Chapter 161:
– Odin –
Odin sat alone upon the throne of Asgard.
The vast golden chamber had never felt so empty. No guards stood beneath the towering columns. No courtiers waited to praise his wisdom. No servants moved quietly along the walls. Even the ravens had been banished from their usual perches.
He had dismissed everyone.
They did not need to see their king brooding. They did not need to witness the moments when his grip tightened around Gungnir until the ancient spear's golden shaft groaned beneath his fingers.
Most of all, they did not need to see how close the All-Father had come to losing control.
Everything had gone wrong.
Thor had abandoned him for Midgard, casting aside his father's authority for the company of drunken barbarians and mortal women. Loki had followed, fleeing to the same primitive realm rather than facing the consequences of his failures. Both sons had chosen strangers over the king who had shaped their lives and given them purpose.
Frigga had betrayed him as well.
Worse, she had fled into the arms of that fox creature.
Odin's fingers tightened around Gungnir once more.
Haru.
The name itself had become an irritation.
Young. Handsome. Powerful. Surrounded by women who looked at him with a kind of willing devotion Odin had always considered dangerously inefficient. The creature had walked into Asgard, mocked its laws, humiliated its warriors, stolen members of its royal family, and destroyed the Bifrost as though tens of thousands of years of Asgardian history were kindling beneath his blue flames.
Then there was Hela.
His terrible firstborn had been released from Helheim after millennia of carefully enforced isolation. She had returned to Asgard, attacked loyal soldiers, and vanished into Midgard alongside Frigga.
The daughter Odin had erased from history now walked freely beneath alien skies.
He had committed no error in imprisoning her. Hela was violent, ambitious, and uncontrollable. She knew too much about the foundations of his empire, the worlds he had burned, and the blood beneath Asgard's polished gold.
More importantly, she possessed a legitimate claim to his throne.
That alone made her evil enough.
Yet Frigga's betrayal cut deeper.
Odin remembered the Vanir princess she had once been: proud, defiant, and wild, with fury burning behind her eyes as she stood among the ruins of her conquered people. She had refused his first offer of marriage. She had rejected the second as well. Even after Vanaheim's armies lay broken and its nobles knelt, she had continued to resist him.
So Odin had corrected her.
The enchantments had required years of painstaking work. He had trimmed away memories that encouraged rebellion, softened hatred into uncertainty, redirected loyalty, and replaced fear with affection. He had buried the huntress beneath the queen, the prisoner beneath the wife.
It had been elegant magic.
Frigga had smiled beside him. She had strengthened Asgard's claim over Vanaheim, raised his sons, soothed political rivals, and remained loyal for more than a thousand years. Their marriage had been peaceful and productive.
Whether that happiness had been manufactured was irrelevant.
It had existed because Odin had willed it to exist.
Then Haru had torn it apart.
The fox had somehow helped Frigga recover the identity Odin had spent centuries suppressing. Instead of recognizing the danger of those restored memories and returning to her rightful place, she had allowed the creature to seduce her.
Odin had seen enough before the corrupted Bifrost swallowed them. He had seen the way Frigga clung to Haru. He had seen the fox dive after her without hesitation. He had seen an affection in her face that had required no enchantment at all.
It did not matter.
She belonged to Asgard.
She belonged to him.
Once the dwarves repaired the Bifrost, Odin would remind her.
His armies would march upon Vanaheim. They would burn its forests, topple its temples, and drag its surviving nobles before her in chains. Frigga would watch the homeland she had suddenly remembered loving turn to ash because of her betrayal.
Hela would receive a different punishment. Odin would strip away her renewed connection to Asgard in front of the entire court. He would break her claim, destroy whatever confidence Helheim had failed to extinguish, and imprison her somewhere even the dead could not reach.
A cold grin pulled at Odin's mouth as he imagined it all...
The immense doors at the end of the throne room suddenly flew open.
Their impact shook dust from the golden archway and sent a thunderous echo through the deserted chamber.
Odin surged upright, Gungnir striking the floor as power rolled outward from the throne. Lightning crawled over the spearhead. He had expressly forbidden interruptions. Whoever had disobeyed would learn how costly it was to disturb the All-Father.
His fury cooled into sharp displeasure when Heimdall entered.
The eternal watcher crossed the chamber with rigid discipline. His golden armor showed damage from the recent destruction of the Bifrost, but his posture remained perfect. He stopped at the prescribed distance from the throne and lowered himself onto one knee.
Heimdall bowed his head deeply. "All-Father, I bring news from Midgard."
Odin remained standing and did not give him permission to rise. "News important enough to justify disobeying a direct command, I trust."
Heimdall lowered his head another fraction. "Frigga and Hela have been found."
Odin's single eye narrowed. "You have been searching for weeks."
Shame tightened Heimdall's expression, though his kneeling posture never shifted. "My failure has no excuse, All-Father. The restaurant remained entirely beyond my sight. They simply did not exist to my perception."
Odin rested both hands atop Gungnir. Odin's voice hardened. "Yet you see them now."
