Fanfic / If I Could Start Again

If I Could Start Again (AO3 link here) is an MCU Peggy Sue fanfic written by Taaroko centered primarily on Thor and Loki.

Unlike the ending of Avengers: Infinity War, where Stormbreaker lands at the center of Thanos' chest, it instead lands two inches to the left and renders the Titan's left arm useless. Now unable to use the Infinity Gauntlet, Thor finishes him off, but Vengeance Feels Empty. Without thinking, he takes the Time Stone from the Gauntlet, and his mind is sent back in time to just after his father canceled his coronation, with everyone still alive. Now he has his chance to set everything right, and ensure that everyone he cares for survives what is to come.

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If I Could Start Again provides examples of:

• 0% Approval Rating:
  • Besides his children, nobody likes Thanos. Thor despises him, Loki wants nothing to do with him, and everyone thinks he's insane. After hearing about him just once, Clint and Natasha are on the same boat as Thor. Many of those in Asgard old enough to remember the war with him and its fallout also hold him in contempt.
  • Zig-zagged with Hela. While plenty of Asgardians were happy to do away with her and put their violent past behind them, she also had plenty of followers who were loyal to her that killed Baldur via poison and tried to kill Thor and Loki in infancy, as well as return her from Nifilheim.
• Achievements in Ignorance: Thor's encounter with Peter Parker means that he has met one of the few Avengers he would definitely never have met or heard of in the original timeline (he never met Scott Lang, but someone may have mentioned T'Challa to him during the Battle of Wakanda and Thor was at least aware of Bucky, Sam and Rhodey even if he didn't directly fight alongside them).
• Adaptational Badass:
  • The Grandmaster displayed no combat abilities in Thor: Ragnarok. In this story, he fights against Ebony Maw and doesn't even flinch when impaled by several spears. Notably, while everyone else fears Ebony Maw on some level, the Grandmaster actually hopes the alien will try to kill him as he thinks it'd be funny. It's not a scratch on his comic counterpart, but much more impressive than what was shown in the film.
  • Loki makes use of his Frost Giant heritage rather than rely solely on his spells and trickery.
  • The gauntlet in Odin's vault was Thanos' prototype Infinity Gauntlet and not just a fake.
• Adaptational Early Appearance:
  • Chapter 53 ends with what appears to be Ava Starr, AKA 'the Ghost', shown stalking the would-be Avengers on the orders of an unidentified individual that is clearly intended to be HYDRA, a good few years before her canon confrontation with Scott Lang and Hope Pym.
  • Chapter 65 sees the Winter Soldier try to assassinate Tony Stark during the press conference to introduce Thor, Loki and Brunhilde to the world.
• Adaptational Heroism:
  • Thanks to Thor's actions, he ensures that Loki will never become a villain and it's stated that he's on the list to make the Avenger Initiative.
  • Without Thor having even planned on it, his actions also cause Ava Starr to discover the existence of HYDRA, resulting her rebelling against S.H.I.E.L.D. and kill Alexander Pierce. As a result of Ava's actions, Fury and his allies are able to start their campaign against HYDRA by planting suggestions that Pierce's death is part of an internal power struggle in the organisation itself, while Ava herself is relocated to safety and other scientists work on finding a cure for her condition.
• Adaptation Origin Connection: In the MCU, the Infinity Gauntlet in Asgard's vault was dismissed as a fake by Hela. Here, it's the prototype of the gauntlet Thanos would later use that Odin took from him in Asgard's war against the Titan's armies thousands of years ago.
• Adaptation Relationship Overhaul: In the MCU, there was no indication that Thanos or Odin even knew of each other. Here, they are old enemies from Odin's conqueror days.
  • Tony and Loki's relationship goes into this as well. In canon, Tony understandably has a grudge against Loki for giving him PTSD from the Chitauri invasion. In this fic, with Loki becoming a good guy thanks to Thor, they're Vitriolic Best Buds who engage in prank wars with one another.
• Age Lift: According to the Russo brothers, Thanos in the MCU is actually somewhat younger than Thor, being roughly 1,000 years old. Here, he's ancient enough to have fought Odin long before Thor and Loki were born.
• Aliens Speaking English: Averted. Thor and Loki speak any language thanks to the All-Speak, but they need to purchase translators for Natasha and Clint when they arrive on Sakaar.
• Almost Kiss: Loki and Valkyrie almost share a kiss after fending for themselves on Ebony Maw's ship, only for Thor to drop in right before they could close the distance.
• Amnesia Missed a Spot: The best description of the Winter Soldier realizing that, despite being programmed to believe he's Russian, he's hearing the Asgardians in English, which would apparently only happen if English was his native tongue.
• Anti-Magic: Ebony Maw's ship has a built-in energy signature that causes negative reactions with Asgardian magic, which prevents Loki from properly using his spells when he's captured. The Warriors Three and Thor also feel the draining effects of the ship, with Fandral even feeling "as though there's a curse upon it."
• An Arm and a Leg: The story begins with Thor cutting off Thanos' gauntlet arm, preventing him from wiping out half the universe.
• Armor-Piercing Question:
  • Odin's quiet response to Loki's ranting about why he and Frigga would adopt "an unwanted wretch like him" stops Loki cold.
    Odin: Do you think the love of a parent is something one must earn? Have I failed all of my children?
  • Darcy asks multiple to Fandral when his hatred for the Jotun colors his perception of Loki. It's enough that he's left in stunned silence when she finishes asking him.
    Darcy: Just tell me this. Have you met any Jotnar besides Loki?
    Fandral: Of course not.
    Darcy: Uh-huh. And... how much has Asgard interacted with Jotunheim in your lifetime?
    Fandral: It hasn't.
    Darcy: Okay then. Are you really going to let this stuff dictate what a guy you grew up with should be like? Does any of it weigh more than the centuries of first-hand knowledge you have about him being kind of an asshole but reliable when it counts? Like are you really that shitty of a friend?
