Chapter 92: Hela, Goddess of Death

A/N: Hela is unhappy. I assume because of the rock tower and absolutely nothing else.

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For centuries, Hela had fantasized about how her confrontation with Odin might go. She would break free of her imprisonment and exile, return to Asgard, and throw him down before their people. She would stand over him as he feebly begged for mercy and she would smile as she answered him with one single word.

“No.”

A glorious bit of imagery, to say the least. Unfortunately, she’d eventually been forced to acknowledge the truth. Her prison was seemingly inescapable for so long as the King of Asgard had lived. He may have spent the lives of the Valkyries to keep her from her initial escape, but he had not done so in vain. The suicidal charge of Asgard’s Valkyries, their massacre at her hands, had bought the All-Father the time he needed to make her exile more permanent, sealing her in truth rather than just in name.

Her initial imprisonment had been shoddy and clearly ill-thought out. But after she’d finished slaughtering the Valkyries, she’d found her new imprisonment to be far stronger… as it had become tied to Odin’s life force directly.

In the end, the Goddess of Death was forced to come to terms with the fact that she wouldn’t be the one to kill her father. Instead, the only way for her to escape her imprisonment would be his death. Once Odin passed on, then Hela would be free to return to Asgard and claim her rightful place upon it’s throne.

With that understanding had come a different sort of fantasizing as Hela had instead envisioned what it would be like to rule over Asgard and all the Nine Realms. She would unite them into one solid fighting force and utilize them to wage war across the universe. She would finish what she and her father had started all those years ago. Nine Realm? Feh! Why not nine thousand?! Hell, why not nine thousand and one?!

That was her father’s problem. For all their race’s longevity, Odin was just so damn short sighted.

Recently, Hela had felt him beginning to weaken as well. At long last, the All-Father was reaching the end of his life. She’d surged forth at that point, carefully marshalled and squirreled away strength used to bombard the walls of her prison, knowing full well that he would feel it. Her efforts to escape, combined with whatever trials and tribulations the old man was facing in the outside world, were sure to cause him to succumb faster.

Or so she’d believed. Then, all of the sudden it was like Odin had found his Second Wind. The old man had to be over four thousand years old by this point, and yet he seemed to have discovered this fresh source of power. Hela found herself stymied once more and settled in to wait another thousand years if that’s what it took.

Of course, what she’d never expected, even in a million years, was for Odin to just… pop down for a visit. She would have appreciated some sort of fucking warning! To be caught doing something so juvenile as stacking rocks by her damnable father and some random Midgardian was… it was an insult beyond measure. So of course, she drew her swords and threw herself at both of them with a cry of death on her lips.

And of course, they were prepared for her. The Midgardian’s armor is made of Vibranium, Hela notes with cold calculation as he blocks her blow. Meanwhile, father’s trusty spear Gungnir turns around her other sword as well. Hela doesn’t stop of course, she spins away and skids back, hissing and throwing both swords at their smug faces with unerring accuracy even as she spawns two more.

Odin blocks with Gungnir again, but the Midgardian proves interesting as he raises a hand and fires a beam of white energy from his palm that sends her sword careening off to the side.

Hissing, Hela crouches with her swords spread wide, her chest heaving from the most exertion she’d put herself through in quite a long time. She’s also exaggerating her breathing though of course, hoping to get them both into a false sense of superiority and security so she might strike once they’ve lowed their guards.

When neither of them so much as moves or says a word, just regarding her quietly instead, Hela narrows her eyes and lifts herself back to her full height, her regal bearing intact even if she’s dressed in rags as she thrusts out her chin defiantly towards Odin.

“… Odin. Come to finally finish the job, is that it? And you’ve even brought a hunting hound from Midgard for the occasion. How quaint.”

Odin slams Gungnir into the dusty, dead ground at his feet, sending a small wave of force that Hela weathers with gritted teeth.

“Daughter. You stand in the presence of Midgard’s King as well as your own. Show some decorum.”

What? King? Hela stares at the Midgardian in a new light, disbelief and incredulity warring with disgust and horror as he gives her a grin and… dare she say it, a cheeky fucking wave. This fucking Midgardian… but even more so, her fucking father…

“How soft have you become, Odin? How far have you fallen? It was enough that we let the Nine Realms keep their little monarchs and rulers so long as they swore fealty to you. But I look at the two of you and I see now that this is no subordinate beside his liege lord. You treat him as an equal! This… ant!”

