〘 :*¨༺ 𝐠𝐞𝐭𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐡𝐞𝐥𝐩 ༻¨*: 〙

" Why-Why would I be scared of that guy? I'm the one who killed that guy, remember? Anyone else here kill that guy? "

ᴠᴏʟᴜᴍᴇ : ▮▮▮▮▮▮▯▯▯

" clinging onto bottles
when it comes it's so, so disappointing
let down and hanging around

AFTER THEY HAD landed, Blake followed Rocket and Nebula down the steps of the Milano, spotting a very confused man holding an empty hard-shell taco.

"Hey, Humie," Rocket called to the man. "Where's Big Green?"

The man took a moment to reply, still confused. "In the kitchen, I think."

Blake sighed, sitting down on the steps above Rocket whilst they waited for Bruce Banner to come out and meet them so they could get Thor.

Once the big green man came out, he handed the man two tacos, then walked over to the Milano with a bag slung over his shoulder.

"Would you like a taco?" Bruce asked Blake, holding a hard shell taco in front of the man's face. Blake looked up at Bruce, who gave him a small reassuring smile. Blake huffed, the corners of his mouth quirking up, reaching out to accept the offer.

⭒☆━━━━━━━━━━━━━━☆⭒

BLAKE HUFFED, HUGGING his knees to his chest. He sat next to Rocket and Bruce in the bed of a truck on the ride into New Asgard. Once they made it to a bridge where people were fishing and carrying various traps, they signaled for the truck to stop and hopped out.

"Kind of a step down from the golden palaces and the magic hammers and whatnot." Rocket commented.

Blake scrunched up his nose at the smell of fish, covering his nose with his hand. "Smells like shit,"

"Hey, have a little compassion, pals. First, they lost Asgard, then half their people. They're probably just happy to have a home." Bruce explained.

"You shouldn't have come." A woman's voice spoke up.

Bruce turned to her with a smile, opening his arms. "Ah! Valkyrie! Great to see you, angry girl!"

"I think I liked you better either of the other ways."

Bruce ignored the comment and pointed down at Rocket and Blake.

"This is Rocket and that's Blake." He introduced, Blake bringing his hand away from his nose to give the woman a small wave.

"How ya doing?" Rocket greeted.

Valkyrie glanced at the pair before looking back up at Bruce. "He won't see you."

"It's that bad, huh?"

"We only see him once a month when he comes in for "supplies"," Valkyrie explained, waving her hand in the direction of a pile of beer kegs.

Blake looked over at the pile, nodding his head. "Dude knows how to party,"

⭒☆━━━━━━━━━━━━━━☆⭒

ROCKET KNOCKED ON the old wooden door, looking back at the others when he got no reply. He knocked again and then opened the door, Blake following in after him with Bruce having to crouch down in the back.

Blake's face scrunched, waving his hand in front of his face.

"Whew! Something died in here." Rocket exclaimed.

"It's worse than the fish smell," Blake mumbled, shoving his hands into his pockets.

"Hello? Thor!" Bruce called, the sounds of bottles clinking heard from somewhere deeper in the house.

"Are you here about the cable?" Thor asked. "The Cinemax went out two weeks ago and the sports are all kinda fuzzy and whatnot."

The trio made their way into a living room where a shirtless, bigger Thor was bent over grabbing a beer.

"Thor?"

Thor smiled brightly, holding his arms out. "Boys! Oh, my God!"

Blake's face scrunched once again, looking down at Thor's beer gut where his abs had once been.

Oh, that's a shame. He was really hot.

Thor hugged Bruce, who chuckled awkwardly. "Oh, my God, it's so good to see you!" Thor turned and wrapped his arms around Blake, patting his back as the boy seized up. "Oh, my goodness you've grown,"

"So have you," Blake cringed, gently pushing Thor away from him. Thor kept his beaming smile as he turned to Rocket.

"Come here, you cuddly little rascal." Thor laughed, pulling Rocket towards him, ruffling the fur on his head.

"Yeah, no. I'm good. I'm good." Rocket groaned trying to pry the god's hands off him. "That's not necessary."

"Hulk, you know my friends Miek and Korg, right?" Thor chuckled.

"Hey, boys!" Korg waved.

"Hey, guys. Long time no see," Bruce replied, meekly waving his hand.