  • When Loki demonstrates his magic for Tony, he naturally gets very excited and begins asking questions about how it works, such as whether or not the laws of conservation of mass still apply. It's the exact last response that Loki was expecting, largely because it makes him realize that, in spite of how many magical skills he's mastered and spells he's created, he's never once wondered how it actually works.
• Ax-Crazy: Ebony Maw is one very disturbed SOB. Besides the atrocities and tortures he commits in Thanos' name, he also took what was left of his people and used them as building materials to make his personal vessel. He was actually pretty insane before Thanos came to his world, as unlike other planets that the Mad Titan visited, Ebony personally sought him out and begged him to cull his world's population.
• Backup Twin: Loki basically serves as this in-narrative; since Frigga was pregnant with Baldur when Odin discovered the infant Loki, his plan was that Loki and Baldur would be raised as twins, but when Baldur was poisoned and died just after his birth, Loki was presented as Odin and Frigga's natural son, although both stress that Loki's name was always his own and they never intended to make him an outright replacement for the child they had lost.
• Bad Liar: Multiple people note that Thor is outright atrocious at lying. While Clint's glad that it means the Asgardian is being honest about his intentions, it also makes it more obvious how much getting a translator installed is going to hurt as Thor says it'll only be "slightly uncomfortable".
• Bait-and-Switch Comment: Steve Rogers expresses annoyance that Tony arranged for the First Contact press conference to be held at Yankee Stadium, causing Natasha to remark how Americans view baseball as intrinsically wholesome and American. As such, a baseball stadium is perhaps the best possible location to ensure the Asgardians are viewed in a positive light. Steve responds that he's not complaining that the press conference is in a baseball stadium but that it's in the Yankee's Stadium.
• Barbie Doll Anatomy: When Loki confronts the Abomination, he mocks Blonsky on becoming a “sexless golem”, musing in private that Blonsky is more of an ‘it’ than a ‘he’ after his transformation.
• Been There, Shaped History: Loki reveals offhandedly that he used to be one of William Shakespeare's original actors.
• Berserk Button:
  • Any mention of Thanos or his Children is enough to get Thor pissed off. This why he taunts Cull Obsidian in Samara and why he went on a warpath once he's heard news of Loki being captured by Ebony Maw.
  • An example that's Played for Laughs is any mention of Loki being Sleipnir's 'mother'. When Loki tries to clear up any misunderstandings about how some Asgardian myths are based on drunken tales, he specifically mentioned that particular tale first, with him even threatening his brother with a dagger when he caught Thor grinning. Tony Stark also brings it up while speaking about how proud he must've been, causing Loki to give him a very unamused look.
• Big Brother Instinct: After seeing him get killed by Thanos in the original timeline, Thor is very protective when it comes to Loki. After he gets captured by Ebony Maw, Thor goes on the warpath.
• Big "WHAT?!":
  • Maw has this reaction to when Thor announces himself as the "Son of Odin", aka the son of one of Thanos' greatest enemies.
  • Thor has one when he not only learns that Ebony took his people and turned them into his personal vessel, but that he also sought Thanos out to cull his world rather than the opposite.
  • Valkyrie has one when she learns that Odin revised Asgard's history so that people would believe that the Valkyrior died fighting the Jotun and not against Hela.
• Blood Knight: Asgardians in general are this due to being a warrior culture. This actually concerns Bruce because he feels more relaxed on Asgard since no one fears the Hulk like everyone back on Earth. This causes him to frequently hold back his enthusiasm on letting the Hulk out to spar with them.
• Both Sides Have a Point: While Thor makes a valid argument that Odin can't simply ignore Asgard's more bloodthirsty past, Odin counters with the valid observation that knowing about their true history may have made Thor more eager for battle without a proper understanding of the compassion required to be a good king.
• Bread and Circuses:
  • The Grandmaster, like in Ragnarok, provides gladiatorial entertainment for the people under his oppression. Thanos also plays into this by allowing him to use Cull Obsidian in his tournaments to entertain the masses in exchange for armies.
  • Thor takes advantage of Sakaar's gladiator games by advertising and staging a fight between him and Cull Obsidian in exchange for Loki's freedom. He also uses this to broadcast to the people of Sakaar and inspire them to rebel against their oppressors.
• Broken Ace: Valkyrie is this. She was the youngest commander in the Valkyrior's history and proved herself in countless battles that would inspire songs for centuries to come, even being instrumental in the war with the Jotun on Midgard over a thousand years prior. The slaughter of her fellow Valkyries at Hela's hands, with her barely surviving, would lead to her winding up on Sakaar and wallowing away in alcoholism and self-pity.
• Broken Pedestal: Byleistr is outraged when he learns that his father murdered his mother and left his infant brother to die, only being stopped from immediately returning to Jotunheim to murder Laufey because Loki and Heimdell remind him that Laufey has too much political support for him to be deposed like that.
• Bullet Catch: In Chapter 65, when the Winter Soldier tries to assassinate Tony Stark, Brunhilde is able to catch the bullet so quickly that nobody but herself, Tony, and a few key others are even aware he was ever in danger.
• The Bus Came Back: Bruce contacts Betty Ross to ask for her help in carrying out research into the Hulk on Asgard.
• Calling the Old Man Out: One of the first things Thor does after proving his timeline travels is call his father out on hiding the truth about Hela and Asgard's violent history from them.
• Cargo Cult: It is revealed that Malekith at least claims that the Dark Elves are the 'chosen' of the Aether to recreate the universe in their image, an idea that Loki in particular rejects as foolish as the Aether is just a stone with no true 'loyalty' to anyone.
• Character Development: Granted, Thor already had his development from his experiences, but him going back in time really shows the contrast between how he acted back then, compared to the present.
