Chapter Text
Thor and Sif were shocked when they arrived at the New Asgard townhouse, and they had an audience waiting for them. He recognized four of the five individuals immediately, but was unfamiliar with the other one.
He recognized Nick Fury, Carol Danvers, Erik Selvig, and Monica Rambeau, but he knew not the younger girl who accompanied them, but was similarly dressed as the other two women.
“Thor!” Selvig called out.
“Erik!” Thor gasped, rushing up to him.
“How is Jane?” Erik asked.
“She’s doing well,” Thor answered.
“Even with...?” Erik began.
“She’s cancer-free,” Thor said.
“Oh,” Erik gasped. “How did you pull that off?”
“A one-time wish from a being called Eternity,” Thor said.
“Oh, so it’s not something you guys can replicate for others?” Erik asked. Thor shook his head. “Well, at least Jane has another lease on life.”
“So, what are you guys doing here?” Sif asked.
“We were looking for Dr. Foster,” Nick Fury said. “We are dealing with a strange phenomenon that until now has been manageable, but a recent development has compelled us to look for ways to resolve it, which we think Dr. Foster and Dr. Selvig can help us with.”
"Jane is currently on Alfheim meeting with the Queen of that realm," Thor said, "Hopefully, she and Valkyrie should be back soon. What’s going on?"
“I already told Jane this part of the story,” Monica said, glowing blue. “Carol?”
Carol responded by holding up a fist and allowing it to glow gold. Almost immediately, there was a flash of light, and suddenly, Carol and Monica were both standing where the other previously stood.
“When did that start happening?” Thor asked.
“A few days ago,” Monica said. “Carol and I have managed to work it into our combat strategies.”
“And how goes the conflict?”
“Well, the Chitauri are back,” Fury said. “And within hours, they helped the Kree take most of the Skrull colonies. The Frost Giants managed to stem the tide for now, but we do need to get this swapping issue resolved. That, or Jotunheim better have a trick up its sleeve.”
“Perhaps I can reach out to Sylene and get her take,” Sif said.
“Once we depart, that would be most welcome,” Fury said.
“And while we wait for Jane to show up,” Erik said. “Why not fill us in on what you’ve been up to?”
Thor briefly spoke about his return to New Asgard, just as Gorr the God-Butcher was attacking the village. He spoke of his surprise to find Jane wielding his old hammer, the quest to find the Asgardian children, and very briefly mentioned how the gods of Omnipotence City were of no help.
He continued his story and reached the point where they deduced that Ulik was trying to create a Mangog, just as Jane and Valkyrie walked in. Valkyrie, at the sight of Sif, diverged and positioned herself at the corner of the room. Jane walked slowly towards them, her eyes slightly more open than usual.
“Jane?” Erik asked.
“Jane, are you okay?” Thor asked, given that Jane seemed troubled.
Jane opened her mouth to speak, but no words came out. Taking a couple of deep breaths, she eventually managed to say, “Thor, can I talk to you in private?”
“Of course,” Thor said as he escorted Jane out of the room. Once in the courtyard, Thor summoned the Bifrost and teleported the two of them near the shores. Once he looked around and decided that there was no one nearby, he turned to Jane. “What were you hoping to tell me?” he asked. “Did something happen on Alfheim?”
Slowly, Jane nodded her head. “Did you know you had a daughter?”
Thor began to suspect that Thena was involved in whatever happened to Jane. A sense of anger started to swell within Thor, but he wasn’t sure if he should direct it at Jane or at Thena. He also knew that he had to keep it at bay until he knew how to proceed. “I just found out,” Thor said. “In fact, I found out more recently than our encounter with Sylene. I’m still trying to process that.”
After a silence, Jane continued. “Valkyrie and I managed to warn Aelsa about the Mangog when Princess Thena, your daughter, showed up. Somehow, Sylene already knew about the Mangog, and she sent Thena to Alfheim to offer a group of Frost Giants to scout the area and call in reinforcements from Jotunheim should a Mangog emerge.”
“How did the Light Elves react to that proposal?” Thor asked.
“I have no doubt that they will accept it,” Jane said.
“Did something else happen?” Thor asked.
“Yes,” Jane said. “While the Light Elves were deliberating Thena’s proposal, she cornered Valkyrie and me outside, Valkyrie, more so. She threatened Valkyrie and overpowered both of us. Not that I was trying to take her down, she’s your daughter after all, but I tried to protect Valkyrie, and she managed to hold me in place effortlessly. She was focused intently on Valkyrie, yet I couldn’t escape her grip at all. And then it felt like my skeleton was made of ice, and it was like I was an Ice Statue.”
“I see,” Thor said, thinking in the moment that Thena was the one in the wrong. But how could it have happened at all? Of course, Jane and Valkyrie probably couldn’t get an audience with Aelsa immediately. He and Sif managed to reach Amora quickly. Their conversation wasn’t that long, and Amora left for Jotunheim rather swiftly. She probably had enough time to inform Sylene or someone close to her about the Mangog and for Sylene to send Thena to Alfheim, just as Aelsa finally heard Jane and Valkyrie.
But could Amora have sought to cause some sort of trouble on Alfheim? Sif noticed Amora’s strange behavior shortly before the latter left them. Perhaps she wanted to throw a wrench between him and Jane – and Thena turned out to be that wrench. Was Amora jealous of Jane? If so, why leave him with the unborn Thena shortly before his millennial celebration? And whatever Amora’s motives were, would Thena share them?