Her father looks mightily disgruntled. Good, because Hela is as well. However, before the King of Asgard can offer a rejoinder, the Midgardian ‘King’ speaks up.

“Funny, you’re not even the first Asgardian Princess to call me and my people ants.”

What? Her father had more children? Hela ruthlessly stomps down on the small whisper in her heart that expresses curiosity at what her sibling or siblings might be like. More than likely, she would have to kill them regardless to secure her throne… just as soon as she was done with Odin and this Midgardian.

“You are making a poor first impression on your new jailor, Daughter. You stand before Tony Stark, King of Midgard, the man who will either redeem you… or end you once and for all.”

Excuse her?! That was a step too far! Hela sneers and throws the swords in her hands once more. But this time she doesn’t stop. She spawns more swords and throws those as well. And then more swords, and more swords. Spikes of metal shoot out of the ground as both would-be Kings take flight. Hela rises to meet them, a snarl on her face. She is the Goddess of Death and she will-

“Urk!”

She’s not sure how it happens. She’d thought she had them on the ropes. Instead, faster than she can blink, the Midgardian lances forward and… stabs her clean through with liquid red that seeps out of his Vibranium Armor. She tries to fight back, of course. His smug, very stabbable face is suddenly covered in a Vibranium Mask that she can’t break through. Not in time, anyways.

It takes the Goddess of Death a second to even realize she’s on a time limit. By the time she does, it’s too late. He hasn’t just stabbed into her… no, he’s pouring the red inside of her. And it’s taking over her muscles, her body. Hela finds herself petrified, frozen in place as whatever weapon he’s using paralyzes her from her head to her toes.

“… Got her. Time to do your thing, Odin.”

“Indeed.”

She and the Midgardian, this ‘Tony Stark’, float back down to the ground where Odin waits to meet them. Hela’s eyes widen ever so slightly when she sees what he has in his hands. One hand still holds Gungnir… but the other holds her crown. Sentimental old fool. She’d assumed he had it destroyed, but no… he’d probably just stuck it in the back of his damn Vault and forgot about it, just like he tried to forget about her.

The crown represents part of her connection to Asgard, though not all of it. If only she could get her hands on it, she would be thrice as strong as she currently was and easily capable of defeating both Odin and the Midgardian King. If she got back to Asgard from there, she would be restored to full power. She would be invincible.

Victory was mere feet away, but Hela could not so much as reach for it, frozen as she was. She can only watch as Odin brings her crown to his lips, whispering words that carve runes onto it with his power. Her eyes narrow just as imperceptibly as she witnesses this. At the same time, she feels something within her… a violation of her very soul.

Hela wants to cry out, even as she feels her connection to Asgard, to her home… snap. In an instant, it breaks. Her power vanishes. Her Godhood is stripped from her, leaving her little more than another Aesir serf. No, worse than that she realizes. She’s weaker than the average Asgardian Commoner now. As weak as… a Midgardian.

Finally, the meaning behind Odin’s earlier words begins to dawn on her. He’d called this Midgardian man her new jailor. Surely not. The idea was… ridiculous. Laughable even. But then, so was the thought that Odin would show up after a thousand years with a way of stripping her of her natural connection to Asgard.

“It is done. She is greatly diminished.”

At Odin’s words, Tony Stark pulls the red liquid back. It must be a weapon of great power and Hela wishes she could claim it for herself. But alas, she can only watch with jealousy as it flows back into his Vibranium Armor and disappears entirely. Then, she can only collapse to her knees as exhaustion greater than anything she’s experienced in a thousand years of imprisonment hits her like an eight-legged warhorse.

As she truly gasps for breath now, not able to summon even the smallest blade to her hands, Odin and Stark loom over her quietly for a moment. Until finally…

“You have a choice to make now, Hela. One graciously provided to you by the King of Midgard… and yes… my peer.”

Even though it takes every bit of strength she has left, Hela nevertheless lifts her head to glare at them both through the veil of hair half-covering her eyes.

“If not for King Stark, I would have been forced to come here and kill you before much longer.”

Hela narrows her eyes at that and sneers.

“Without ‘King Stark’, I would have killed you if you dared come here, Odin.”

Rather than argue the point, the All-Father simply nods.

“You very well might have. And if you had, my son Thor, Crown Prince of Asgard, would have given Heimdall the order to open the Bifrost at full power upon the Realm of Niflheim, destroying you and I along with it once and for all.”

