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“Sif, you said this would be fun, but I find myself bored. Again,” Valkyrie says as she slices through the air with Dragonfang, her favorite sword, which is saying quite a lot, as she has been given very many swords over the years. She has an entire closet full of swords. Swords given as gratitude for saving a planet, swords as gratitude for guiding a soul to Valhalla, swords for winning a wager as to whom could slay the most of Jörmungandr’s hellish serpentine spawn while holding a serpent’s egg in one hand without breaking it.
Hells, once Thor gave her a sword for bringing him breakfast when he was particularly hungover. Though, she considers, that was more of a large dagger.
She has a lot of swords.
“I requested you join me on a quest to rid a planet under our guardianship of an invasion of conjured ice-life. I don’t remember offering to entertain you on a luxury cruise ship,” Sif calls back cheerily, slicing her sword through a line of the conjured ice-life in question. She has done some kind of enchantment so that orange flames lick up her blade. It is a lovely effect, doubly pleasing because of the way the ice monsters melt as she strikes.
“I definitely would be bored if this was a luxury cruise ship,” Valkyrie responds.
Sif tosses her long black hair in a laugh as she whirls to drive her fiery blade through yet another line of ice-things. “Ahh, you are giving me ideas. Now I want to kidnap you and force you to enjoy a luxury cruise experience.”
“You would die trying,” Valkyrie declares, and then runs Dragonfang through three ice-creatures with one smooth movement for emphasis. She feels a lovely stress on her muscles with that blow. The ice-creatures blink at her for a moment, so she kicks the first one, and the top half of each slides to the ground and shatters into ice crystals across the rocky terrain. They sparkle almost blue in the moonlight.
Satisfying. Always pleasing when an enemy dies in such an aesthetic, tidy way. Not that she particularly minds blood, she thinks, slicing through another line of the endless ice-creatures that are encroaching on the largest city of…well, whatever this planet is.
She hadn’t been focused on the details when Sif asked her to join. The people who live here seem to be made of leaves. Though it’s possible they just wear garments made from leaves, she hasn’t gotten close enough to the quivering masses of green fluttering shrubbery to tell the difference.
Whatever they are made of, the people of this planet seem reasonably intelligent and remarkably unsuited to fighting. The leaf folk were falling left and right to the ice-creatures when she and Sif arrived.
To be fair, the ice-creatures are nearly 12 feet tall and quite spiky, and the leaf people are no taller than her, and seem to possess only bows and arrows for defense.
Valkyrie and Sif’s swords, however, are making quick and tidy work of the ice-things.
“Now I have to force you to take a cruise. You must realize it,” Sif says with a cheery laugh. “I hear the Pleiades are lovely this time of year. I can’t wait to see you ballroom dancing with all your swords hanging from your belt.”
“I am an excellent dancer,” Valkyrie declares. “Probably. I can’t remember the last time I tried, but I’m sure I would dominate the balls.”
Sif laughs, and Valkyrie smiles, pleased, to herself. They hack away at the sparkly ice monstrosities, working together without speaking aloud to kettle them up against a wall so they have them cornered. From there, it should have been quick work to finish the last of them, but the creatures begin re-forming back again from the shattered crystals crunching under their boots. Valkyrie almost feels a shiver of real challenge. Perhaps this will be a more difficult enemy than she thought.
After some time of this increasingly tiresome fight against an enemy that is easily slain, but refuses to remain slain, she spies a man with blue skin and matching voluminous sparkly robes cowering behind a line of the ice beings.
How utterly prosaic. A fucking wizard. Wizards are so annoying. He’d better not turn her into anything stupid.
She fights her way to him, slicing through the line of frozen creatures guarding him. He is frantically spinning his hands in the air and holding up various crystals. “I’m the greatest wizard of the Third Realm. Your muscle is no match for the power of my magic,” he booms at her, his voice weirdly magnified.
“Are you sure about that?” Valkyries says as she breaks through the line and punches him in the face. He flies back, his head hitting a rock. As soon as he falls unconscious, the remaining creatures collapse in a brilliant, deafeningly loud explosion of ice. They turn into snow, gently falling in sparkling little drops of cold against her skin. She smirks over to Sif, who looks lovely, her dark hair, her armor, her eyelashes, all shining with thousands of ice crystals like gems. Val imagines she is similarly adorned with the remains of their enemies sparkling along her own long braids. Sif flashes Val a brilliant smile back and tosses her sword into the air in a lazy flip.