Heimdall kept his eyes lowered. "She and Hela left the restaurant's protection yesterday. Frigga's concealment weakened once they entered a crowded Midgardian city. I traced the disturbance and confirmed their identities before coming before you."
Odin's thumb moved slowly over the spear's carved grip. "You waited an entire day."
Heimdall accepted the rebuke without protest. "I would not disturb the throne with uncertainty. I verified their movements, their companions, and the object they carried."
Odin went completely still.
He did not like the care with which Heimdall had spoken those final words.
Odin's voice became dangerously quiet. "What object?"
Heimdall finally raised his eyes toward the throne. "The Tesseract."
For one suspended moment, nothing moved in the throne room.
Then Gungnir creaked beneath Odin's grip.
The Tesseract was no mere Midgardian relic. It could fold space, bridge impossible distances, and provide enough energy to tear open paths between realms. In the correct hands, it could substitute for the shattered Bifrost.
In Frigga's hands, it might repair the bridge.
In Hela's hands, it might bring an army to Asgard—
Odin crushed that thought before it could fully form.
His worst fear had ceased to be theoretical. Hela possessed a path home, and the fox creature had already demonstrated an ability to cross boundaries even Heimdall could not perceive.
Odin descended the first step beneath the throne. "Is Hela moving against Asgard?"
Heimdall straightened slightly while remaining on one knee. "No, All-Father."
Odin's gaze sharpened. "Is she gathering an army?"
Heimdall's brow furrowed with restrained bewilderment. "She was not."
Odin descended another step. "Then what is she doing?"
Heimdall hesitated for the first time. "She appeared to be relaxing at a Midgardian resort in a city called Monte Carlo..."
Odin stared at him.
Hela possessed the Tesseract. Frigga possessed knowledge of Asgard's oldest magic. Haru had already destroyed the Bifrost once.
And they were treating the situation as a holiday.
Odin planted Gungnir against the golden floor. "Share your sight immediately!"
Heimdall remained kneeling as light began gathering behind his eyes. "I will need to narrow my perception through the remaining interference."
Odin lifted two fingers in reluctant permission. "Rise and show me."
Heimdall stood.
Golden radiance spilled from his eyes and spread across the throne-room floor in branching runes. The patterns climbed into the air, joining into a broad circular window of rippling light.
The first image was indistinct. Blue and gold bled together. Buildings stretched into impossible angles before snapping back into place. A pulse of cosmic energy distorted the picture, followed by the unmistakable shimmer of Frigga's Vanir magic.
Heimdall planted his feet and focused.
The image stabilized.
Far below, brilliant blue water surrounded a crowded coastal city of white stone, glass, and steel. Expensive ships filled the harbor. Thousands of mortals occupied grandstands erected along blocked streets. Uniformed workers moved behind barriers while engines roared through the city.
Odin studied the gathering with a soldier's suspicion. "Is this a military muster?"
Heimdall examined the streets through their shared vision. "No, All-Father. It is a… sporting event?"
Odin watched brightly colored vehicles hurtle around a narrow circuit, their engines screaming as they pursued one another without leaving the ground. "They gather in their thousands to watch metal boxes travel in… circles…?"
– Haru –
The metal boxes roared past the club's glass walls in a blur of color and screaming engines.
Both of my fox ears twitched toward the circuit.
Humans had gathered in their thousands to watch brightly painted machines travel in circles at dangerous speeds.
Honestly? I could see the appeal.
I could also already imagine how angry Kunou was going to be when she found out I had attended the Monaco Grand Prix without her.
She would put her hands on her hips, puff out her cheeks, and accuse me of deliberately excluding her from something awesome. Then she would insist that she was a superhero who had fought Nazis, giant robots, and an entire group of alien warriors, so a car race couldn't possibly be too dangerous for her.
She would make several excellent points.
Unfortunately, I also remembered that someone was supposed to attack this race.
Probably. Maybe?
It had been nearly twenty years—subjectively, at least—since I'd watched Iron Man 2 in my previous life. Since then, I had been reincarnated as a kitsune, opened an interdimensional restaurant, and accumulated enough memories to make my original human lifetime feel like a dream I'd had after eating questionable shellfish.
I remembered Tony driving one of his own race cars.
I remembered electricity.
There might have been whips involved.
I vaguely recalled a shirtless Russian man with a grudge, although that description didn't narrow things down as much as it probably should have…
Suddenly, a strange prickle touched the space between my shoulder blades.
My right ear turned toward the ceiling as all ten of my tails stopped moving.
For half a second, it felt as though someone had focused an enormous eye upon me from very far away. My senses stretched through the club, crossed the adjoining terraces, and rolled over the packed streets surrounding the circuit.
Thousands of heartbeats.
Hundreds of cameras.
Private security carrying concealed firearms.
Nothing that explained the sensation.
The feeling disappeared as quickly as it had come.
I frowned at my reflection in the glass, then stored the concern beside the vague movie memories and everything else Future Haru would eventually need to worry about.
Present Haru had a party to supervise.
The VIP club occupied several floors of a white stone building overlooking one of the circuit's tighter turns. Its glass walls gave the guests a perfect view of the cars flashing through the city below, though most of the people inside seemed more interested in being seen by one another.