  • Thor is more receptive to Loki's advice and defers to him for help when it comes to matters beyond his expertise, a complete opposite to how he was in the past where he barely took his counsel at all. He's also more willing to show just how much he cares for his brother, swearing to never take him for granted. This show of familial affection allows Loki to turn away from his canon path of being a villain driven by need of belonging and instead become part of the Avengers.
  • While Thor Is still a Boisterous Bruiser, much of his arrogance has been greatly tempered. This is shown when recounting on what happened on Sakaar, he puts more emphasis on Clint and Natasha's accomplishments than his own, and even acknowledging just how short-sighted his thinking was. It's pretty telling that Odin's proud of his willingness to admit his mistakes, and also tells him not to sell himself short.
  • Being an Asgardian from a viking-like culture, Thor is a Blood Knight, but he's willing to choose diplomacy and control himself when it's necessary. This is shown when he's willing to be allies with the Jotunheim when he was perfectly happy to kill as many Frost Giants as he can in the past, indirectly feeding into Loki's sense of isolation. Upon the discovery of civilians within Malekith's fleet of ships, he changed tactics from blowing up the ships, to be open to allowing the Dark Elves to surrender. Granted, Malkeith didn't take it and still tried to attack, but Thor at least was willing to give them an out.
• Cold-Blooded Torture: Ebony Maw subjects Loki to this in a similar manner to how he tortured Doctor Strange in Infinity War.
• Cool and Unusual Punishment: After Fandral confesses his role in the exposure of Loki's true heritage, Odin uses Gungnir to link Fandral to Loki so that any pain Loki suffers as a result of Fandral's actions will be inflicted twofold on Fandral himself.
• Cruel and Unusual Death: Ebony Maw is killed by Loki impaling the alien with his own frozen blood.
• Death by Adaptation:
  • In the comics, Baldur is Thor's brother who lives for thousands of years and his death in mythology signifies the beginning of Ragnarok. In this story, he died before he was even an hour old, well over a thousand years before Ragnarok began.
  • In the MCU, Valkyrie and Korg were shown to be among the few Statesman refugees that survived both Thanos' assault and the "snap" in Endgame. Here, it's stated that they were killed during his initial attack.
• Death Seeker: Thor in the first chapter took the Time Stone from the gauntlet to use it to try and kill himself, similarly to how Thanos tortured him aboard the Statesman.
• Defeating the Undefeatable:
  • Thanos and his armies are regarded as an unstoppable force of nature. While he seeks more armies to continue culling populations, the armies he already has have lain waste to dozens of worlds, and none were able to put up a fight. Odin, Hela, and Asgard in the past were enough that they drove him back and granted him his first defeat. Not to mention that Thor successfully killed him in the previous timeline.
  • Cull Obsidian is considered undefeatable in the Sakaar gladiatorial ring. Many write-off his opponents as already dead after centuries of victory. Thor easily dances around most of his attacks and kills him using his lightning powers.
• Didn't See That Coming: Brunnhilde aka Valkyrie was caught off guard by Odin's ignoring the fact she is technically a deserter and oath breaker and him admitting sending the Valkyries to fight Hela was grave tactile error on his part. She didn't know what to say when he explained he didn't join the Valkyries in fighting Hela because Hela's supporters had killed Baldur and were going to make a move against Thor and Loki.
• Didn't Think This Through: Loki amuses himself by agitating Banner about what traveling through the Bifrost is like. Right as they're being transported, Banner can't take the stress anymore and transforms into Hulk, causing Loki to exit the Bifrost at a full sprint and screaming for help.
• Doomed by Canon: Ebony Maw, Cull Obsidian, and Alexander Pierce all die, but in different ways. Cull is killed in battle by Thor instead of Banner. Maw is gruesomely frozen to death by Loki instead of being blown into space by Spider-Man. Pierce, meanwhile, has his heart ripped out by Ava Starr; originally, he was shot to death by Nick Fury.
• Double Take: Before Thor can argue with his father on why they need to go to Sakaar to stop Thanos from gaining another army, he has to backtrack because Odin agreed with him.
• Dramatic Irony:
  • During his mission to kill the Abomination, Loki decides that he likes Coulson because of his snarky and relatively easygoing demeanor. At this point, Loki has no idea that he killed Coulson in the previous timeline (in front of Thor's eyes, no less).
  • After Loki is outed as a Jotun to Asgard, Fandral suspects that he replaced Odin's true son and that he brainwashed Thor into believing his timeline hopping adventure in some bid for Jotunheim to take over Asgard. Of course, the audience knows that Loki's being completely honest (ironically enough), and that Thor's adventures in the previous timeline are true.
  • During the attack on the Dark Elves, Thor eagerly tries to find the Kursed who killed Frigga in the original timeline and admits his disappointment at not doing so. What he doesn't realize is that Algrim, the one who surrendered to him, was the Kursed who killed Frigga.
• The Dreaded: Thanos is feared by almost everyone that knows about him. Thor has recurring nightmares of his slaughter of the Asgardian people as well as his killing of his brother, and Loki is completely afraid of him. According to Valkyrie, he's already torn apart dozens of planets with the armies already in his possession and hardly anyone could put up a fight against him. About the only person who doesn't show much fear towards him is Odin, but even that falters when he learns of what Thanos did in the timeline Thor came from. There are also many Asgardians old enough to remember him that still dread the idea of waging war with him again.
• Driven to Suicide: Due to the death of his people at the hands of Thanos, Thor tries to use the Time Stone to kill himself after he decapitates the Mad Titan.
• Early-Bird Cameo:
  • Peter makes a brief cameo as a child during the ending events of Iron Man 2 alongside his aunt May and uncle Ben. He later appears with Ben and May at Tony's press conference to introduce the Asgardians to Earth, Ben striking up a conversation with Steve when Steve sits beside them.
  • Captain Marvel makes a brief appearance in chapter 23 when The Warriors Three try to find Thor and Loki, only to find her.
