The Man that Won't Die Meets Death part 5

Hela found herself caught between dreams and waking. Half-aware, she took stock of her body and nearly went back to sleep on sheer principle. 

Her entire body was exhausted and stiff, far more than it had in years, to her shame. She took a deep breath, grimacing at the aches and pains that small action brought.

But, she was in her bed at least. 

A couple seconds later, and Hela frowned. 

That… Hela blinked awake, her thoughts far slower and heavier than she was used to. That probably reason for concern, considering she didn’t recall ever making it back to Eljudnir. 

A whine beside her bed caused her to look up, and she saw Garm looking at her sadly, the massive wolf perking up as it saw her wake. 

Well, that was one mystery solved. Hela snorted. “Came to fetch me, did you?” Her voice sounded dry and scratchy, but his tail wagged faster at the sound of it. “Thought I told you to stay behind.”

The large wolf merely whined, pushing his massive head under her hand. 

With a grunt, Hela ran her hand through his fur, letting the familiar action soothe her somewhat. The sight of a burn on her arm brought the memories of the previous day caught up to her. 

Hela slumped down, ignoring Garm’s whine at no longer getting pets.

Self-reflection had never been her thing. Despite that, the attempts the previous day had been… Semi-successful, she supposed. Yet that didn’t bring about any clarity of mind. 

What was the point of a goal without a reason behind it? 

Whatever her reasons were to rebel and conquer the Realms and beyond - Save for the memory that it was extremely important to her - she had nothing. What had once been a raging inferno that drove her every action was now mere embers. 

Hela wanted it… Because she used to want it.

And to be fair, there hadn’t been much of a reason to question it. 

One day she would escape Helheim - that was simply fact. And on that day Odin would fight her, and she would defeat him. The natural conclusion had always been that she would continue with her ambitions of war. 

How much did things change if she wasn’t going to wage war? 

She would still escape, that was unavoidable. The runes of her prison were weakening regardless of whether or not she did anything. 

Killing Odin? 

Hela grimaced. 

Her feelings towards her father were… Conflicting. At best. Her relationship with him before the end hadn’t been bad at all - it was primarily the negativity from that final confrontation. 

Hela had hated that he stopped the war - but as she wasn’t likely to start up the war again herself, that made it rather moot. Her defeat at his hands was humiliating, but at the same time there was little shame in losing to a stronger warrior. She hated that he banished her to Helheim, yet considering she had just committed treason and murdered several of his allies, it wasn’t like it was unjustified. 

She’d have to think about it. Odds were the choice would be taken out of her hands. It wasn’t like he’d just let her free after all.

And then after that…

…

Was that truly the totality of her plans upon gaining freedom? 

No, that wasn’t quite true. She did have other plans. Dozens of them. However, they were all tied to a war that would never occur now. Deliberations on which Realms would need the most convincing, which leaders that would be amenable to war, the current military strength of each Realm…

Was she truly so shallow that removing one thing from her plans left her with nothing? 

Hela shook her head violently, banishing those thoughts. It was disheartening, but that just meant she had the time to make new ones (which was kinda frustrating - she had been looking forward to her invasion plans for the Skrulls).

She still had a couple years at least before the runic barrier collapsed entirely. That was time enough. 

Though speaking of time… 

Hela sighed as she finally stood up, ignoring the pain as she got dressed.

“Come, Garm.” Hela instructed the large wolf as she walked out the door, the large fluff ball adopting a more menacing stance the moment they’re in the hallway. “Ganglot will no doubt have something to say about my absence of late.”

Ever since the revelation brought by Steve, Hela had been out of sorts, which meant her usual duties as Goddess of the Dead suffered for a bit. Her servants Ganglati and Ganglot, two old spirits that served under her, could take over for her in a minor capacity. However much they hated it. 

Now that Hela had a plan, she was feeling better. 

Walking to the throne room, Hela frowned at the realization that with all her turmoil, she hadn’t visited Steve for some time. 

After she caught up on her work, she’d visit. Maybe he’d have some ideas.

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Later

After decades of doing so, Hela was well versed in the art of dreamwalking. Her familiarity with Steve had only made it that much easier.

So when she slipped into his dreams, Hela was able to instantly tell that something was wrong. 

Typically, Steve’s dreams came in two particular flavors. The first was surprisingly pleasant- Steve dreamed of the future. No war, perhaps with his mother or his friends. Even many of the dreams about the war were focused on the companionship of his team.

The second was one she was more familiar with as a warrior.

Regret. 

These were dreams that focused on battles that he wished he’d done better at. Been faster, stronger, or smarter. He’d see friends die, or places he knew burned. A particularly persistent one involved his entire team dying on a train. 

She usually shifted those dreams to something more pleasant. Instincts from her years as a Valkyrie. 

