Interlude 3 - Space Pirates and Consequences

Once I got my armor from Nidavellir, my father and I moved back to Asgard to get a spaceship. I didn't fully understand the whole logic behind it, but instead of flying the spaceship, we had Heimdall send us through the Bifrost while we were on the ship.

I think it had something to do with not directly 'Bifrosting' on top of a planet that wasn't part of Asgard's nine realms. Politics, I guessed.

Anyway, we were on a spaceship that totally looked like an extra fancy viking sailboat, but with futuristic knick-knacks all over the place and what appeared to be a small house on it. I sat 'outside on the deck' to marvel at the views of space travel while also slowly enchanting my gear.

I started simple by changing the looks. Now, it was all a muted golden color instead of Mjolnir's characteristic steely grey, was lined with dark grey leather at appropriate places, and it had emerald green accents as highlights in honor of my mother. Also, it went really well with my eyes, in my opinion, and I loved my eyes. They were just like my mother's.

What followed after were simple things, like increasing magical protections. And I turned the headband in some kind of space helmet. It created a thin film of magical energies over my head and down to my shoulders that allowed me to breathe and keep away the cold of the vacuum of space. The inspiration came from the fact that I was sitting on a deck of a ship in open space.

I was done enchanting after that. I hoped to find some inspiration during my travels with my father for other enchantments, though.

As I looked up, releasing the vambraces back into their bracelet forms, I saw the first planet on our journey, Xandar Prime.

Dad had heard rumors of something that sounded like an Infinity Stone being used by a Kree called Ronan here. That was the best clue we could hope for.

"So dad, we know where the space stone, the reality stone and mind stone are. From the color described in the rumors, we are on our way to the power stone? What then? Nobody heard of the whereabouts of the time and soul stone in the 10 millenia before Odin's reign according to what I read in the Asgardian library. And we couldn't ask your almost five millenia old father because he was in Odinsleep," I mused with Thor standing behind me.

"I didn't go on this quest because it is easy. Finding the stones is secondary to finding out who is behind this galactic game of chess. Keeping the remaining stones away from that being is our primary goal," Thor said as he fiddled with a device to contact Xandar's authorities about our wish to enter the planet.

"Huh, the Nova Prime has asked me to come to her immediately after landing. I thought I would have to shout my father's name before they even consider giving us an audience," Thor mused.

Half an hour later, Thor and I stood in front of a glass door, waiting to get invited inside a beautiful, futuristic meeting room that could probably hold hundreds. But, instead, we were just five people present, excluding the guards at the door when we finally entered.

"Welcome, Thor Odinson and companion. May I ask the purpose of your visit? It is not every day that Asgardian royalty comes to these parts of the universe," a woman that to me looked like a human in her 60s with hair as white as snow asked us.

"Revered Nova Prime Irani Rael, my son Elias and I are on a grand quest to look for the whereabouts of the Infinity Stones. We have reason to believe someone will come for them in the near future," dad explained, giving away more information in two simple sentences than I would have ever freely given in foreign territory.

Maybe this was Thor's way of doing diplomacy, or maybe he didn't know diplomacy at all. But it wasn't my place to interrupt him in front of a leading figure of a galactic empire. Perhaps it was something I could explain to him during our travels. Though, I am guessing his brash and unguarded personality is part of his unique charm.

And what would you know? It actually worked because this Nova Prime lady explained everything to us:

How they owned the power stone and secured it in their deepest vault. How they came to own it by way of 'Galactic Dance-Off to save the Universe' that the 'Guardians of the Galaxy' won. How Thanos the mad titan had sent Ronan to Xandar to retrieve it in the first place, which made dad and I immediately put him on the top of the list of people who are possibly the player in the shadows we were looking for.

Either my mother taught me much more about scheming I would ever need in this universe, or this conversation was just stupid. Or maybe I had underestimated Asgard's standing in these parts of the galaxy, and this was why Nova Prime was so forthcoming with the information.

