"Thank you for accompanying me," Thor said as he and Peter walked far past the city limits where the greenery was more lush and the various clearings were far enough from the average passersby who would rush to their location when the big rainbow beacon crashed into the ground and left an ancient crop circle in its wake. Peter couldn't even imagine getting caught up in a conspiracy between two worlds.

He might make a lot more money at Sister Margaret's than any other place that would hire a fifteen year old, but he still wouldn't be able to afford a PR manager like that.

As Thor strode unburdened through the forest, he melted back into his Asgardian wear completely the opposite of his sibling; Loki changed forms in the quickest flashes of green light, Thor was slower. Quieter. Every step was a brown button washing gold or a winter boot thickening to two-thousand year old creature hide—slow, relaxed, half-way transformed by the time they were half-way to the meeting point.

"Your mother has voiced your inclination towards the sciences! They have always preferred an elegant painting or written prose and I myself have never found favor with learning taken indoors. Tell me, what is it that draws you so?"

"Mmm... figuring stuff out?" Peter spun the end of his scarf in small circles in front of him. "But it's always come pretty naturally to me. My dad—Richard—was a scientist too so maybe it runs in the family." He held out one of his hands, activating one of his webshooters and letting the mechanism crawl onto his palm. Thor fully stopped to bring his face close to it. "So if you've seen me swinging around the city, it's because of these! The first version I managed to throw together with a bunch of old computer parts I dug out of the traA—ctually an old. Spare. Donation. Bin." He cleared his throat. "Anyway, I got them upgraded a few months ago and it helped increase the force of t—WH—"

Thor pressed down on the trigger. And moved his head to the side when the webs sailed past.

"Ha! How novel!"

"I need to put a child lock on this thing," Peter muttered as he tugged his sleeve over his wristband.

February was warmed but not by much and the air still made everyone's cheeks ruddy except for his. Snow was melting, the bar was starting to fill up again now that everyone was coming back from jobs out in states that didn't ice your butt right off the middle of the street, and things were going pretty good. Thor tried to visit at least once a week between superheroing and space demi-god prince-ing and he seemed to be happy even if some visits only lasted as long as dinner.

(He knew Mom's happy about it too. They always said they were annoyed whenever their brother came to visit, but somehow they always managed to make his favorite foods.)

"Richard," Thor repeated after a long moment. Golden brows pulled together as a patch of jacket sleeve slowly morphed into intricately carved armor. "That was the name of your father?"

"Yeah, Richard Parker. He was a geneticist at Oscorp—this company that specializes in experimental science, military research, and cross-species genetics."

"I see." Black cloth to brown leather, rust orange hoodie to grand red cape. "Your mother has never mentioned him, so I have never asked.

Peter shrugged. "Mom couldn't stay on Earth anymore and left before my first birthday and Richard and my other mom, Mary, were in a plane crash when I was young so I don't remember them much. So, um, I figured they didn't know each other that well, before or after. Y'know."

Thor hummed and didn't sound too particularly troubled about what he was thinking. "I cannot speak for Loki—I could never speak for them, as I had not understood most of their actions in the past. I had never thought to, and perhaps that has been one of my greatest mistakes." His face shadowed and weathered for the briefest second before he flashed his nephew a kind smile. "Without regard to whatever the nature of their relationship, you are a wonderful young warrior with no doubt both their finest qualities." Peter hated how he could feel how red his cheeks got. "So similar are we in mind and heart, Midgardians and Asgardians and all those around the sides and in between. Though the peculiarity of this planet, it invokes my deepest gratitude that Loki has finally found home with you."

... Peter was going to ugly cry and he was going to look so lame, but the strong hand that clapped him on the shoulder rattled his brain enough to remind him he needed to keep it together. At least until he got back to Queens.

By the time they end up in the clearing, Thor was back to his otherworldly regalia and his blond hair was free and flowing, one of the strips to the side of his face twisted into a perfect braid. Peter hummed and wondered how that worked. Were his casual clothes, like, moved to a different plane in exchange for his Asgardian ones or were the layers still there, overlapping each other like stacks of paper and the ones not in use both invisible and intangible? Or was it pop! And it was gone? He wasn't sure where magic actually fell in terms of the law of conservation of matter, but—

A metal note tacked onto his brain to ask Mom about it later as they stepped into the clearing. Thor reached for a tree a couple feet behind the defined edges. His palm flat against the bark, a crackle of lightning burned on the spot already blackened with a handprint and with a flash of blinding light, the imprint of what resembled a celtic knot burned over the previously empty clearing.

Gods, magic was so cool. He wished it didn't make him nauseous every time he was near it, though.