• Establishing Character Moment: The Grandmaster is introduced hosting a party where all the guests are dancing enthusiastically (or else) and Ebony Maw waits willingly, if not happily, for him to finish playing his current song to address him. Both establish the Grandmaster as a very silly but very dangerous person.
• Even Evil Has Standards:
  • Hela is a sadistic Blood Knight who thrives off death and destruction, but in the past, she was genuinely loyal to Asgard and her family. Thanos tried to sway her to his side, but ultimately failed because Hela fights for Asgard and her father, no one else.
  • Even during his bloodthirsty warlord days, Odin was reportedly so against Thanos' ideas for culling the universal population that he kicked him out of Asgard as soon as he discovered his true intentions and waged war with him.
• Even the Guys Want Him: The Grandmaster doesn't blame Valkyrie for supposedly absconding with Loki because he agrees that Loki is extremely attractive.
• Everyone Has Standards:
  • Odin is willing to go to great lengths to ensure the peace and stability of the Nine Realms, ranging from white-washing Asgard's bloody past to lying to his children about their origins, but the one thing he can never bring himself to do is strike down his own child. On the flip side, while he was willing to lie to everyone about Hela's imprisonment, it was because he fully intended for her to be imprisoned forever and the prison failing upon his death was not his plan.
  • Loki is absolutely disgusted when he learns that not only did Ebony Maw actively seek out Thanos to cull his species, but the remains of said species were then used as raw materials for his ship. He outright calls Maw insane and completely drops his usual pleasantries.
  • Even before Odin changed his ways, the Valkyrior were highly opposed to Hela's ambitions and were the first to speak out against her.
• Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: While Ross is never entirely outright "evil", his attempt to convince Steve to work with him focuses on emphasising the potential power a refined Super-Soldier-Serum could give Ross and his men, where Steve always wanted to just do the right thing rather than beat his enemies up.
  • While Hela appreciates the gift that her family gives her in the form of Malekith (an outlet to channel her aggression), she does not believe they are doing it for any other reason than to spite her.
• Evil Versus Evil: As an attempt at establishing a gradual peace with her, the Asgardian royal family dumps Malekith in Hela's prison on Niflheim as a gift to satiate her need for battle. The chapter ends right as the two are preparing to do battle.
• Exact Words: Thor's deal with the Grandmaster is to have Loki returned to him if he can defeat Cull Obsidian in the arena. While watching him fight, the Grandmaster thinks to himself that Loki will be returned to Thor, but they'll both be prize gladiators in his arena.
• Fangirl: Sif is an even bigger fan of the Valkyrior than Thor and Loki. It takes all her willpower not to enter The Knights Who Say "Squee!" territory when she meets Valkyrie, who was also her inspiration, for the first time.
• Fantastic Racism:
  • There's a lot directed towards the Jotun. Asgard despises their kind due to prior wars and causing the death of the Valkyrior (actually a cover up by Odin to hide Hela's existence from current Asgard's history). Fandral is shown to be one of the most overt cases of this.
  • Among the Jotun, the "skamrbarn" (or human-sized Jotun) are considered abominations and weaklings. Laufey sought to get rid of Loki when he saw that his son was born a skamrbarn.
• Feed the Mole: Fury, Natasha and Clint are basically doing this to known Hydra agents after Pierce's death, Natasha using her gift from Odin to pose as Sitwell and other agents to encourage the idea that Pierce's death was part of an attempted internal coup in Hydra itself.
• Fiction 500: The House of Odin has some rather lucrative investments and has an impressive bank account in the Nova Empire. It's even compared to a bottomless pit at one point.
• First Contact: Tony sets one up in the form of a hearing to introduce Thor, Loki and Brunhilde to the world. In spite of the Winter Soldier's efforts to muck it up by trying to assassinate Tony, it goes quite well.
• Foolish Sibling, Responsible Sibling: With Loki being a hero this time around, he's the responsible sibling to Thor's foolish instead of the other way around. While Thor is a much better person than how he was before thanks to his Character Development, he's still prone to bouts of recklessness and acts first before thinking, such as going to Sakaar unprepared and his tendency to approach a conversation first with the bluntness of his hammer (i.e., planning on telling the recently-formed Avengers of his time-traveler status only to be shot down). Loki, being more composed and levelheaded, is forced to rein his brother's more impulsive moments and forces him to see things in a tactical manner instead of just charging into everything headfirst as well as planning around Thor's mentality to make things easier. Fortunately for Loki, Thor being more receptive to his advice allows him to have an easier time in dispensing counsel now that he's less likely to be dismissed.
• For Want Of A Nail:
  • The story starts because Thor aimed two inches left and cut off Thanos' gauntlet arm, preventing him from wiping out half the universe.
  • Thor is able to successfully avert Loki's Start of Darkness and ensures that his brother won't become a villain.
  • A negative example. It's lamented that because of Thor's actions, a long-term consequence is that some of his friends either won't exist in the future (Vision) or won't become Avengers (Scarlet Witch).
  • Because the Sakaar trip happens earlier, the planet is liberated, Maw and Cull are killed, and Valkyrie returns to Asgard with them.
  • Thor's prior knowledge of HYDRA's existence in S.H.I.E.L.D. allows the Avengers to find out about it sooner. This also leads to Ava Starr killing Alexander Pierce after she hears them talking about it.
• Framing the Guilty Party: After Ava Starr kills Alexander Pierce, Fury, Clint and Natasha protect her by putting Ava on another assignment and subtly encouraging Hydra to believe that Pierce's death was part of an attempted internal coup within Hydra itself.
• Gender Flip: Much like how Laufey is changed from female to male in the Marvel universe, Fárbauti is changed from male to female.
• The Glomp: A Running Gag of Thor’s is that he has a tendency to hug anyone that he’s friends with a little too tightly, which is fine if it wasn’t for his Asgardian physiology making them (the people from Earth, specifically) feel like they’re being squeezed like a python.
