing to her at first, simply looking listlessly at the refugees milling around before embracing her. Brunnhilde had had to poke him in the side when he wouldn’t let go.
As he stepped back, she had taken a closer look. He had regained an eye, but it looked out of place. His hair had grown out slightly and he wore Midgardian clothing which hung off his frame. From the short time she had known him, she guessed that he normally didn’t look so disheveled. He looked pale and haggard, and she became worried.
He was also missing a sidekick.
“Thor,” she asked quietly, afraid of the answer. “Where’s Lackey?”
He had taken a shaky breath in. “Dead,” he said in a rough whisper, not meeting her eyes. It was only much later that she found out that he had barely spoken in the weeks since the Snap. He didn’t say anything more now.
She had then spoken to Banner several times, trying to understand what had happened to Thor after she had fled the Statesmen with their people since Thor had become so stingy with his words. Thor had told her once that when Banner wasn’t a raging green monster, he was a healer among his people.
“He’s been through a lot. We all have. I’ll get over to see you guys soon,” Banner promised. “I’ll check in on him then.”
But Banner had managed to visit the Asgardians only once in their first couple of years on Midgard, instead trying to help out in a post-Snap world. Later, when Brunnhilde had come as close as she ever had to begging him to visit his friend, Banner kept apologizing and giving excuses about getting bogged down in his research. She had been furious when he arrived in New Asgard with Rocket and she realized his research had been for purely selfish reasons, yet he hadn’t been able to set aside even one day in several years to check on Thor.
Given Thor’s reaction after that visit, Banner had also regretted not finding the time.
Meanwhile, Asgard had persevered. When Thor did use his voice, it was to ask the UN for asylum for his people, and he almost single-handedly obtained the land for New Asgard in Norway. Why he was so insistent on that piece of land, Brunnhilde didn’t understand.
Although Tony Stark had stepped back from the Avengers after the Snap, he came forward with funding to help build New Asgard without Thor asking. Almost nothing had been said between the two men, but Brunnhilde thought it was the kindest gesture any of the Midgardians had shown.
After that, Thor had (quietly) thrown himself into building New Asgard. But once the construction was mostly done and any new threats to Midgard vanquished, Thor had withdrawn into his little house on the hill even more, seeming to lose his way completely.
She wasn’t sure when the drinking had started, nor whether he was subconsciously emulating her coping mechanisms (although she had to admit she’d been doing much better now that she had something positive to focus on). No amount of shouting, pleading, or cajoling seemed to help. Thor began slipping away, and Brunnhilde took up the slack of governing New Asgard out of necessity.
Hoping an outside perspective would help Thor, and fed up with Banner’s procrastination, Brunnhilde had contacted the other remaining Avengers.
But she ended up being less than impressed with Thor’s so-called Midgardian friends. Natasha Romanoff and Steve Rogers had shrugged and said, “Everyone has lost someone. We’re all learning to deal with it.”
Brunnhilde wanted to shake them. Yes, there was hardly a person in the entire universe who hadn’t been impacted by the Snap. But Thor had lost EVERYTHING, most of it quite brutally, in a very short period of time: his parents, his brother, all of his friends, the majority of his people, and the only realm he had ever truly called home and which he felt responsible for protecting. And that was all before the battle in Wakanda and the Snap.
The Avengers’ losses seemed pitiful by comparison; perhaps they simply couldn’t comprehend the scale of Thor’s losses. Brunnhilde had simply huffed, told them that the Midgardian definition of friendship was obviously different than the Asgardian one, and hung up.
It probably hadn’t been her wisest move, but it’s not like they could ignore Thor any more than they already had been.
Rocket recounted at one point how Thor had been blamed by nearly everyone for failing to kill Thanos before he snapped, Brunnhilde had nearly skinned the raccoon right then and there, intelligent or not.
What had the rest of the army of idiots done to aid him in that battle? Nothing. They simply bided their time, waiting for the thunder god to arrive and do their job for them.