"We are quite fortunate that Heimdall's aim remains true!" Thor laughed as he strolled back to Peter's side. "Let us hope that the continued use of one clearing can withstand the strain of multiple trips across time. It has yet to fail us, but one can never be too cautious."

"How come opening the Bifröst leaves a mark every time?"

"I believe the energy of realm to realm travel is too great an exertion to leave unscathed physical contact, though I suppose it takes no mark on those taking such transport."

"So there needs to be an equal transfer of force and because it can't be taken by the recipient, it needs to be taken by something else?"

"Perhaps that is so." Thor's entire forehead scrunched as he threw the idea around in his head for a few moments before he visibly shook it off. "I will be the first to admit that the deeper intricacies of the Bifröst are too grand for my own understanding, so I do not think I can further answer your queries," he apologized, then lit back up not a second later. "But your mother most certainly would hold such knowledge! Heimdalls would as well, should you ever have the opportunity to make his acquaintance."

Peter bobbed his head as he made sure to keep his feet firmly out of the crop circle. "Yeah, I'll keep that in mind."

Mom had millions of books back at her place, and even though a lot of the shelves they kept empty to fill with books they found interesting here on Earth, they still kept other books in languages he couldn't read and ones that glowed along the spines if he leaned in close enough. Those ones he didn't touch in case they ended up having teeth like those monster books in Harry Potter—but if he ever got the chance to ask Heimdall?

He tried to tamp down on the thoughtful frown threatening to surface as Thor readied himself to call up for the Bifröst. Heimdall was... someone he wasn't really sure about yet. Mom didn't like him but Thor undoubtedly did and that didn't mean much considering Mom didn't like most people they knew and Thor was their exact opposite, so he usually balanced them out by judging people with a healthy amount of caution. From everything he heard, though, Heimdall was powerful. Older than old. All-seeing, but he still wasn't sure what that meant.

"I shall be taking my leave," Thor bid. He scooped Peter up in a parting hug that swept the teen clean off the ground and it had been like this every time he saw the demigod off, so he dangled and wrapped his arms around armored shoulders and happily squeezed back, the tips of his fingers from each hand almost able to touch.

"Have a safe trip back," Peter chirped as he was set back down. He shuffled, again, outside the outer ring of the Bifröst imprint to make sure he wasn't the victim of an accidental abduction. "Did you already let Mom know when you're coming back?"

"Of course! There was nearly a dagger in my shoulder the last time I came unannounced, but I have grown too swift!" Thor laughed. "It will be a fortnight at the most; a much longer length of absence than the times between my previous visits, but Father has expressed a concern in how often I am coming to this world." His expression flew through complicated bouts that made Peter's insides twist. Odin. A bogeyman over everyone's shoulders. "He believes it is my duty with the Avengers that continues to draw my time. It is the truth, of course, but his considerations do not lie further than that. You and your mother will have nary a worry." Thor cast him one last smile before he positioned himself at the center of the circle. "Until we next meet, Nephew. It will not feel like long when we see one another next." And he tipped his head back, eyes heavenward to a blue sky as he called. "Heimdall, my friend! It is time for my return!"

Peter, who had seen this scene tens of times before, expected a burning rainbow and warmed his face like he was sitting in front of a bonfire before he was blinking the spots out of his eyes, and then he'd be making his merry way out of the thicket of trees on his way to work.

But—

spike

Then—

FWOOM

And Peter didn't eat shit, but it was a near thing.

He barely had time to acknowledge his spidey-sense before his vision exploded into what the world must've looked like to mantis shrimps and he immediately braced himself the same way he did the rare times Mom whisked them off and he should've landed steady on his feet if the Bifröst felt anything like that, but it didn't. Mom's magic was hazy, like getting lost in a foggy evergreen forest, like getting dunked in a tank of ice with no water as the world gave way under his feet. But when the sky ripped and a torrent of rainbow light crashed in from above, it sucked all the air out of his chest. Tingling warmth poured off scattered beams in a refracted prism and trapped him, pricked into his skin—

Rubber soles hit solid ground and when he stumbled, he latched onto the first thing his hands found purchase on.

Which happened to be a very shiny gold sword.

"What is the meaning of this?"

As blurry vision tried to stabilize itself and limbs tried to solidify from the jelly they'd become, Peter looked around at the golden stairs the bottom of his body sprawled over, his upper half almost flat on the circular platform the steps led up to.

He blinked and looked behind him.

Thor's fists clenched at his sides, red cape billowing as he stood in front of a wide, round opening in this gold, gold, gold dome they were in, a vastness of greens and blues and purples breathing galaxies into endless space at his back.

Oh, that was so fu-reaking cool.

A pair of firm, gentle hands hooked under his arms and pulled him back up to his feet in one graceful swoop. He stumbled once before he found his balance and he shook the lingering fuzziness from his eyes.