Champagne circulated on silver trays. Wealthy investors laughed too loudly at jokes that weren't funny. Celebrities posed near the windows. Corporate executives exchanged business cards while pretending they hadn't spent the last five minutes staring at my tails.
I had stopped hiding them.
Hela had been right yesterday. Hundreds of people had already filmed me at the hotel pool, and at least three videos of Milim launching half the guests into the hedges with a magically enhanced waterslide had gone viral overnight. Maintaining a human illusion after that would have been less like preserving secrecy and more like wearing a fake mustache to a family reunion.
My fox ears, golden eyes, and ten tails were fully visible.
Some people looked away whenever I caught them staring. Others discreetly held up their phones. A group of engineers had spent the last fifteen minutes debating whether my tails were controlled by pneumatic actuators, artificial musculature, or a neural interface Tony had invented without telling the public.
At least four guests seemed convinced that I was an advanced Stark android.
That theory offended me more than it should have.
No machine could maintain fur this soft without hours of specialized conditioning.
Milim had claimed the dessert table near the center of the club.
I had prepared most of the food myself that morning, partly because I didn't trust the venue's catering team to feed a group containing two goddesses, a Demon Lord, a super-soldier, and Tony Stark. Small fruit tarts, chocolate éclairs, almond pastries, macarons, miniature cheesecakes, and several varieties of filled choux buns had once been arranged in elegant towers.
Milim had reduced those towers to rubble.
Three empty trays surrounded her. A fourth was rapidly approaching extinction. Two members of the catering staff hovered at a cautious distance, visibly struggling with the conflict between their professional duty to preserve the display and their survival instincts.
Milim stuffed an entire raspberry tart into her mouth before lifting both thumbs in my direction.
Her cheeks bulged adorably before she called across the room. "Haru! These little pie things are amazing! Make more!"
I raised one hand in acknowledgment while privately deciding that keeping Milim occupied with dessert was an excellent strategic choice.
Natasha stood near a support column with a glass of champagne she had never actually drunk. To everyone else, she looked like a beautiful woman casually watching the race. I could see her gaze moving between entrances, service corridors, balconies, security personnel, and the rooftops visible through the glass.
Hela wore a black-and-emerald evening gown that hugged her body like it had been designed by someone who understood both royal fashion and psychological warfare. Her black hair fell loose down her back, and a slit in the gown revealed one long leg whenever she moved.
Frigga stood beside her in ivory and gold. Fine Vanir embroidery wound through the fabric in patterns resembling vines, antlers, and crescent moons. The gown was elegant rather than revealing, but elegance had never stopped Frigga from leaving me incapable of coherent thought.
My tails wagged whenever I looked at them. I ordered them to stop. They ignored me.
Hela caught me staring first.
The Goddess of Death turned her head, met my eyes across the room, and slowly smiled. It wasn't a polite smile.
One of my tails thumped against the side of a chair.
Frigga followed Hela's gaze a moment later. A faint blush spread across her cheeks when she saw me, but she maintained her composure and returned her attention to the humans gathered around them.
Mostly. Her eyes flicked back to me twice.
That did not help my tails.
Hela appeared to have gathered a shipping magnate, two bankers, an aerospace executive, and the representative of a Mediterranean investment fund around herself. She was already preparing for the economic consequences of overthrowing her father.
I admired a woman who planned ahead.
Hela lifted her chin and offered the shipping magnate one black-nailed hand. "I am Hela, Goddess of Death, Odin's firstborn daughter, and future Queen of Asgard."
The shipping magnate shook her hand with the uncertain expression of a man trying to determine whether he was being invited into a joke. "Asgard. Is that a sovereign wealth fund?"
Hela's smile sharpened by a fraction. "It is a realm that spans a continent suspended within the branches of the World Tree. Its current ruler is a tyrant. I intend to remove his head and take his throne."
The aerospace executive glanced toward Tony as though expecting hidden cameras to emerge from the walls. "Is this part of Stark's presentation?"
Frigga rested her fingertips lightly upon Hela's forearm before addressing the group. "My companion is discussing an eventual correction of Asgard's succession. The process may create opportunities for trade between our peoples once the transition of power has been completed."
I stared at Frigga in admiration.
She had made a violent coup and public decapitation sound like an administrative reorganization.
The older banker studied Frigga's perfectly composed expression before slowly lowering his champagne. "You're serious."
Hela's eyes gleamed as she turned back to him. "Painfully."
The Tesseract remained invisible beneath layers of Frigga's Vanir magic. I could feel the faint distortion concealed within Hela's shadow, but no mortal in the room appeared aware that the future Queen of Asgard had brought an Infinity Stone to a networking event.
That was probably for the best.
A familiar argument drew closer behind me.
Pepper's heels struck the marble in quick, clipped steps as she followed Tony through the party. Her shoulders were tight, her mouth had settled into a narrow line, and she carried herself like a woman trying to prevent a reckless billionaire from turning an internationally regulated sporting event into his personal amusement park.
