#since loki would have a reason to come back to earth (vengeance) and thor apparently didn't (what is love | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

kinnoth · 3 years

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AVENGERS INFINITY WAR MEGATHREAD

-really doubt i'm gonna be able to finish this movie so we'll just see where i get to

- we already know how i feel about loki and thor, we don't need to revisit this

- ok but if i were going to revisit this, i mean come on, who wants to talk about "hela draws her power from asgard, same as you" cos i wanna talk about that

like what if that's the reason thor, god of thunder, king to a civilisation of warriors, was unable to fend off like, 4 dudes and a big purple dinosaur? the royal family of asgard draws its power from asgard, and without it, they are weak, they are mortal. maybe that's why heimdall is unable to just, you know, bifrost everybody off the fucking ship the minute it comes under attack. maybe that's why loki can't fucking conjure up a swarm of fucking microscopic knives to fillet the invaders from the inside out. MAYBE THAT'S WHY LOKI TRIES TO KILL THANOS WITH A FUCKING DAGGER. BECAUSE TAKE AWAY HIS POWER, TAKE AWAY HIS GODHOOD, WHAT DOES HE HAVE LEFT OTHER THAN HIS WILE, HIS TRICKS AND HIS BROTHER

WHAT IF IN SAVING THE UNIVERSE AND DESTROYING ASGARD, THEY'VE LOST EVERYTHING INCLUDING WHAT MAKES THEM GODS

somebody talk about this

- etc etc what if the reason loki is unable to attack the purple dinosaur with magic is because when he tackled thor earlier, he used whatever magic he had left to spare in order to heal him

checks out cos thor goes from flat on his face to swinging his fists in the space of like 30 seconds and the only thing to happen to him in between is said bit about loki tackling him

- why does heimdall save hulk? i mean, i could understand it if he were trying to aim the bifrost at thor and somebody somehow knocked off his aim and he accidentally saves hulk, but like, we've established that heimdall's loyalty is to the royal seat of asgard upon whom sits thor's mighty ass. thor who, in this scene, has just been incapacitated by a metal eggshell(?) and is at the mercy of their assailants. given heimdall's priorities, it is baffling to the point of inconceivability that he would preferentially save fucking HULK over his own king.

- if this next scene isn't the guardians of the galaxy coming across thor clutching loki's dead fucking body floating through space then i don't know why any of us are even here

- "he sent loki! the attack on new york was thanos!" makes no sense? like, if loki's scepter had the mind stone in it, which we established it did in the last movie when we broke it open to retrieve vision, then.....why didn't thanos just....take the mind stone in the first place? cos rock collecting is and has always been his goal?

what, do you think that just because you assert a thing makes us forget all the shit that happened before?

- i.....am actually with tony stark. why don't they just destroy the stones they have so that thanos can't get to them? oh, you made a promise? well promises change and circumstances change! you tell him tony! you tell that stupid fucker --

oh my god i'm gonna be ill

- i think the only person whose ego can match tony stark's is probably a neurosurgeon so 👍 i guess

-i love how we immediately went back to the "so dark can't see shit" aesthetic after ragnorak because ensuring that one's audience can SEE what is HAPPENING IN YOUR MOVIE is apparently for radical directors like taika waititi

- cannot believe that tony stark staring at captain america's phone number is being played with the same emotional intensity as thor losing his soulmate entire people

- honestly how many times is the mcu gonna invoke 9/11 imagery til someone calls them out for being terrorists

- lmao i know i said this before but peter's spidey senses tingling AFTER the giant alien anus has already started sucking up new york and it is right outside his window is fucking hilarious. that's just called using your eyeballs peter

- "friday notify first responders about the giant alien anus sucking up new york" lol like the first thing somebody did when the alien anus showed up wasn't to fucking call 911 GREAT IDEA TONY

- still can't believe that they let failed neurosurgeon dr strange do more magic than god of tricks and sorcery loki lol

- i know i rag on dr strange a lot about the fact that he's a neurosurgeon it's just that he sucks.

as a neurosurgeon eyy.

- i hate that peter parker has to be here!!!!! leave him alone!!!!!

