A/N: Just had one of the most stressful weeks of the year. That much work done in a week should be illegal.
Also, I changed the name of the Star Destroyer from Death Star to Citadel.
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[POV: With Nick Fury]
No matter how much he told himself that he should have seen it coming, it settled into his stomach just how blind he had been all his life. He had deconstructed quite quickly but that particular sting of betrayal had been so painful that he couldn't nonchalantly play off.
Looking down from the bay of the aptly (re)named Citadel at the score of agents prattling up and down, the memory of the fresh betrayal replayed itself unbidden in his head.
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(A short while after purchasing the Citadel…)
A short while after purchasing the Citadel and also spending a sizable chunk of the change to acquire a pocket dimension, Fury had braced himself against the first problem that came with purchasing a star craft: the dire need for operational personnel.
The Imperial II-class Star Destroyer needed thousands of personnel for it to be fully operable, the bare minimum of which was a staggering skeleton crew of 4,500 personnel to keep the essential functions and sub-light mobility running. The number tripled, and even quadrupled, if he wanted it to be fully functional.
Hiding the Citadel in a pocket dimension was a crippling move because should the need for it arrive in an emergency, Fury would be thousands of staff short. There was also the added general ignorance on how to operate the ship even if he somehow managed to have thousands of staff on standby.
The logical thing to do was to make the Citadel the interstellar Headquarters of S.H.I.E.L.D, effectively replacing the Helicarrier and making use of the latter as an intraplanar branch.
The only issue with this was in keeping the Council in their perpetual state: absent presence, vocally immense, logically and morally deficient. He needed them in their chairs and behind their screens and luckily for him, he had decades of experience in making them stay put.
Ross and the others in Warfare could only sulk and yap irately in the Oval Office but that meant nothing to him as he had the sovereignty in anything alien—which was what the Citadel was.
He had revealed the Citadel as a lost alien ship that had appeared in their system after a failed hyperjump. A lot of fuss and opinions had been raised but nothing had stuck and the ship had remained in his purview to do what he wanted.
To make sure that stuck, he had to enlist Stark so that they could fully understand what the ship was capable of.
Maybe he should have seen it then, but then again that would be a lie because he had been wholly blindsided by someone he trusted.
Pierce had not only been Fury's partner years ago, but he had also been a loyal friend and also Fury's politically-aligned pillar that ensured that Fury remained in charge of SHIELD.
He had been there with Fury since the beginning, either directly by his side or in the shadows pulling strings in his favor.
Those memories only made it hurt more when he realized that his friend had not only been his enemy, but was the leader of Hydra, a once-thought dead organization. The betrayal was then revealed to be twofold when Fury painfully found out that Alexander Pierce had been using SHIELD as a breeding nest and was recruiting SHIELD agents into Hydra under Nick Fury's blind eye.
Decades.
The fearsome organization that they all thought they had ended had been festering in Fury's very own yard as well as in the White House.
It would have been an all too easy job for them to take control of the Citadel after killing him and taking the few loyals hostage and then pointing the death beam at earth, holding the world leaders at gunpoint and the planet hostage.
That was the logical play of events and probably the plan Pierce and his tentacle-aligned comrades had come up with when they sent Rumlow and his goon squad after him.
They had been surprised at how instantly he had retaliated the moment their hands went for their weapons.
His eyepatch, or rather the microtech built into it, had read their elevated heartrates and x-rayed through the door they were hiding behind. The fact that his own agents were boxing him in without his prior knowledge easily spelt the story out for him.
The moment Rumlow and Lil John drew their weapons, Fury drew his, and that had both surprised and shocked them when they saw the alien weapon in his hands that had appeared out of thin air.
—Plasma Pistol(Rohakadu-pattern) (Halo): This variant of the plasma pistol shoots concentrated plasma shots that are more focused on raw kinetic-thermal tracking and shield stripping heavy armored Spartans.
A model plasma gun for fast-paced close armed combat, energy armor destabilization and heavy armor disintegration.
The mountainous mass that was called Lil John crumpled like tin foil from a plasma beam to his face as the doors slid open to reveal the backup. Rumlow fired a few rounds, two of which had hit him but found no purchase as his coat kept his innards in place.
—Lawgiver Mk II (Judge Dredd): A voice-activated machine pistol that serves as the standard-issued sidearm to Judges. This multifaceted weapon is capable of firing a variety of ammunition from a single cartridge.
This is the textbook definition of an efficient compact killing weapon. If you ever find yourself in a world where local law enforcement use this, just don't do anything stupid. For your own sake.
Rapid fire and auto aim came from the second gun that appeared in his other hand as he used the smoke cover of the explosive shells to go into stealth mode.
The moment he entered into invincibility mode was the moment Hydra's plan started falling apart. It had been a good idea to attack him on the Citadel at the same time when he had brought Pierce up into it to show him around.
It was a masterful stroke, and it would have truly been so, as they could have used the chance to get rid of the Romanoff sisters, Barton, Coulson, Hill and every single one of Fury's people currently on the ship—but unfortunately they had grossly miscalculated Fury's current avenues.
Headshots and plasma beams quickly cut down Rumlow's goons except for the man himself whom Fury had fed a magical truth serum, Veritaserum, making him listen to the depths of the biggest betrayal of his life.
What had followed was a prompt escalation from Fury that neither Pierce nor Hydra had expected. He had the master control of the Citadel and could access all the cameras with his eyepatch.
