Mid-2014 was a busy time for me, especially since Heartwood was running as the VP of the Democratic ticket. I had become a primary donor for the party in the aftermath of my defeat, but there were still Republican Hydra agents in the works for this year in more conservative states. Ellis wasn't as doomed as you might expect - The energy transition was making energy close to free while the lost jobs were being attributed to the Democratic congress and the American Energy Adaptation Act. He'd recovered some by signing some of the more bipartisan bills, including the Global Security and Support Act.

So my political boogeyman might win re-election… on my policies. From a political perspective, that's what you call a win. From a personal perspective it was very annoying. I didn't like Ellis. He was an idiot. He had hired a VP who would've tried to have him killed. Literally the most important job of the Presidency and he had managed to field someone somehow worse than Andrew Johnson. He had held a bunch of stupid positions and only the iron will of congress had overrode him. Now he was getting credit for the general economic recovery and for the cheap energy, neither of which were his idea, while getting none of the blame for the collapse of the oil and gas industries.

I was on my way out the door to another political meeting for the evening, when I saw Odin Borsson walking up my lawn. He was wearing a dark business suit that reminded me of the secret service uniform, but the grey hair, the single eye and the eye patch, the big stick. It was almost certainly Odin. There are only so many things that can be done in moments like this.

"Demeter!" I shouted back into the house. Demeter was the codeword for, 'get the fuck out of here with Persephone and leave me to deal with this.'

Andromeda, steady as she is, didn't hesitate, and at the speed she was running had probably made it out the back window by the time Odin had made it to my doorstep.

"Odin," I said, bowing low.

"Mr. Trent," he said, apparently unsurprised that I knew who he was. Of course he wasn't surprised. He was Odin, All Father, who sat upon his throne and looked over the nine worlds.

"Come inside,:" I said, waving him inside. He walked inside and I led him into the kitchen.

"I'm not, uh, well prepared for a visit of your majesty," I said, scurrying to grab the ingredients to a Scandinavian dish that would work. "But I can make whatever you want. It just depends on how much time you have."

"That won't be necessary, though your hospitality is noted." Odin said. "Please, don't trouble yourself."

I nodded slowly, "Would you like anything to drink?"

"Mead, if you have it," he said politely.

I did. I had a whole stock of alcoholic beverages just for guests at this point, which was the sort of insane luxury I couldn't have imagined back in my old world. "It's just down in the cellar, give me a second." I wanted to run, but offending Odin and by extension Asgard would be a major mistake. I sent a phone message to Andromeda not to send in any forces unless my life sign monitors went null before I came back up with a relatively good honey mead and poured him a glass and set it in front of him.

Odin was sitting, looking over my painting of the Pyramids. "This was so long ago," he said at last. "I am surprised your people can still remember it."

"It was a magnificent feat," I said, sitting down across from Odin. "I try to live up to its standards, to build something that can stand the course of history."

"Is that why you joined Hydra?"

I choked a little on my Dr. Pepper, but I managed to scurry back to a straight face. I hadn't consented to internal monitoring of my house for precisely this sort of purpose, but it was still… very direct. "I am trying to unite humanity, yes."

"There is no need for pretense," Odin said, flicking his hand toward the table. A scattering of rainbow colored dust flowed from his hand and them formed a smaller me. I looked a little younger, my face looked less lined and severe than it did these days, but not much. "In the service of that new organism, I will wear Romulus' moniker and shed what blood I must. I am asking that those who join me at SWORD be similarly clear eyed - We will unite humanity against its natural enemies of ignorance, waste, and war and we will do what we must to do so."

The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

"Okay, yes, I can see that you know," I said, shaking my head. "What do you want, Odin Borsson."

"My son told me that you knew the cause of his death," Odin said.

"Well, I used to know - Things have changed the future since then. But the theory should still be sound - And you might as well know it. After Hela returns, Thor destroys Asgard with the help of a fire giant - Surtr, I think - and then your people are migrating through space when they're attacked by Thanos. Loki is killed trying to protect the Tesseract."

"Hela?" Odin asked, puzzled.

"Your daughter," I said. "You are not the only one who knows secrets, Odin."

Something flashed in Odin's eye and he stamped his big walking stick onto the ground. A pulse of energy went up around us. "There, now even Heimdall cannot hear us," Odin said, his voice firm. "How have you learned of this? How have you learned Hela?"

Wow, which lie to tell? Oh goodness, this was getting ridiculous. If anybody would believe my actual, ridiculous story, it would be Odin, and lying to Odin seemed like a catastrophically bad idea. Who knew what he saw? What his witches could yet see? "Odin, son of Bor, I wish to tell you the truth. But we must speak quickly because very soon a group of Earth's most dangerous champions is going to bust that door down if you cut my signal. Swear to me upon your staff and the throne of Asgard that you will do me no harm and I shall swear to tell you the truth and we shall be done with it before the five minutes we have are spent."

Odin paused to think for a moment and cast off the illusion of a suit which he had been wearing. Now he was robed in gold and his stick was a golden staff, "Odin swears upon his staff and throne, that he shall bring no harm to the head of Michael Trent this day, nor put him into the hand of his enemies, nor to reveal his secrets, so long as he speaks truth."

Alright, the using of his name in the third person was.. weird. I didn't know why he was doing that. I laid my hand around the staff, and said, "Michael Trent swears upon the staff and Throne of Odin, that his words as follows shall be true and faithful to his own knowledge and understanding and as full of information as is possible, for the next five minutes."

I felt a course of energy surge through me from the staff. I didn't know if it was just theatrics or if the staff really would bring me to harm if I broke my word. Oh well, I didn't intend to lie anyway. Odin could destroy me with a well-placed visit to any local head of state and he had to know that. "I am not from this world, this realm, this earth. I come from another world or, perhaps, I simply have memories of another world. I wonder at times if my memories are like my power, synthetic." I had sworn to be totally honest and this was the truth. It made more sense to me at this point that my memories had been either wholly constructed or altered to contain the movies, to nudge me in the right directions. "I was transformed upon my arrival in this world into the man you see before you - Handsome, rich, and with a mind that seems to rival any it faces. But within the memories from before that time, in those memories there are movies. In those movies are the true facts of what was once this world's future. Your son's attack on earth was foreseen in them, Thanos and all my knowledge of him comes from there, the Infinity Stones which you now safeguard, the secrets of AIM, the existence of Hydra, all were in those movies. They were pure fiction in my world as far as I could tell, but here it seems they are reflections of an unwritten future, one without me in it."

Odin began to laugh, a deep, booming laugh. "You are mad!" He said, "You are completely insane. This foreknowledge that I thought you possessed, perhaps you have it. But it has driven you utterly, utterly mad. Odin has no daughter. Thor will never destroy Asgard. Your visions are worthless, little Romulus."

Wait. Odin has no daughter.

Oh.

God.

Fucking.

Damnit.

Loki.