Eyes widening in disbelief, Hela chokes on her own spit… and on the initial impulse to say ‘you wouldn’t dare!’ which she bites back before it can leave her lips. Not only would it have made her sound infantile and petulant, but also… she can see it in the All-Father’s remaining eye. He most definitely would have done it, if it proved necessary.

“… What is the choice I have to make?”

“Death.”

Hela scoffs. She is the Goddess of Death… except not anymore. Odin has stripped her birthright from her. Infuriating. She’s never been so weak.

“… Or exile of a different sort. No longer indefinite. No longer tied to my life force. However, it will be sealed by contract and you will only ever regain your power if you fulfill its conditions. That may never happen. You may live out the rest of your days as little more than a Midgardian.”

A contract. Hela hisses as she looks to the quiet Midgardian King. He’d seemed like the kind to quip before. Now he’s just watching her quietly though, almost as if he’s removed from all of this. He isn’t though. He’s to be her jailor. The one standing between her and her power. Heh, did the All-Father force this on him? Is he not happy to be in charge of her new exile? Perhaps that’s something she can take advantage of…

No! She’s letting herself be lured into the All-Father’s way of thinking. Who’s to say she will not choose death over this contract, in the end? Gritting her teeth, Hela looks back to Odin.

“The contract. Let me see it.”

Odin nods and a moment later a glowing scroll inked with golden lettering unfurls before her. Hela reads through it carefully, word by word. She purses her lips and hisses after a moment.

“This is a marriage contract modified to read as a prisoner’s contract. I refuse to sign this.”

For the first time in a while, Stark speaks up.

“If it helps, I’m already married. And I have no desire to take you to bed either.”

Hela narrows her eyes at that. She might be much diminished… but even still, she’s still who she is. Tony Stark means his words, but there’s something he’s not saying. Something he’s hiding from her. The look that Odin gives him from the side only serves to confirm as much. And yet… that’s not even Hela’s issue here.

“I care not about your part in all of this, Midgardian Dog. It is Odin that I refuse to submit myself to. This contract between the three of us would leave me completely at your so-called ‘mercy’, father. For that alone, I refuse. I would rather die.”

To both Hela’s amusement and immense chagrin, Odin looks more hurt by those words than by any of the physical attacks she managed to lob his way since this altercation began.

“You trust me so little, daughter?”

Hela just sneers, not dignifying that with a response. Instead, she holds her head high and challenges him with her gaze, wordlessly waiting for the killing blow from Gungnir to come. However, Odin does not take her life… instead, he snaps his fingers and the contract scroll rolls back up, disappearing… only to be replaced by another mere moments later.

“Then perhaps this will be more to your liking?”

“What? What’s the switch up here, Odin?”

Odin summons a copy for Tony Stark as well, even as Hela reads this new contract over. This time around, Odin is only involved as a Witness. The contract itself will be purely between Hela and Stark. Best of all, Hela immediately recognizes a loophole that forces her to struggle to hide her reaction. Hah! Odin was a complete fool! He’d tied the contract’s exit clause to Stark’s life span, meaning that the moment he died Hela would be free anyways!

In his haste to placate her, the old man hadn’t looked over his own writing closely enough! Either that or Odin truly was going senile in his dotage!

“Deal!”

Hela is provided a quill already dripping ink, which she uses to carefully sign her name with fingers trembling from exhaustion. Meanwhile, Stark finishes reading his copy, gives her a look and a sigh, and then signs as well. Hela can feel the contract’s hold taking over her, and she can tell Stark can feel it too.

If she hadn’t been rendered powerless first, she could probably have broken the contract right then and there by simply setting her power, diminished as it had been, against the Midgardian’s miniscule life force and snuffing it out. Alas, she has indeed been greatly reduced from what she once was.

That’s fine though. Midgardians were like ants in more than one way. On top of being easily crushed most of the time, they were notoriously short-lived. She just had to wait and-

“Tell me, King Stark… with all that you have done and achieved, how long do you expect you’ve extended your natural lifespan?”

… What?

Looking right at her, faintly amused but more solemn than anything else, Tony Stark simply shrugs.

“I don’t rightly know, All-Father. I’m not exactly aging anymore. Unless something manages to kill me, I have become functionally immortal.”

WHAT?!

-x-X-x-

A/N: In all fairness to Hela, it wasn't like she spent much time learning diplomacy and the art of negotiation even BEFORE spending a thousand years with only her own thoughts as company.