Anyway, now that we knew that the power stone was safely kept on Xandar Prime, the 'home planet' of one of the leading empires in the known universe, we needed clues about the remaining two stones.

As good a place as any, dad convinced me to go look for clues in Xandarian bars where I watched him flirt with all kinds of alien women and drink way more than necessary. When we left the fifth bar, though, I couldn't take it anymore.

"Uh, dad... this was the fifth bar, and you haven't even asked about weird green or orange gems once? Am I missing something?"

"Haha, true. In the first bar, I just wanted to establish a sort of alibi. To give the impression, we aren't truly looking for what we are truly looking. To make it sound like we bring it up in casual conversation. I forgot about that in the last four bars, if I am being honest," Thor explained to me.

"I take it things aren't going well with 'Lady Jane'?" I asked my father in a way that copied his way of addressing Jessica.

"Oh, you ask because of all the women that are throwing themselves at me? Jane and I...we had a... mutual break up of sorts just after Sokovia happened and after I broke the news that I was going on this noble quest to save the universe," Thor explained, looking like a sad puppy that was left outside in the rain.

Uh, I was not expecting my dad to wear his emotions on his sleeves like this, at least non-positive emotions.

I patted his shoulder to comfort him, which just made the dam break entirely.

"Oh wow, you totally saw right through me, didn't you? She dumped me, she dumped me so hard... with a...*sob* letter," Thor explained with tears running down his face. His words were barely coherent right now.

"It's going to be okay, dad. You might not want to move on right now, but we'll just have plenty of fun to distract you," I said, trying my best to console him.

We hugged it out just like that for 10 minutes in front of a bar. Just right in the doorway of the bar, we just exited. People were staring really hard. But I had put on my scarf to hide my face and block my dad's snot really early and these were all strangers on a planet millions of light years away from Earth, so I shouldn't even care that much.

"Wow, that felt really good. I'm okay now. We can move on," Thor eventually told me.

We got into another bar, and this time around, he actually asked for rumors.

The answers we got were all bananas. This one old dude who suspiciously looked like the weird veteran at the party that Ultron crashed, he told us about this whole set of other infinity stones that were created in a realm called Battleworld. His whole story made no sense. It sounded like it was out of this world, literally.

After we checked in every bar on Xandar Prime, even the sketchy ones, Thor dragged me to an information broker, and I stepped in and saved us from getting scammed. The contract had a 'typo' that had the interest rate messured in 'yeras' not 'years' and 'yeras' was a unit used in Xandar that measures the passing of 7 milliseconds. After getting information for a reasonable price that wouldn't see our future offspring and possibly the entirety of Asgard as debt slaves, we heard about a planet in the Kree empire space called Deneb IV that sounded promising.

The flight there through all the hyper space jumps, because the Kree would see bifrost travel as an act of war, took us 9 days. In these 9 days, dad told me stories about his exploits in the last millenia, and I brought three different string instruments and showed Thor some songs. This time really helped us bond.

When we finally arrived, it turned out this information was just a ruse by the Kree to lure out some rebels, we were forced to fight a bunch of them in space and my headband turned space helmet immediately turned out to be useful. The first fight in space was a big rush.

What followed, though, wasn't as cool, I think 'breaking into Kree space' and 'destroying the full fleet of an accuser' might have put us on the shitlist of the Kree's Supreme Intelligence. Dad did say, though, that Asgard was never on good terms with the Kree, so we probably didn't start a war. Hopefully.

We spent my birthday two months later on a planet called Sovereign Prime, the current home planet of a race of humanoids called Sovereign's that perfected every offspring with genetical modification. They were all golden skinned and very beautiful.

They also collectively had terrible personalities. We spent a full day in a Sovereign arcade, their AR and VR technology enabled them to create amazing games. This, however, showed me they were also bad sports and even worse losers. At least they had great taste in music since my impromptu concert in one of their fully golden parks even earned me a visit from their queen, Ayesha.