- tony stark should not be allowed within 100 feet of children or minorities

- it is very weird to me that steve "brooklyn" rogers has an area code from georgia

- since when was hela a half-sister? ODIN'S DAUGHTER AND THOR'S BLOODED SIBLINGS OR BUST YOU FUCKING COWARDS

- i am very disappointed that thor is going to go get another weapon after we spent the whole last movie talking about how he is not the god of hammers

- i just need thor to have much more PTSD than he has right now. fucking hulk has ptsd. maybe they're saving the ptsd for later. one can only hope.

- i am glad that they are letting him be cleverer though

- THEY ARE LETTING VISION DATE A TEENAGER WHY

GOD. FUCKING GROSS.

- wait when did vision turn into a white man again? did i miss that movie?

- i am disappointed that vision the computer techno robot apparently has a penis. like what a stupid limitation to give your computer techno robot, gender. 🙄

- i think that the mass destruction of infrastructure and architecture in the MCU is because of the pg13 no blood limitation that disney has set? like there's no way to show destruction to the body, so one may only show the exponential destruction to one's surroundings. like imagine how much more dramatic intensity you could wring out of a regular fight scene would be if people were allowed to bleed?

- cannot believe that a computer techno robot and a witch are having a punch up with the bad guys. of all people to fight with something not their fists, it's these two

- wanda has no enhanced strength or durability? she's a regular teenager who's a bit witchy. the first time she got thrown through a glass door should have shattered her vertebrae. again i don't understand why we insist that everybody must have the same powers and capabilities when it's clear they don't. think about how much more interesting it would be if some avengers were more fragile than others and had to be given accommodations as such

- IT IS INCONCEIVABLE TO ME THAT FUCKING BLACK WIDOW (regular human), CAPTAIN AMERICA (enhanced human), AND FALCON (regular human with wings) CAN DEFEAT THE CHILDREN OF THANOS WHEN THOR COULDN'T UNLESS THOR (god of fucking thunder carved of steel and stone) WAS NERFED

- still don't understand how we'll lend aliens afro features but not afro hair, like, seriously? you're gonna dream up green aliens with gills who look like black people but imagining them with black hair is a step too far?

- the gap of commentary in this liveblog is simply because i do not care at all for the galaxy defenders

- "earth just lost her best defender" who? who does captain america consider earth's best defender? it's not thor; he doesn't know thor's presumed dead. it's not tony; he doesn't know tony's on an alien anus. who else has died so far?

- love how exhausted bucky looks. have always loved how exhausted bucky looks. love bucky.

- i forgot that tony was with peter parker. god i hate that.

- "i'm peter btw"

"dr strange"

"oh you're using the made up names then. i'm spider man"

ok that was cute, but peter's cute, we knew that already

- i want to fling both strange and stark into space and i'm having a hard time deciding which one to push first

- "you went to bed hungry, scraping for scraps" oohhhh thanos is just anti-poor people, he would literally rather poor people be dead than struggle, i get it nowww

this is on brand for mcu

- oh my god thanos gets 2/6 stones by torturing siblings in front of other siblings, seriously? you couldn't come up with 6 different ways to find his stupid rocks you had to reuse one twice?

- which one of thor's friends was stabbed through the heart....? fandral??

- "if i don't get my vengeance what more could i lose" more like what else is there eh? what else is there for a king of no people but their vengeance?

- CANNOT BELIEVE THEY GAVE HIM BACK AN EYEBALL JESUS CHRIST IF YOU DIDN'T LIKE THOR RAGNORAK JUST SAY SO YOU DIDN'T HAVE TO FUCKING

VEHICLE FOR AUTHORITARIANISM, NOTHING IS ALLOWED TO CHANGE, FUCK YOUR CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT I GOT MINE

FUCK

- i do enjoy that thor is now science fiction rather than fantasy, i don't think anybody knew what to do with fantasy cos fantasy is again, ultimately about conservatism and the status quo. so i do like that we're embracing the new and boundless for whatever that's worth.

- marvel is a cesspool of toxic masculinity. at no point are characters allowed to actually feel anything because weakness is uncool i guess and therefore unmanful. like thor lost ALL OF HIS PEOPLE. fucking ALL of them. he watched his brother die in order to save him. he is not allowed a single fucking response of mourning. i don't care if he's pushing it back because revenge or whatever, this is the sort of grief that rules you, which will bring all your load bearing structures down to heel, and they let him do nothing; he does not even rage. perfect control. smooth witticisms. why. why aren't we allowed to see his sadness?