“Nice work. Can I have his robes? They look soft,” Sif says.
“Probably cursed,” Valkyrie replies as they bind the wizard’s hands and feet. They will take his crystals and his spell book to take back to Asgard for safekeeping, but leave the wizard to the leaf people, whatever they are called, to deal with according to their local laws and customs.
The leaf people call for a victory ceremony to show their gratitude. She is starting to feel awkward for not knowing what the leaf people call themselves, but it seems rude to ask mid-ceremony. There is a line of sentient shrubbery, all their leaves shivering faintly as if in a breeze she can’t feel. They award her and Sif with, surprise surprise, a ceremonial sword made of green metal with swirling leaves cut into it.
“So, are they made of leaves, or are they wearing the leaves?” she quietly asks Sif as they walk away from the celebration. Valkyrie carries both the new green sword and her trusty Dragonfang on her shoulder. She’s going to need a bigger sword closet.
“How should I know? I wasn’t exactly going to lift their foliage and check for a bush,” Sif answers. “I think we need to be content to leaf it a mystery.”
“If anyone asks, I don’t know you,” Valkyrie replies darkly.
Then there’s a swirl of rainbow light, and Heimdall brings them back to Asgard for the requisite feasting and drinking. More than a few fair maidens invite her back to their quarters to serenade her with their own private victory ballad, but she’s not feeling it.
She finds herself back with Heimdall, who is stoic as always, his dark skin looking smooth and ethereal in the bluish light of the cosmos swirling behind him.
“Are you not in the mood to celebrate your glorious triumph, Brunnhilde?” Heimdall inquiries.
“Do you enjoy being stabbed?” Valkyrie asks. “I find that people who call me that end up getting stabbed, is why I ask.”
“You amuse me, child,” Heimdall responds calmly. Valkyrie looks him up and down, but the thing is, she wouldn’t win in a fight against Heimdall even with her entire closet full of swords.
“Well, anyway, it was hardly a glorious victory, more of a walk to the mailbox and back, really. Have you got any trouble for me? Anything interestingly devastating happening in a realm somewhere?”
Heimdall gives her a considering look. “On Midgard, there is a great war. A desperate battle of good against evil.”
Valkyrie nods, tightening her grip on Dragonfang. “One of my top ten favorite sorts of battles.”
“It is simple technology, quite primitive, humans against other humans. The dark side has found Asgardian technology to aid them. I fear that continued interference from outside their world would shift the balance of power even further. But there may be a moment that could use a heavy hand.
“Heavy hand is my specialty,” Valkyrie says, darker than she intended, and takes a swig from her flask.
Heimdall continues as if she hadn’t spoken. “If I send you there, take care not to shift too much, and not to reveal yourself as Asgardian. They revere us as gods. The evil among them would seek to control you, and those on the side of good could become divided and confused.”
“You always speak as if you’re going to have your words carved into a tablet, you know that? Just once I’d like to hear you say something regular. Not everything has to be prophetic and grand, you know?” Valkyrie snarks.
“Brunnhilde. I am all-seeing and all-knowing. If that isn’t deserving of a prophetic tone, then pray tell, what is?”
“I hate it when you logic me, Heimdall. No one likes a person who’s always right,” Valkyrie says, pointing her sword at her mentor. Something about Heimdall makes her feel young and childish, like she’s not a day over a thousand years old again, bright-eyed and innocent.
“And yet my popularity scarcely increases when I provide inaccurate information,” Heimdall hums, nonplussed, and waves his hand as a vision of Midgard unveils before her. Admittedly, she has paid little attention to Midgard for quite a while. She considers the flickering images, shimmering and framed by sparkling light.
“Well, they’ve learned to weave, haven’t they? They’ve got real clothes not made of animal skins and all that, so they aren’t that primitive. Ooh, look at their flashy little weapons. That’s cute,” Valkyrie says, and then winces as a line of men fall to the ground, blood everywhere. “Oh, that’s less cute. Where are all the women?”
She is a bit disbelieving as Heimdall explains that the women of Midgard don’t yet fight in battles. No wonder they’re losing, Valkyrie thinks dismissively.
