Chapter 114: The Prince Without a Hammer
On the tactical monitor, the blond man cleared the final barricade.
He drove through the torrential rain on stubborn momentum, his mud-stained flannel shirt soaked through. Two S.H.I.E.L.D. agents caught him around the waist. Thor planted his boots, twisted hard, and sent both men sprawling into the mud.
Coulson watched the screen, his polite expression sharpening. He lifted his radio.
"Nonlethal force authorized—"
"Don't," Ethan cut in.
Coulson lowered the radio just enough to look at him.
Coulson looked at him, "He's assaulting my people, Mr. Williams."
"He isn't hunting your people. He only sees the hammer," Ethan said, keeping his eyes on the outer barricade. "Clear him a path to the crater. Keep your weapons on him, but nobody fires unless he turns on someone."
"Why?" Tony asked from the ridge, watching the chaos with intense interest.
"Because he's the reason it fell," Ethan answered.
Coulson glanced from Ethan to the unmoving hammer, then raised the radio back to his mouth.
"All units, hold fire. Fall back and clear a path to the artifact."
On a maintenance crane above the floodlights, Clint Barton slowly eased the tension from his drawn bow. Natasha spotted him immediately. He gave her the smallest tilt of his head. She returned it without a word.
Down in the mud, the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents immediately stopped advancing. They formed a wide, tense perimeter, their rifles raised but their fingers off the triggers.
The blond man stumbled out of the darkness and into the blinding glare of the industrial floodlights.
He was breathing hard, covered in mud, and bleeding from a cut above his eye. He ignored the agents and everyone standing on the ridge. His whole world had narrowed to the hammer.
A massive, genuine smile broke across his bruised face. It was the look of a man who had been drowning and had just found the surface.
He let out a breathless laugh, walking down the slick, muddy incline toward the fused pedestal of dirt.
The entire S.H.I.E.L.D. encampment went dead silent. Even Tony shut up, standing beside his empty Iron Man armor, watching intently to see if the Viking was going to explode or ascend into the sky.
Gwen stepped slightly closer to the edge of the ridge. Her spider-sense stayed quiet around the stranger, though the air surrounding him carried a strange, heavy anticipation.
Thor reached the pedestal.
He wrapped his large, calloused hand around the leather-wrapped handle of Mjolnir. He planted his boots in the mud, smiled up at the pouring rain, and pulled.
Nothing happened.
The smile on Thor's face faltered. He blinked, looking down at his hand, then readjusted his grip. He planted his feet wider, his massive shoulders tensing under his soaked shirt.
He pulled again.
The hammer remained perfectly still.
Thor's breathing hitched. Panic crept into his movements. He seized the handle with both hands and roared as he threw everything he had into the lift.
His boots slipped in the mud. The muscles in his arms strained until they trembled.
The hammer stayed exactly where it was.
Thor let go of the handle. He staggered backward, his chest heaving, his blue eyes wide with disbelief. He looked up at the storm, the rain washing the blood and mud down his face.
He dropped to his knees in the dirt. The fight went out of him all at once.
Tony's amused expression vanished. Several agents lowered their rifles by inches. Gwen looked away from Thor's face.
Coulson tapped his earpiece. "Move in. Detain him."
A squad of agents stepped forward, pulling heavy zip-ties from their vests.
"Wait," Ethan said, already sliding down the muddy incline.
"Williams," Coulson warned sharply. "He just put five of my men in the medical tent."
"He's Thor Odinson," Ethan said over his shoulder. "That hammer is his."
Coulson looked from the kneeling man to the weapon that had refused to move. "He can't lift it."
"That doesn't make it less his," Ethan replied. "Question him if you need to. He doesn't need six rifles and zip-ties."
Up on the ridge, Tony raised an eyebrow. Natasha's eyes shifted from Thor to Ethan. Gwen's fingers closed around the amulet at her throat. Ethan had said the name as though he had been waiting for Thor to arrive.
Coulson studied Thor for a moment, then raised two fingers. The squad stopped and spread out around the crater instead of closing in.
Ethan stopped a few feet away and waited until Thor finally raised his head.
"How do you know of Asgard?" Thor asked, finally looking up at him.
"I know magic," Ethan answered. "And I know what it looks like when a father turns a weapon into a lesson."
On a raised equipment platform beyond the brightest floodlights, a well-dressed stranger watched the exchange.
He wore a dark green suit beneath a long coat. Rain fell through him without darkening a thread.
Loki had come to watch his brother break. Thor's failure at the hammer had given him exactly that.
What he had not expected was a Midgardian sorcerer naming Thor before anyone else understood what they were looking at.
Hearing his brother's full title spoken so casually by a mortal tightened Loki's jaw.
Down in the crater, Ethan's gaze drifted past Thor toward the dark platform. Golden light flashed once in his eyes.
Loki narrowed his eyes. The projection was flawless. No ordinary Midgardian should have noticed him.
But Ethan held the angle just long enough to make it clear he knew something was wrong with the shadows.
Loki let the projection dissolve, vanishing into the storm.
Down in the mud, Ethan offered his hand.
Thor looked at it for a long moment. Slowly, heavily, he reached up and let Ethan pull him to his feet.
Thor looked back at Mjolnir resting on the pedestal. Rain hammered against the gray metal.
"I am no longer worthy," Thor said, his voice stripped of its earlier pride.
Ethan looked at the hammer, then back at the fallen prince.
"Then earn it back," Ethan said quietly. "Nobody else can do that part for you."
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