"Beer's in the bucket. Feel free to log on to the Wi-Fi. No password, obviously." Korg raised his hand to his headset. "Thor, he's back." He pointed at the TV. "That kid on the TV just called me a dickhead again."

"Noobmaster." Thor sneered.

"Yeah, Noobmaster69 called me a dickhead." Korg muttered, giving Thor his headset.

Blake and Rocket looked at each other with raised brows.

"I'm sick of this." Thor raised the headset to his ear. "Noobmaster, hey, it's Thor again. You know, the God of Thunder. Listen, bud, if you don't log off this game immediately, I am gonna fly over to your house, come down to that basement you're hiding in...rip off your arms, and shove them up your butt! Oh, that's right, yes! Go cry to your father, you little weasel!"

"Thank you, Thor,"

Thor nodded, handing Korg his headset back. "Let me know if he bothers you again, okay?"

Korg nodded. "Thank you very much, I will."

Thor sighed, looking back at the three guests. "So, you guys want a drink? What are we drinking? I've got beer, tequila, all sorts of things." Thor opened a beer bottle using the edge of his axe.

"I'll take a beer," Blake answered. Rocket slapped his leg, shaking his head at him. "What? He offered," Blake reasoned, gesturing to Thor with his hands.

Bruce stepped over to Thor, gently putting his large hand on the god's shoulder.

"Buddy. You all right?" He asked carefully.

"Yes, I'm fine. Why? Why, don't I look all right?"

"You look like melted ice cream," Rocket answered, causing Thor to laugh.

Damn, I was gonna say that.

Blake grimaced.

"So, what's up? You just here for a hang, or what?" Thor asked, taking a swig of his beer.

"We need your help." Bruce began. "There might be a chance we could fix everything."

"What, like the cable?" Thor burped. "'Cause that's been driving me bananas for weeks."

"Like Thanos," Bruce interjected abruptly. Blake tightened his jaw, looking at his feet as he squeezed his fists in his pockets.

The once light air of the cabin fluttered away quickly, now replaced with a darkness Blake knew all too well.

Thor huffed, putting his hand on Bruce's jacket and squeezing the material into his fist. He turned to face Bruce, pointing a strong finger in his face.

"Don't...say that name." He chocked.

"Um, yeah," Krog added, standing up from the couch. "We don't actually say that name in here."

Bruce placed his hand on Thor's wrist, giving a sad, sorrowful smile.

"Please take your hand off me." Bruce pulled Thor's hand away, nodding his head. "Now, I know that guy...might scare you."

Thor scoffed. "Why would I be...? Why-Why would I be scared of that guy? I'm the one who killed that guy, remember? Anyone else here kill that guy?" Thor shook his head. "Nope. Didn't think so. Korg, why don't you, uh, tell everybody who chopped Thanos' big head off?"

"Um, Stormbreaker?"

"Who was swinging Stormbreaker?" Thor added bitterly.

"I get it. You're in a rough spot, okay? I've been there myself. And you want to know who helped me out of it?"

"Was it Natasha?" Thor slurred.

"It was you." Bruce corrected. "You helped me."

Thor walked towards the only window in the room, waving his beer towards it.

"So, why don't you ask the...the Asgardians down there how much my help is worth?" Thor slumped down into his chair, bottles around it clattering against his feet. "The ones that are left, anyway."

"I think we could bring them back." Bruce encouraged.

Thor laughed at the statement. "Stop. Stop, okay?" He sniffled, roughly grabbing a bag of candy from the side table. "I know you think I'm down here wallowing in my own self-pity...waiting to be rescued and saved...but I'm fine, okay. We're fine, aren't we?"

"Oh, we're good here, mate." Krog chirped with a wave of his hand.

"So, whatever it is that you're offering, we're not into it. Don't care. Couldn't care less. Goodbye." Thor smiled bitterly at Bruce, shoving a candy into his mouth.

Blake scoffed. He was tired of wasting his time on someone who clearly had no interest in their cause. And he'll be damned if another being was going to stop him from getting Ellie back now that his heart was in it.   

"We need you, pal." Bruce sighed.

Thor chuckled quietly, shaking his head. Rocket stepped forward as Thor took the last swig of his beer bottle.