She behaved exactly like I thought a queen of the Sovereign would, she was even more pretentious and stuck up than her people.

She invited me to play a concert for the son's second birthday three months later. When I declined, she looked just about ready to throw me in prison, even after she learned I was Asgardian royalty. So I compromised with a special 2 hour concert just for her that she could record for her son Adam.

Since we were on a literal ship in space, I suggested we hang up a pirate flag on the mast, now that we were outlaws in space. We designed a Jolly Roger with two Mjolnirs instead of bones crossing under a skull with green emeralds for eyes.

Since we heard about that funny dance-off to save the universe, we called ourselves the Asgardians of the Galaxy. We entered planets, were chased down by Kree enforcers, killed the Kree enforcers, and freed a whole bunch of people from Kree oppression.

Weird how they never learned. Well, they did, but Thor and I really learned how to fight like a team during this time. And he trained me in Asgardian fighting styles, not that Misty didn't do that already. But dad had a fresh take on it, a different perspective. And we fought quite often.

Though when we started calling ourselves the Asgardians of the Galaxy a few planets later, someone named 'Star-Lord' eventually sent us a strongly worded letter that if we didn't stop doing that, he was going to convince everyone the spelling of our name was 'Ass-guardians of the Galaxy'.

Since along the line our whole traveling was kind of derailed by the whole Kree bounty business, we never really heard more clues about infinity stones in the 11 months we spent in space.

It was crazy enough already that we knew the location of 4 out of 6, so I never really held much hope in the first place. The time was far from wasted, though.

It almost felt like I grew up with dad by how good we understood each other. He eventually got over Jane, or at least he pretended well enough to score with a pretty pink skinned Krylorian we saved from slavery.

That was a pretty common theme, not him doing the women we rescued, no. I meant to say that us helping people gain freedom, especially slaves was a very common theme. Not entirely because we both greatly disliked slavery, but because most bad people who hunted us or tried fighting against us were slave owners or traders.

That is also how I managed to convince my father we should probably return for a pitstop in Asgard. The end of the year had long since come and gone, which meant Frigga should have woken up by now. Combine that with the fact that our ship had a full 'crew' by now, and by crew I meant freed slaves, mostly very beautiful women, and we had plenty of reasons to go home.

"Welcome, Thor, Thorson," Heimdall greeted us as we finally returned via the Bifrost.

"Heimdall! It is so great to see you, my friend!" Thor shouted from the top of the ship we were on.

"I can see that you brought plenty of... friends? What will you do with them?" Heimdall asked with a raised brow.

"We freed them, so now they are free! We have a refugee program here in Asgard, no? They didn't have a home to get back to," Thor said as he jumped down from the ship.

"We do, but Tyr froze that program months ago."

"Huh? Did my parents not wake up yet? Why is Tyr still in power?"

"Your parents did wake up, but they decided to spend some time outside of Asgard since Tyr was doing such a 'good job' as regent," Heimdall said with a slight frown.

"Where are they, then?"

"I've sent them to Midgard, New York, four months ago," Heimdall patiently explained.

"How about we split up, dad? I go to New York, and you talk politics with Tyr?" I asked with a wink. I knew, of course, how much he would dislike it, but as the 'adult' in our relationship, he would do it. He would complain the entire time, throw a tantrum even, but after he had done it, he would boast about how responsible he was.

"If Tyr somehow isn't convinced by your mighty charm, I guess you could bring our crew back to Midgard. My mom's foundation should be able to find housing and something to do for them."

Once I reached New York, specifically the roof of my house, I entered and picked up my phone to turn it on. I was greeted by 143 missed calls and 840 messages. Weird, though, was that most of them were from the last three and a half weeks.

I ignored it all and called Jessica's phone, nobody answered. So I tried Nat next, and again, nobody answered on none of her eight numbers she left me with. My next try was Misty.