- yo i can't believe red skull is a scifi villain now lol space nazis for real

- OH MY GOD THEY WASHED BUCKY'S WIG AND IT LOOKS SO BAD

- michael b jordan was right btw wakanda is complicit in africa's exploitation

- i do LIKE black panther i guess in the way you technically like that cousin you met once when you were like 9 and never saw again?

i like how we have here in wakanda the sears tower (chicago), the batman building (nashville), and the gherkin (london)

- ok but like, presumably not a death cult super technologically advanced wakandans who are deffo made of human flesh and human blood still arm their people with spears

i mean unless wakanda is also a death cult

why is this chicks entire fucking face cgi'd she looks like a fucking cut scene video game character

- oh ok they have LASER spears, ok

so then why did they give bucky a fucking gun

- what is bucky supposed to be able to contribute here exactly, like fucking, again, he's spycraft isn't he? he's a one man, dead of night, operation go loud and then immediately silent kinda operation. why do they have him on the front lines of a fucking lock-step formation battle??

- "it will be the noblest ending in history" WHAT, FIRST COUNTRY TO EVER BE OVERUN BY ALIEN JACKALS??

- stormbreaker is just leviathan axe, somebody's said this already right

- omfg i'm so glad they're finally acknowledging that thor is OP as fuck and does not belong amongst the fucking squabbles of earth

-"titan was like most planets, too many mouths to feed not enough to go around, so i proposed a plan, dispassionate to rich and poor alike" JUST SAY YOU HATE POOR PEOPLE MCU. YOU CANNOT HAVE RICH AND POOR, YOU CANNOT HAVE DISPARITY, YOU CANNOT HAVE SOME WITH TOO MUCH AND OTHERS WITH NOT ENOUGH AND CALL IT EXTINCTION. THAT IS NOT A QUESTION OF OVERTAXED RESOURCES THAT IS A QUESTION OF RESOURCE FUCKING MANAGEMENT. IT IS AN ARTIFICIAL CRISIS IF THERE EXISTS ENOUGH TO GO AROUND BUT SOME PEOPLE ARE JUST HOARDING IT THAT'S WHEN YOU KILL THOSE PEOPLE AND TAKE THEIR SHARE. KILLING HALF THE PEOPLE IS THE KIND OF FUCKING SOLUTION TO INEQUALITY THAT RICH PEOPLE COME UP WITH

GOD. ITS LIKE NONE OF YOU EVER READ

-you've got the big fucking boss in an ambush AND YOU ATTACK HIM WITH A MAGIC SWORD STEVEN STRANGE?????

THIS FRANCHISE HAS NO IDEA HOW TO UTILISE MAGIC USERS FUCKING HELL

- when will somebody please utilise ironman like the one man artillery he fucking is WHY IS HE FIGHTING WITH HIS STUPID FISTS HE IS LITERALLY ONE CONTINUOUS CARPET BOMB JUST USE HIM THAT WAY

cut of his arm CUT OFF HIS ARM YOU BLOODLESS SPINELESS USELESS FUCKING CUNTS . this is a manufactured crisis, KIND OF LIKE THE ONES THANOS LIKES I GUESS LOL

- dr strange could have very easily prevented or stopped quill from punching thanos but he didn't cos i guess even the movie forgets steven strange exists sometimes

- i like that the shield around wakanda has the same weakness as a poorly constructed chicken coop -- you always build into the ground a couple feet to stop the diggers man, come on, what is this, your first energy shield?

- oh disgusting, a girl boss moment. whatever you're all fascists.

