by Thomas Macri
“Sir,” Fury called out to him, “I’m going to have to ask you to exit the doughnut.”
Tony sighed, then rocketed down and entered through the back door, meeting Fury at his table.
“I told you, I don’t want to join your supersecret boy band,” Tony said.
Fury laughed condescendingly.
“No, no, no. You see, I remember—you do everything yourself.…How’s that working out for you?”
“It’s, it’s …I’m sorry, I don’t want to get off on the wrong foot. Do I look you in the patch, or the eye?”
Fury didn’t entertain Tony with a response.
“Honestly, I’m really tired, and I’m not sure if you’re real, if you’re just some sort of a…”
“I. Am. Very. Real,” Fury said. “I’m the realest person you’re ever going to meet.”
“Just my luck. Where’s the staff here?”
A woman strode up to the table, but she wasn’t a waitress.
“We’ve secured the perimeter, but I don’t think we can hold it too much longer.”
Tony was stunned, which did not happen often. The woman who had approached them was a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent. But she was also Stark’s legal counsel—Natalie Rushman.
Colonel Fury smiled, enjoying the shock on Tony’s face and relishing in seeing him speechless for once.
“Huh,” Tony said after examining Natalie. “You’re fired.”
“That’s not up to you,” she said, taking a seat at the table along with Fury and Tony.
“Tony,” Colonel Fury said, “I want you to meet Agent Natasha Romanoff.”
“Hi,” Tony said, with mock enthusiasm.
“I’m a S.H.I.E.L.D. shadow. I was tasked to you by Director Fury,” Natalie—or, rather, Natasha—explained.
“I suggest you apologize,” Tony said.
Natasha just sneered in response.
“You’ve been very busy,” Fury piped up. “You made your girl your CEO; you’re giving away all your stuff; you let your friend fly off with your suit. Now, if I didn’t know better…”
“You don’t know better,” Tony protested. “I didn’t give it to him, he took it.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa. What? No. He took it? You’re Iron Man, and he just took it?” Fury said. “Is that possible?” he asked, turning to Agent Romanoff.
“Well, according to Mr. Stark’s database-security guidelines, there are redundancies to prevent unauthorized usage,” Natasha reported.
Fury shrugged at Tony, indicating that he had some explaining to do.
“What do you want from me? Tony asked.
“What do we want from you? Nuh-uh-uh,” Fury said. “What do you want from me? You have become a problem, a problem I have to deal with.”
Tony had tried a few times to get a word in edgewise. But he eventually gave up. Fury would always have the last one.
“Contrary to your belief, you are not the center of my universe,” Fury continued his tirade. “I’ve got bigger problems than you in the Southwest region to deal with.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
THE GOD OF THUNDER, son of Odin, was propelled through space and time to a dark and rocky landscape worlds away from his home in both grandeur and dimension. As he rocketed to Midgard—to Earth—he saw ahead of him the dim lights of a motorized vehicle, the likes of which was unfamiliar to him. Disoriented from his journey, there was no way to prevent a collision. He was soon hit hard and laid out on the dusty ground.
Erik Selvig, who had been a passenger, sprung out, along with the driver, Jane Foster, and Darcy Lewis, who assisted them. Jane rushed to Thor’s side.
“Do me a favor and don’t be dead,” Jane said as Thor breathed heavily, attempting to recover from both the vehicle’s impact and his exile to Midgard.
The son of Odin raised himself on his elbows and stared into Jane’s face. She resembled those who lived on Asgard, but there was a look in her eyes that betrayed fear and concern—a look Thor knew was unique to mortals.
Finally, Jane sighed in relief. The man she’d hit didn’t look very hurt at all.
“Where did he come from?” she asked her colleagues.
At the same time, Thor regained much of his strength and fully picked himself up. He spun around, attempting to regain his bearings. Where was Mjolnir? He began to call out for his hammer. Then he called out for Heimdall, guardian of the Bifrost. Finally, he began to question the group about the Realm on which he’d landed.
