Work Text:
After The Garden.
Thor did not expect anyone to find him here. Had not thought that any among his companions could find him, considering that he had used the Bifröst the moment he’d staggered out of the tiny, ruined hut. Midgardians were many things, but up to faster-than-light travel was not one of them.
He hadn’t called the Dark Magic with a will, then. Hadn’t thought about where he was going other than away. But upon arriving, upon looking around the firmament and finding the stars that winked back at him clean and cold familiar, of course it made sense. Home. He wished he’d directed Stormbreaker with a little more intent.
There was nothing here. Without friction, without gravity, the violence of Surtur’s destruction had scattered whatever parts of Asgard were left far afield. He’d thought that maybe there would be something left, but no. Thor found his mouth was dry, and his cheeks were wet.
He’d been about to commit the eye Rabbit gave him to the vast expanse of space when he was distracted by the light of an unfamiliar star. It didn’t take him long to realise, as the star grew brighter and larger and more colourful, that it wasn’t a star at all.
· * * . ✧ ˚ ˚ * ˚ ✫ · ˚ ˚ ·
As the Avengers gathered morosely back aboard the Benetar, Carol marked a large absence from the team. She waited as the others prepared the ship - perhaps it was usual for him to make ready on his own, run recon of some kind after a mission. But it didn’t seem like it. And judging by the shock that jolted through the group when the Asgardian had relieved Thanos of his head… She didn’t think any of this was normal.
“Captain.” Captain Rogers - Steve, he’d insisted once or twice - had been busying himself with sourcing rations to share out among the team when Carol went looking.
“Captain,” he replied, his usually easy smile not reaching his eyes.
Carol offered him half a smile of her own for that, the look turning shrewd as she gestured over her shoulder with a thumb to the dusty field out the open cargo bay of the Benetar. The dusty field scorched with a beautiful, looping design of knotwork that she’d recognise as Asgardian anywhere. “Thor okay?” She tilted her head to one side, as if telling the other captain she already knew the answer.
Steve sighed heavily and stopped unwrapping boxes of single-serve rations (made by, and fit only for, Ravagers, but Carol wasn’t about to nitpick on that at a time like this). “No. I don’t think he is.”
“He normally go off like that after missions?” She knew the answer to this one, too, but everyone was a bit tender for a simple ‘Where’d he go,’ she thought.
“Well, he normally leaves eventually, yeah, but not, ah…” Steve trailed off. Seeming to suddenly realise he’d stopped doing anything with his hands, he sorted the rations into a tidy column of boxes. “He’d normally stay a while, say goodbye. Likes to hang around for revels,” There was the ghost of a real smile hanging to his lips that time, but it faded fast. “He’s taken all this pretty hard.”
It was the word revel that did it; Carol suddenly knew where he would have gone, and having realised it, she wondered how it took her this long. Ordinarily, she’d have snapped her fingers, maybe pointed them at the other Captain with a click. Not today. “He’s gone home.”
Steve just looked confused. “I know Thor has other duties, but it’s not like him to return to them without a parting farewell.”
Captain Marvel shook her head before extending her helmet from her suit and offering him a sad smile. “You should talk to him more, you know. Asgard was destroyed; that’s not why he’s left.”
The super soldier went pale, and uttered an almost inaudible “oh.” He placed a ration back into the crate, an automatic habit born of wartime austerity that had never quite worn itself out. “You’re gonna go check on him?”
“Sure am.”
“Thanks.”
Carol let her power burn through her, and with a nod, disappeared into the interstellar night.
✧ · * * . ˚ ˚ * ˚
Thor found it very beautiful, the way her power wrapped her like a cloak of living light. It seemed fitting for how bright she was, even at a time like this. “Captain Carol Danvers,” he spoke, and his deep voice was quiet here, but not silenced by the vacuum. The voices of gods were not so easily quashed, not so close to Asgard. Or at least, where Asgard had been.
Carol had to draw closer to him to be heard, but he didn’t mind that. In fact, he found himself grateful beyond words to find himself to be other than alone.
She narrowed her eyes at him, her gaze not unkind. “Let’s get outta here, big guy. I know a place I think you’ll like.” She’d thought of platitudes and rejected them, for now. There would be time for them later. Right now, Carol felt rather strongly the best thing for Thor would be to get him away from here. They hadn’t spoken much since she’d returned to Earth, but she could see this place was eating him up.
Thor didn’t offer any resistance to the idea, which didn’t surprise Carol as much as it might have - he’d proven quite obliging at the Avengers Compound, if a little withdrawn, which she’d understood. He remained reticent now, nodding and raising a hand to call his axe, which sung its way back to his hand from a great distance. Another detail for later, perhaps. Thor reached out his hand to her, calloused palm up for hers. Her hand felt small in his, and she could feel the power in those fingers; the lightning caged just beneath his skin.