- nobody adores martial might like fascists do fucking change my mind

- " avengers: not one person in this fucking cast is able to stomach ANY AMOUNT of personal sacrifice" more like

- "why did you give away the time stone?" "we are in the endgame" THAT'S NOT AN ANSWER THAT'S A FUCKING MOVIE TEASER FUCK YOU

- why didn't strange just trap thanos in a timeloop again? we've already established that is a perfectly acceptable way to deal with planetary annihilation. IS IT POSSIBLY BECAUSE NOBODY ON THIS WRITING STAFF KNOWS HOW TO DEAL WITH MAGIC

- THOR OP BLIZZARD PLS NERF

-CAPTAIN MARVEL SERIOUSLY THAT'S WHO YOU'RE GONNA SEND YOUR LAST PAGE TO JESUS FUCKING DISGUSTING

#the asshole liveblogs #avengers infinity war #internal thor tag

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ladyloveandjustice · 6 years

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SO INFINITY WAR

I don’t have many feelings since I came in pretty detached from the MCU. Like, I care about Thor and his core supporting cast that’s left and I care about Black Panther and Wakanda peeps a lot...and I don’t want bad things to happen to Spider-Man because he’s just a sweet kid but he’s Spider-Man so bad things are obviously going to happen to him and that’s the extent of my feelings on the MCU characters for real.

I came into this move super detached with the feeling it would be an overhyped Event Comic in cinematic form and boy it sure was. Very True to that.

Positives-

I did generally like some of the interactions- they were pure fanservice but the good time. Thor’s conversations with Rocket were actually genuinely sad and touching and probably the closest the movie got to making me feel an emotion, they were a good pair and the fact they WERE a pair and did bond quite a bit was novel. The fact Thor’s gone into an extremely chipper version of “literally all my loved ones are dead so nothing matters anymore might as well just charge right in for the vengeance !!! :D” does feel true to him, I mean what else can he do at this point. I’m not sure how much of enjoying whenever he’s on screen just comes from liking him best to begin with though. He sure was in this a lot.

The two Peters immediately starting to argue about pop culture was a very “yep that’s gonna happen” moment that felt genuinely funny. I think Tony and Peter’s relationship worked for me in this movie more than it did in like, any of the previous movies, probably because they’re wasn’t much focus on it and it was just Tony being Worried which is naturally going provoke an “aw”. Peter’s “death” worked because he seemed ACTUALLY SCARED (something no one else in this movie was at any point, making it impossible for the threat to feel real).

As stupid as literally everything else in those scenes were, Loki being like “haha kill Thor i don’t care” and then it actually starts happening and it’s like “wait nevermind I do care stop” was like. Yep. there he is.

Negatives:

wow was this a movie just like an event comic! By which I mean the deaths were stupid shock stuff and nothing really mattered. As soon as they killed Heimdall and Loki two minutes into the film I was like, “yep don’t care about anything that happens after this now”. First of all, Heimdall’s death was boring and expected, very black guy dies first, very just random and unearned, I was just like “Yeah...okay...”

As for Loki, I honestly don’t mind him dying, he was gonna at some point, but it didn’t have to be such a stupid death. like I know movie Loki isn’t incredibly competent or the schemes within schemes dude his comics counterpart sometimes is , but one would still think he could come up with a better plan than “i’ll pretend i’m gonna betray everyone but then in the same breath try to attack Thanos with a dagger”. Could they not have even shown him ATTEMPTING to play the long game here? All they had to do was do the same thing where Loki pretty obviously cued Thor with “I’m still on your side”. then join thanos for a little while, attempt to find out his weakness then try to weaken and kill Thanos and die. It would have been at least slightly more effective.

I mean, it may not stick, because comic book movie, but it pretty much screamed “Tom Hiddleston wanted to be in this as little as possible, he is out for good” so.

Gamora’s death was even more shitty and badly written (it seems more likely she’ll come back than Loki though). The definition of fridging too, since it was entirely to “develop” (HUGE air quotes) Thanos. They were trying to make me feel sorry for Thanos and feel he’s complex and conflicted or something but it’s not happening. The scale of his actions was too great for that. His abuse of Gamora is too great for me to buy that he cares about her, and even if he did, it’s in such a shitty way it shouldn’t count. Also his motivation is stupid. These planets, if they are like earth, did probably have enough resources for everyone, they’re just not distributed equally. Killing half the population does nothing for that. Going with “I’m in love with the personification of death” would have been way less stupid than this. Stop trying to make me feel sorry for him. I don’t.