• Great Offscreen War:
  • The battle between Odin and the forces of Asgard against Thanos and his armies is a legendary one. The fight ended with the Mad Titan retreating and his prototype Infinity Gauntlet now tucked away in Odin's vault.
  • There's also the Aesir-Vanir war, which is the war that led to Odin's change of heart and where he fell in love with Frigga.
• "Groundhog Day" Loop: According to the Ancient One, Thor is in one - his accidental usage of the Time Stone will send him back every time he fails to complete his mission, and potentially even send him back even if he does everything right and eventually dies of old age. This is a problem, because doing so will put a great deal of additional strain on the Time Stone of the present day, potentially destroying it if he loops too many times. Fortunately, the Ancient One is able to break the spell so that he will just have this one do-over.
• Heart Trauma: After viciously mutilating his body, Ava kills Pierce by ripping his heart right out of his chest.
• Heel Realization: Fandral messes with the teleporter to drop Loki off in the middle of a busy square, rather than the laboratory like it should. Some time later, he encounters a group of men who want to "put Loki in the healing hall". Already questioning his choices, Fandral promptly gets into a fist fight with them. He later explains it as "having a mirror held up to his face and hating what he saw".
• Hiding Behind the Language Barrier: When the Asgardian royal family don't want someone to know what they're saying, they use the nameless tongue. Unlike Allspeak, which can be understood by everyone, the nameless tongue can only ever be understood by those the speaker is addressing. Thor uses it to address a crowd on Sakaar, knowing only those unhappy with the Grandmaster's rule will understand. He and Loki also use it to talk about HYDRA infiltrating SHIELD.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: Alexander Pierce sends Ava Starr to spy on the would-be Avengers. She ends up walking in on the team right as they are discussing how to deal with the HYDRA infiltration, not only revealing the organization's existence to her but also confirming the fact that they had never intended to cure her condition. She subsequently kills Pierce in cold blood, and Pierce's own paranoia about his personal security means that it's relatively easy for Fury and other agents in the know to cover up any evidence incriminating Ava and create the idea that Pierce's death is part of an internal coup in Hydra itself.
• I Am Not Left-Handed: Thor mostly holds back in his fight against Cull Obsidian, dancing around his attacks and toying with him to give Widow and Hawkeye enough time to set off the traps. After that's done, he reveals that Odin gave him access to his true potential and proceeds to annihilate his opponent without a shred of effort.
• I Did What I Had to Do: Essentially Odin's justification for why he basically 'framed' the Jotun for the destruction of the Valkyrior after erasing all record of Hela. Since Hela gained power from her followers on Asgard even after being cut off from Asgard itself, the only way to ensure she couldn't gain further power was to remove all knowledge of her existence, which including creating a scapegoat for the destruction of the Valkyrie.
• I Hate Past Me: Thor doesn't have a positive view of how much of a Spoiled Brat he was in his younger days, viewing them with shame and anger since it contributed to his estrangement towards Loki in the previous timeline and not realizing just how lucky he was until everything he held dear disappeared. He lampshades it when talking to Clint and Natasha on Sakaar.

  Thor: By the time I beheaded Thanos, I had already lost my world, every member of my family, most of my friends, and all but a handful of my people. I was an arrogant boy who had everything, and I took it all for granted.

• If I Wanted You Dead...: When telling Clint and Natasha about their future/past history in the Avengers, Thor observes that if he wanted to hurt them he would hardly need to make up such an elaborate story.
• Ignorant of Their Own Ignorance:
  • Odin sent the Valkyrie after Hela because he was unaware that she could draw power from her followers even after being cut off from Asgard, with the result that she proved harder to defeat than he had anticipated.
  • Loki was completely unaware of the existence of the magic used by the Ancient One and her disciples until Thor brought him to Bleeker Street.
• Insane Troll Logic: Both Thor and Loki call out how insane Thanos' plans are and how he completely believes they'll work despite the absurdity. Loki even tells Ebony Maw that he might consider Thanos' offers if he was out for revenge or something petty because he can actually understand those types of motives.
• Internal Reveal:
  • Chapter 28 features Clint and Natasha learning about Thor's time travel, as well as details of the timeline he came from.
  • Chapter 84 sees Loki properly introduce himself to Byleistr, the younger of his Jotun brothers, and reveal that Laufey murdered their mother and left him to die as an infant.
• It Only Works Once: After the Ancient One breaks the link between Thor and the Time Stone, Brunhilde expresses understanding that she won't get the same chance as Thor to save the other Valkyries, recognising that the events that let him come back are basically a one-in-a-million shot that would probably have never worked for her.
• It's All My Fault: Odin places the death of the Valkyrior squarely on his shoulders, and considers sending them to Nifilheim to fight Hela to be "the greatest tactical error of [his] entire reign." Considering how long lived he and his rule have been, that's saying a lot.
• It's Personal: Even though he succeeded in killing the Mad Titan, Thor has almost immeasurable hatred for Thanos that persists even when his mind is sent back to when his family and people were alive and well. This sets off a red flag in Black Widow's head, because Thor shouldn't have this much hatred for someone he's logically never met, even if he's an old enemy of Odin. Thor also has a strong hatred for the Children of Thanos, as he takes a lot of delight in mocking and belittling Cull during their battle.
• Know When to Fold Them: After being found years before the Convergence and with their ship both surrounded and swarming with Asgardians, Algrim promptly surrenders after Malekith is defeated.
• Leeroy Jenkins: Thor may be good at following plans, but he is terrible at actually coming up with one. When they arrive at Sakaar, he didn't make any preparations at all for the mission and just decided to wing it. The plan goes wrong within minutes of landing and ends up with Loki and Valkyrie captured, which Thor acknowledges is his fault when he didn't come up with a plan.
• Let's You and Him Fight: Basically how the House of Odin ultimately deal with Malekith after he has become a Kursed; they send him to Niflheim to let Hela fight him as an amusing gift, anticipating that she will be more than a match for him.
