Kamala felt her head spinning for a bit before she felt her feet on the ground. Before that, she definitely had not forgotten how the bangle had glown in a way she had never seen before and she felt a pull back almost coming from her navel area, and she thought she was being flung back but instead she landed… here? Where is here? What is here?
“Hello?”
It only took half a second before she regretted opening her mouth and calling out. What are you doing, Kamala, have you never watched a horror movie before?
But wherever she was didn’t seem like a horror movie. Or at least not as horrible as the first place the bangle had taken her – back in time during the days of the Partition. This place had… more trees. Less trains full of people too.
Okaaaaay, time to go, she thought as she started taking steps toward what was probably the exit of this forest? And scrambled for her phone in her pocket as well. She literally had homework today and her mother had no idea she had traveled through space and time again and needed to figure out how to get back home.
Before she unlocked it entirely, a gentle small bump to the side of her head had her jumping back, nearly dropping it while looking around and what had attacked her. It was… a paper airplane?
One moment, Thor was sitting there, minding his own business, and then in the next moment, she appeared. At first he frowned and lowered his eyebrows in confusion, glancing around to see where she might’ve come from, but then when a paper airplane came soaring in from out of nowhere, he realized… “A new arrival!” He blurted the words out loud once he came to that realization, and stood up. It had been a while since he first showed up, but that wasn’t an event that one so easily forgot. The initial disorientation. The feeling of being lost. Thor had the help of Mobius and others to get his bearings and introduce him to these unusual circumstances, now it was his turn to do the favor for somebody else. It was his duty.
“Hello!” he called, raising his hand and waving for the young lady to see. “Over here!” he continued when she looked around, not knowing where the voice came from. Putting on his widest smile, he strode forward to greet the newcomer.
Kamala registered the paper airplane, bent down and picked it up but before she could read it, a booming voice rang across the field. On instinct, she pulled her mask on and started looking around until she spotted the source, and… and…
“Hooooooly God on a stick. Or on Earth.” The paper airplane was promptly forgotten.
“You,” she started, pointing up at him, wide eyed, and then looking around. “I am dreaming, aren’t I? I hit my head, started dreaming about the Avengers. Though usually, it’s either Carol Danvers or Natasha Romanoff who shows up instead, but you!” Her eyes landed back on him. “You– you’re… YOU!”
Halfway to her, Thor came to a halt, wondering if something was wrong or whether or not the newcomer was afraid. He was intimidating, after all. But he soon understood her tone wasn’t motivated by fear, but by excitement. Thor grinned and continued his path toward her with a bit more swagger than before.
“I am me!” he replied proudly. “Carol Danvers?” The name sounded very familiar, and it took a moment for him to remember, “YES! Captain Marvel! The Party Pooper.” The memory was an extremely fond one, and it actually made him chuckle. “Although she turned out to be quite amazing later, helping me get out of trouble with my mother. Do you know her, too? She’s not around, but Natasha is somewhere. I can send her a message if you want to speak with her. I know it’s very confusing, showing up unexpectedly like this, but I’m here to tell you it’s going to be okay.”
Party Pooper was not a reference that she knew of and she bookmarked this memory in her mind because Carol Danvers helped Thor and his mom?? She didn’t know this! Also Natasha? Where had she landed??
“Okay. Wow. I’m talking to you. Hi. I’m… I’m…” What was her name again?! “Kamala!” She pulled her mask off because while she would have loved to meet the rest of the Avengers as the new amazing Ms Marvel, superhero of Jersey City, she was not ready. This wasn’t how the script that she’d written in her head went! “Okay, yes, I would love to meet them all, seriously, you have no idea. And you! Hi, Thor! Is this New Asgard? I don’t remember it looking like this.” She paused, looking at him, actually looking. “Did I travel back in time? Did you just join the Avengers? Did I just miss the Chitauri??”
Thor thought this one was absolutely adorable. “Hello Kamala. This is Derleth.” He then looked around. “Well, not exactly. We don’t know where the campus is located at the moment, but I’m sure somebody’s on the lookout. We’re in some odd city this week, and so far it’s not too bad. I’ll be happy to introduce you to people, there’s a lot of us here.”
Something she said didn’t make sense. “What do you mean, New Asgard? Something happened to the old one? But ha! To answer your other questions… I am not part of this Avengers team, but I am a member of the Guardians of the Multiverse!” He spoke proudly of this distinction. “I’ve heard of the Chitaruri but never had the misfortune of meeting them. Naturally, it would be their misfortune, because I would strike them down with ease.”