"Oh man, thanks," Peter said as he turned towards the other person in the dome, but stopped short. The Asgardian stranger was tall, taller than Thor even, covered in rich gold plating and shiny brown leathers like they were a fixture meant to reside with the rest of whatever this place was supposed to be. A grand, equally gold helmet sat atop the stranger's head, thick horn-like protrusions growing from either side to curl towards the center point, maybe a foot taller than the highest point of his head.

"You have no need to lend your thanks, young Peter," said the stranger in a voice Peter didn't think could sound like anyone else on Earth. It was deep like unsearched waters, a faint echo at the edge of his words when there was nowhere else for the sentence to bounce off of in the first place. "Your sensitivity to high seidr is more heightened than I have thought to realize. I would have warned you first, if I had known."

"Um." Peter blinked and stared up at the pair of eyes twinkling like stars that felt like the ones only an arm's reach away. "It's... fine?"

"It is not fine," Thor growled as he strode up the steps. "My nephew cannot remain here lest he be discovered—send him back!"

"I will not."

"Heimdall!"

"My prince," Heimdall returned mildly, impressively impassive even in the wake of thunderous royalty. His star bright eyes slid back to Peter and his unsure expression. "Hello, young Peter. I have been watching over you for a very long time."

... What the heck is he supposed to do with that?

But it meant something to Thor, at least. Tension rolled out of his shoulders and his face dropped, tired and sad and old. Peter already lost track of all the times he's described Thor as old.

"When did Loki ask?"

Heimdall never once averted his gaze to answer, and Peter hunched at the heavy weight of it. "To watch over him when they could not, to grow up to be like Richard Laurence Parker and Mary Teresa Fitzpatrick." Softer, and to him, "Your mother held the belief that there was no other to have raised you better."

And again, one more time, what the hell is he supposed to do with that? He'd grown up with stories of his parents, Ben recounting them fondly and May always piping in with everything she knew even if it wasn't much. When he was younger he listened with rapt attention, soaking up all he could when he couldn't rely on his own memory to remember what they looked like. But as he got older, Mom and Dad became interchangeable with Mary and Richard, and Ben and May became...

"So does this count as a kidnapping, Mr. Heimdall, sir?" Peter asked. He quickly waved his hands in front of himself. "Not that I'm accusing you or anything! If it was an actual kidnapping I figure there'd be a lot more rope-tying or face-punching, not that I've been kidnapped before but if it's like the movies—well, I guess I did get tossed into a freezer one time and I know it's not the same and I was kind of asking for it since we broke into the building and everything, but they definitely could've been nicer about it." He looked between Thor's bewildered face and Heimdall's stoic one, and he swore he spied a short uptick at one corner of the latter's mouth. "And we're on Asgard, right?"

Heimdall nodded once. "That is correct."

"Okay, cool, cool. Um. Why am I on Asgard?"

Thor crossed his arms and scowled in Heimdall's direction in practically the very same picture of Mom whenever they talked to Wade or Mr. Weasel.

'Whoa. Talk about siblings.'

"You could never have visited as long as you are with your mother," Heimdall said, and yeah, that was fair. "However, it would be unjust for you to not experience your heritage at least once in your youth. So here I stand, watching over you," his eyes glimmered like twin globular clusters in a not-so-distant cosmological horizon, "while your mother is not."

"Oh." Peter rubbed the back of his head. "So, like ethical kidnapping. A field trip kidnapping. That's not the worst thing in the world."

Heimdall chuckled lowly as Thor rubbed his face with both hands.

"I do not know how you have convinced the Allfather of your neutrality, old friend," Thor sighed as he ran one hand through the length of his hair. "Your will is only ever your own, aye?"

"I seem to recall your will built of the same mettle not so very long ago." A dark brow rose. "It is not as if led the charge into Jotunheim against—"

"Well!" Thor interrupted loudly. He swung himself in front of Peter, doing his absolute best to shield Heimdall from view. It was a pretty poor effort though, considering the horns still sprouted out from behind his head and a pair of half-amused eyes peering out from above a crown of golden hair. "I suppose then you will be staying here for a brief period of time. Not long enough to cause inconvenience, I hope?"

"I don't have school tomorrow, and that evening I'm supposed to be at May's for dinner before I have to go to work," said Peter. "How long am I being kidnapped for?"

"Until New York's next morning light, if it suits you."

"Oh! That's way shorter than I was thinking—no, yeah, that's no problem. It won't bother Mr. Weasel if I miss tonight's shift. He's been complaining that my perfect attendance gives him hives." The last part fell under his breath as he muttered it mostly to himself, but judging by the mystified expression on Thor's face, they heard him anyway. Peter cleared his throat. "Staying overnight sounds awesome! But are you sure it's okay? I really don't want to impose or cause any trouble."