She gets caught up on the general customs, briefed on the various code words and fighting technology, as well as how best to avoid breaking the primitive minds of the noble yet naïve Midgardians she’s heading to support. Heimdall transforms her gleaming warrior’s armor into a drab dark green suit woven from the fibers of a Midgardian sheep.
The clothes are strange, but she’s worn stranger. The skirt is tight around her thighs with troublingly limited movement, which Heimdall says is not a mistake on his part. He claims it will help her blend in. To his credit, the absurd costume has a pocket for her flask and places to tuck away her daggers. It will do.
“Are you up for this challenge?”
“Sure, whatever,” Valkyrie says. “Show up, punch Notties, don’t reveal the existence of interstellar travel or immortal god beings, head home. I’ll likely be done and back before Thor and Sif have woken up with their hangovers.”
“It’s Nazis.”
“Are you sure? I could have sworn you said Notties. I think Notties makes more sense.”
“As you wish, child,” Heimdall sighs, and wields Hofund, his sword, which is a decent sort of sword, though nothing compared to Dragonfang, to open the Bifrost. “And you can’t bring Dragonfang.”
“What?” Valkyrie asks in horror. She momentarily wonders if Midgard is worth saving if she can’t use her beloved sword, but calms herself with a touch to each of her daggers, and her flask, and steps into the light.
…
“This way,” a man’s voice says, and there’s a sound of heavy footsteps through the brush. Seven people, if she had to guess. “And stay quiet.”
Sticks break underfoot, dry leaves crunch, and Valkyrie rolls her eyes. This is quiet? These so-called warriors tromp like water buffalo, announcing their presence to anyone within a league of them.
She leans against a tree, using her dagger to pick a spot of dirt out from under a nail. The tromping and clomping stops.
“Who are you, speak quickly,” the man who spoke before says. He has a lovely, resonant voice.
“Seriously now, get talking. We ain’t afraid to shoot a dame, even if she is wearing an Ike jacket,” another man states.
She lazily glances up from the work of her nails. The man in front is wearing some kind of blue combat uniform. He is pretty, Valkyrie thinks, skipping her eyes over his figure. His golden hair is shorn short and his pale face is shaved. The trim hair and bare face with full lips and big blue eyes give a delicacy to his broad warrior’s figure that Valkyrie would not mind playing with.
He seems to be carrying a very large serving dish, gaudily painted with a star and bright red concentric circles. Strange custom, but maybe on Midgard the leader of a troop carries the ceremonial food dish for post-battle feasting. It makes sense, of a sort.
She locks eyes with him, and he looks flustered. She can’t help the flirty smile that teases across her lips. Even an ageless warrior can indulge in the simple pleasure of making a pretty young man blush.
“Poggy Cotter sent me to meet up with you,” she says, repeating the code phrase Heimdall has given her. Or, she’s pretty sure that’s what it was. She wasn’t paying that close attention.
“Do you mean Peggy Carter?” the pretty golden warrior asks sharply, and he’s smart, she thinks, and sturdy. Clearly, the leader. She can see why Heimdall chose him as a worthy companion for her to join in battle.
“Yes, that’s what I said,” Valkyrie responds easily, pushing herself off the tree and stepping forward. The six men behind the golden one have paused in a formation and all tense at her movement. Not bad. Good reflexes. She spares the group a glance before fixing her eyes back to the lead man.
“That’s not what you said,” says another sharp voice.
The voice is smoother; the man is slightly smaller. He is wearing a different uniform to the tallest man, but his coat is the same shade of blue. He has dark hair, contrasted with pale skin and silvery-blue eyes and looks impossibly young. And sad. He also seems very possessive of his leader. He’s looking at Valkyrie like he read her thoughts about finding his lead warrior pleasing to the eye and does not approve.
Interesting.
“It’s a reasonable proximity to what I said, and regardless, there is a war on. I’m on your side, and you’d be fools not to work with me,” Valkyrie says dismissively. “Let’s be on with it.”
“She talks like Peggy Carter,” says one man, a taller one with a funny round hat and a funny round face to match, with an orange mustache on top of his lips like a caterpillar. “Dresses like her too.”
“Just because her accent isn’t American doesn’t mean she’s British,” says a slender one with pale skin and a red hat. His mustache is so thin it looks drawn on. She amuses herself trying to picture a mustache like that on one of her fellow Asgardian warriors. It would create quite the comedic commentary over flowing mead in the drinking hall.
