Old Soldiers (Ship of Nails, Part 4)
Mar. 10th, 2020 10:54 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
coldsongBrunnhilde could leave, any moment, any day. No one would stop her, and she’s not sure anyone would blame her, either. After all, she left Sakaar to destroy Hela, and that’s been accomplished. She never promised to stay afterwards. She swore herself to Odin’s throne, not Thor’s, and Odin’s dead--besides which, she already broke that oath once, with solid reasons, so who the fuck cares if she does it again?
She could leave. The barriers in her way are fragile as strands of spider-silk. And yet she stays.
Asgard is not a place, but a people. Pretty words, but she’s seen a lot of people without places come and go on Sakaar, and with few exceptions, they fared badly. She’s watching her whole damn species circle the drain, going to bed every night expecting to wake up to irreparable chaos and death the next day, not even looking for a new normal because there is no new normal after what they’ve been through--and yet. She. fucking. Stays. For them? She’s not sure.
Maybe she’s staying for Thor. Because he’s as broken as she’s ever seen a person be while still breathing, and it’s like looking in a mirror, one that reflects who she was when she landed on Sakaar. She can’t fix him, doesn’t even know what to say to him, but maybe when she walks past him or barges her way into his house to force him to eat something solid he’ll see her vertical and in motion and at least seventy percent sober, and sooner or later it will occur to him he can be the same. They both lost everything, but she’s had a longer time to recover.
And she knows drinking to forget will fail sooner or later, every time.
It’s not Thor’s house she’s making her way to right now, though, but the cottage on the edge of town where Bucky Barnes has settled, with the Casket of Ancient Winters. He’s on the porch when she arrives, sharpening knives the old-fashioned way, on a whetstone. Most humans wouldn’t sit outside in weather below freezing, but then the man isn’t most humans.
“Special delivery,” she tells him, hefting the package that came in for him via boat.
He sets the knife aside and stands, giving her that world-weary smile of his. “You’re an angel of mercy. That’s my Kjeldsburg coffee.”
“Literally no one has ever called me that before.” She smirks and hands him the box. “I heard you were looking for it yesterday.”
“Desperate, more like,” he says. “Every man’s allowed to have a vice, but mine’s getting harder and harder to find. I’m about to go back to smoking.”
“I wouldn’t. Tobacco is even harder to get.”
“Dammit.” He sighs. “If the pancake supply runs low, you will see a grown man cry.”
“We won’t be having that,” she tells him sternly. “Now open the box and make me a cup of coffee. I need compensation for walking all the way out here.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He salutes ironically and holds the door open for her.
They get along well. Neither of them talks about their pasts and prefer it that way. No good would come of it if they tried to compare notes; all they need to know is they’re both old soldiers who’ve seen too much, who’ve been bent and broken, who are watching their friends fall apart with no idea how to save them. There’s a gentle exhaustion shared between them; a kind of peaceful hopelessness that still allows for smiles and wry jokes on a good day. This is a good day, because the sun is out, and they have hot coffee--the best in the region.
Barnes makes it right, too, mixing egg into the grounds and boiling until the foam is cooked out of it. Valkyrie takes it black, but he dumps sugar into his. His whole day’s sugar ration goes into coffee and pancakes; she already knows this. He claims those are all he needs.
“So, did Cap have anything helpful to say?” she asks as they sit down to drink their magic elixir.
“His guess is as good as ours,” Bucky tells her, “But he’s going to try again to talk to Stark. See if he can make sense of the PINpoint. That leaves us with you-know-what.”
The Casket is in a safe in his basement. An inconvenient spot, really, but short of turning over the thing to one of the provisional governments around them, there’s nowhere else. And governments of any kind are shaky these days. None of them are willing to put total trust in them.
“If it’s the Jotnarr wanting it back, I don’t know what we’ll do,” she says grimly. “Not like we have an army to face them with.”
“They lost half of theirs, too, though,” he points out. “Could be an S.O.S. for all we know.”
“Frost Giants wouldn’t send out an S.O.S.,” she says.
“The universe has changed,” he shakes his head. “No one knows what anyone else is doing at this point.”
“...yeah,” she says slowly. “That’s fair.”
He takes a long drink of coffee, and they sit in silence for a space. “I think,” he says at last, “we just have to wait and see what happens.”
Her face tells him exactly what she thinks of that idea, and he gives a snort of a laugh. “Okay, okay, so the only other option I can think of is to whip it out and wave it around, and I’m not sure you want to be here while I--”
She shouts with laughter and kicks him lightly in the ankle. “You’re such a dick, Barnes! Anyway, you don’t know, I might enjoy that. It’d be the most action I’ve seen in months, that’s for sure.”