Pepper reached for Tony's elbow before speaking. "No, Tony. Absolutely not. You are not a registered driver, you have not trained for this race, and you cannot decide to replace someone five minutes before he gets into the car!"
Tony slipped smoothly out of her grasp without appearing to acknowledge that she had spoken. He wore tinted glasses indoors, because of course he did, and his expression carried the particular kind of innocence he only adopted when preparing to commit a very expensive crime.
Tony stopped beside me and casually inspected the race through the windows. "Haru, hypothetical question."
I glanced at Pepper's expression and found all the confirmation I needed that the question would not be hypothetical.
Tony tucked one hand into his pocket before continuing. "Let's say, purely for the sake of intellectual curiosity, that I drove one of my race cars. If I crashed a race car at two hundred miles per hour, how quickly could you stop me from dying?" The humor in his voice was convincing.
My ears lifted as I shrugged. "It wouldn't be a problem. Unless the car somehow launches you into another dimension, I could put you back together."
Pepper closed her eyes as if my answer had caused her physical pain.
My tails rose with sudden interest before I added, "But if you get to drive one, I want a turn."
Tony slowly turned his head toward me. His face lit up.
Pepper opened her eyes and stared at me with the betrayed horror of someone who had expected the responsible adult to help.
That had been her first mistake.
Tony's grin widened as he held out his hand. "Two laps for me. Then it's yours."
I clasped his hand without hesitation. "Deal."
Pepper planted both hands on her hips before addressing us. "You cannot exchange drivers in the middle of the race. Tony taking the car will already get the team disqualified. Giving it to a ten-tailed restaurant owner from another Dimension afterward may get everyone banned from Monaco."
Tony released my hand and began counting on his fingers. "The driver gets a bonus. The pit crew gets a bonus. The officials get whatever fine they invent after pretending to be outraged. Everybody leaves richer."
Pepper stared at him for a long, silent moment.
Tony lowered his hand before offering his conclusion. "Therefore, everybody leaves happy."
I nodded because the logic seemed sound to me.
Pepper shifted her stare in my direction. "Please stop encouraging him."
I flattened my ears slightly before defending myself. "I've never driven a race car."
Pepper's shoulders sagged. "That is not the argument you think it is."
Tony clapped me on the shoulder and turned toward the exit. "Come on, Fox Guy. Let's go make poor decisions at professional speeds."
I followed him eagerly.
Before leaving, I caught Natasha's eye across the room. Her gaze moved from me to Tony and then toward the circuit. She gave me the smallest possible nod, confirming that she would remain with the others and continue monitoring the club.
Milim was still eating.
Hela was discussing post-revolutionary space shipping lanes.
Frigga had begun asking the aerospace executive surprisingly technical questions about modern propulsion.
They would be fine for ten minutes. Probably.
Tony, Pepper, and I moved through a controlled corridor connecting the club to the paddock. Security personnel repeatedly started to challenge me, noticed Tony, noticed my tails, and then seemed to decide that whatever was happening exceeded their pay grade.
Spectators pressed against barriers to film us. Track workers openly stared. One mechanic walked backward for six full steps while examining my tails before colliding with a stack of tires.
I overheard two men debating whether Tony had built me.
For a moment, I considered telling them that I ran on premium ramen and unresolved emotional baggage.
I decided preserving the mystery was more dignified.
Near the entrance to the track facilities, we passed Steve and Coulson.
Steve stood in a borrowed blue shirt that looked ready to surrender around his shoulders. He maintained the patient, attentive expression of a man who had once endured military intelligence briefings and therefore knew how to suffer politely.
Coulson stood beside him with a notebook in one hand and a set of vintage Captain America cards peeking from the inside pocket of his jacket. Judging by the number of filled pages, the interrogation had continued from the hotel pool yesterday with only minimal interruption.
Coulson tapped his pen against the notebook before asking, "When you infiltrated the HYDRA facility in Austria, did you know the motorcycle would survive the jump, or was that an improvised decision?"
Steve rubbed one hand over his face before answering. "Agent Coulson, I've told you twice. Most of that mission was improvised."
Coulson's eyes brightened as he scribbled something down. "So the official account was accurate…"
Steve looked toward me as we passed.
There was a silent plea for rescue in his eyes.
I did not answer that plea. Mostly because I'd found out yesterday that he attacked Hela, and even though she easily subdued him, and it was mostly her fault in the first place, I was still a bit peeved at him…
No one said I had to be logical all the time. Or even most of the time…
We entered the Stark garage to find the official driver already dressed and preparing to climb into the car.
Tony walked directly toward him.
The driver pulled off his helmet and stared. "Mr. Stark, what are you doing?"
Tony reached for the zipper of his jacket before answering. "Driving."
The driver's eyes widened. "This is a sanctioned race. You can't just take my car."
Tony paused halfway through removing his jacket. "Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars."
The driver closed his mouth.
Tony tilted his head. "That's the bonus for letting me take two laps."
The driver looked at the car, looked at Tony, and then carefully set his helmet on the billionaire's open palm. "Try not to grind third gear..."
Pepper threw both hands into the air.