“Then what is she?” the pale sad one with the blue jacket and the dark hair asks. He’s staring at her with great suspicion.
“Who is she?” corrects a man with deep brown skin.
“I’m the reason your mission can’t fail,” Valkyrie says confidently. She winks at the tall golden warrior and nods her head. “So long as you trust me.”
She starts walking, and as she expected, the lead warrior falls into step beside her.
“Just like that, you trust her?” another man asks. The warriors are all following them, though. They have an easy unity that she can sense.
“Calm down, Morita, just because we haven’t shot her doesn’t mean we trust her,” the leader responds. “There’s something in between summary execution and giving her the keys to the kingdom. It’s called subtlety.”
There are guffaws of laughter. “Cap teaching lessons in subtlety, now I’ve seen it all!” calls out one, and “Captain Artful Nuance, that’s what we used to call him when we were growing up in Brooklyn,” from the jealous one.
Captain Artful Nuance ignores his companions. “I’m Steve Rogers. What’s your name, ma’am, if you don’t mind me asking?”
“Valkyrie,” she responds.
“Like from the Norse legends? It means "Chooser of the Slain." Are you named after the Valkyrie who are the shield maidens who bring the fallen warriors to Valhalla?”
She gazes over to see who asked that question. It’s the man with handsome brown skin. He has the broad build of a natural warrior. He would look good with a sword, she thinks.
“Precisely. I was told this planet was uncultured and primitive, but I am happy to be corrected,” Valkyrie responds and continues to walk. The men have all stopped again. They’re staring at her in confusion.
“Do not fear me, I’m here to aid you in your noble mission,” she assures them. “Which you’re going to be late for if you don’t hurry along. Stene, you say?”
“Umm, Steve,” the tall one corrects shyly.
“Ahh, so many names,” Valkyrie says, waving a hand dismissively. “So tell me of your plans, and I will help you correct them so you don’t fail.”
The men are reluctant to trust her, stalling for time by introducing themselves and sharing relatively useful tactical information. The Sergeant Bucky Barnes hates her, the one named Private Gabe Jones asks her half as many questions about Asgard as he would prefer, and the one named Captain Stene/Steve, now that she’s got it mixed up in her head she can’t be bothered to keep it straight, seems to be developing a grudging sort of trust inher.
As she listens, she hears one of them call the Captain Steve. So, it is Steve with a V. She can remember that because his torso is shaped like a V.
She lets them prattle as they walk for a few hundred paces, adjusting her senses to the gravity of this planet, to the noise of the woods, the animals. She listens for both the sounds of the creatures, as well as the areas with an absence of sound.
Valkyrie freezes, holding her fist up with a dagger in it. The men freeze too, and Steve pulls forward his ceremonial serving dish and holds it in front of himself. What an odd thing.
She barely has time to think about the dinner plate before she moves into action. As she runs, she uses her daggers to slice the lines of her constricting skirt so her legs are free. Her daggers flash in the flickering light that falls through the dense forest, her braids fly behind her. She feels the joy of movement, of purpose of battle, of righteousness, as she slits the throats of the three Nazis who were hoping to ambush them. She aims her second dagger into a tree, and a fourth Nazi comes crashing out.
Steve throws his dinner plate, and another Nazi comes tumbling from the canopy. Interesting. Perhaps the dish isn’t only for ceremonial feasting.
There’s a flash from an energy weapon, and she narrows her eyes. Midgard shouldn’t have that weapons technology, this must be the misused relics of Asgard Heimdall spoke of.
“Get down,” she hisses to the men, who have gotten into a respectable formation to fend off the unexpected attack, but suddenly strike her as impossibly young and tender-skinned.
She cocks her head to the side, listening, timing, waiting, and then springs into the air, up, high, higher than the first layer of branches, weaving her body between the limbs of the trees to land on a primitive aircraft. She slays the driver and drives her dagger into the engine, turning her head away from the blazing sparks. She leaps from the craft, tumbling through the air and landing lightly on her feet as it crashes into the forest behind her.
“Sorry about the noise, but I don’t think it could be helped,” she says. The men are still in their battle formation, staring at her.
“She may talk like Peggy Carter and dress like Peggy Carter, but she ain’t Peggy Carter,” says the one with the orange mustache. Dubbins, maybe.