"*Finally, you're back, you little shit! Do you know how much you missed? Jessica has been in prison for three weeks, Nat is in the wind after she was forced to get back in the game four days after Jessica's imprisonment. Eliza is with me right now in Central Park at the horse carousel, but just last week I had to help out this Daredevil guy fight some weird ninjas who called themselves the Hand because Jessica had promised she would, but couldn't. So I had to get Maya involved, who went by Hansen again for three months after Sokovia and her supposed place of residence was broken into, burgled, or destroyed 9 times ever since you gave Tony her emergency contact. She is a complete mess, barely leaves the house right now, and she never takes off your earring anymore. And why are you so damn quiet!?*"

"Why is she in prison?"

"*Sokovia accords. It's a whole thing. Tony and some others signed something ratified by the UN, but Steve, Sam, Clint, Wanda, Pietro, and Jessica didn't. They had a falling out and were branded as criminals.*"

"Where is she held?"

"*I still couldn't find out for certain. We have no spies there yet, and their network is completely isolated. But she should be in the Raft. A new kind of super prison somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean. It should be close-ish to Rykers, but supposedly, it's changing location daily. Now tell me why you are so quiet?*"

"I already felt bad having left for so long. Now I feel even worse. Who will I have to kill to get them out of the Raft?" I asked with a quiet voice.

"*Thaddeus Ross. He's responsible for the Hulk, and after leaving the military, those windowlickers in DC still made him Secretary of State. The Raft is his brainchild,*" Misty answered quickly.

"Got it. Anything else? Maybe current whereabouts?"

"*One of our little birds just confirmed that Ross left for a military base after his meeting in the White House. I sent you a list with the three most likely destinations.*"

"...how are you, Misty?" I asked before hanging up. I had already begun flying towards Washington the moment the words White House left Misty's mouth.

"*Not going to lie, this year was pretty shit even without missing you. Your timing was truly awful. W.I.B.E. has been under constant attack, I mean that literally, we're still not sure from who. Five kidnappings and two deaths we know about so far, it took us a while to see the pattern. Oh, and your grandma found our home a month ago, by the way. She keeps trying to invite herself in to talk over some wine.*"

"So I will have my hands full, now that I am home?" I asked, my voice losing a lot of tension.

"*You better help! I can't believe your little get-together with your dad would take a year, you said 3-4 months maximum! You better have some good stories to tell!*"

"Sorry, it's all classified. Asgardian royal secret and all that."

"*I haven't spanked you in 10 years, don't believe I won't start again!*"

"Dad and I fought a lot. I improved a lot, so you might find it hard to do what you want. I'm about to reach the first base."

"*Dad, huh? Glad to hear it. Also, remember to get all the information necessary before killing them all. Use your phone to hack or copy some computers so you can release their dirty laundry even after their death. Don't let them die as martyrs. I'll get two of our more trusted W.I.B.E. IT experts and data analysts on it. Stay safe.*"

"You too. It was nice to hear your voice, even if you only used it to complain the entire time," I joked before immediately hanging up.

I dropped down into the base whilst invisible, read a few minds and learned this is not the place that Ross was going to come to, so I flew to the second destination and found Ross was going to arrive for a helicopter ride in five to ten minutes.

I stayed, still hidden, and began reading through some of the messages on my phone. Since my phone call with Misty I have received eight more messages, six of them from Tony, asking me not to do something stupid. Seeing as he dared allowing them to imprison Jessica and the rest, I immediately blocked his number. I would deal with Tony later.

The other message was from a number registered in Germany judging by the +49 in front of it that only read [Once you're done I could really use your help. Come to our usual spot in Berlin.]

After some thought I judged it was most likely Natasha and not a setup. Usual spot in Berlin was a code she taught me that would lead me to Berliner Tor in Hamburg. The capital city always has something named after it in the second biggest city of a country. A little nugget of wisdom I never bothered proving wrong.

The last message was from Steve Rogers, or at least by someone who signed his message with 'sincerely, Steve Rogers' at the end. It was so old school, I was going to believe it was actually him.