“Did Thena attempt to…” Thor asked, trying to find the right way to phrase his question. “…rationalize her actions?”
“Apparently, someone showed her how Valkyrie treated Sylene, though she didn’t offer any specifics,” Jane said. “Someone who Valkyrie claimed was Thanos’ son but apparently is not.”
“Okay,” Thor breathed, realizing that the situation was more complicated than he anticipated. “When I get the chance, I’ll have a chat with her.” He then imagined a confrontation with her, and her stubborn resistance to whatever he had to say. “Although I’m not sure how much authority I would have over her.”
“But you’re her father,” Jane said. “And your father seemed to have plenty of authority over you.”
“I didn’t even know I was her father until very recently,” Thor said. “And she is definitely over 500 by now, which is like your 18th birthday.”
“Well, okay,” Jane said. “She did suggest, when I asked her about Gaia, looking into caves. And that the Water of Sights was cursed by Laufey.”
Thor suddenly remembered entering the Water of Sights back when Ultron was a threat. “What kind of curse?” he asked. “Did she say?”
“Apparently, those who enter it are doomed to suffer tremendous loss,” Jane said.
Thor tried not to show it, for he had not admitted to walking into the Water of Sights, but he felt a storm of anguish build up inside of him. The fact that so many of his grievous losses occurred shortly after his trip was enough to convince him that such a curse was real and that he was afflicted with it.
“If you are still hoping to fight the Kree, there may be something you can do,” Thor said. “Erik Selvig has been recruited by Nick Fury to address a swapping issue that two of his fighters have been dealing with. I was thinking that you can go with him, and I can resume the search for my mother.”
An hour later, Jane was travelling through space, alongside Selvig, Fury, Danvers, Rambeau, and Kamala Khan – the young girl who accompanied them.
“So, this swapping started after you encountered this Dar-Benn?” Jane asked.
“Well, it started just as the Kree started attacking the Skrulls again,” Carol said. “But I suspect that my encounter with Dar-Benn allowed it to happen.”
“But you and Monica were able to adapt to this swapping rather well?”
“Until Kamala started swapping with us earlier today,” Monica said.
“Wasn’t it yesterday?” Carol asked.
“I don’t know,” Monica exclaimed. “It was a while ago.”
“Hey, Erik?” Jane asked. “Do you have notes on the Tesseract? I’d like to brush up on it.”
“Sure,” Selvig replied, getting up and opening his briefcase. After searching through a binder, he extracted a folder from it and handed it to Jane. Turning to the Marvels, he asked, “Is there anything else you guys want to tell us?”
“Actually, I was wondering if you could tell us some things,” Kamala asked. “Like how you guys met Thor?”
The Water of Sights was not a single location, but a series of locations spread throughout the Nine Realms. They were a special place meant to be hard to find, but could grant an audience with the Norns or provide clarity regarding the affairs of the Universe. Because of this, they were not meant to be accessed at leisure. Indeed, it wasn’t until after Thor’s banishment that Odin showed him the Water of sights on Old Asgard and even provided guidance on where to find it in some of the other realms, such as Midgard.
When the Avengers fought Ultron, and Wanda Maximoff induced a vision that seemed to include Infinity Stones, Thor felt that the possible emergence of the Stones was grounds to seek out the Water of Sights. He knew the Tesseract had been holding the Space Stone. The Reality Stone in the form of the Aether had also emerged after five millennia. He had even started to suspect that the Mind Stone had been encased in Loki’s scepter before the Water of Sights had confirmed it to him.
As he entered the caves in hopes of finding Gaia, he reflected on everything that had happened since. Hela and Ragnarok, Thanos and the Blip, and the emergence of Gorr. Jane’s suggestion that Laufey had cursed the Midgardian Water of Sights seemed almost confirmed. Thor wondered if it was this curse that caused Jane to develop cancer, with Eternity himself overriding such an alteration.
The caves themselves were vast, and that much Thor knew from his last visit. He hoped to have a burst of inspiration regarding the whereabouts of Gaia as he explored the caves. He had no desire to enter the Water of Sights again. If Laufey’s curse really did cause much of Thor’s recent losses, Thor shuddered at the thought of what a second dose of the curse would do.
Thor passed by the Water of Sights. Indeed, there were multiple pools to it, including the one he previously used. A sense of bitterness arose in his throat, even as the temptation to enter it again plagued his mind.
But Gaia was an Earth-bound goddess, and Thor figured that he would have to travel deeper into the caves if he was to find her.
To his pleasant surprise (or unpleasant surprise, given that he already started to feel claustrophobic), he found a couple of dark paths that led him deeper into the Earth. After choosing the darker path, he found that traveling down it made it feel as though his body was being constrained and wrapped by invisible tentacles – eerily like when Gorr had him, Jane, and Valkyrie trapped in the Shadow Realm.
Eventually, Thor felt compelled to light up Stormbreaker to pierce the overwhelming darkness that would have otherwise consumed him. To his shock, he found a couple of vines that stood out against the rocky environment in which they thrived. The vines were mostly black but with a taint of green, and he even began to feel as though someone else was present. A presence that he could have sworn he felt before, even though he had no memory of it or even the conscious memory of it minutes earlier.
Thor followed the vines until the tunnel opened up to a space roughly the size of a bedroom, and the vines themselves led to a pile of vines at the space’s center. Glancing around, Thor noticed that there were no other pathways outside of this enclosure and that he reached a dead end.
“You’ve been looking for me, my son?” said a feminine voice, prompting Thor to turn around.