"There's beer on the ship," Blake added from behind Bruce. Bruce turned, creating a path of sight of Blake as Thor threw his beer bottle to the ground.

"What kind?" The god asked, looking over at the young man who smirked triumphantly.

⭒☆━━━━━━━━━━━━━━☆⭒

SUCCESSFULLY CONVINCING THOR to join, Blake was back at the Avengers headquarters. He sat in a conference room with the rest of the fighters, holographic screens projecting information about each of the infinity stones. They had done a successful trial run to make sure that the new suits and the time machine worked so now all they had to do was find out where and when each infinity stone was in a place where they could each collect it.

"Okay, so the how works." Steve began, standing in the front of the room with Tony. "Now we gotta figure out the when and the where. Almost everyone in this room has had an encounter...with at least one of the six Infinity Stones."

"Or substitute the word "encounter" for "damn near been killed" by one of the six Infinity Stones," Tony added.

"Well, I haven't," A man named Scott spoke up. "-but I don't even know what the hell you're all talking about."

"Regardless," Bruce interrupted. "-we only have enough Pym Particles for one round-trip each. And these stones have been in a lot of different places throughout history."

"Our history." Said Tony, taking a sip from his coffee. "So, not a lot of convenient spots to just drop in, yeah?"

"Which means we have to pick our targets," Clint added.

Tony pointed at him. "Correct."

"So, let's start with the Aether," Steve said. "Thor, what do you know?"

Everyone turned to Thor, who sat in the corner of the room silently. A beer in hand, sunglasses on, and his other hand in the waistband of his pants.

"Is he asleep?" Natasha asked.

"No, no. I'm pretty sure he's dead." Rhodes added.

After getting Thor to wake up because he was in fact, asleep. The team watched Thor stare at the hologram screen of the reality stone.

"Um, where to start?" Thor stammered. "Um...The Aether, firstly, is not a stone. Someone called it a stone before. Um, it's more of an angry sludge sort of a thing...so, someone's gonna need to amend that and stop saying that" Thor took off his sunglasses and put in eye drops. "Here's an interesting story, though, about the Aether. My grandfather, many years ago...had to hide the stone from the Dark Elves." Thor wiggled his fingers and chuckled. "Ooh. Scary beings. So, Jane, actually..."

Blake sighed, dramatically slumping in his seat.

"Oh, there she is. Yeah, so Jane was an old flame of mine. Uh you know, she stuck her hand inside a rock this one time...and then the Aether stuck itself inside her and-and she became very, very sick. And so I had to take to Asgard, which is where I'm from...and we had to try and fix her. We were dating at the time, you see... and I got to introduce her to my-my mother..." Thor sighed, losing the smile that once reminisced on his face. "-who's dead and um...Oh, you know, Jane and I aren't even dating anymore, so...Yes these things happen you know and, nothing lasts forever. The only thing that..."

"Why don't you come sit down?" Tony interrupted, trying to guide Thor away from the front of the room.

"I'm not done yet. The only thing that is permanent in life is impermanence." Thor laughed.

Tony clapped. "Awesome. Eggs? Breakfast?"

"No. I'd like a Bloody Mary." Thor replied.

Now, the power stone was on the hologram ahead, Rocket and Blake taking the spot at the front of the room.

"Quill said he stole the Power Stone from Morag." Rocket explained, walking in the middle of the table while everyone ate boxes of Chinese food.

"Is that a person?" Bruce asked through a mouthful of food.

"No, Morag's a planet. Quill was a person." Blake explained.

"Like a planet?" Scott asked, wide-eyed. He turned to Rocket. "Like in outer space?"

"Oh, look." Rocket cooed. "It's like a little puppy all happy and everything." Rocket petted Scott's head as Blake chuckled, shoveling a spoonful of chow mein into his mouth. "Do you wanna go to space? You wanna go to space, puppy? I'll take you to space."

⭒☆━━━━━━━━━━━━━━☆⭒

THE NEXT DAY Blake tilted his head and stared at the holograms of the six stones. Each was put into a group with a location and time, assigned to a group of the team.

"All right," Steve began. "We have a plan. Six stones, three teams, one shot."

Blake crossed his arms over his chest. A feeling bloomed deep in his chest, clearing the cobwebs of hatred and agony that had grown over the last five years. One thing was very clear now, he was going to get Ellie back home.