“Ohmygosh,” Jane said, examining the sky above the spot where Thor had landed. “Look at this. We need to take a record of it before it all changes.”
“Jane, we have to take him to the hospital,” Erik replied.
“Oh, he’s fine! Look at him,” Jane said, motioning to Thor who now appeared to be fully recovered.
“Heimdall! I know you can hear me! Open the Bifrost!” Thor shouted to the sky.
Jane winced. “Right. Hospital. You go. I’ll stay.”
But before Erik could take Thor anywhere, the mighty son of Odin spun around.
“You,” he pointed at Darcy. “What Realm is this? Alfheim? Nornheim?”
“New Mexico…?” Darcy replied. Instinctively, she lifted her Taser toward Thor and trained its red target beam on him.
Thor puffed out his chest.
“You dare threaten me, Thor, with so puny a weapon?”
With that, Darcy pulled her trigger and zapped Thor, who quivered from the electrical pulses that coursed through him before finally collapsing.
Erik and Jane looked at Darcy in disbelief.
“What?” she asked. “He was freaking me out!”
The three struggled to lift Thor, whose weight was considerable.
“Darcy, next time you Taser somebody, make sure he’s already in the car, okay?” Erik said.
Before long, the three had arrived at the hospital. As the medics took Thor to the ER, Jane, Darcy, and Erik registered him.
“Name?” the receptionist requested.
“He said it was…Thor?” Jane responded, skeptically.
“And your relationship to him?”
“I’ve never met him before”
“Until she hit him with a car,” Darcy added.
“I grazed him,” Jane interjected, “but she Tasered him.”
“Yes, I did,” Darcy proudly admitted.
Shouts and commotion were then heard in the direction of Thor’s examining room.
“How dare you attack the son of Odin?”
Glass was breaking, metal was clanging, and medical instruments could be heard crashing to the ground. Thor made his way out of the examining room and toward reception, followed by a great number of hospital workers. Two workers were able to steady Thor and push him up against a wall.
“You are no match for the Mighty…”
But before Thor could finish his sentence, he was pricked in the back with a needle and collapsed to the ground.
CHAPTER TWELVE
AGENT COULSON pulled up to on the side of a desert cliff and parked his car near the edge. He stepped up to the rocky ledge and looked out over the desert. Before him was a huge crater, similar to the kind a dangerously sized meteor might cause. The crater was filled with people drinking, laughing, partying, and lining up around an object at the center of the impact.
He removed his sunglasses to get a better look. Then he took out his smart phone and called Director Fury.
“Sir, we found it,” he said.
Meanwhile, back at Jane’s makeshift lab, which was set up in a former automobile dealership in the small New Mexican town of Puente Antiguo, Erik, Jane, and Darcy were examining the data that Jane had collected the night they’d met Thor.
“What do you see?” she asked Erik.
“Stars,” Erik replied.
“Yeah, but not our stars.”
She held up a celestial map. “See? This is the star alignment for our quadrant this time of year. And unless Ursa Minor decided to take a day off, these are someone else
’s constellations.”
“Hey, check this out!” Darcy called from across the room.
Jane and Erik ran over to another wall of photos. In one of the pictures, the unmistakable figure of a man could be seen spinning amid the swirl of electrical clouds.
“No, it can’t be!” Erik said.
“I think I left something at the hospital,” Jane said, and then she quickly left the lab, with Erik and Darcy trailing not far behind.
They soon arrived at the hospital, but when they got there they discovered Thor had broken out without their help—trashing the place in the process.
“We just lost our most important piece of evidence. Typical!” Jane said.
“Now what?” asked Darcy.
“We find him,” Jane said.
“Did you see what he did in there?” asked Erik. “I’m not sure if finding him is the best idea.”
“Well, our data can’t tell us what it was like to be inside that event, and he can. So, we’re going to find him.”
As Jane backed her car out of its parking spot, she slammed into something big, solid, and blond. She put her truck in park, threw open the door, and jumped out. She rushed to Thor’s side.