I don't want to offend Odin and have him try to kill me either, was what he didn't say. Mom rarely talked about him, and when they did it was always with sharp tongues and ice-hot fury. And judging by the lack of Thor's defense of his own father when they went on one of their tirades, it chilled him to know that none of the accusations were exaggerated.

"You are certainly no trouble," Thor told him firmly as he clasped one of his shoulders. "While this visit is... unexpected, it is far from unwelcome, and Heimdall would not have brought you here had it been detrimental to your well-being. Though there must be an engagement in deceit to our true relation you are forever under my protection, and my respect. This I so swear." Yellow lightning wound in thin rings around his fingertips and for a second, Peter was taken back to Wade's apartment where he met Loki for the first time. A promise. An oath. What were they so serious for? He was a punk kid too young to vote to drink to be better— "All the same, you are a guest! I will make arrangements for your stay, alert those in the palace to your presence, speak to the Allfather if necessary though it should not be." He frowned and looked at Peter. "I will have to leave you in Heimdall's care while I bring everything to order—I promise you it will not be long."

"No biggie!" Peter waved him off with a smile and glanced around the dome. He could stay out here and stare out into space for days if they told him that's all he could do. "This is probably the nicest kidnapping experience I'll have, so I'm going to enjoy it."

Heimdall chuckled again as Thor's expression morphed into something more pained.

"Nephew, please refrain from calling this a kidnapping."

Peter's smile twitched, eyes alight with mischief ((and Heimdall turned and looked and witnessed one simple expression in a heavy gravity of familiarity, though lacking in malice, in mirth, in green)). "Even if I'm being a really good hostage about it?"

"My prince," Heimdall interrupted serenely, amused even in the stiff posture contained in armor and the constant hold on his sword. "Perhaps the sooner you make your arrangements for young Peter, the sooner you can show him the realm." He glanced at the teen. "A high privilege for even the most esteemed hostages, I assure you."

Peter's smile widened.

Thor sighed, but he barely fought off his own smile that came crawling across his face. "I shall be off. Expect my return shortly and—Peter? Feel free to ask Heimdall all you wish. He will have ample knowledge of the answers you seek."

With a wink and a flutter of red, he strode out the dome and towards the grandest fixture on Asgard that was also so gold it practically bled into the air around it. Peter didn't know whether to keep his eyes on Thor's brisk, retreating form, the actual space around them, or keep observing this crazy dome that served as a transport pad? Landing port? He squinted at one of the gear-shaped carvings in the walls, noting how it made him feel like he got dumped in more of a steampunk city than a medieval town.

This was a lot more sci-fi than he was expecting.

"You have questions?" Heimdall prompted, and Peter whirled back around. Right. Heimdall. Thor's old friend and one of Mom's most repeated curses.

"Uh, yeah. If that's okay." He looked at the sword, back over his shoulder at the dark expanse of endlessness, then back up at that gleaming gaze. "Do you know why opening the Bifröst leaves a mark in the ground every time? And like, how are you able to open a portal between realms? Is it just you and magic or is there actually a divine science that—"

::

"Oh, but Sif," Volstagg whined as he slogged his feet beside her. Sif rolled her eyes. "Himinbjorg is so far to travel on foot to ask Heimdall one measly question, why did you have to insist on refusing the mounts?"

"Why do you insist on complaining when we are already nearly there?" Her dark hair fell just past her shoulders, still tacky and slightly frizzed from their training session earlier in the morning. "Taking Heimdall's account of the battle on the last turn of the third moon for the archives is an important job as any other." Her eyes slid toward her friend as unamused as she was when they first set out on the errand. "We just came from the dining hall, do not tell me you already hunger for more!" He pouted and sighed like a lover forlorn and she rolled her eyes a second time. "You are truly insatiable."

"But there was more roast!"

"And there will be even more roast at the feast tonight!"

"To be left waiting for hours, what an incredibly cruel and unjust time," he bemoaned as he did every other day. Sif huffed as they continued their long strides towards the edge of the Asgard Sea.

He should be so lucky there were things to do in honor of the throne. Sure they and the rest of the Warriors Three still took quests among the realms and defended Asgard from her insurgents, but things have certainly tapered since Thor's attentions have become so divided. Between his frequent excursions to Earth and his duties, there was little time for him to spend the days as he used to with them. His time showing off his skills had been replaced with studiously committing Asgardian doctrines to memory and the hours he spent boasting of his prowess and spinning tales now found him deep in council rooms or off helping Midgard when they could not help themselves.

Maturity was not something she expected Thor to wear well. Or to wear so seriously.