If it was possible for literal stars to come out of her eyes, they would have by now. “Guardians of the Multiverse,” she repeated in awe. “Are you serious? So… so you’re possibly from a different timeline? Or universe entirely?” Of course. If Bruno was here, he’d be having a complete fit over how so many of his theories were correct. Although some of them weren’t so much his theories as they were Professor Erik Selvig’s.
“I… am pretty sure you did. You definitely did. Obviously with the help of the Avengers, you stopped Loki’s plan on taking over New York City. Or maybe not you you, but another you.” She had to cup her hands over her mouth for a brief moment because she was for sure rambling.
Thor hoped that one day he would meet somebody from his universe, one who shared the same memories as him. He was told Captain Carter was around for a short spell, but she was gone long before his arrival. By Kamala’s rambling, he realized this would not be the day, and while he was mildly disappointed, he couldn’t help but be enlivened by Kamala’s excitement.
“Ah. I was told Loki attacked New York City, but I wasn’t told how. Didn’t know he utilized the Chitarui.” His smile faltered for half a second out of emotion for his errant brother, but would not dwell on that. “I am not the Thor you are thinking of, the Thor of your universe. I am from another, for truly, there are many, many other universes out there. We are in one of them right now.” He cast his gaze around them. “We are somehow trapped in a place called Derleth that takes us on a journey to many unusual worlds… not sure how, though.”
Realizing that Kamala might be distressed by the word trapped, he quickly added, “But we are not alone. There are others among us, including many from your universe. Natasha, like I mentioned before.” Who else? His mind drew a temporary blank. “Uh…. and Dr. Strange?”
“Oops,” Kamala cringed slightly. “Spoiler alert?” Maybe she ought to quit with the rambling for some time, lest she spill something else from the year 2023. Did he know about Thanos and all that he did to the world?
“Okay, um. I don’t like the sound of being trapped but I guess I’m less worried if you’re here! And Natasha. And Doctor Stephen Strange, holy balls! Okay, how many else? You might as well spill all of who you know and let me fangirl as much as I can right now.” She had a script in her head for every Avenger she met. They were not all going to go her way, she knew it, so might as well know who to prepare for and then try to be cool when she came across them.
The keyword here being try.
“Spoiler alert,” Thor chuckled away any lingering amount of disturbance he had about his brother’s role in the attack. As far as he was concerned that Loki was now different and had proven himself in various ways to show his heart had changed. Accuse him of being naive, or blinded by the love of his brother, but it couldn’t be helped. “I know some of the spoilers of which you speak, but I do not dwell on them for long. What matters is our experience here. You may meet him yourself. In fact, there are four different versions of Loki present in Derleth!”
Kamala’s excitement was contagious. “Do you have one of these mobile phones? If so, you may write to them and introduce yourself! Right now, we are a little spread out around the city here, but you’ll have ample opportunity to meet them in person!”
“Four different version of Loki!” Sure, one of them must have attacked New York City, but the odds of that being all of them were super low. Probably. It wasn’t like it was Thanos here instead of Loki anyway. And Kamala had fairly been detached from the Chitauri invasion in general, having only heard of it through other sources. She’d been six years old when it had happened.
But, anyway, she was absolutely thrilled to meet everything, and planned on postponing the feeling of the panicky OH MY GOD I AM NOT IN MY WORLD ANYMORE until later. Much later.
“Through my phone? I can?” She opened it up and looked through the network. “I can! Holy crap!” Kamala beamed up at Thor, hopping slightly on her feet. “I am about to meet more of some of my heroes!”
Thor hadn’t been in Derleth as long as many others, but as far as he could recall he never knew any new arrival to be as excited to be here as this Kamala was. Whatever reason she had, he liked it, and shared her enthusiasm by tilting down to her height so he could smile directly into her face. “I can also call forth Mjølnir if you’d like.”
He rose and looked her over. “You must be a hero yourself, what with your…” he waggled his finger at her to indicate what she was wearing, “... mask and such! Or is this your usual clothes?”
“Oh! Yes! And yes!” Kamala was not going to question where Stormbreaker was, nor was she about to tell him that Mjølnir in her world was broken to pieces and sitting on display in New Asgard. That would be heart-crushing. No other spoilers for now!
“I call myself Ms. Marvel! People were calling me Night Light before but that was a terrible name and then my dad said my name means Marvel and then said I was his little miss Marvel. I just started off though!”
If Kamala had told him what happened to Mjølnir in her future, Thor wouldn’t have believed her. Mjølnir? Destroyed? Pft! Never in a million years. It was too far-fetched a concept for him to even contemplate.
“Marvel.” Thor repeated the name with a nod. “It suits you.” Did it matter that Thor didn’t know what her powers were, or what she was capable of doing? Nope. He decided her her heart was pure enough to be considered marvelous, even though they’d just met.