“Where are you from ma’am?” Steve asks hesitantly. “Did you know Dr. Erskine?”
“I’ve met a lot of people and been to many places,” she answers coyly. “I can’t possibly be expected to keep track of such trivial things.”
“No ma’am,” Steve answers, slow and thoughtful.
“Then let’s walk,” Valkyrie says, “away from here, as there are likely more where these came from.”
She moves ahead of the group, but keeps listening to both them and the birds.
“Are you sure we can trust her?” the one called Bucky quietly asks the Captain.
“You think she’s working with the Nazi’s with her brown skin?” Morita mutters, “Pretty sure that’s a no-go for the old Fuhrer.”
Steve shrugs and murmurs back, “More relevant, I’m pretty sure if she wanted to kill us, we’d already be dead, Buck.”
“That’s very true,” Valkyrie confirms heartily.
Bucky gives Steve a dark glance.
Steve moves up to talk to her again, now grilling her on tactics and maneuvers. She’s happy to share her wisdom with such a sharp young warrior, and they end up drifting ahead of the group.
“Your lover is angry you give me such attention,” she says quietly, because Sergeant Barnes is glaring at her hard enough to burn a hole in her back. If he was a wizard with such powers, she would be concerned.
Steve sputters so erratically he nearly collapses into a tree. It’s a far cry from the effortless grace he’s shown over the times they’ve spent together. “Who? What? What are you talking about?” he manages to cough out.
“The pretty, boyish pale one? With dark hair and lovely brooding eyes like a stormy sea? He’s very handsome. Are you not lovers? Your bodies angle towards one another as though you are or wish to be,” she says in an innocent tone.
“Buck? Bucky? I mean, I don’t know who you mean. You could be describing any of the guys,” Steve stammers pathetically, wiping a gloved hand nervously over his face. “Ms. Valkyrie, ma’am, I can’t, I can’t imagine what you’re talking about.”
“Steve. I do hope you are better skilled at combat than you are at hiding your emotions.”
“Ma’am,” Steve says pathetically.
“Perhaps you don’t mind if I share a dalliance with your handsome friend then,” she says casually. Honestly, it’s a shame Sif isn’t here. Comedy gold and no one to bear witness.
Steve snorts, an angry, undignified thing. “Go for it,” he grumbles, throwing up a frustrated hand, his voice suddenly a low growl. “Typical Bucky Fucking Barnes. Dames appearing in the goddamn forest to fall all over him.”
The last is said very quietly. Valkyrie suspects Steve doesn’t realize how good her hearing is.
Steve drops back to the group and she continues to lead the way while keeping an ear to the conversations behind her.
“She give you any real reason to trust her?” Sergeant Bucky Barnes says crossly. “What did you two talk about?”
Steve coughs. “She saved our hides, Buck, actions speak louder than words, just like old Father O’Donnell always said.”
Sergeant Bucky Barnes lets out a dry laugh. “I think he said, ‘Do as I say, not as I do,’ unless I missed the speech where he recommended you tip the charity boxes into your own pockets.”
“You wouldn’t have heard what he said even if you’d been there, but yeah, it was Rabbi Small, I remember now. He used to say, ‘Action speaks louder than words, but not nearly as often,’” Steve says thoughtfully.
“Actually, that’s a Mark Twain quote,” Private Gabe Jones tosses in. “Though Mark Twain also said, ‘All ideas are second hand,’ so I don’t think he’d mind your rabbi borrowing from him.”
“My rabbi,” Bucky corrects. “Though he tolerated Steve. Steve had the priest, who was less tolerant of me, which didn’t stop his Ma from dragging me to church with her whenever I spent the night, now matter what day of the week it was.”
“She cared about you Buck, she wanted to make sure you had your eternal bases covered.”
“I liked the wine,” Bucky shrugs. “And the naked statues.” The men all laugh.
“You two sure are a pair of rule breakers for the amount of religion you got up to,” the orange mustached one jokes, and there’s more laughter.
“Maybe you should have added Shinto into the mix to be extra safe,” Morita deadpans.
"If it had been an option on our block, my Ma would have signed me up," Steve says. "We coulda used a few more religious figures praying over my sickbed, I ran the ones we had ragged enough."
The group quiets.
"It ain't funny if it's that kinda true, Rogers," Barnes says. "Ya mook."