"—ke building blocks, right? You stack them together and can make anything you want! Ned and I finally got around to making Captain Rex's AT-TE a couple weeks ago. A month ago. Um... two months? Wow, I guess we really... haven't... I-I mean, it's this Star Wars set we got late last year. Do you know Star Wars?"

Sif and Volstagg exchanged curious looks at the unfamiliar voice.

"The interstellar wars that took place in the Shi'ar Galaxy two hundred million lightyears off the Cyrane Om'lr System?"

"The. The what."

Volstagg strode in through the golden curve of Himinbjorg's entrance first, Sif close at his heels as they stumbled upon the gatekeeper and a guest, a wholly unknown one, at that, yet at very first glance there was an uncanny recognition. But it must be the wear of the day, Sif dismissed easily, because the longer she looked the more she was certain she had never seen this boy in all her life.

He dressed not of this realm in blue trousers of rougher material and a forest green long sleeved skyrta that hung too largely on his frame. Though his slightness could be attributed to his youth; his cheeks still swelled with the apparent roundness of babes and nestled into the decorated scarf wound in loose circles over his shoulders. Dark brown hair fluffed up his head, and when they stepped further under the golden dome, equally dark brown eyes slid towards them and widened with unmistakable panic.

"I did not know we would be having visitors this day," Volstagg mused curiously. He took no subtlety in examining the boy head to toe. No sigil to mark a diplomatic envoy nor crest to bear designation to family or realm or nearby planet. "Who do we have the pleasure of speaking to? I am Volstagg the Valiant!"

In turn, Sif offered a broad smile. "And I, the Lady Sif."

The boy swallowed and cast Heimdall a nervous glance before he straightened his spine and folded his hands behind his back—another flash of recognition so quick and nimble it slipped away again before Sif could think to grasp it—and smiled, small and shy.

"I'm Peter. Parker, uh, son of Richard Parker, I guess? You can just call me Peter, though, most people do on Earth. Er, Midgard."

"Midgard," Sif repeated in surprise. She eyed him up and down again and narrowed her eyes. "Are you one of Thor's comrades?"

"Yeah, we're cool," Peter nodded as he tucked his hands into the large pocket on his front. "I actually, um, beamed up with him? It was a last minute kind of thing."

"He will return home on the morrow," Heimdall added. "He holds questions the prince alone cannot answer, but a day on Asgard may."

Volstagg nodded consideringly. "A seeker of knowledge! Asgard will have all the answers of any question you may pose! Are you a scholar in your realm?"

"I'm still in school, if that's what you mean? I'm planning on college for sure and I'll probably shoot for a PhD, and, huh. I guess you could call them scholars." The boy rubbed his chin. "I guess I'll be a scholar at twenty-five, twenty-six at the earliest?"

"And how old are you now?" Questioned Sif.

"Fifteen."

"You look much younger than fifteen hundred years," Volstagg said as he leaned in suspiciously. Peter sputtered.

"Fifteen hun—? No way! I'm just fifteen, period, no other zeroes."

Sif's brows shot to her hairline. She heard that Midgardian lifespans held no candlewick to their Asgardian counterparts, but to be merely fifteen whole years and already on the cusp of young adulthood—was that enough time to learn? To grow? Fifteen years, by the Gods, she was not even sure those on Asgard would be allowed out of their home on their lonesome at that age.

Humans, made from traces of stardust. If it were true, how could they not live as long as the stars did?

"Fifteen?! Why, you are not more than a bair—"

An elbow digs into Volstagg's side and he yelps as he instinctively doubles over. Sif keeps her serene smile over the sound of coughing as she meets the boy's wide, guileless stare.

"If your visit is as a scholar, then Thor should not have left you here. There is a perfectly suitable library within the palace." She gestured over the Rainbow Bridge. "Come, I will show you that and what the rest of the royal grounds have to offer. Volstagg will have no trouble in collecting the information from Heimdall in the meanwhile."

"Sif!" Her esteemed warrior friend whined.

Sif leaned in close to Peter and faux-whispered into his ear. "Perhaps he will learn that there is more to duty than ravaging the feasting table at all hours of the day." Her smile widened at the unbidden laugh that burst out of him before he covered it with a baggy sleeve. "Let us move onward, Peter. There is much to be seen."

She swept an arm to encourage him onward, and after he traded one last look with Heimdall from over his shoulder and cast Volstagg an apologetic smile, they were both striding out of Himinbjorg and making their way over the Asgard Sea.

It is there past the welcoming arch of the dome that Sif watched the boy's face morph from a nervous sort of apprehension to unbridled awe. Faint brine underlies the clear crispness that filled their noses and underfoot the stout waves swayed, barely a shush as they bumped into the pillars that held up the bridge before they cast themselves off the edge of the planetary body. Above them, the void rolled an endless darkness dotted with warm-toned celestial globes.