There is no guilt in his grin; his wording was utterly deliberate. “Shut the fuck up, we both know I’m not your type.”
“No, but if it ever comes down to desperate measures to continue the species, I’ll give you a call.”
“I’m flattered.” His eyes sparkle with mirth. “Especially since we’re not the same species.”
The banter ricochets back and forth between them for another several minutes. There is no romantic attraction between them, but they both marvel silently at the bond of camaraderie they’ve formed.
Like with the Howlies, Bucky thinks.
Like with the Valkyrior, thinks Valkyrie.
When she leaves it’s with an affectionate punch to his shoulder, and the way he chuckles and smiles after her tells her they both feel a little lighter now, and it’s not the coffee that did it.
This is why she’s staying, she tells herself, making her way back into the town. For herself. Because she wants people around her now. Not loneliness and liquor. And she’s tired of running away. Never again.
----
After Valkyrie leaves, you pace a little. Her brightness lingers in the halls of your cottage, and it helps. You do a little cleaning up, pick up a book and get through two chapters before the cold settles in again. It matters, people always matter--all people, even if Steve matters most--but winter’s bite always returns in time.
You make your way down the basement stairs and study the safe that holds the Casket. It’s locked, triple locked, chains circling it, and the safe should be airtight, but you can see it flickering with light.
Something in there is awake, and it wants to be let out.
You hold your hands over it, as if you were warming them at a fire, but there is no heat. Cold radiates instead, and the familiar blue-white glow. It’s bright, so bright, getting brighter, light pouring through the metal as if the magic had turned it to glass, and you feel a jolt of fear, but the locks and chains are still tight. The box is shut in, but the magic cannot be contained that way.
The glow is so bright you can see your bones through the one hand. There are no bones left in the other, but it shimmers as frost forms on your fingertips.
Is it a trick of the eldritch light, or frostbite? Your right hand looks blue for a second, and you withdraw it hastily, clenching the fingers to check for damage. Nothing. You’re fine, and the light is dimming and dying.
You take a few steps back and stare dumbly at the safe.
“I need orders,” you whisper. “Ready to comply.”
Wait, no. Not that again, not ever. “Fuck. What am I supposed to do here, Stevie?”
You know he won’t answer, but you also know exactly what he’d do if he were you: the dumbest goddamn thing possible.
You reach into your pocket and get out the little slip of paper with the combinations to the locks on it, and step up to the safe again.
She could leave. The barriers in her way are fragile as strands of spider-silk. And yet she stays.
Asgard is not a place, but a people. Pretty words, but she’s seen a lot of people without places come and go on Sakaar, and with few exceptions, they fared badly. She’s watching her whole damn species circle the drain, going to bed every night expecting to wake up to irreparable chaos and death the next day, not even looking for a new normal because there is no new normal after what they’ve been through--and yet. She. fucking. Stays. For them? She’s not sure.
Maybe she’s staying for Thor. Because he’s as broken as she’s ever seen a person be while still breathing, and it’s like looking in a mirror, one that reflects who she was when she landed on Sakaar. She can’t fix him, doesn’t even know what to say to him, but maybe when she walks past him or barges her way into his house to force him to eat something solid he’ll see her vertical and in motion and at least seventy percent sober, and sooner or later it will occur to him he can be the same. They both lost everything, but she’s had a longer time to recover.
And she knows drinking to forget will fail sooner or later, every time.
It’s not Thor’s house she’s making her way to right now, though, but the cottage on the edge of town where Bucky Barnes has settled, with the Casket of Ancient Winters. He’s on the porch when she arrives, sharpening knives the old-fashioned way, on a whetstone. Most humans wouldn’t sit outside in weather below freezing, but then the man isn’t most humans.
“Special delivery,” she tells him, hefting the package that came in for him via boat.
He sets the knife aside and stands, giving her that world-weary smile of his. “You’re an angel of mercy. That’s my Kjeldsburg coffee.”
“Literally no one has ever called me that before.” She smirks and hands him the box. “I heard you were looking for it yesterday.”
“Desperate, more like,” he says. “Every man’s allowed to have a vice, but mine’s getting harder and harder to find. I’m about to go back to smoking.”
“I wouldn’t. Tobacco is even harder to get.”
“Dammit.” He sighs. “If the pancake supply runs low, you will see a grown man cry.”
“We won’t be having that,” she tells him sternly. “Now open the box and make me a cup of coffee. I need compensation for walking all the way out here.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He salutes ironically and holds the door open for her.