In an alien ship where only he had the lay about and unrestricted access, Nicholas Joseph Fury, The Spy, hunted every single member of Hydra he could identify. They had made it easier for him since they were the only active personnel trying to make their way through the Citadel in a futile effort to commandeer every part of it. He showed them just how stupid they were by locking them shut in rooms and empty hallways and picking them off group by group.
He had hesitated for a brief moment before he sent a discreet message to the few people he still trusted. A cold fury had settled into his stomach by the time they had routed Pierce and he had all but shoved the truth serum into the damned bastard's mouth.
The two-timing snake even had the harebrained plan of taking down the government in one fell swoop in tandem with their short-lived mutiny.
"What's the call boss?" Barton's question was what had snapped him out of the stupefied daze Pierce's confession had wiled him into.
It was a race against both time and Hydra piggybacking off the devil and right now they were in space. While they had been thinking of ways to quickly go down to earth without alerting the whole world of their presence, as the ship was currently in stealth mode, Fury was hit with a stroke of genius.
The Citadel was currently above the city in orbit so he used the current position of the Citadel, since it was still in range, as one of the access points to the pocket dimension, using it as the in-between to get to earth in seconds.
He couldn't call either Stark or the Captain since Pierce had stressed that they were currently under intense watch so he and his ragtag crew took it upon themselves to stamp out Hydra once and for all. It was a deep stealth mission which involved a lot of assassinations and truth serum intake, and though he wished he could say that they easily took care of it, that couldn't be farther from the truth.
Arnim Zola, Bolivar Trask, Gideon Malick, Senator Stern, Wolfgang von Strucker, Daniel Whitehall, Jasper Sitwell, Donald Pierce—a mutant-hating tycoon that was part of something called the Hellfire Club, no relation— these were just a few names that showed how deeply rooted they were into the world's political structure. Not to mention that half of the members of the World Security Council were Hydra.
Project Insight, the Winter Soldier, Super Soldiers, Project Centipede, Project Deathlok, Project Ultimo, Project Destroyer of Worlds, The Distant Star Return Project — they were so numerous and deeply entrenched that the disillusionment left Fury cold and numb.
It was only at the end of it, after the President's assassination, that Fury realized just how close he had come to giving the enemy their long-awaited victory.
Here he had been, worrying about dimensional merchants and intergalactic warfare while he was ignorantly funding a good portion of Hydra projects.
The win had been bloody. Hundreds of agents dead in the smoke of betrayal and crossfire and dozens of politicians and world leaders assassinated in a matter of hours.
The only good thing was that they were able to wring out every iota of informational detail from the high ranking members – which was a lot of details – under the influence of the truth serum, which at least gave them a direction to run in.
The Avengers had been swamped with missions after missions but they said nothing because they all felt the same way Fury did. They had been so close to losing without even knowing how their enemies were.
They were prideful men with a penchant for responsibility. He could trust them to do what needed to be done. They had also been made aware of the Merchant but that had been due for some time now so he was fine with it. They hadn't approached him yet but that was simply because of their current schedule.
Despite the sourness of the betrayal and the near swift defeat, Fury couldn't help but map out the outline of a potential plan.
Yeah. It was all coming together. Slowly, but surely.
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[POV: Asgard]
Thor had quickly returned to Asgard feeling like one of those days where his life drifts unrepentantly down a path he knew nothing about.
The image of the rune engraved, metal-crusted hammer was the only thing in his mind. There were no thoughts of Loki, his failings, or even Jane — all he could think of was that dark metal.
Another Mjolnir. From another dimension. Where he had died.
Even without hearing what the merchant had to say about it, Thor could easily feel the ooze of blood that had permeated the hammer. It wasn't Uru, he could tell, but it was from a metal just as magically dense. Dwarven craft, that much was apparent.
What had he become in that universe for Mjolnir to be so… clotted? Who did he kill? How many did he kill?
The blood and death were the most apparent thing he could feel from the hammer, everything else was muted.
He was so lost in his thoughts that he didn't hear the calls of his friends or when he entered into his father's throne room.
"Your mind is clouded, son. What ails you?" Odin's words banished the fog plaguing his mind and made him aware of where he was as he raised his head.
The throne room.
Loki's fixation.
His birthright.
The power seat of Asgard and the Nine Realms.
Seated on the golden throne that drew magic straight from the deepest vein of Asgard's crust was the powerful form of his father. He didn't radiate any magic or any oppressive pressure. He didn't need to. He was in his halls so exerting his presence was needless. It would mean he was unfounded and weak.
"Father."
Thor suddenly fell to his knees, not just because he was being respectful, but because he felt lost and it was only under the eyes of the personification of Asgard itself, the Allfather, he could allow himself reprieve.
"Heimdall's sight lost you," Odin started firmly, like a king who never had to repeat himself, "And for a brief moment you were cut off from Asgard's magic."
Thor's eyes widened. When did that happen? Surely it couldn't be…
"Wherever you went with the Sorcerer Supreme not only shielded you from our eyes, but also separated you from Asgard by shielding you from all its influence." He leaned forward on his throne with clear interest and with a look in his eyes that Thor recognized as his father knowing something he didn't, or planning something his mind couldn't conjure. Both went hand in hand when it came to Odin.
"Where did you go?"
"A shop. A merchant's shop."
Father and son looked each other in the eye for some breaths of time in silence, and then Odin simply nodded and leaned back into his throne with a simple question.
"What did you see?"
What did he see? Thor asked himself. His mouth opened as he told his father everything he had seen and felt in that short duration of time.
As he spoke, images of a large red-haired man in a berserk rage plagued his mind.
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