"Ned would be so jealous," she heard him mutter beneath his breath. She huffed a quiet laugh to herself before turning towards him.

"How is the view of the cosmos on your realm?"

"Pretty bad if you're living in the city," he said, moving his gaze towards the bridge's crystalline light sparking beneath his feet. "New York's—huge. Super old. Maybe not in the way that you guys would consider old but there's a bunch of culture and history and lots and lots of people squished and stacked on top of each other and that's a perfect equation for light pollution. You've got to go outside any city limits to get a real good look. Sometimes it's better when you're on top of the tallest buildings over the cars and street lights and high-rise windows, but it's nothing like out here." He raised his head to peer off the edge again, so taken in by their galactic surroundings that he went as far as to walk alongside the edge of the bridge. Many newcomers, warriors and not alike, did not tend to stray far from the middle path upon the idle threat of being swept into the cold wasteland in the near distance. The boy, though, seemed to carry none of those worries. "I met Thor on one of those tall buildings a few weeks ago."

Sif's ears perked up at the mention of her future king. "Did you?"

"Totally fried my homework when he appeared on the roof," Peter answered with a short laugh. "He felt pretty bad about it, and since then I've been showing him some human-y things on Earth. Midgard."

"And he believed it an appropriate apology to introduce you to our realm?"

"I feel like it's less of an apology and more of him wanting to return the favor of showing him around. I mean, I had a lot of questions about space and Asgard he couldn't answer himself, but he said Heimdall would know a lot more about it." There is a certain brightness in his eyes, his stance, young and eager and obviously so willing to listen and learn all he could. A seeker of knowledge, indeed. "I guess Heimdall heard and thought it was easier to answer them in person instead of using Thor as a middle-man. Middle-god? ... Mediator."

"Heimdall knows much. If you informed me that he in fact does know all, I do not think I could muster any surprise."

"He was so cool! I thought he'd be more—" A strange look startled across his face, wrinkling the space between his brows and contorting his youthful visage into one beyond his meager years— "well, not more of anything I guess. He sounded pretty intimidating, and he is. But he's so cool!" He repeated as his face smoothed back out. "I hope I wasn't bothering him with all my questions, though."

"Cease your worries; he more than likely enjoyed your inquiries. It is not often that his expertise is sought after by those outside our realm."

Peter smiled, and its sincerity prompted her to return it.

At the foot of the Royal Palace of Valaskjalf, the boy fell back to follow in her steps instead of keeping pace like he had previously. The guards did not hide their curious looks and the servants lingered their gazes just over and around Sif's shoulders. She turned to him, a reassurance on the tip of her tongue no doubt ease the nerves she'd seen bundled under his skin, but caught herself when he did not have cowed shoulders or the uncertain gait he'd undertaken at their parting with Heimdall.

He walked with a tall spine and raised head, doling friendly, charming smiles to everyone as they passed between his wide-eyed wonderment at the palace's grand ornamentation.

There—that thread of familiarity at the corner of her eye.

She glanced to the side, but it was already gone.

"Is what I'm wearing okay?" Peter asked. She gestured him to walk closer, and he quickened his step until he kept pace by her shoulder again. "If I knew I was coming here, I would've dressed up."

"There is no current occasion requiring such," Sif assured. "For ceremonies, important announcements, or large diplomatic convoys, perhaps, but this day our warriors continue to train and our royal house busy themselves with duties of a more studious scale." She led them down a set of shaded stairs just beyond and to the right of the palace entrance. Dark sand sprawled away towards a distant waterfall, cutting through the spray and curving into a crescent and ending at a jagged cliff. Patterns of stone raised waist-high walkways that created the borders wound between each training ground, and the warriors training in each of their confines remained in each of their own sector. Clashing metal and exerting shouts echoed in the open air, light and faint stars shining streams around thick pillars as large as the dwarves of Nidavellir. "Though I suppose you will have to be dressed in more appropriate wear for the banquet tonight." She hummed in thought. "It will not be difficult to acquire, as you are Thor's guest."

Peter whipped his head around from watching the servants walk around offering fresh drink and sweat cloths. "Ba-Banquet? What banquet?"

"It is one of our general's two-thousandth year in service to the Royal House, all are invited and welcome."

"I, um, I don't think that really includes me!" He rushed to say. His tall posture disappears somewhere between the hunching of his shoulders to his ears and the nervous waving of his hands. "I'm here on last minute decisions and I don't—I— not that I don't want to go because I'm sure it's going to be a great party and wow, two thousand years ago Julius Caesar getting assassinated literally would've been new news—I mean—"

She clapped a hand against his back and he swallowed the rest of his stammering, the tops of his cheeks light pink and a sheepish tilt to his mouth.