The chief engineer hurried forward with a clipboard clutched against his chest. "Mr. Stark, the regulations—"
Tony held up one finger. "Every member of the pit crew gets fifty thousand as a bonus."
The chief engineer stopped.
Several mechanics stopped with him.
Tony pointed toward me with the driver's helmet. "Then Haru takes over."
The garage became very quiet.
Every engineer looked at my ten tails.
I looked at the narrow cockpit.
One of my tails curled thoughtfully around my leg.
The chief engineer lowered his clipboard. "Where would they go?"
Tony studied my tails as though the question had only just occurred to him. "We'll figure it out…"
The chief engineer blinked.
I spread my tails into a loose fan. "I can retract them with shapeshifting if I need to."
The younger engineer looked almost disappointed that I solved the problem for him. I could tell this was the type of guy Tony Stark would hire.
Tony disappeared into the changing area while the crew began debating harness placement, drag coefficients, and whether ten independently moving tails would improve cornering stability or launch the car into the harbor.
Pepper turned toward me.
Her expression softened slightly, allowing the concern beneath her irritation to show. "You really can save him if something goes wrong?"
I let my senses reach toward Tony through the wall before nodding. "Yes. I wouldn't have agreed otherwise."
Pepper searched my face for another moment. She did not look reassured, exactly, but some of the tension left her shoulders.
Tony emerged in the Stark racing suit less than three minutes later. He looked entirely too comfortable for a man about to enter a professional race without preparation.
Pepper made a helpless sound as Tony climbed inside.
Moments later, the car screamed out of the garage and joined the circuit.
The noise struck my enhanced hearing. I flattened my ears against my head and stepped toward the pit wall beside Pepper. Hot rubber, fuel, brake dust, saltwater, sweat, and heated metal layered over one another until the entire city smelled like a machine pushed close to destruction.
The cars were slower than I was.
They were still magnificent.
They tore through streets never designed for those speeds, passing stone walls and steel barriers with inches to spare. Every driver balanced momentum, traction, and survival through turns where one poor choice could reduce millions of dollars of engineering to burning debris.
My tails began wagging again.
Tony's voice crackled through the team radio as he accelerated onto a straight. "You seeing this, Fox Guy?"
I leaned toward the pit microphone while tracking his car through the city. "I'm seeing you abuse the transmission."
Tony's laughter broke through the static. "One lap down. One more, then you can show me how a mythical restaurant owner takes a hairpin."
I rested both hands on the barrier. "Don't dent it before I get there."
Tony entered his second lap.
Pepper's shoulders loosened by perhaps half an inch.
I began wondering whether Tony would actually surrender the car when he returned.
Then the sound of the crowd changed.
The cheering fractured into screams.
A race official stumbled backward through an access gate and fell hard onto the pavement.
All ten of my tails stopped wagging.
A broad man with long, tangled hair stepped onto the circuit. A crude mechanical harness wrapped around his bare chest, its central reactor burning with harsh white-blue light.
He lowered his arms. Electricity erupted from the handles in his fists. Two glowing whips uncoiled across the asphalt, their lengths burning black scars into the track.
A race car rounded the corner ahead of Tony.
The man swung once. One electrified lash sliced through the car's front end, sending tires, carbon fiber, and burning fragments spinning through the air.
Tony was already approaching the next blind bend.
Right. The angry Russian with the electric whips…
Pepper yelped beside me as I vanished.
I crossed the circuit faster than the screaming crowd could follow. The ruined race car had already begun to tumble. Its severed front assembly bounced down the track in a storm of carbon fiber, sparks, and burning rubber while the remaining cockpit spun sideways toward the barrier.
The driver came free during the second rotation.
One moment he was inside the wreckage. The next, he was tumbling through the air with one arm bent at an angle arms were not supposed to bend, his helmet reflecting the track beneath him.
He was going to strike the pavement headfirst.
Three of my tails lashed out.
The first wrapped around his waist. The second caught his shoulders and immobilized his neck. The third swept beneath his legs, turning what would have been a grisly impact into an awkward but survivable cradle of golden fur.
Two more tails spread into a broad shield behind us.
Pieces of the car struck them in rapid succession. A tire bounced away. A jagged section of suspension disappeared into my fur before dropping harmlessly to the asphalt. Something that might once have been part of the front wing shattered against the youki reinforcing my tails.
I lowered the driver onto the pavement as gently as I could.
His heart hammered beneath his racing suit. His arm was broken, several ribs were cracked, and his body had absorbed enough force to leave him unconscious, but he was alive. Nothing immediately threatened his spine or brain.
That was good enough until the medical teams reached him.
The shriek of tortured brakes dragged my attention down the circuit.
Tony's car rounded the blind bend with all four tires locked.
Smoke poured from the rubber. The car slewed sideways, missing the broad man in the middle of the track by less than a meter.
The whip-wielding stranger twisted his torso and swung.
His second electrified lash cut through the front of Tony's car.
The nose cone, front wing, and most of the suspension came apart in a shower of sparks. Both front tires tore free. The remains of the car slammed onto the asphalt and spun through half a rotation before grinding to a stop a few dozen feet away.