• Logical Weakness:
  • Hulk is basically an incredibly powerful child, being ruled by his emotions and having poor reasoning skills. This allows Frigga to calm him down with the same magic she used to use on her sons when they were children.
  • On Sakaar, Cull Obsidian is put against the Broodling Brothers, five twins who don't talk but communicate through a psychic link. The problem is that that same psychic link shares the pain they feel as well, so Cull only has to take one of them down before the rest are put out of commission and become easy pickings.
  • Anyone who can speak Allspeak can understand and be understood by anyone in the universe, regardless of what language they speak. However, it translates to their native tongue, so they can have a hard time understanding how a word sounds in the language it's actually spoken in. Despite having worked directly for William Shakespeare, Loki can't tell people how to pronounce his last name.
• Love Makes You Dumb: Fandral is convinced that Odin and Frigga taking in an infant Loki and loving him has blinded them to his true nature.
• Love Redeems: Odin falling in love with Frigga is what led to him changing his ways and becoming the benevolent peacekeeper he is now.
• Malaproper: As in canon, Darcy can't properly pronounce some of the Asgardian names she hears, although she takes more care when actually on Asgard to be sure she can get some of them right.
• Mama's Baby, Papa's Maybe: When Thor talks with Jane about his current family issues (claiming that he only "just" learnt about Hela and Baldur's existence and Loki being adopted), Jane offers her own awkward family history where she doesn't know her own father, as DNA tests she carried out at school confirmed that the man who raised her isn't her biological parent and her mother doesn't know who really impregnated her.
• Manipulative Editing: Odin does a version of this when addressing Asgard about Loki's real history, presenting a tale that places emphasis on Laufey as the monster to encourage sympathy with his victims rather than suggesting that all Frost Giants should be considered the villain, as well as attributing his recovery of Loki to the Norns.
• Mental Time Travel: Thor himself isn't sent back to the past, but rather his mind after he killed Thanos in Infinity War is sent back to his pre-coronation body after he picks up the Time Stone from the gauntlet, later established to be a result of Thanos using the Time Stone to restore the Mind Stone and thus creating a link between the two.
• Mistaken for Misogynist: Steve Rogers feels that this applies to him when he realizes that he assumed Jemma Simmons was the nurse rather than the doctor, but Doctor Simmons assures him that she appreciates that he's from a time where a female doctor would be less common.
• Missing Steps Plan: Thor's plan on Sakaar for dealing with Ebony Maw and Cull Obsidian amounts to 1.) find them, 2.) learn about the army they were gathering, and 3.) kill them and the army. As Natasha points out, that's not a plan, but a list of objectives.
• Mundane Luxury: Steve Rogers is extremely confused why members of SHIELD seem disappointed in the cafeteria food available, noting that it's both tastier and more varied than anything he'd had in several years. Even before he became a soldier, sugar was hard to come by due to rationing.
• Must Make Amends: Fandral towards Loki for exposing him as a Jotun. Later Loki asks Brunnhilde to spar with Sif to help make amends for him accusing Sif of being behind Fandral's actions.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Odin basically has this when he learns that, in Thor's future, Asgard will be destroyed and everyone of his family but Thor killed, and it can all be traced back to Odin's choice not to find some more secure way to deal with Hela.
• My Greatest Failure: Thor considers his to be his failure to save Loki from Thanos, both from the torture he endured after his fall from the Bifrost as well as his death on the Statesman. Loki getting captured by Ebony Maw on Sakaar drives him into an absolute frenzy.
• Mythology Gag: Thor suffering from a severe cut to his arm is one to the Jason Aaron run in the comics where his arm was cut off.
• Named by the Adaptation: Valkyrie only ever went by Valkyrie or Scrapper in the MCU. Here, her true name is Brunhilde Sigursdottir.
• Narnia Time: Like in Ragnarok, Sakaar's flow of time moves very differently from the rest of the universe. By the time chapter 34 comes around, Thor, Loki, Clint, and Natasha have been on the planet for three days while very little time has passed for Asgard. The author also uses this for Hela's initial siege on Asgard in canon, stating that with how time flows differently, she likely took more than two years killing off Asgard's population.
• Negated Moment of Awesome: Thor tries to use his lightning to supercharge both Iron Man and War Machine's armor to give them a massive boost for the battle with the Hammer tech drones... only for them to overload and shut down. Whoops.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: The reason Thor was able to send his mind back in time was because Thanos' use of the Time Stone to undo the destruction of the Mind Stone linked the two Infinity Stones together.
• No-Sell: When Ebony Maw eventually gets fed up with the Grandmaster, he impales the man several times with his own guards' spears. Grandmaster isn't even scratched and is merely annoyed at his outfit being ruined.
• Not Me This Time: When Loki realizes the teleporter was sabotaged rather than simply malfunctioning, he blames Sif. It's not until later that he realizes it was Fandral.
• "Not So Different" Remark: Loki notes that Captain America is a lot like Valkyrie in that both of them are warriors from the past returned to a world that still reveres them, but it's not the world they once knew.
• Not-So-Well-Intentioned Extremist:
  • Thanos talks a big game about committing his atrocities for the sake of balancing the universe, but Thor and Loki call him out (directly and indirectly) on how deluded he is in believing that he's the hero in this scenario.
  • Odin originally conquered other realms under the belief that what he was doing would bring a new age of peace. It wasn't until the Aesir-Vanir war where he invaded what was once his home that he came to realize that what he was doing was for power's sake and not for peace.
• Off with His Head!: Right after severing his arm and giving him a "The Reason You Suck" Speech, Thor executes Thanos by cutting off his head.
• Omnidisciplinary Scientist: Zigzagged. Several of the scientists have far more specialties than they should but still run into things they don't specialize in. Bruce Banner is called in to look over Ava Starr's condition but lampshades that quantum mechancis are far from his areas of expertise and it'd take a lot of time and studying to help her.