"I mean," he re-started after a small cough, "I don't want to intrude."

She pushed down her widening smile. Now where did Thor find such a funny lad? "Nonsense! You can not truly experience Asgard if you do not attend one of our grand celebrations!"

"But—"

"I will hear no more of it," she dismissed easily. "And believe me when I say that Thor would whole-heartedly agree."

And she carried that statement with every ounce of its truth. In spite of all Thor's hardened maturity, he still continued to welcome every obstacle with open arms and a rushing thrill in his eyes. He fought like every battle was his last, drank like he did not believe in drowning, cast himself in the throes of life without abandon. An anniversary to celebrate would have him acting as if he were only young and arrogant again, the Queen Mother smothering her laughter behind an exasperated hand, a subtle amusement in the eyes of their ever stone-faced All-Father, Loki in the corner—

A viscous tar of hatred bubbled in the pit of her stomach, and she shoved it down with a firm hand.

No. There would be no more thought of them today.

Sif suddenly halted in her step and shot an arm out to the side to block Peter from taking another step forward as a lance soared past them and lodged itself in a crack broken through one of the two walls partially encasing the training grounds.

She glowered and looked to the pit that held an indifferent Hogun and a smiling Fandral still locked in the heat of battle.

"Our sincerest apologies!" Frandral called out.

A scoff puffed past her lips before she moved her attention back to Peter. "If it were sincere, they would not be apologizing so often." She gestured to the servants that, upon a closer distance, were alert and gracefully dodging stray weapons. "Those who serve at the grounds are sure to be trained in basic combat and evasion. While our warriors are mindful of their battles they cannot account for everything, and this way we can avoid major accidents."

"Oh, nice." His head twisted this way and that, taking in their surroundings with what she noted was an incredibly critical eye. His wonderment remained apparent, that was for certain, but there was a resident heaviness there. Quiet, settled, sharp at the edges like a meticulously whetted blade. There were eyes on him from warriors and servants alike, but he seemed more intrigued by traditional Asgardian fighting forms and the few ravens perched up high and nearly out of sight. "Are visitors allowed to learn your fighting styles?"

"You fight?"

"Sometimes."

"Well?"

"Well," he grinned, though she knew she couldn't fully decipher the low laugh he gave when he curled his lip. "I'm not too bad."

"Then the best way for us to see if the Asgardian form is complementary to your current knowledge is for your body to engage against it! Here, you will have formal introductions to Fandral and Hogun before we—"

Sif did not see it happen because what happened was too fast to see.

One moment Peter is at her side, eyes on her and aptly listening as she spoke from their spot by a training pit holding resting warriors. Fandral and Hogun battle in her peripheral, servants hurry around on light feet, the weight of several gazes skimmed past the dried sweat on her skin to peer at Asgard's newest visitor.

Then somehow Peter was no longer there. He had bridged the gap by the meeting point of two walkways with a leap she only caught the tail end of, and in the time it took her head to turn and her eyes to widen, the hilt of a stray dagger laid motionless in his grasp, a hand's length away from a servant's face. The tray they had been carrying dropped in the midst of the shock but Peter was already holding out his second hand, fingers splayed and palm skyward and caught it with an impeccable balance that did not spill the water pitcher at its center.

"Are you okay?" He questioned the servant.

The servant stared at the tip of the blade that had nearly made a new sheath through his eye and gulps, then bowed low. "Ye-Yes! Yes, I thank you, esteemed guest, I should not have been so foolish as to lose my bearing at the royal training grounds."

"Hey, accidents happen. Don't beat yourself up over it." The boy twirled the dagger around the back of his hand—that trick, she'd seen it before, but where—as he placed it down on the tray. "I'm Peter, what's your name?"

"Kvistr, esteemed guest Peter."

His cheeks dimpled, his smile ever-friendly. "You can just call me Peter."

The servant opened his mouth, no doubt to speak upon a claim of propriety, when a new voice crackled out as loud as the footsteps thundering down the steps.

"In my frequent absences it appears that even the warriors of such high order would be so flippant in ignoring their surroundings when they could have harmed a servant of the royal household!" Thor boomed. His cape fluttered behind him like a trail of red smoke and the scowl he granted the training grounds at large prompted the other fighters back into their own battles like they would not now be more subtle in their eavesdropping. "Fandral! Hogun! What have you to say for yourselves?"

Fandral slunk up to their little grouping, lips already on their way to a charming grin as the tip of his tongue began to line itself with excuses to balm Thor's ire. Hogun, as always, stayed as quiet as a hunter though she knew he would hold more penitence for the accident that almost unfolded had it not been for Peter's interference.