Tony remained upright.
More importantly, Tony remained inside.
Unfortunately, my promised race car did not remain a race car.
I stared at its mutilated front end.
Coolant and hydraulic fluid spread across the track. The surviving rear tires slowly stopped turning. A piece of bodywork carrying part of the Stark Industries logo detached itself, wobbled once, and fell flat with a soft plastic clatter.
There went my turn…
I had known that car for less than twenty minutes, but we could have had something special…
Behind me, track marshals sprinted toward the injured driver. I transferred him into their care before crossing the distance to Tony's wreck at a considerably less alarming speed.
Tony wrestled with his harness for several seconds before tearing himself free. He climbed out, planted both feet on the track, and ripped off his helmet.
His face had lost most of its color.
The tinted visor had hidden it from the crowd, but I could hear his heartbeat beating hard enough to qualify as percussion. His hands trembled slightly around the helmet. His eyes kept flicking toward the glowing whips, calculating distance and timing while pretending he wasn't standing unarmored in front of a man who had just sliced two race cars apart.
Tony spread one arm, using indignation to cover the fear. "Holy fucking shit. Who the fuck are you supposed to be? Are you with HYDRA?"
The broad man stared at Tony from beneath a curtain of tangled hair. The crude reactor embedded in his harness pulsed through the ribs of exposed machinery covering his chest.
His mouth curled with years of fermented hatred.
The stranger tightened both hands around his whip controls. "I have no words for son of murderer and thief."
Tony recoiled as if the man had crossed a line that attempted murder had somehow failed to reach. "Hey. My mother was a saint!"
The stranger's expression twisted in offended disbelief. "I mean Howard Stark!"
Tony blinked once. Then his shoulders loosened by a fraction, and a crooked grin pulled at his mouth. "Oh. You hate my dad too. We have that in common, I guess."
For the first time since he had stepped onto the track, the whip-wielding man seemed uncertain. His brow furrowed. His mouth opened, but nothing came out. He had apparently prepared for Tony to deny his accusations, defend Howard's legacy, or arrogantly dismiss him.
He had not prepared for shared parental resentment.
Tony tipped his head, almost conversationally. "Was there more, or was attempted vehicular manslaughter the entire presentation?"
The stranger's confusion hardened back into rage.
His right arm snapped forward.
The electrified whip tore through the air directly toward Tony's chest.
I stepped between them and caught it.
White-blue electricity exploded across my hand.
It tingled.
Not unpleasantly, either. It felt a little like the cheap electrotherapy machine Yasaka had purchased after someone convinced her it would help with lower-back pain from sitting behind a desk sixteen hours a day. She had used it twice, forgotten about it, and left Kunou to discover that attaching the pads to her own tails made her fur stand straight out.
The broad man hauled backward with both hands.
The whip went taut between us.
I did not move.
He planted his boots, leaned his entire weight away from me, and increased the output from his reactor until the exposed machinery screamed. Electricity brightened around my fist, scorching a branching pattern into the track beneath my feet.
I continued not moving.
Tony's posture sagged as relief broke through his carefully assembled bravado. He pressed one hand over his chest and released a shaky breath. "I almost peed myself. Did you have to arrive so dramatically late to help me?"
I looked at him. Then I shrugged. He had seemed busy having a conversation.
My fourth tail suddenly snapped between us!
A rifle round struck the golden fur less than an inch from Tony's left eye.
The bullet flattened against the youki saturating my tail. Its copper jacket peeled backward like the petals of an ugly flower before the ruined projectile dropped to the track and rolled between Tony's shoes.
The rifle's report reached us a fraction of a second later.
Tony looked down.
Then he looked at my tail.
Then his head turned toward the grandstands.
A man vaulted over the upper railing.
He dropped nearly thirty feet, hit the roof of a temporary camera booth, rolled across it, and launched himself down onto the circuit. Long dark hair framed a black lower-face mask. Heavy tactical armor covered most of his body, and his left sleeve ended in a segmented metal arm that flashed beneath the Monaco sunlight.
An assault rifle sat against his shoulder before his boots finished sliding across the asphalt.
He aimed at Tony.
The muzzle flashed.
My tail moved.
The first bullet vanished into a blur of golden fur.
Then the second.
Then the third.
The rifle erupted into sustained automatic fire. The masked assassin swept the weapon from Tony toward me, trying to spread the burst across both targets.
I kept the same tail between us.
It snapped from point to point too quickly for the human eye to follow, catching every round rather than deflecting them into the crowd. Flattened pieces of copper and lead accumulated inside my fur before raining onto the track in a line of smoking metal.
The assassin adjusted his aim twice.
It made no difference.
His magazine ran dry.
The rifle clicked on an empty chamber.
My tail stopped moving and curled behind me. Smoke rose lazily from several golden strands, though the fur itself remained undamaged.
Tony stared at the pile of flattened bullets. Fear gave way to the particular kind of excitement he usually reserved for technology that violated accepted laws of physics. "That was awesome. Way more impressive than that scene in The Matrix."
The assassin released the empty magazine.