Strongest Avenger or not, it was ridiculous that this army of warriors blamed Thor for something that was just as much their failing, especially when he still gave his all just days after losing everything.
Besides, she couldn’t blame the guy for wanting a bit of revenge on Thanos.
So yes, Brunnhilde was pissed, but (mostly) not at Thor. She was well-aware that life wasn’t fair, but she raged as just how unfair it had been lately to such a good man. Even her losses in the slaughter of the Valkyries by Hela couldn’t compare to Thor’s. She had seen him in battle, fearless, full of heart and humor, as he escaped Sakaar and ran headlong toward Asgard to take on a powerful, homicidal older sister. Even when making the decision to release Surtur, he had been calm and rational. He hadn’t hesitated to defend his people against Thanos and the Black Order on the Statesman, for all the good it had done. He had kept hope alive among his people as they watched their world explode.
Something in Thor had broken between the battle on the Statesman and when she next saw him upon their people’s arrival on Midgard. The Avengers seemed to think that Thor wasn’t used to failure and dealt with it poorly by attempting to make Thanos suffer on the battlefield in Wakanda rather than killing him swiftly.
She disagreed.
She had been horrified to hear from Rocket of the conversation he had with Thor on their way to Nidavellir, with Thor rationalizing that he had nothing left to lose, and then his stunt of holding open the iris of the forge while exposing himself to the power of a neutron star. Those were the actions of a suicidal, broken man who felt he had nothing left. A man who had just watched his baby brother brutally murdered in front of him by his greatest nightmare and could do nothing to stop it, regardless of what he thought.
After the reversal of the Snap and the final battle against Thanos, she had found Thor on the battlefield, sitting by himself on a pile of rubble. The darker tint of his armor made him blend in to his surroundings, unlike the golden prince he had once been.
She sat beside him as he surveyed the battlefield, seeming unconcerned with his injuries. They watched as friends and family reunited. King T’Challa ran up to his sister in a very unkingly manner and embraced her. Even from this distance, they could see that she was chiding him for his behavior while making no move to let him go.
Over by where Tony Stark had died, a torn and battered Captain America stood with his friends Bucky Barnes and Sam Wilson. Bucky placed a comforting hand on Steve’s shoulder as the super-soldier said something and shook his head.
Portal after golden portal flashed into existence along one side of the battlefield, and slowly the field began to empty as, arm in arm, the participants of the battle returned to their homes to reunite with their loved ones.
Thor watched all of this quietly, scarcely moving except for his eyes. She knew he was looking for a flash of green magic or the glint of golden horns. But while he had lost far more and put more than anyone else into their fights against Thanos, he was the only Avenger who had gained nothing from reversing the Snap. Instead, he had added to his losses with Natasha Romanoff and Tony Stark.
Her heart had broken a little more for him then. Not that she would tell him that.
Eventually silence had settled over the area as the sun dipped lower in the sky. Dr. Strange slowly approached the two Asgardians. “I’ve already sent your warriors to New Asgard. I’d better send you two now.”
Yes, the sudden influx of confused people into a new realm would have to be dealt with immediately. Not to mention, they’d suddenly need a lot more housing and infrastructure.
“Majesty, we need to go,” she said gently.
He never said a word, just quietly followed her to the portal that Strange had created. His eyes never stopped scanning the surrounding area, even turning around and staring through until the portal closed behind them in New Asgard.
Thor didn’t speak much after that day, either. He apparently hadn’t found the closure that others had with the final defeat of Thanos. She had no inkling of what was on his mind, which was why it was such a surprise when he decided to hand over the reins of New Asgard to her and leave.
Now, watching the God of Thunder depart with the Guardians made her heart heavy all over again. She feared he wasn’t looking for a new path like he claimed, but rather absolution and an end.
She didn’t know whether the Asgardian people would ever see their king again, and she her friend.