“Pancho’s Bar. California.” Carol raised an eyebrow and looked at Stormbreaker quizzically, trying to coax a smile from the god of Thunder. “How do you steer that thing?”
Gently, Thor closed his hand around Carol’s, allowing himself a moment to marvel at the tongues of flamelike light that licked over her skin brushing against his. Eventually he looked at Stormbreaker, and then back to her. “Thought and memory,” he said with a smile he knew held more sorrow than joy. He thought he saw a flicker of recognition cross her features, but then the Dark Magic of the Bifröst took them, and they were away.
At Pancho's Bar.
It had been a long time since Carol was here last. Thirty years and change. Somehow, it looked exactly as she'd expected it would. Even the band posters hadn't changed much; Guns ‘n Roses still made a prominent showing, even if many of the bands and singers whose faces and album covers were plastered to the walls were strangers to her. Most importantly - for today’s plan at least - karaoke was still a nightly staple: 8pm till late.
The bar wasn’t packed - nowhere on Earth, nowhere in the galaxy, really got packed these days. But it was full enough that the two of them were far from alone, the background noise a steady hum of voices, glasses clinking, billiard balls clacking, chairs scraping. It was a long time till 8 yet.
The woman behind the bar wasn’t Pancho, of course - hadn’t ever been, in Carol’s time - but she had an easy airforce manner about her that made Carol instantly at ease, even if she’d been out of the airforce longer than she’d been in it now. “What can I get you?” Her voice was dry, either from tobacco or too many years dealing with hotheaded wannabe flying aces.
“Beer for me and my buddy, thanks.” Looking behind her, Carol noted that Thor had somehow changed back into the hoodie and jeans he’d habitually worn at the Avengers Compound before the flight to the Garden. She’d have to figure out how he did that someday. He met her eyes only briefly before looking away.
“Just beer?” The barkeeper asked, her intonation exactly the same as before as she grabbed a couple of pint glasses swiftly from beneath the bar. Her eyebrow twitched in question, gaze shifting almost imperceptibly to Thor, and back to Carol. She’d been doing this a long time, then.
Carol leaned against the bar, half-nodding in assent. “Got any Jeremiah Weed?” She knew the answer would be yes before she asked, her head cocked to one side. This was still a squadron bar, after all.
The short-haired woman swept the pint glasses away in a well-oiled motion almost too swift to see, then produced two chilled tumblers and a bottle of the traditional bourbon from the bar’s freezer. “Worry about your tab later, Captain.” Carol knew she’d be too young to have remembered her as Captain “Avenger” Danvers, half a lifetime ago, and yet she found herself wondering if there was a deeper recognition in the other woman’s somber grey eyes.
That was yet another question for another time, however, and Carol collected the glasses and bottle with an action near as practiced as the barkeep’s. She nodded her head towards a booth that bordered the stage, presently empty, and knew Thor would follow. She felt more than a couple pairs of eyes on their backs as they moved, noted the momentary silence that followed them like a wake, but none of the stares lingered overlong. She was glad this was still the place she remembered.
“Have a seat, bud.” Carol slid a cup to Thor’s side of the table, filling the short glass with amber liquid as she sat. Thor did, his large frame making the bench seat seem rather smaller than it was, even with the slump to his shoulders.
“I first met you in a bar, you know,” Carol began, swirling her own bourbon before knocking the shot back in one swift pull. It tasted just how she remembered: like paint stripper with notes of crushed glass. The burn of the drink was bracing and familiar, and as she looked over to her alien drinking buddy, she wished she could offer him something that would be the same. He winced a little as he drank his share, eyeing the glass in judgement before looking back to Carol.
After a long moment, he nodded. “Yes, you’re right. It feels a lifetime ago. So much has happened since then.”
Cocking her head to one side, Carol watched him as she refilled their glasses, gauging the pouring liquid by sound rather than sight. “A lifetime seems about right to me, too.” Carol swept her hair to one side, revealing the space below her ear where the photon inhibitor wasn’t. “You know, you were the first person I ever met who wasn’t put off by my power. Not afraid or offended. The first one who saw that I could be more, and thought I ought to be, too.” She paused, watching him. He still stubbornly refused to lift his gaze, his shoulders still slumped in defeat. “You were right about the Kree.”
Thor's laugh was far more bark than laugh, and Carol watched him silently as he swirled the amber liquid in his glass before knocking it back, without a wince this time. She wondered if it would be strong enough for him to feel any dulling of the pain he was nursing. “First time for everything.”
“Hey,” Carol reached for his hand with a frown and remembered his electric, contagious grin as they'd arm wrestled for the joy of the contest. “You know this isn't your fault, right?”
She saw the god of Thunder grow the kind of still warriors did when bracing for a blow, felt the tension in the hand in hers. She brought her other hand to cover his as well, her two surrounding his loose fist. He hadn't pulled away, but he hadn't reached out, either. Beneath her hands, his thumb traced the knuckles of his forefinger.