Sif blinked and pulled her attention away from her fellow warriors.

Peter was not concerning himself with the lecture. He had busied himself in speaking quietly with the servant instead, chattering a million lightyears a moment in the wake of the swelling expression of intrigue and amusement on the servant's face.

"—re lucky Peter and his quick wits are here to abate the path of what may have been a grave mishap," Thor said. He clasped the boy's shoulder and pulled him closer in a prideful shake. It snapped the servant back to his wits, and he quickly took the tray back into his hands before he bowed and murmured another bout of thanks. Peter waved at him as he took his leave. The servant paused, raised a small wave of his own, and left to continue his duties. "A great warrior is in your presence!"

Peter's cheeks flared slightly. "Dude."

"A Midgardian warrior?" Hogun finally spoke up.

"Of course!" By Thor's tone, he may as well have never been more offended. "He is as formidable as his mo—"

"I'm small-time back on Midgard," Peter was quick to interject. "I mean, I just help out in the neighborhood. You know. Swinging around." He chuckled a tad. "It's not like I'm an Avenger or anything."

"Then what is it that you do?" Sif prompted as she grasped her chin between her fingers and leaned towards him. "You question like a scholar, say you have experienced the heat of battle. With Thor's support you must have tales of your pursuits, perhaps still not unlike the Avengers."

"I—"

"Another hero!" Exclaimed Fandral. "Then we must spar!"

"—Oh, um, I, uh—"

"Which I had been trying to put forward," Sif drawled, "until one hog-brain or another lost control of a weapon they should have mastered."

"My lady, your words are like a stone shot to the center of the forehead."

Hogun turned to Peter. "Weapons or hand to hand combat?"

"Enough." Thor sighed and swiped a hand down his face. Maturity she had mentioned as an important point of her dear friend's growth of character in the time she had known him but with it came a new breed of wariness; a change of threshold on what he would and would not come to put up with. It seemed that now, in a time of greater peace, he came to put up with less from them. "Sif, you have my thanks for taking care of Peter while I was fulfilling some duties. Fandral, Hogun, you have my utter exasperation, as always." Fandral laughed. "But we will be taking our leave."

Sif blinked. "What? Surely it will be no issue for Peter to participate in a spar. We are all comrades in arms here, if you are worried about him taking injury—"

"Never that," Thor cut off firmly. "He is smart, and strong, and can fare against you fairly and equally." His hand still warmed the place it settled on the boy's shoulder, and youthful cheeks burned darker at the praise. "We simply have other matters to attend to at the moment; his visit is short and we are to make the most of it." And as he tipped his head down to address the boy, the smile he granted was small and soft and, dare she mention, almost paternal. "It was my thinking you would want to peruse the library, if it suits you?"

Peter lit up like the Milky Way's sun.

"Seeing the library would be so cool," he breathed.

"Then at the library we shall be." Thor regarded his friends once more. "We will see you at the banquet tonight."

"Um, thanks for showing me around, Lady Sif," Peter said. Thor began to lead him away, and he raised his voice over his shoulder. "And nice to meet you too Fandral, Hogun! See you guys later!"

The pair retreated to the stairs that led them up to the palace, and it is then that they are far out of ear's tune that Fandral deemed it appropriate enough to utter, "I bet my mustache that the boy is somehow of his blood."

In the distance, Peter tripped up one of the steps.

"I bet the right to shave off your mustache that he is not, and I bet away the use of my prized knives for the time until the spring harvest," Hogun responded. His arms crossed over his chest. "Sif?"

Sif glanced down at her arm.

Earlier, she had thrown it out to stop Peter from walking into a thrown blade. But she did not recall even a brush of green fabric against her skin like he had known to stop before she had known to stop him.

"I bet a season without my choice of steed that he is of the royal family," she said, dragging her eyes back to the pits before her and picking up the nearest sword. "Thor would not be so invested in his well-being, should it be otherwise."

::

Her attendants whispered amongst one another from around her back, heads ducked low and running mouths hidden behind nimble fingers. It is rare that Midgardians were seen on Asgard, even rarer to be allowed to roam the halls of Valaskjalf even with a proper escort—especially with that escort being the crown prince himself.

Odin would have already heard. Would be on his way for a confrontation as she lingered at the balustrades overlooking the training grounds. But she was nothing if not patient, and would bide her time with the poise and patience that came second to none.

Frigga's cool gaze trailed after her firstborn son and the strange boy that seemed so much like him as they disappeared down the hallway leading to the library.

Peter, she thought, rolling the syllables over in her mind's tongue. What an interesting lad.

::

Sorry for the wait, and thank you for your patience! I hope you enjoyed the chapter :)

Here we've ended with a fantastic fanart by frankee4foure on tumblr