“I’m so sorry! I swear I’m not doing this on purpose!”
Apology accepted, Thor expressed how hungry he was.
“This mortal form is weak,” he said. “I need sustenance.”
They ducked into a diner and continued their conversation there.
“How did you get inside that cloud?” Jane asked as Thor polished off an entire box of breakfast pastries, followed by a plate of pancakes, then two orders of eggs and another of waffles. He’d also discovered a taste for coffee.
“This drink…” he said. “I like it. Another!” he shouted, smashing the mug on the floor.
Jane apologized to the staff, scurrying to clean up the mess.
“What was that?” she asked.
“It was delicious, I want another.”
“Well, you could have just said that.”
“I just did!”
“I mean, asked nicely.”
“I meant no disrespect.”
“All right, well, no more smashing, deal?”
Thor agreed begrudgingly. “You have my word.”
Just then, a group of men walked in and sat at the counter. They were talking about a satellite that had crashed in the desert. They said it looked “like a hammer or something.” Nobody could lift it. People had a lot of fun trying though—until federal agents stepped in and secured the area.
Overhearing this, Thor stepped over to the men at the counter.
“Which way?” he asked
“Fifty miles west of here,” one responded. “But I wouldn’t waste my time. It looked like the whole army was coming when we left.”
Thor rushed out of the diner, and Jane, Erik, and Darcy followed him.
“Where are you going?” Jane asked.
“Fifty miles west of here.”
“Why?”
“To get what belongs to me.”
“Oh, so you own a satellite now?”
“It’s not what they say it is.”
“Well, whatever it is, the government seems to think it’s theirs—so, you just intend to go in there and take it?”
“Yes.” Thor smiled, and with that he was off.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
WHILE THOR WAS journeying to retrieve Mjolnir, Jane, Erik, and Darcy, were returning to the lab. But when they arrived, they were thrown by the scene there—Coulson and a number of other S.H.I.E.L.D. agents had identified the lab as a wellspring of data pertaining to the event, and they were removing all of its contents.
“What is going on here?” Jane said, as she rushed in.
“Ms. Foster, I’m Agent Coulson with S.H.I.E.L.D.”
“Is that supposed to mean something to me? You can’t do this!”
“Jane,” Erik said, pulling her aside. “Jane, this is a lot more serious than you realize. Let it go.”
“Let it go? This is my life.”
“We’re investigating a security threat,” Agent Coulson explained. “We need to appropriate your records and all your atmospheric data.”
“By ‘appropriate’ do you mean ‘steal’?”
Jane walked over to a S.H.I.E.L.D. van, into which the agents were loading all of her equipment. Agent Coulson followed close behind her.
“Here,” he said, handing her a check. “This should more than compensate you for your trouble.”
“I can’t just buy replacements! I made most of this equipment myself!” Jane pleaded.
“Then I’m sure you can do it again,” Coulson retorted.
“And I’m sure I can sue you for violating my constitutional rights!”
“I’m sorry, Ms. Foster, but we’re the good guys.”
“So are we,” Jane said passionately. “I’m on the verge of understanding something extraordinary, and everything I know about this phenomenon is either in this lab or in this book in my hand, and you can’t just take it away.…”
Before Jane could complete her thought, another S.H.I.E.L.D. agent stepped up from behind and grabbed the journal from her hand.
“Hey!” Jane protested.
With that, the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents brushed Jane aside and locked her research in their van.
“Thank you for your cooperation,” said Agent Coulson. Then he jumped in the van and drove off.
“Who are these people?” Jane asked as the van pulled away.
“I knew this scientist—a pioneer in gamma radiation. S.H.I.E.L.D. showed up and—well—he wasn’t heard from again.”
Jane looked stunned for a moment, then defiantly declared, “They’re not going to do that to us. I’m going to get everything back.”
“Come on, please,” Erik said. “Let me contact one of my colleagues. He’s had some dealings with these people before. I’ll e-mail him, and maybe he can help.…”
“They took your laptop, too,” Darcy reminded him.