This movie also definitely had the Tone problem people claimed Thor Ragnarok had but i really didn’t feel. I did feel it with this movie. The constant quipping here was even worse than Age of Ultron and just felt so out of place considering the huge losses these characters were taking that we were supposed to Take Seriously. And all of them went on too long. I mean I chuckled at a lot of them, but it made it impossible to be invested because apparently the characters don’t care about what’s happening either. They didn’t treat Thanos like an actual threat half the time, so why should I take him seriously? I think the worst example was for Thor to wake up, immediately after the death of a tremendous amount of people he cared about, and for it to instantly be a quip-off.

To contrast Thor Ragnarok, they didn’t have him immediately quipping after the death of Odin, they had him start to freak out then just had the next threat immediately come so he didn’t really have time to dwell on it and after that funny stuff happened TO him, mostly. The death itself wasn’t ever made light of either. (The loss of the hammer was, but I mean. it’s a hammer.) There was just this sense that he couldn’t afford to dwell because whoops the next weird situation is already here. He had to bury his grief for the movie to work, but that seemed consistent to his character and the sitch he was in. He had to roll with it, and therefore so did the audience. It was consistent with the fast pace and outrageous vibe of the movie.

Here there wasn’t that vibe. It just felt disjointed. And Thor definitely did have time to react and rage in the immediate aftermath, so it’s weird he would wake up and the tragedy is immediately made light of with Peter trying to compete with him. The convo with Rocket later was better, but didn’t make up for the weirdness

And the whole Thor situation! Just immediately undoes what Thor sacrificed to accomplish in the last movie! So soon after it! He managed to save Asgard’s people except whoops not really, half of them are dead, where are the other half, who the fuck knows . also where the fuck is Valkyrie.

Everyone in this movie constantly made the stupidest decisions possible in order to let Thanos have the infinity stones. Which they acknowledged, and I get it’s how heroes operate, but it was still a Lot. Peter Q wins the prize since his stupid decision was inconsistent with what he did earller in the movie.. He went from being ready to honor Gamora’s request to kill her to keep Thanos from the stone (like it was shown he literally would have done it) to just letting Thanos escape because he was upset about Gamora’s death.

Also the fact Thanos is supposed to be so ridiculously powerful and yet somehow doesn’t kill people like Tony or Peter or even Steve in one hit...that’s a standard comic thing but it was a lot more distracting in a movie for some reason.

And of course there’s the ending which is very “this is obviously going to be undone”. Just like the comics I guess! But like, no need for somber black credits when we all know there’s no way Spider-Man’s gonna die for real.

Basically, it was watchable, mostly because I was detached and not super invested in the mcu. I mean, they sure did fuck over Thor and crew and wasted a ton of potential the ending of the last movie had, which annoyed me a bit, and the Wakandan characters felt like they were barely in it even thought they were...but yeah, that’s the extent I have on feelings.

As entertainment and spectacle and “oh cool these characters interacted” it was fine whatever. As a story, it was a mess, so. Yep. Sure does seem true to event comics.

#avengers infinity war spoilers #avengers infinity war for ts

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darknessfactor · 6 years

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Avocadon’t, Maybe?

A/N: I hAD TO

Based on this quote. Ignores the Ragnarok post-credits scene.

They were aiming for Norway. They didn’t hit Norway.

Or at least, that’s what Thor cheerfully tells him when Hulk finally cedes control back to Bruce. Apparently it’s only be three days this time, and Hulk was mostly content to spar with Valkyrie when he got bored. Then their ship had started to hurtle towards Earth, and then they’d crashed, and Hulk claimed boredom before shrinking back down to Bruce.

“If we didn’t get to Norway,” and Bruce doesn’t even know why they’d wanted to go to Norway in the first place, “then where are we?”

Korg pops out of nowhere, and Bruce nearly jumps out of his skin - one, because what the hell, and two, because the only other person he knew who was capable of that was definitely not a tall rock person - and says, “The nice fella I just talked to said we’re in some place called New Zee-land.”

Bruce drops his forehead onto his knees and starts laughing.

Thor isn’t very thrilled when he sees exactly where New Zealand is in relation to Norway, but he cheers up slightly when Bruce explains that it’s where Lord of the Rings was filmed.

“An excellent tale of your people,” Thor praises. “Except the elves, they’re pretentious pricks.”

Bruce catches Valkyrie’s eye, and gives a very deliberate cough. Valkyrie hiccups.