His metal hand slammed a replacement into place.
Before he could chamber another round, a woman in a dark dress vaulted the concrete barrier separating the paddock from the circuit.
Natasha landed in a crouch. Her eyes locked onto the metal arm. Her beautiful face went pale, and a kind of recognition I had never seen from her cut through her composure. Natasha surged upright and pointed toward the masked attacker. "That's the Winter Soldier!"
The name struck something in the back of my crowded memory.
Cold laboratories. HYDRA. A metal arm. Captain America fighting someone he had once known—
A red, white, and blue circle slammed into the Winter Soldier's rifle before I could assemble the pieces.
The weapon broke in half.
Steve crossed the track immediately behind his shield.
He hit the Winter Soldier around the waist with enough force to carry both of them through a stack of safety barriers. Plastic and steel scattered across the circuit. They struck the asphalt, rolled twice, and separated with the instinctive coordination of men who had spent their lives fighting opponents strong enough to survive them.
Steve came up first.
His shield returned to his hand just as the Winter Soldier's metal fist struck it.
The impact rang across the track like a cathedral bell.
Steve's boots slid backward, carving black lines through the rubber and debris. He twisted the shield aside, caught the assassin's organic wrist, and drove a knee toward his ribs.
The Winter Soldier absorbed the strike, hooked his metal arm behind the shield, and yanked Steve forward.
Their foreheads nearly collided.
Steve planted one foot and threw the assassin over his hip.
The Winter Soldier rotated in midair, landed on one knee, and swept Steve's legs out from under him. Steve caught himself on one hand, kicked upward, and struck the masked man beneath the chin.
Neither of them spoke.
Neither of them looked away.
Something about their matching rhythm bothered me. Steve fought like a soldier who had learned in alleys and battlefields rather than a modern training room. The assassin anticipated those habits as if he had seen them before.
Behind me, the electrical pitch of the whip changed.
The broad Russian had realized I was watching the other fight.
His left arm swept toward my unprotected side, sending the second glowing lash at my neck.
I raised my free hand without turning around.
The whip struck my palm.
My fingers closed around it.
Electricity flooded over both arms as I stood between two overlapping assassination attempts, holding one sparking whip in each hand. The Russian pulled against me with everything his reactor could provide, Steve and the Winter Soldier tore pieces out of the circuit behind us, and Tony's ruined race car continued leaking its mechanical lifeblood across the pavement.
I was beginning to take the loss of my test drive personally…
I yanked both arms toward myself.
The broad man left the ground, he came hurtling toward me.
One of my tails caught him around the waist before he could collide with me. Another pinned both arms against his sides. A third wrapped around his ankles and lifted them from the track, leaving him suspended horizontally in front of me like an especially angry piece of luggage.
I studied his crude harness for a moment.
The central reactor was mounted over his sternum rather than implanted inside his chest. Thick cables ran from its housing to the control assemblies around his arms, feeding energy into the whips still trapped inside my hands.
That simplified things.
I glanced toward the ruined front end of Tony's race car before returning my attention to the man responsible. "You broke my car."
The Russian twisted inside my tails and bared his teeth. "It was Stark car."
I considered the distinction. Technically, he was right. Emotionally, he could go fuck himself.
I flexed my hands.
Both whip handles collapsed. The glowing cables flickered violently before the electricity vanished and their segmented lengths dropped lifelessly against the track.
The Russian's expression changed.
I let the broken handles fall, reached beneath the reactor housing, and curled my fingers around the reinforced mounting frame.
I pulled.
The reactor came free in my hand with a shower of sparks, trailing severed wires and pieces of scorched metal. The harness surrounding the man's torso went dark.
Tony stood beside the remains of his race car with his helmet hanging forgotten from one hand.
I tossed the reactor toward him.
Tony fumbled the helmet, nearly dropped both objects, and finally trapped the reactor against his chest with both hands. His earlier fear disappeared beneath immediate technical fascination. He rotated the device, studying its damaged housing, improvised magnetic coils, and the geometry of the luminous core.
Tony pushed his tinted glasses higher with one finger. "That is a miniature arc reactor alright. Not as good as my own genius of course!"
The man I was holding growled in frustration.
Tony's expression tightened as he examined one of the exposed components. "It's inefficient, unstable, built with what looks like repurposed industrial equipment, and probably leaking enough radiation to make everyone's future children interesting—but it works."
Tony looked from the reactor to the restrained man.
The Russian stared back at him with naked hatred.
A tremendous metallic impact rang out behind us.
Tony and I turned at the same time.
Steve and the Winter Soldier were still fighting.
They moved through the shattered barriers in an almost perfectly matched rhythm. Steve drove the edge of his shield toward the masked man's throat. The Winter Soldier caught it against his metal forearm, twisted, and tried to wrench the shield free.
Steve released it rather than allow himself to be pulled off balance.
His fist struck the assassin's ribs.
The Winter Soldier absorbed the blow, stepped inside Steve's guard, and drove his metal elbow toward Steve's jaw. Steve ducked beneath it, caught the man around the waist, and threw him across the track.