They reach a natural vantage point, a hill overlooking a massive, depressing gray box of a building surrounded by rows and rows of barbed wire.
“Well, that is a place that looks like nothing good has ever dared to happen near it. I say it needs to be immediately conquered, and then either blown up or hit with a bright coat of paint,” Valkyrie says.
“Don’t blow it up till the prisoners are out,” Steve says grimly, placing a blue cowl over his head.
“Aye,” Valkyrie confirms, and glances around the men. None of the others have made any preparations for the fight.
“Where is everyone else’s helmet?” Valkyrie asks. “Steve seems to be some kind of enhanced life form, but the rest of you are mortal, are you not?”
“I’m…mortal,” Steve says slowly, and swallows hard. There’s a very awkward silence among the men, who are nearly always shifting and rustling, but now they’re all dead still.
“Sure, of course you are, forget I said anything about the helmets,” Valkyrie says. Far be it for her to tell someone to take safety precautions. She can’t stand the things.
“Then let’s go liberate a prison, boys” Steve says, then hesitates. “And lady.”
“I’m no lady,” Valkyrie assures him, and then raises her dagger and declares in a firm voice, “May we all be slain in glorious battle.”
“What did she say?”
Valkyrie ignores the question. She’s off, her daggers glinting in the sun.
The general plan is for her and Steve to create as much distraction as possible while the rest of the Howling Commandos, as the men call themselves, do whatever skullduggery is needed to set the prisoners free and commandeer the train to transport them to safety.
It is just the sort of reckless not-actually-a-plan plan that she loves, and that would make Heimdall sigh deeply.
She and Steve are more than up to the task of drawing fire away from their more mortal companions and raising hell in the process. She loses herself in the swirl of the fight, using her fists over her blades this time, punching smug bastard after smug bastard in their Nazi faces, watching with a smile as they fly backward with the force of her strength.
She ducks most of the blasts of the energy pulse weapons and finds she can deflect the rest with the many weapons she takes for herself along the way. One soldier dodges her fist, which is annoying, so she ducks under him, grabs him by the waist and throws him into a crowd of his Nazi asshole friends. They all fall in a tumble.
“I’ll have to try that one,” Steve calls out, throwing the impossible dish she now knows he uses as a shield and a projectile weapon into one enemy after the other. He times punching the Nazi’s nearest to him in between brutal throws of his shield to hit those farther out. It’s an impressive sight.
“Can you punch through a tank?” he asks, and then uses his gloved hand to hit one, two, three fast punches into the metal side of a tank, making a quick hole and tossing in an explosive device. After a moment, the tank seems to shiver, and then sinks in on itself.
“It’s been a minute, but I think I remember the basics,” she calls back over the roar of battle, punching her own hole in the next tank and admiring the line of Steve’s body as he spins to throw another grenade into the hole she’s made.
“You are a warrior worthy of Asgard,” she shouts to him. “Though, I don’t think you’d fit in without a beard.”
“I think I’d better go ahead and stick with the US Army then,” Steve replies. “Clean shaven is kinda part of my image.” He throws the shield backwards without looking and knocks a line of men down.
The kettle the fighters against the prison wall, in a move similar to the one she and Sif have used so many times. She considers her tactical options briefly. Ideally, Thor would show up with a lightning strike, that would tidy up the whole mess neatly.
She fires the energy weapon into the air. Perhaps they can get the Nazis to surrender and save themselves some work.
“Which of you wants to be a prisoner, and which of you wishes to die?”
The resulting roar and flashing weapons of the enemy soldiers is answer enough. They’ll do it the hard way then.
She and Steve work together, dodging and punching, firing, and throwing the shield, and soon the expanse before the building is a smoking wreckage of exploded and imploded tanks, bodies, and destroyed weapons.
She hears a high-pitched shriek; Steve takes off running. She infers that it is the whistle of the train; their signal to head to the south side of the building to aid in the prisoners’ escape.
They race around the building, letting whatever chaos their foes can cobble together follow as it will.
When they are in view of the train, she sees Private Gabe Jones and the one called Dugan sitting at the helm, looking smug and tossing them salutes as they run by. Dugan raises an energy weapon and picks off the enemies trailing behind Valkyrie and Steve.