At any rate, their crash won’t have gone unnoticed. They need to figure out where in New Zealand they are, and they need to find out where civilization is. For now, they seem to be out in the jungle, and while they have plenty of food on the ship, it won’t last forever.

Bruce immediately volunteers to try to find a town. Korg got vague instructions from the guy he’d talked to, but looking at a map, Bruce thinks he can pinpoint where it is. Valkyrie volunteers as well, claiming that she’ll be protecting Bruce, but as soon as they’re on the road, Bruce gives her the side-eye.

“You just want a drink,” he accuses.

“What? Noooo,” Valkyrie says. “Well, yeah, but not just that.”

Bruce shrugs. “’S okay. It’s refreshing, to be honest. You’re one of the few people who doesn’t treat me like a ticking time bomb.”

Valkyrie startles him by laughing. “What? You and Hulk, a ticking time bomb? Yeah, right. You’re both fucking teddy bears, you are. Hulk’s just a bit of a bigger teddy bear.”

Bruce raises an eyebrow, unsure what to do with that mental image. “Thanks, I guess? You should probably realize that humans are a bit more, uh... fragile.”

“Yeah, I guessed that after you broke your neck to get Hulk to switch with you.”

Bruce snorts, but concedes the point to her.

There’s a goat, tied to one of the posts holding up the town’s sign. It’s called Ono. It seems appropriate.

There are a few stores, and a few places to eat. Valkyrie makes a beeline for the liquor store, in her Sakaar leather-clad regalia. No one gives her a second glance. It’s Bruce who draws more confused looks, probably because he’s once again dressed in Tony’s clothes and really wishing he wasn’t.

He ends up following Valkyrie into the liquor store, only to find her arguing with the owner over prices. That’s when he remembers that none of them exactly have any human money, and he sighs.

“Val,” he calls, and she spins around, looking confused. “C’mon, we’ve seen what we needed to. We should head back.”

She opens her mouth to argue, but something about his expression must convince her, because she follows him back out the liquor store and into an Internet cafe where he can use the phone that Thor gave him. He breathes a sigh of relief when he discovers that Tony has kept his account open, and manages to get some cash from the disgruntled teller at the bank.

“Here,” he says, shoving half at Valkyrie. “Don’t go too nuts over it, okay?”

“Sure,” she answers, thumbing through it with a frown. “By the way - ‘Val’?”

“Valkyrie’s more like a title than a name.”

“Val.” She says it with the air of someone trying a new kind of food for the first time. “Well my real name is shite, so I’ll take it.”

While Valkyrie is buying as much booze as she can (Bruce doesn’t have the heart to tell her that it probably won’t affect her), he manages to use some of his so-called ‘awkward charm’ (named by Natasha) to get information from some of the townsfolk at the local coffee place. All their gossip centers around the jail, where their first criminal in over twenty years is being held.

“What’d they do?” Bruce asks.

Dan, who’s had a few too many shots of espresso, leans forward and half-whispers, “Stole seventeen of Harry’s avocados, would you believe it. Seventeen! Looked like fucking Santa Claus, she did, carrying that thing over her shoulder.”

Bruce is sorely tempted to tell the man that he’s sharing a body with Hulk, and has been spending the last two years on an alien planet. He decides to let Dan marvel at their avocado thief, however.

Two minutes later, the town sheriff comes into the coffee place and orders drink with three shots of espresso, before turning to Bruce with an irritable glare.

“Your friend Val’s locked up,” he says. “Ned down at the liquor store says she assaulted him?”

Bruce sighs.

Valkyrie is in the process of becoming best friends with her cellmate by the time Bruce manages to get the teller to withdraw enough money to cover bail. He’s pretty sure that the teller’s opinion of him has plummeted down into the negatives, and it doesn’t help that his current outfit belongs to a self-proclaimed asshole.

“I’m Tony Stark,” he mutters, and has the insane urge to giggle.

The deputy sheriff pops her chewing gum in his face when he asks to see ‘Val’, before grabbing the keys and trudging over to the cells. Valkyrie is in the midst of howling with laughter at the story her blond cellmate is telling, thudding her fist against the ground and only making the floor shake a little.