“In what way,” Thor replied slowly, his deep voice heavy with regret, the rounded syllables of his accent laboured, “is this not my fault?”
Carol narrowed her eyes, watching him for a long moment. “It's Thanos who did this, not you.”
He scoffed, and finally met her gaze. “I was born to put an end to threats like him. It is my purpose. ‘Protector of the Nine Realms.’ ‘Saviour of Asgard.’” His voice grew more bitter with each of his titles. “I made the wrong choice, and now trillions are dead.”
Carol nodded slowly, turning her glass in her hands after refilling Thor’s. The harsh drink still lingered in her throat, its warmth tingling in her belly, hot and familiar. She wondered what that was like - to have such a weight of expectation put on his shoulders, perhaps from when he was very young. It felt opposite but not dissimilar to the way her dad had told her she’d never amount to anything, never achieve the things she wanted. It seemed to her that being told you were destined to save everyone might be just as bad.
“I could have killed Thanos,” Carol countered, leaning forward and dipping her head until Thor reluctantly met her gaze. “If I’d been here, if I’d known sooner, I could have.” She lifted her hand and made a fist, letting the flames of her power engulf it until it was almost too bright to look at. “I heard whispers of someone hunting infinity stones. I even knew - in theory - how much power that would make available to that person, someone strong enough to wield them.” She grimaced, and let her power fade back into the quiet of her bones. “Do you blame me?”
Thor looked troubled. “No. I know where you were - you were on the new Skrull home world, helping refugees build a new life of security and hope. You were tens of thousands of lightyears from near enough to help. Of course it isn’t your fault. I faced him twice and failed both times. I lost—”
Carol raised a hand to silence Thor, then moved from her seat to take a spot beside him, sidling up to him and taking her glass in both hands. “You had just come from another battle, one in which your home world - from which you gain some of your power as a god, right? - was destroyed. You were wounded, and fighting on a ship surrounded by the people you had just sacrificed everything to save. Even you can’t fight forever.”
As she watched him, the lines of misery on Thor’s brow deepened as he hunched his shoulders a little lower, frowning into his drink. “If I had been stronger - as strong as I am meant to be…”
Carol took one of Thor’s hands in hers and gave his fingers a squeeze. “It’s not a crime to have limits, Thor.” He finally looked up at her, tears on his cheeks and blue eyes that had once sparked with joy and lightning shadowed with guilt the weight of worlds. He didn’t pull away, didn’t seem to want to, and Carol found herself wondering if anyone else had tried to talk to him. If he’d just been left alone with his guilt these past weeks. She thought she knew the answer; everyone had a lot of shit on their plates, after all. The Avengers more than most.
Behind them, a mic squealed briefly with feedback as it was turned on, and a couple of men, beers in hand, took to the stage as the karaoke machine began its nightly workout. The singers - in their twenties with the look of airmen despite their casual dress - belted out a decent rendition of Bad Moon Rising before wandering back to the bar. The next song was one Carol wasn’t familiar with - something about somebody that I used to know - but she’d used jukeboxes enough in the past that she thought she could give this one a good crack.
She gave Thor a fortifying smile and a wink. “Come on, big guy. This is what we’re here for.”
Thor straightened a little, looking over at the stage quizzically and then back to her. “I can’t sing,” he offered haltingly, though he did wipe his cheeks with the back of his sleeve and finish the last of his liqueur.
He didn’t follow Carol as she rose from the booth, watching her with reluctance until she put her hands on her hips and lifted her chin. “It is the way of my people,” she intoned solemnly, in not quite a mimicry of Thor’s archaic mode of speech. “It’ll help.” She shrugged. “Clears the mind, lifts the spirits. I came here a lot when I was in the airforce.”
Carol had known Thor wouldn’t be able to resist a nod to tradition, and she smiled a little wider as he stood and sidled out of the booth. She was grateful again to the quiet privacy of the old bar, as half a dozen eyes clearly marked the Avenger for who he was, but none rose from their seats. Thor certainly didn’t need that kind of attention right now.
The machine was simple enough (thank god - or gods, or whoever was listening these days), and after only one or two mishaps and curses Carol had successfully navigated to an old favourite of hers - Sweet Child o’ Mine. Axl’s voice crooned through the speakers and was as easy as ever for her to sing along to - and Thor didn’t take long to join in with her, reading the words off the projector with increasing confidence as the song went on. Thor stumbled on the nonverbal ‘whoah-ohs’ until Carol, grinning, took both his hands in hers and showed him how little getting the words right mattered, and the god of Thunder finally gave her a true smile in response, the expression breaking into a grin as she shredded the song’s solo out on an air guitar despite knowing with certainty that the Asgardian would not know what she was doing - aside from having a good time.
It wasn’t a solution, and there was still work to do, but as the song ended and Thor asked if they could do another with a shadow of the old light that she’d seen in his eyes in deep space once, long ago… she thought this had been a step in the right direction.