There is a sniper taking residence on the roof, but before Valkyrie can take aim, the sniper falls to the ground with a crunch. She looks to the source of the shot and sees Barnes, looking pouty and pretty. There are a few dozen of the uniformed enemy fighters locked in a pen nearby, but they seem harmless and contained.
Valkyrie continues her threat assessment as the freed soldiers pour from the building and onto the train. There are hundreds of men led by Morita and Falsworth, flanked and shepherded on the side by Dernier and Barnes.
The freed men have the haunted look she has seen too many times, on too many planets, from those who have suffered the worst the universe offers.
It is a heartache she knows in her own body, one that makes her fingers itch for her flask. To see it in men that are what? Two dozen? Three dozen years of age? It shouldn’t be possible.
She wonders how Heimdall can bear being witness to all the grief a universe can hold. How can he tolerate his limitless ability to view this damage?
It seems, though, that the answer is that sometimes he cannot bear it. Perhaps that’s why he sent her here today, so that she could aid in closing a chapter of suffering for these people.
Perhaps it is enough, for today, that these people are now free. That none of the Howling Commandos perished in their mission.
“You have a good team,” she says to Steve, because it is true, and also to distract herself from the misery of the freed men scrambling onto the train. These feelings are getting larger than she is prepared to manage.
“I do. The best,” Steve says curtly. “And we had good help. I don’t know how today would have gone if you hadn’t been here.”
“Badly, no doubt. It’s likely why I was sent here,” Valkyrie responds.
“Who sent you here? Can I ask that? Was it Peggy?” Steve says.
“Heimdall. Your Gabe Jones will know. Ask him to explain it, but I warn you, you won’t be believed if you try and report the tale to your superior officers.”
“You should see some of my reports.” Steve makes a noncommittal noise. “You’re handy in a fight, and you can tell, I hope, that the Howlies don’t mind working with a woman as an equal. We don’t make any unnecessary business about the color of a person’s skin either. You might find more respect with us than you’re used to. You’d be welcome to stick around, if you haven’t got better plans in mind.”
Valkyrie huffs a laugh. “I honor your spirit, but I am off to farther realms, and can assure you, in all of them, I command a great deal of respect.”
Steve gives her a long look. “It's well earned, ma’am.”
“In many of those realms, two warriors can be lovers,” she adds idly. Steve blushes bright red and rubs the back of his neck.
“Um, thank you ma’am, but I’m not, um, well, you’re very…pretty. Obviously. And. Strong,” he says haltingly.
“I didn’t mean you and myself,” she says with a laugh. “I meant you and your Bucky Barnes. He pines for you. Put him out of his misery.”
“Bucky?” Steve’s eyes flash over to Bucky, who is now in the front compartment of the train and glowering at the two of them, his full lips in a fierce pout.
“He’s desperate for you, and desperately sad. He needs your comfort and leadership. Do you think if I kissed you he’d shoot me?” Valkyrie asks playfully. Steve, somehow, blushes a darker red.
“He’s just overprotective,” Steve says, pulling off his cowl so that his hair sticks up every which way. It’s very darling.
“And yet one can’t help but notice that he is less protective when you are being shot at by over a hundred enemy soldiers than when you are talking to one single pretty girl who's half your size,” she ponders.
“I’m pretty sure you could take me in a fight,” he says with a self-deprecating laugh.
“As am I. Though I am equally sure I’d have fun either way,” she’s flirting now, and shame on her.
Her fingers itch for it, so she pulls out her flask and takes a drink, savoring the hot burn of age old Asgardian whiskey down her throat.
“I had a love, once,” she takes another swig of whiskey and pauses to watch the sky again, thinking of the planet moving through space on its celestial journey.
"Yes, Ms. Valkyrie. I believe the men are nearly loaded up, ma'am. I'll be going soon."
Valkyrie extends her senses until she can feel the endless, restless turning of the planet. "My love was a big love. A love that spanned ages. She was my companion, by my side through many battles, and warmed my bed for many nights that otherwise would have been unbearably cold. I waited too long to tell her I loved her, and though we had our years together, in the centuries since she crossed over to Valhalla, I find I mourn the years we were apart when we could have been together. I wouldn’t wish that yearning for the other half of one’s soul, when it is so near, yet so far on any being.”
She stares at the line where the sky meets the trees. She takes another swig. “Though, the sex we had when we finally figured that shit out, that was fucking legendary.”
“Oh,” Steve says, shifting his feet. “Yes, ma’am.”