“Someone was nice enough to post bail, Val,” the deputy says, unlocking the cell and opening the door.

“Hey!” Valkyrie snaps, holding up a hand. “Story’s not over, don’t interrupt. Rude.”

“So then,” the blond continues, and Bruce’s heart nearly stops. She’s facing away from him, so he can’t see her face, but -

“Then, Steve turns around and looks at me and just says - completely deadpan, like, you would not believe the deadpan this guy can pull - ‘I thought there’d be more ass’.”

Valkyrie starts laughing again, hard enough that there are tears streaming down her face. The deputy is standing at the open cell door and has taken out her phone, scrolling through what looks like Tinder.

“Well, I guess I’m off, but I’m very happy I got to meet you,” Valkyrie says. There’s a little tilt to her voice and Bruce has to think about it for a second, but - yup, Valkyrie is definitely flirting. “Maybe you wouldn’t mind if I came back and visited after your trial?”

Natasha - because it has to be Natasha, he’d know that voice anywhere - flirts right back. “Mm, yeah, I wouldn’t mind.”

Valkyrie shoots her a wink before she saunters out of the cell. “Hey, Bruce,” she says, clapping him on the back hard enough that he stumbles. “That didn’t take long.”

That catches Natasha’s attention, and she spins around in her cell, finally giving him a good look at her face. He’s startled by the change - she looks like she’s aged ten years instead of the two since they’re seen one another, with dark circles under her eyes and wrinkles around her mouth. But her eyes still carry the wicked glint he’s familiar with, even when they’re round with shock.

“Bruce?” she says, her voice cracking. Her composure returns almost immediately, and she smirks at him. “Channeling you inner Tony, I see.”

Bruce winces. Valkyrie’s good humor has abruptly vanished, and her gaze is moving between the two of them, assessing. “Can we maybe not do that?” he asks.

Natasha’s smirk falls from her face. “Alright,” she says. She nods at Valkyrie. “It was nice meeting you, Val. Please, do come visit.” Her attention turns to the deputy sheriff in a clear dismissal. “So - what’s for lunch today, Ella?”

Bruce is half-dragged out of the station. He and Valkyrie make their way down the street until they leave town, heading back to their ship. He still can’t shake the whole shell-shocked feeling of seeing Natasha again. It’s like a bucket of ice-cold water, but he can’t deny that it brings back the longing with a vengeance.

Halfway back to the ship, Valkyrie gasps.

“Shit,” she says. “You’re hung up on her!”

Bruce would like to disappear now. That sounds nice.

“And she’s hung up on you! Great, there go my chances.”

“Wouldn’t discount yourself just yet,” Bruce mutters. Natasha’s had two years to move on. It’s the smart thing to do.

“Well, obviously there’s only one thing to do,” Valkyrie says, her voice hardening.

“Yeah, get back to the ship and figure out how we’re gonna feed thousands of hungry - “

“Break her out of prison.”

“ - Asgardians - Valkyrie, no, that is not what I said - “

As it turns out, once Valkyrie gets an idea in her head, she apparently just... doesn’t hear any protests against that idea. She finds Thor as soon as they get back to the ship, hurrying away as Bruce asks weakly, “She could’ve broken herself out, so why hasn’t she?”

Thor, of course, is overjoyed by the prospect of seeing another teammate of his. He’s even more excited at the idea of breaking her out of jail - never mind that the reason Natasha’s in jail could be important, Bruce knows that much at least - and in spite of the fact that New Zealand is a small country and they don’t have very far to run if they bring the local law enforcement down on their heads.

Loki takes one look at them, with their heads bowed together, and walks away, muttering to himself.

At first, Valkyrie and Thor try to come up with some kind of plan. Bruce suggests paying Natasha’s bail. They both dismiss his idea.

“You could just let Hulk smash the place up a bit,” Valkyrie suggests. Bruce can practically feel Hulk perk up at the suggestion, and is reminded that Hulk missed Natasha as well.

“I don’t think that’s the best idea?” he hedges.

“Hulk was last out for three days,” Thor says, clapping Bruce on the shoulder. “I say Bruce should get three days as well.”

“Seems fair,” Bruce agrees. In the back of his head, Hulk grumbles, but concedes.