They get along well. Neither of them talks about their pasts and prefer it that way. No good would come of it if they tried to compare notes; all they need to know is they’re both old soldiers who’ve seen too much, who’ve been bent and broken, who are watching their friends fall apart with no idea how to save them. There’s a gentle exhaustion shared between them; a kind of peaceful hopelessness that still allows for smiles and wry jokes on a good day. This is a good day, because the sun is out, and they have hot coffee--the best in the region.
Barnes makes it right, too, mixing egg into the grounds and boiling until the foam is cooked out of it. Valkyrie takes it black, but he dumps sugar into his. His whole day’s sugar ration goes into coffee and pancakes; she already knows this. He claims those are all he needs.
“So, did Cap have anything helpful to say?” she asks as they sit down to drink their magic elixir.
“His guess is as good as ours,” Bucky tells her, “But he’s going to try again to talk to Stark. See if he can make sense of the PINpoint. That leaves us with you-know-what.”
The Casket is in a safe in his basement. An inconvenient spot, really, but short of turning over the thing to one of the provisional governments around them, there’s nowhere else. And governments of any kind are shaky these days. None of them are willing to put total trust in them.
“If it’s the Jotnarr wanting it back, I don’t know what we’ll do,” she says grimly. “Not like we have an army to face them with.”
“They lost half of theirs, too, though,” he points out. “Could be an S.O.S. for all we know.”
“Frost Giants wouldn’t send out an S.O.S.,” she says.
“The universe has changed,” he shakes his head. “No one knows what anyone else is doing at this point.”
“...yeah,” she says slowly. “That’s fair.”
He takes a long drink of coffee, and they sit in silence for a space. “I think,” he says at last, “we just have to wait and see what happens.”
Her face tells him exactly what she thinks of that idea, and he gives a snort of a laugh. “Okay, okay, so the only other option I can think of is to whip it out and wave it around, and I’m not sure you want to be here while I--”
She shouts with laughter and kicks him lightly in the ankle. “You’re such a dick, Barnes! Anyway, you don’t know, I might enjoy that. It’d be the most action I’ve seen in months, that’s for sure.”
There is no guilt in his grin; his wording was utterly deliberate. “Shut the fuck up, we both know I’m not your type.”
“No, but if it ever comes down to desperate measures to continue the species, I’ll give you a call.”
“I’m flattered.” His eyes sparkle with mirth. “Especially since we’re not the same species.”
The banter ricochets back and forth between them for another several minutes. There is no romantic attraction between them, but they both marvel silently at the bond of camaraderie they’ve formed.
Like with the Howlies, Bucky thinks.
Like with the Valkyrior, thinks Valkyrie.
When she leaves it’s with an affectionate punch to his shoulder, and the way he chuckles and smiles after her tells her they both feel a little lighter now, and it’s not the coffee that did it.
This is why she’s staying, she tells herself, making her way back into the town. For herself. Because she wants people around her now. Not loneliness and liquor. And she’s tired of running away. Never again.
----
After Valkyrie leaves, you pace a little. Her brightness lingers in the halls of your cottage, and it helps. You do a little cleaning up, pick up a book and get through two chapters before the cold settles in again. It matters, people always matter--all people, even if Steve matters most--but winter’s bite always returns in time.
You make your way down the basement stairs and study the safe that holds the Casket. It’s locked, triple locked, chains circling it, and the safe should be airtight, but you can see it flickering with light.
Something in there is awake, and it wants to be let out.
You hold your hands over it, as if you were warming them at a fire, but there is no heat. Cold radiates instead, and the familiar blue-white glow. It’s bright, so bright, getting brighter, light pouring through the metal as if the magic had turned it to glass, and you feel a jolt of fear, but the locks and chains are still tight. The box is shut in, but the magic cannot be contained that way.
The glow is so bright you can see your bones through the one hand. There are no bones left in the other, but it shimmers as frost forms on your fingertips.
Is it a trick of the eldritch light, or frostbite? Your right hand looks blue for a second, and you withdraw it hastily, clenching the fingers to check for damage. Nothing. You’re fine, and the light is dimming and dying.
You take a few steps back and stare dumbly at the safe.
“I need orders,” you whisper. “Ready to comply.”
Wait, no. Not that again, not ever. “Fuck. What am I supposed to do here, Stevie?”
You know he won’t answer, but you also know exactly what he’d do if he were you: the dumbest goddamn thing possible.
You reach into your pocket and get out the little slip of paper with the combinations to the locks on it, and step up to the safe again.