• The Omniscient: Thor and others aware of his origin from the future use Heimdall's status as this to claim that he is the source of most of their future knowledge, claiming that he has seen HYDRA in action within SHIELD so that Thor can warn the other Avengers about their schemes, such as Bucky's current status as the Winter Soldier.
• One of the Guys: Witnessing Sif with the Warriors Three, Brunhilde compares them to her old bond with her fellow Valkyries.
• Only the Chosen May Wield: This is averted at first since Thor was sent back before Odin put the worthiness enchantment on Mjölnir. To prove that he is Thor from the future, he asks his father to put the enchantment on his hammer. Since this is Thor post-Character Development, he has no trouble lifting Mjölnir and proving who he is.
• Out-of-Character Alert: Something that signals that something is off with Thor is that he openly admits that he'd rather have the Jotun as his allies. This completely shocks Odin, Frigga, and Loki when they first hear it, as he's usually one of the most openly violent towards Frost Giants.
• Papa Wolf: Odin is very protective of his children. After Baldur was killed through poisoning, he remained on Asgard to protect the infant Thor and Loki. He even admits that had Hela had anything to do with Baldur's death, he would have lost all care for her and killed her himself.
• Parents as People: Odin loves both his sons, but how he raised them caused a number of problems. He openly praised Thor in ways that led to him gaining his infamous ego that would've caused the second coming of Hela had Thor not learned humility on Earth, while he inadvertently left Loki starved for the acknowledgement of his father. He understands the mistakes he made and seeks to do better.
• Peggy Sue: Thor is sent back prior to the events of his film, but the fic uses Thor's head-first mentality in regards to how he'd operate in this type of situation. Thor fully intends to Set Right What Once Went Wrong, but his approach to this is rather blunt and he outright tells Loki and the Warriors Three who he is upon first seeing them, and Natasha, despite meeting him for the first time from her perspective, figures out he's hiding something given how bad he is at subterfuge and gets him to spill the truth.
• Portal Cut: Loki kills the Abomination by having Heimdall open the Bifrost when the top third of the monster is in the way.
• Real Men Hate Sugar: Downplayed. Steve finds anything considered sweet or sugary to be far too sweet for his taste buds, at least partially because sugar was extremely hard to come by for the last several years of his life.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: At the start of the story, Thor gives one to Thanos on how his supposedly noble intentions for the universe are a load of crap and how much of a monster he is.
  Thor: You call it salvation, slaughtering half of my people when they were already but a fraction of Asgard's numbers from mere weeks ago? Wiping out the dwarves and leaving only their king behind to suffer? You think yourself a just god, capable of making the hard choices, but there is nothing in you but cruelty. My brother was right. You will never be a god.
• The Reveal: Although we already knew that he died, chapter 50 reveals that Baldur was murdered via poison by a group of Asgardians still loyal to Hela. Not only that, but Fandral's uncle Hroarr was the one leading the assassination, and Odin subsequently lied to Fandral, claiming that Hroarr was a casualty of the Jotuns, indirectly inciting his antagonistic behavior towards Loki.
• Revenge Before Reason: Since Thor was successful in killing Thanos in the past timeline, he never fully rationalized the consequences of being too obsessed with revenge like he did in canon. As a result, he spends a lot of time goading and mocking Cull Obsidian in their fight as payback for what he did in the main timeline, which results in him getting angry enough to fight back and put Thor in a bind.
• Sadly Mythtaken: It's lampshaded by Jane and Loki that the Norse Mythology built around Asgard doesn't really stack up with the reality of it. Loki states that the mythos surrounding their people that Earth came up with is mostly made around prophecies and drunken fancies. In regards to the one where he's the "mother" of Sleipnir, he considers it a "very drunken fancy". Coulson naturally drops the trope name at one point as a pun.
• Secret-Keeper: Outside of his parents, Loki, Sif and the Warriors Three, Hawkeye and Black Widow are the first non-Asgardians Thor has told about his experiences in an alternate future timeline. The agents share that detail with Fury and Maria Hill to help them make plans against Hydra, and later the Ancient One reveals that she is also aware of Thor's status as a time-traveller through her experience of the Time Stone. Thor's meeting with the Ancient One also leads to Brunhilde and Kaecilius learning about the time-travel factor.
• Seen It All: Pepper walking in on Loki turning Tony into a flying squirrel is the absolute last thing she expects, but she simply takes a deep breath and rolls with it considering everything she's already seen in the last two days.
• Senseless Sacrifice: A villainous version of this from Malekith; he rejects Thor's offer to surrender in favour of transforming himself into a Kursed, but at best he would have destroyed his own people with the Aesir invasion force, and in the end Thor defeats him by using Mjolnir to throw Malekith out of the ship before the transformation can finish.
• Ship Tease:
  • Darcy gets a lot with Fandral.
  • Loki and Valkyrie get a lot of this during the Sakaar portion of the story that also borders on Belligerent Sexual Tension.
• Shout-Out:
  • When infiltrating Ebony's ship, Clint disguises himself as Han Solo and acts as a prisoner. Additionally, when Tony and Loki are talking about his magic, Tony begs him to say that midichlorians aren't a thing.
  • It's stated that a human, heavily implied to be J. R. R. Tolkien, fell into the nine realms, and his experiences would inspire The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.
  • Director Nick Fury delivers to Thor an item of great importance (the Tesseract) via a briefcase, and when he opens it a glow illuminates his face; much like a movie with another character played by Samuel L. Jackson.
• Smug Snake: Ebony Maw is one by virtue of being a rampant case of Underestimating Badassery despite being an incredibly powerful Telekenetic and one of Thanos' Elite Four. Maybe becuase he's one of the most feared beings in the series, he tends to drastically overestimate himself against those who he tries to menace, utterly unaware that the reason said beings he tries to menace do not fear him is simply because they are that much more powerful than him. Notably he falls into shamelessly groveling for his life when he realizes that his attack on The Grandmaster does absolutely nothing and The Grandmaster seems more peeved at the state of his ruined clothes than being impaled half a dozen times.