This dream was different. More… Present. 

Hela found herself in a large hangar. Multiple airships like the one Steve had crashed in sat waiting in a line. Hela could feel Steve’s presence in one of them. 

There was nobody else in the dream. Whatever it was in reality, here it was a sepulcher. A fleet abandoned. And then there was the ice - creeping and growing across the walls and high above on the ceiling. 

Hela moved around the hangar, breath frosting as she made her way to the airship with Steve. 

She found him in the cockpit, slumped over the control panel, and for a moment Hela almost thought she was looking at a dead body. Would have, if she hadn’t sensed Steve. 

“Steve!” Hela rushed over to her friend and shook him, while at the same time sending a small surge of magic to take control of the dream.

Steve shuddered a bit, an eye opening blearily, but she couldn’t understand him. More importantly, to her shock the dream remained. 

Hela’s eyes widened in realization. 

Steve’s body was trying to wake up. Without being in as deep a sleep, the dream was reflecting more of reality. 

Taking a deep breath, Hela released her energy once more. This time, she gently overlaid it against his natural mental shields. 

Carefully, oh so carefully, Hela lulled his mind back into slumber, removing the chance of a dream. 

Having accomplished that, Hela stepped out of the dream and into reality to see what changed. 

The interior of the airship remained practically identical. But outside the ship…

A storm was raging, and the sheets of ice were shifting. Where once the airship had embedded itself into the ice, it was now rising up once more. 

It didn’t take long for Hela to put everything together. 

In short - the fact that Steve survived all those years ago was, in all honesty, a miracle worthy of the gods.

To keep a person's body in stasis would have to require very strict temperature requirements. The serum in Steve’s body undoubtedly helped, but there was still an insane amount of luck involved. An accident. 

But now the airship Steve was emerging out of the ice, resulting in slightly higher temperature. 

It wasn’t warm by any stretch of the word - but it wasn’t as cold. Whatever the ‘safe’ temperature range was, it was clear they were drifting out of it. 

Hela felt a sinking feeling of horror as she thought through all this. 

She was no scientist, nor was she a healer. She couldn’t say how long it would take - a week? A month? Surely not longer than a year. 

Best case scenario if this continued? Steve would pull off another miracle and wake up successfully (hopefully avoiding organ damage as his body woke up with his lungs full of ice…) only to emerge in a frozen tundra, confused and alone, miles of ice and ocean between him and civilization. 

Worst case…?

Hela found herself shaking, her form flickering ephemerally in the frozen waste as rage and indignation suffused her very being. 

No! 

The knowledge that the barrier to her prison would fall in a few more years wasn’t enough. Steve was going to perish in as little as a year, and she couldn’t do a thing about it! 

Could she break out early? 

Hela debated that for a moment before dismissing it. Maybe if she was in Asgard she could break it. But in Helheim? No. The only thing it would do would be to alert Odin. 

Being the Goddess of Death gave her a bit of a unique perception regarding death. But if Steve were to die here and now, she would never see him again. 

Unacceptable. 

But what could she do about it? How could she help? 

It was only when she felt a prickling of energy trickle over her did Hela look up. It wasn’t close by - not at all - but it was a presence she hadn’t felt in an age. 

It fell from the sky and crashed into Midgard, the presence of additional spell work failing to conceal an aura she knew intimately. 

Mjolnir. 

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Author's Notes:

In the MCU timeline, we’ve just reached the banishment of Thor.

Anyways, this contained a lot of self reflection. But this time it was with a doggo, so that makes it all better. 

We know from the Marvel movies that the reason Captain America was found was because the plane was sticking up out of the ice. Obviously it’s still beyond cold, but it’s not as cold. And that just might be enough to disrupt the ‘makeshift cryo chamber’ the plane had become. 

A couple readers have speculated that the reason Hela was experiencing issue with her memories is because somebody was manipulating her mind at the time, but I will go ahead and say that that is not my intent. 

I don’t think people realize just how long 2-3 thousand years is… like, that amount of time is truly insane. Even assuming Asgardians have better memories than human, that amount of time is bound to change anybody. 

And people do change - what one person wants desperately at one time is almost bound to change a decade later. 

Imagine somebody that decides at a young age they want to go into Music Theory in college. Maybe they were told they were good at it at the time, or they enjoyed it at the time… Whatever the case, the spark was lit. So they have that expectation for years. And when they actually get to college, they naturally act on it. Because it’s what’s expected of them, or they expect it of themselves. 

Maybe that person once would have enjoyed a music major, or a career in music. But over the years, As they grew, things change. They might go several semesters into a program without considering whether they’d be happier in another.

This is how I see this version of Hela. Somebody who changed without realizing it, and when she actually poked some holes at her motivations, they crumbled. 

Does that make sense?