Jane had other, more practical solutions. She was going to find Thor, and they’d travel to the site together. He would help her retrieve her data. And, if he really was who he said he was and not some crazy lunatic, she’d help him get back what he was looking for.
She drove around the town until she found him—which wasn’t too difficult given his height and heft.
“Still need a lift?” she asked him.
Thor hopped in without hesitation.
By the time they arrived at the site, night had fallen. Jane pulled up to a dark area at the rim of the crater, and she and Thor jumped out of the truck and looked down at the scene. S.H.I.E.L.D. had built an incredibly elaborate structure within the crater’s pit. It was brightly lit, with high-tech tubing creating passageways to and from the center, which was sectioned off in a huge glass-walled cube.
“That’s no satellite crash,” Jane observed. “They would have hauled the wreckage away. They wouldn’t have built a city around it.”
“You’re going to need this,” Thor said, wrapping a jacket around Jane.
“Huh? Wait, why?”
Thor smiled broadly and laughed.
“Stay here,” he said. “Once I have Mjolnir, I will return the items they stole from you.”
“Look what’s down there. You think you’re just going to walk in, grab our stuff, and walk out?”
“No. I’m going to fly out.”
And with that, Thor headed toward the encampment.
As he approached Mjolnir, clouds rolled in and lightning flashed all over the area, interfering with S.H.I.E.L.D.’s equipment. Thor took advantage of this, and sneaked past some guards, easily taking out those that he could not get by. Slipping in and out of shadows, Thor made his way toward his hammer. The lightning and thunder intensified. Soon, rain poured down on the site, muddying the desert sands and pounding on everyone from Thor to Jane, who finally understood why Thor had given her the coat.
Thor soon arrived ne
ar Mjolnir, which was heavily guarded. S.H.I.E.L.D. had its top agents keeping watch over the hammer, including its ace archer, Clint Barton, whose aim was so accurate he’d earned the codename Hawkeye. Clint was trained on Thor and waiting for orders to shoot, but Coulson—who was calling the shots—asked him to hold off. He wanted to see if Thor could lift the hammer.
Thor looked down at his old friend, Mjolnir. He smiled and reached down in triumph. He and his hammer were reunited. He would now reclaim it and then get Jane’s data back. He reached down and gripped Mjolnir by the handle, enjoying the comfort of its familiar grip.
But when he moved to raise it, the hammer would not relent. It proved immovable. Thor looked up at the heavens and howled up at Odin, the Bifrost, and all of Asgard. He dropped to his knees in defeat. Agent Barton dropped his bow, and S.H.I.E.L.D. agents moved in to detain the god of thunder.
MIDGARD
Unbeknownst to Heimdall, the sentry who guarded the Bifrost, Loki traveled to Midgard, where his brother was banished. Loki had learned that he was adopted, but decided not to share that information until the time was right. Instead, the adopoted brother of the Mighty Thor would speak to his sibling, who was in captivity on Midgard.
Their father—Odin—was dead, Loki told Thor, lying. Thor’s banishment, the threat of a new war—these things were too much for him to bear. Odin had perished from the loss and disappointment, and the burden of the Asgardian throne had now fallen to Loki.
Thor, stunned and stricken with grief, asked if he could return home, and Loki spun more lies.
The truce with Jotunheim was conditional upon Thor’s exile, Loki told his brother. Frigga, Thor’s mother, had for-bidden her son’s return, Loki said, completing his deceitful tale.
With that, Loki bade his brother good-bye with a word of condolence.
Thor, with a heavy heart, said that he was the one who was sorry. He thanked his brother for coming to him to deliver the message, and, with a final farewell, the vision of Loki was gone.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
FROM THE OUTSIDE, it looked like an abandoned factory tucked away amid vacant lots beneath a Los Angeles freeway. Two town cars and an unbelievably slick sports car were parked in the shadows, well hidden from any wandering eyes that might find their way to the space. Long-defunct railroad tracks surrounded it, and puddles of oil marred the cracked concrete.