Disclaimer: I own nothing of the Avengers, Iron Man, Thor, or whatever. All belongs to Marvel. Any other characters are mine.

A/N: This story is happening at the same time as "The Girl in the Iron Mask".

The Valkyrie Has Come

Prologue – A Murderess?

The nighttime darkness settled over the city of New York, bringing with it the humidity of the day. Though not as hot as it was hours earlier, her citizens still didn't need to cover up against cold, especially not in the deeper, more seedy part of the city, where the homeless kept fires burning no matter what time of year it was. Most of them didn't have anything to say as they gathered 'round like they usually did. But if they were on the lookout, they'd hear or even see a momentous event taking place in their own area.

In one particular part of it, a fight was occurring between a man in a dark hoodie, and the most unusual woman Earth had, or would, see in quite a while. She was dressed head to toe in white and desaturated pink. Her blond hair fell freely around her shoulders and her brown eyes were focused on the man in front of her. But who she was, and where she came from, only she knew, for she wore a viking helmet with a mask attached to keep anyone from any of the Nine Realms from seeing her face.

As for her opponent, he may or may not have been vital to her mission. In truth, she had not been searching for him, but a particular member of her rather large family, or so he was still thought to be. To say he was estranged would be an understatement, but she was determined to get information out of this man whether he wanted it or not.

Though it seemed that she would only be getting the bare bones of it, because he was now sitting on her, despite her efforts to fight him off.

"Guess it's no use now babydoll," he sneered at her, "You should've run off while you could."

She didn't respond immediately. Though she did hesitate at first to fight him, since he didn't seem in his right mind and he was unarmed, she was now regretting that she didn't bring pepper spray. But, she remembered, she did bring something else.

"No," she said, "I think it's time you run while you can."

Though he had her by the wrists, she reached forward and bit his hand. When he drew it back, she immediately reached for her weapon in her belt. It was the hilt of a sword. But once it was out, she pressed a button, and the blade instantly shot up, scratching the man across his arm. He cried out in pain, hurried off her, and fled toward the road to escape. But she, still needing more information, chased him.

She tackled him, making fall to the concrete ground, then sat on his back with her sword to his neck. Suddenly though, both heard what sounded like police sirens, and up pulled two cruisers with their lights going. One officer hurried out before one of them even stopped.

"What's going on here?" he demanded.

"Help me!" the man said, as though he were a victim, "She just killed my girl, now she's about to kill me!"

The eyes of the officers, both the first and the rest that got out of the cars, immediately turned to her. Her eyes instantly widened, and she realized what was about to happen. Before it could though, she saw for a brief second a possible way of escape. Deciding to take it, she hastily got back on her feet, leaving the man on the ground, and rushed past the officers who tried to grab her as she ran.

"Hey! Stop!"

But she didn't listen. She drew the blade back into the hilt before returning it to her belt, and ran for the fire-escape on the building across the street. She didn't go for the ladder first, but the first platform. She scrambled onto it, and then hurried up the steps, the officers behind her in hot pursuit. She managed to elude them all the way to the top, and then, before their startled eyes, she leaped across the building to the one next to it.

They weren't about to give up though. The two officers ran as fast as they could back down the fire-escape and then rushed toward the cruiser they shared, but by then, they were already losing their suspect.

Even as she heard the sirens again, behind her this time, she didn't stop. She jumped from building to building, with her cape flowing out from behind her, almost as if it were natural, and, in a way, it was. There were various people who performed the stunts she did, but it was almost as if she were born to do this. But that wasn't what she was focusing on.

Well this was a giant waste of my time, she thought, deep in the heat of her frustration. But then, she couldn't help but frown at herself. Well, maybe not, but I could've gotten something more useful!

She then decided to turn her thoughts toward evading those who thought wrong about her, thinking only of the irony of the whole thing.

Truth is, she wasn't even supposed to be here, or on Earth at all. All who knew her – well, almost all who knew of her – thought her to be somewhere else, and if discovered otherwise, she could be facing less than pleasant consequences. Hence the motivation to hide her identity, the reason to hide behind the masked helmet, especially from one whom she was not exactly getting along with lately.

She hadn't murdered anyone, like the authorities here thought she did, but she did bend the rules for her own purposes. And reluctantly, she admitted. But she wasn't going to be kept in the dark forever. Another irony, she thought as she looked up at the night sky above her.

Before long though, she decided that she had to get the police to stop following her, otherwise, her plan for the night, and likely the future, would be ruined much too soon.

She didn't waste any time in carrying her idea out. She jumped onto the next building, but instead of continuing, she fell forward to the ground, rolling onto her front side in the gravel. She then crawled over to the edge, and looked only slightly over it at the cruisers coming around the far corner. As she'd hoped, they didn't stop, or even slow down. Instead, they continued down the road in their search for an alleged murderer.

She breathed a sigh of relief once she was out of sight, and then turned her concerns toward getting back to where she'd come from.

Suddenly though, she heard, and felt, the sound of someone tall, strong, and superhuman landing behind her. Her heart began pounding against her breastplate, and her pulse against her head, not just at the person landing behind her, but at hearing a voice she immediately knew.

"And what am I supposed to make of all of this?"

Slowly, but not without some hesitation, she turned her head, and there before her stood the last person she wanted to see: her father, Thor Odinson, the god of lightning, and crown prince of Asgard.

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