• Social Darwinist: According to Odin, his father, Bor, was this. His philosophy was that the strongest deserved to rule over the weak, and Odin admits that the allure of this mindset is hard to argue with when you're born stronger than everyone else like he was.
• Spit Take: Rhodey has one when Loki angrily mentions the idea that he gave birth to Sleipnir.
• Spotting the Thread:
  • Thor is not very good at trying to hide that he's from the future. Natasha's able to pick up on many subtle hints in his behavior (having way more hatred for Thanos than he reasonably should and his reactions to Sakaar and Valkyrie) that he's hiding something from them and convinces him to confess the truth.
  • The Winter Soldier ultimately begins to realize that something's wrong when he hears the Asgardians speaking in English; if his memories were correct, he'd be hearing them speak Russian, but the fact that he hears English implies that that's his mother tongue and that something isn't right about his memories.
  • When Steve is looking at photographs of Camp Leigh with Coulson, he's quick to spot the addition of the bunker containing Zola's computer-brain.
• The Stations of the Canon: Averted. While it does start out with some events from the early MCU films, such as The Incredible Hulk and Iron Man 2 (Which happened concurrently with the events of Thor and thus were too far along to seriously derail given the point in time Thor traveled back to), canon starts getting ditched soon after that as later plot threads from the movies are tied up and altered in different ways.
• Suddenly Speaking: Cull actually talks during his fight with Thor, something that the Asgardian lampshades, since he thought he was just the dumb brute of Thanos' minions.
• Superior Successor: While he didn't start out this way, Odin's eventual pursuit of peace and stability for the Nine Realms compared to Bor's Darwinism shows that he became a much better ruler than his father ever was.
• That Came Out Wrong: Fandral's initial refusal to share why he committed treason nearly gets him killed until he explains that he feels his reasons for doing so are irrelevant compared to the fact he did.
• Throwing Your Sword Always Works: Besides Mjölnir's ability to return to its owner, it's also lampshaded that for whatever reason, Thor's enemies always seem to inevitably line up and make it easier for him to take them all out with a simple hammer throw.
• Time Dissonance: Invoked as various parties don't often realise just how long ago the Jotun invasion was from the perspective of Earth. When Byleistr talks with Darcy Lewis at the Council of Realms, he's surprised at how casual she is meeting the son of the man who almost conquered her realm as he can't conceive that literally nobody on Earth genuinely remembers that near-invasion.
• Trust Password: In order to gain Hawkeye and Black Widow's trust after they learn that he's from the future, Thor tells them about when they went to Clint's house during the Ultron incident and about his family when they first met them. Since the only way Thor would know about Clint's family in the first place would be if he had his absolute trust, the archer accepts Thor's claims.
• Undying Loyalty:
  • Before her exile, Hela was completely loyal to her father and Asgard as a whole. Not even Thanos could sway her to his side.
  • Sif has complete loyalty towards Thor which also overrides her distaste for Loki and her hatred for Frost Giants. While she still doesn't like them, she'll put up with it if Thor is more than willing.
• Underestimating Badassery:
  • Ebony Maw severely underestimates both Thor and the Grandmaster. The former utterly obliterates Cull Obsidian once he stops playing around and the latter reacts with annoyance when Maw impulsively impales him with several spears. In the Grandmaster's case, it occurs to Ebony Maw that he should have considered that Thanos is willing to do business with the man and give in to his demands than simply conquer Sakaar.
  • Likewise, Hela assumes upon meeting Thor and Loki that Thor is just a muscle-bound fool obeying Odin's order to give her a chance and Loki is a schemer who hopes to have her and Thor destroy each other, never even considering the possibility that they might be genuinely prepared for the threat she poses.
• Unskilled, but Strong: Loki's usually the opposite of this trope, but Valkyrie notes that his control over his Frost Giant abilities are rather laughable, despite their immense power.
• Vengeance Feels Empty: After killing Thanos, Thor feels no satisfaction in what he did since it won't bring Loki or any of Asgard back.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: The "vitriol" part is downplayed, but nonetheless present regarding Tony & Loki's friendship. Since Loki underwent Adaptational Heroism, Tony doesn't have any enmity towards Loki and vice versa, instead ribbing on each other for laughs as well as regularly engaging in a prank war, with neither really taking it personally. A sharp contrast to their canon relationship.
• What If?: The story follows what would have happened had Thor managed to kill Thanos and pick up the time stone, only to be sent back to before his coronation.
• Willfully Weak:
  • Thor lost to Hulk when they fought because he didn't want to hurt his friend, so he didn't put much force into his attacks. He also handicapped himself by refusing to use Mjölnir during the fight. The author states that had he been going all out, he would have won regardless of whether he had Mjölnir or not.
  • This also plays into the Sakaar arc. Thor could easily handle anything the planet throws at them, barring Ebony and Cull, but with Black Widow and Hawkeye around, he limits himself to avoid too much collateral.
• With Great Power Comes Great Insanity: Odin admits to Thor that this is why he went the extra mile to limit his abilities since childhood, as he worried that his eldest son would turn out like Hela, who became The Caligula and had to be imprisoned.
• Wouldn't Hurt a Child: When the Aesir learn that the Dark Elves are protecting their children, Thor is unpleasantly reminded of the Aesir children who died on the Statesman, and shifts his plan from simply destroying the ship to requesting the surrender of the Dark Elves.
• Xanatos Gambit: The Grandmaster's deal with Thor works out for him whether or not Thor lives or dies; if Thor dies against Cull, then his original deal is still on, but if Thor wins, then he gets entertainment for the masses and the Asgardians off his back.

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