“Ballads, Steve Rogers! Ballads! Centuries later, there are bards singing ballads about our lovemaking,” Valkyrie exclaims and then sighs wistfully. “So you can see while I would normally be willing to bed you, and your lover too at the same time if the moment was right, my heart really isn’t in it these days. Your wistful glances bring back too many memories colored dark with regret.”
Steve seems to be having a coughing fit.
“Are you okay? Was there poisonous gas and I missed it?”
“No, ma’am, just, allergies,” Steve wheezes. The train whistle blows again, and Bucky Barnes may actually achieve his goal of burning a hole through Valkyrie’s head if they aren’t off soon.
“Well, you should go, tend to your wounded, drink to glorious victory, all that business. Perhaps you can get drunk enough you will find the courage to bed your fellow warrior and soul companion!” She hits him cheerily on the arm.
Steve starts coughing again. “I can’t get drunk,” he manages.
“Oh, gods, how terrible. Well, I suppose I can help you with that, too,” she tosses him her flask. “Take it slow, and don’t share it with the mortals. Now go run and join your friends.”
Steve stares wonderingly at the flask. It’s solid gold, but she has plenty more like it. He turns and starts jogging towards the train.
“Keep it, or sell it, I don’t care. I have a whole closet full of sacred flasks I’ve gotten as thank yous. I keep them next to my closet full of swords,” she calls, as Steve hurries to catch up with the now moving train. He grabs a hold of the side and swings himself onto the ledge just off the car where Bucky is eyeing them both suspiciously.
Steve gives her a salute as the train heads off.
“Do lots of things I would do!” she calls back.
……
The decades pass, as decades are wont to do. Some decades are busier than others, and Valkyrie feels the years between her trip to Midgard to liberate a Nazi POW Camp and her return to it as the King of a refugee planet as some of the longest years of her very long life.
She has been meaning to reacquaint herself with her old friends, but she's been busy.
Busy, yes, but unsatisfied, a restless itch under her skin.
She makes note of an event, and an unpleasant response being planned to that event, and sends a suitably cryptic note to a certain pair of centenarians who, last she heard, had retired to Wakanda. She's not sure how people barely over a hundred years old think they have earned the right to retire, but that's Midgard for you.
She packs a backpack with the barest of essentials and tells her secretary she'll be back in a few days and to try not to let the kingdom burn down. Again.
…
"I don't like it, Steve. If they wanted us at the Pride Parade why did they ask us to meet in a creepy alley several blocks from where the parade is?"
"Well, maybe they know you don't like crowds," Steve reasons.
"Then they should know I like being two blocks away from a crowd waiting for the penny to drop even less."
"Maybe they know that and enjoy being stabbed, Buck, have you thought of that?" Steve answers calmly.
"Who the hell is they? I don't like it," Bucky grits out.
"Glad to know you're still a sourpuss, Sergeant Bucky Barnes," Valkyrie says as she appears at the head of the alley.
"You," Barnes says.
"Me," Valkyrie says with a little twirl and a shoulder shimmy. She eyes them, not hiding the way she checks out their figures. They have both taken to wearing beards and their hair long, and maybe Asgard has biased her, but she thinks it suits them. She can't wait to tease them about it.
Steve steps in, "What Bucky means to say is, while it's lovely to see you, King Valkyrie, and we're forever grateful for the times you've stepped up and saved our ass with your skill in battle, would you happen to know why we were invited here?"
"Yes. I invited you, for old times sake, I suppose." she says. "I was bored, and for some reason I thought you might be too."
"We're retired from fighting aliens and wizards," Bucky warns.
"And I am a King with many important administrative duties," Valkyrie nods. "And yet, there is a group of skinhead Neo-Nazis planning to cause violence at this lovely Pride Festival, and, if my sources are correct, about to walk right by the mouth of this alley."
"Is that right," Steve says, looking sharply down the alley, and then to his partner. They communicate without words, and Valkyrie feels that old pang of longing for the warrior and companion she lost so many years ago.
Bucky cracks his knuckles, "I may be tired of fighting aliens, but I never complained about punching a Nazi."
"It does make the blood sing, doesn't it boys?" Valkyrie says cheerfully.
Steve shakes his hand out and bounces on the balls of his feet. He flashes her a little grin. "Let's go punch some Nazis."
…