The assassin rolled over one shoulder and came upright without losing momentum.
Steve's shield bounced once against the asphalt. Both men reached it simultaneously.
Their hands collided over the leather straps.
The Winter Soldier's metal arm locked around Steve's wrist. Steve hooked one leg behind the assassin's ankle. They broke apart, exchanged three rapid punches, blocked every one of them, and then crashed shoulder-first through another section of safety barrier.
They seemed evenly matched.
Steve caught the Winter Soldier's metal fist against his shield. The impact drove him backward.
I sighed. Apparently, I had to be the bigger man and help him out...
I took one step forward. But it looked like I was not needed.
Black-and-green light flashed between the fighters.
Hela appeared exactly where neither man had left room for anyone to stand.
Her left hand closed around the edge of Steve's shield. Her right caught the Winter Soldier's metal fist six inches from her face.
Both men stopped as though they had struck a mountain.
Hela's black hair settled around her shoulders. Her emerald gown remained immaculate despite her standing in the middle of a ruined racetrack between two heavily breathing super-soldiers.
Hela examined the metal fist in her hand with mild curiosity. "How quaint."
The Winter Soldier reacted first. He released whatever mechanism locked his metal fingers, twisted free of her grip, and drove his organic fist toward her throat.
Hela vanished.
The assassin's punch passed through empty air.
Hela reappeared behind him before his weight finished shifting. She looked almost bored as she measured the distance between two fingers, adjusted it by a fraction, and struck him once beneath the base of his skull.
The blow would have pulped an ordinary human's head.
For an enhanced soldier, it was enough. The Winter Soldier's body went rigid. His eyes rolled back, his knees folded, and he collapsed toward the asphalt.
Hela caught him by the rear of his tactical vest before his face could hit the ground. She then crouched beside his unconscious body. Her black nails found the edge of his lower-face mask.
Steve stopped breathing.
The shield slipped from his hand and struck the track with a hollow clang.
Every trace of combat readiness vanished from his posture. His shoulders dropped. His eyes widened, fixed on the unconscious man's face as though the rest of Monte Carlo had ceased to exist.
Steve staggered one step closer. His chest expanded with a sharp, broken gasp. Steve's voice emerged barely above a whisper. "Bucky?"
I searched the overflowing collection of half-remembered movies, anime, games, other worlds, ancient politics, and increasingly complicated romantic arrangements occupying my brain.
Bucky? The name felt important. Right? Something about a terrible sequel no one watched…?
Tony leaned toward me without taking his eyes off Steve. The damaged arc reactor still glowed between his hands. "This feels like one of those super-dramatic plot reveals where everyone watching is supposed to gasp, but I don't know the plot."
I nodded with appropriate solemnity. "Neither do I. I think we missed at least three movies of emotional context."
…Several minutes later, both attackers sat restrained beside the remains of the Stark race car.
Vanko remained conscious. Hela's shadow bindings wrapped around his wrists, elbows, knees, and ankles, securing him to a section of concrete barrier. His destroyed harness lay beside him in pieces. He stared at Tony with enough hatred to qualify as a renewable energy source.
The Winter Soldier remained unconscious. Hela had bound him more thoroughly. Black restraints covered both wrists and anchored his metal arm directly to the track. Natasha had removed at least six knives, three handguns, garrote wire, explosives, spare magazines, and one suspicious metal sphere from his armor.
We were waiting for a S.H.I.E.L.D. detainment unit personally cleared by Fury and screened by Tsunade's shinobi.
Pepper's voice carried across the damaged circuit while emergency crews worked around us.
Pepper stabbed one finger into Tony's chest. "You ignored me, replaced a professional driver five minutes before the race, entered an event you weren't qualified for, and nearly got cut in half by an electrified lunatic!"
Tony lifted Vanko's reactor between them like evidence for the defense. "In fairness, the electrified lunatic would have attacked whether I was driving or not."
Pepper gestured violently toward his ruined car. "He might have had a harder time reaching you if you had stayed inside the secure VIP club!"
Tony shifted his weight and offered her a cautious smile. "But then we wouldn't have recovered this fascinating example of unauthorized arc-reactor development."
Pepper's eyes narrowed to dangerous slits. "Your car being destroyed and two assassins trying to kill you is karma."
Tony pressed his free hand against his chest. "That feels unnecessarily judgmental."
Pepper stepped closer until the reactor was nearly trapped between them. "I have not begun to be judgmental."
I stood a safe distance away beside Natasha. She watched the Winter Soldier without blinking. Her shoulders appeared loose, but her weight remained balanced over the balls of her feet. One hand rested close to the pistol beneath her jacket.
Even unconscious and restrained by a Goddess of Death, he made her nervous.
Natasha kept her gaze on him as she addressed me. "Good work stopping both of them."
Natasha glanced toward Tony as Pepper resumed describing every poor decision he had made since boarding the plane. "And good luck keeping that dumbass genius alive. Stopping assassins is easy compared to protecting Stark from himself."
I watched Tony attempt to interrupt Pepper and immediately regret it.
A few yards away, Steve remained beside the Winter Soldier.