Miracles, Magic, and (Im)Mortals

A Baccano!, Thor Crossover Collection

Disclaimer: Thor and all related cinematic characters thereof belong to MARVEL and Disney. Baccano! was written by Ryohgo Narita and later turned into an anime.

Catch and Falling Star and Put It in Your Pocket

-Never Let it Fade Away-

Loki hadn't expected to survive falling through the Space-Between, which was impossible to navigate without proper preparation and inhospitable at best. The Space-Between (or Void, or Ginnungagap if you wanted to call it that, but that was a mouthful reserved for the most formal of occasions) was cold enough to kill most mortal creatures and what survived in the abyss tended to take offense to any other creature's presence. As Loki fell, tumbling through time and space, he felt the unimaginable power of Nothing grating at his skin and eating at his energy, winding it's way through his cracked mental defenses and laying siege to his mind. His armor corroded as if touched by a Jotun, his magic ripped away by an intangible gale, and he drifted uncaring of it all.

It hurt too much to think. Too small and useless for the Monsters, the Giants, and now considered too ruthless for even the famed warriors of Asgard. Loki was an aberration: a hiccup in the fabric of the universe, and as oblivion claimed him he decided to lie back and think of Frigga. His only consultation was that she hadn't been present to see his failure; though Loki supposed Odin and Thor would inform her soon enough.

Loki fell, felt the negative energies of the Space-Between scrape at his skin and reach for the bone beneath, a burning sensation of unmaking, and he sighed with relief as consciousness left him and he impacted with the sandy ground.

"Oh, oh Isaac! Look!" Miria crooned as she climbed down the crater, uncaring of the rips produced in her jeans. "He's gorgeous! Where do you think he came from?"

Gently, the blonde woman picked up the naked and bruised body, cradling the man's head to her bosom and brushing dirt from his face. Her counterpart peered first at the small body and then to the sky, holding his chin in an obvious thinking pose before breaking out into a grin and slapping a fist into his palm. "I've got it! He must be ours!"

"Ours?"

"Why, of course. We've been trying to get a child for years, and now, here he is! The stork must have gotten a bit lost is all, and no wonder, we do have to keep one step ahead, you know."

"One step ahead!" Miria nodded with a wide grin as stood, having wrapped the boy-man in her jacket. Nights in the desert could be freezing. "But... what's his name?"

"I daresay he can tell us himself once he get's his land-legs back under him. Come, Miria, I can already here those SHIELD fellows, and here we are without our costumes."

"It's a shame we weren't able to take that hammer everyone was making such a fuss over."

"Yes, it would have been quite the coup, but what is life but a series of challenges? Hopefully they'll learn to share on their own."

"You're so smart, Mack-Daddy!"

"Go east, young woman, go east! We have to introduce Ennis and Chez to their new baby brother!"