In the end, Thor and Valkyrie give up on a plan. They just decide to go into the jail, smash up stuff up, grab Natasha, and leave. Hopefully before Ono decides to come after them with pitchforks.

The trek back into town takes half an hour, and this time all three of them draw stares. Bruce shifts uncomfortably under the scrutiny as they make their way to the sheriff’s station, though he notices that the looks Thor gets are actually appreciative.

Of fucking course.

Thor bursts into the police station with a grin, says, “Hi, we’re here to get our friend,” then marches over to the cell and rips the door off. The deputy blinks at them and then says to Thor, “Can I get a Snapchat with you?”

Natasha makes a show of dusting herself off as she leaves her cell. She catches Bruce’s eye. He mouths, “This wasn’t my idea,” at her. Her mouth quirks in amusement.

Valkyrie looks thrilled. “Wow,” she says, looking Natasha up and down. “Not only are you, like, wow, but Thor says you’re one of the greatest warriors on the planet. Nice.”

“You keep talking but all I see are biceps,” Natasha teases back, eyeing Valkyrie just as appreciatively.

Valkyrie preens. “Yeah, I know.”

Thor finishes taking selfies with the deputy sheriff, and heads over to envelop Natasha in a hug. Natasha hugs back just as tightly, smiling with genuine warmth at Thor.

“Why are you in prison, anyway?” Thor asks her.

“I stole some avocados.”

“Jesus,” Bruce mutters. “I thought they were joking.”

That’s the moment the sheriff shows up, with an actual gun this time, and starts shooting at them.

Loki takes one look at who came back from Ono with them, and promptly disappears. Bruce almost snickers.

Almost. Because somehow Thor and Valkyrie have given them the slip, leaving the two of them in one of the corners of the camp so that they can... what? Talk it out? Bruce isn’t even sure where to start. Ultron still feels like yesterday for him, but Natasha...

Before he can say anything, however, he finds himself wrapped up in her arms.

“I’m glad you’re safe,” she murmurs in his ear, before pulling away. “Tony and I didn’t know... we couldn’t figure out where you were. Less surprising, since you were on another planet, but... I was worried you’d been captured somehow. With the Accords and everything, it’s dangerous out there. For people like us.”

Bruce has no idea what the Accords are, but they don’t sound good.

“I’m glad you’re safe too,” he says. “What’s with the hair? And why were you in jail for stealing seventeen avocados?”

Natasha snorted. “I’m on the run. Again. Most of the Avengers are, except Tony. And Rhodey, I think. A disguise seemed like my best bet. Though this is actually the third time I’ve dyed it.”

“It looks good on you.”

“Thanks.”

They lapse into silence after that, during which time all of Bruce’s pent up feelings rise to the surface again. He still doesn’t know where to start - it doesn’t quite feel like he missed her, but at the same time, he has missed her. Does he say that? Does he talk about what happened on Sakaar?

None of those things, apparently, because the first thing out of his mouth is, “You still haven’t told me why you stole a bunch of avocados.”

“Dip.”

Bruce pauses. “...what?”

Natasha shrugs. “I was hungry. I wanted dip. I was out of money. I stole seventeen avocados so that I could make dip.”

“Bullshit.”

“Avocados are a super food. What’s so hard to believe about that?”

Bruce shakes his head. “And you just let them take you to prison?”

Natasha shrugs. “This time was for a dumber reason. It’s not as bad as last time, when I got caught spray painting buildings in Russian. Or the time before that, when - “

“Have you just been... shuffling yourself through jails?”

“...maybe.” Natasha pauses, thinks about it for a minute. “I might’ve been a bit reckless.”

“You think?” Bruce mutters.

“Also, the town was called ‘Ono,’” Natasha adds, sniggering. “Too good an opportunity to pass up. My mug shot will be on the wall in their sheriff’s station for all eternity. Like, ‘Ono, Natasha was here’.”

Bruce wonders if he’s fallen into some kind of fever dream, but something about the terrible pun and her casual attitude towards being in prison strikes him as definitely being Natasha. And in that moment, the ache of missing her fades, like they’ve never been apart.

Natasha notices. “What’s that smile?”

“Nothing.” Bruce reaches out, pauses to give her time to move, and takes her hand. “I’m just really happy you’re here.”

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