"I know precisely who Thor is," Leo declared, his voice cutting through the strained silence of the car's interior. The casual statement instantly yanked everyone's attention away from the speeding New Mexico highway and onto the small boy in the back seat.
Thor, sitting rigidly in the front, twisted around just enough to show his profile, his brow furrowed with mild disdain. He was somewhat dismissive of the claim. He hadn't been to Midgard in centuries, and he believed his true identity was long relegated to myth, too complex for the modern age. Now, only their legends and the poorly documented stories survived.
Leo glanced at Dr. Eric, a small, knowing smile playing on his lips. "Dr. Eric, I think you already have a very good idea of what's happening. Your scientific mind is desperately trying to find a natural explanation, but deep down, you've pieced together the fragments, haven't you?"
"It's a pattern recognition, nothing more," Eric mumbled defensively, adjusting his glasses. "It's just a theory based on cultural coincidence and extraordinary data, and I still refuse to professionally believe a fantastical claim like that until empirical evidence is literally staring me in the face."
"I'm sorry to shake the foundations of your professional world, but what your colleague is claiming is true, Eric," Leo insisted, pulling a compact, well-worn edition of The Poetic Edda from his backpack. "And the evidence is about to stare you down. We are currently chauffeuring Thor Odinson, the God of Thunder, the true owner of Mjolnir."
Jane slammed on the brakes so hard that the jeep shuddered violently on the asphalt, narrowly avoiding a dust-colored signpost. The sudden stop threw the passengers forward. She turned fully around, her eyes wide with a mixture of disbelief and frantic hope, looking from Leo to the towering man beside her.
"Are you two completely insane? Are you teaming up to mess with my head right now?" Jane demanded, her scientific integrity screaming in protest.
"Jane, you witnessed his impossible arrival with your own eyes," Leo reasoned, holding out the open book. "You saw the storm, the anomaly—the 'Rainbow Bridge'—and you saw him. You have to admit you've had deep doubts and unsettling questions in your heart ever since. You wanted answers, and here they are."
The page Leo presented showed a classic illustration of the Norse God of Thunder: a figure of tremendous might, typically shown wearing a red cloak, silver armor, and a silver helmet, often depicted with a beard, golden hair, and eyebrows. The resemblance to the imposing man in the passenger seat—minus the armor and helmet, of course—was uncanny, fueling Jane's internal struggle.
Jane swallowed hard, put the car back in gear, and sped off again. "I will absolutely not believe such an unrealistic, preposterous claim until I see the evidence. Until I see him pick up that thing and fly away, he's just a lunatic with great cheekbones and serious delusions."
Even Thor seemed to realize the gravity of Leo's declaration. He looked back at Leo, his blue eyes narrowed slightly. How did this small, seemingly knowledgeable Midgardian child determine my secret identity? It was a puzzle that transcended his current mortal limitations.
By the time the group's battered jeep arrived in the desolate region, the setting sun had vanished, and the sky was already cloaked in a deep, starless blue.
The scene that greeted them was surreal. In the middle of the originally empty, dust-blown desert, a small, prefabricated military-scientific base had materialized seemingly out of thin air in less than a day. It was a massive, sprawling project.
Five enormous, high-intensity incandescent floodlights illuminated the sky, carving out a bizarre, artificial research center centered entirely around the fallen Mjolnir.
The entire core area was hermetically sealed with white, heavy-duty fabric stretched over scaffolding, creating several connecting passageways and large temporary structures. There were fixed routes marked with glowing tape and strict personnel screening points, allowing the rapid construction of defensive fortifications to proceed unhindered inside the perimeter.
The entire vast area was surrounded by multiple layers of heavy-gauge barbed wire, and several specialized armored vehicles along with dozens of armed junior agents were constantly patrolling the perimeter, their flashlights slicing through the growing gloom.
The group turned off their car lights early, parked the jeep covertly on the far side of a low-lying hillside, and quietly walked up to a vantage point, staring in awe at the illuminated fortress below.
"This was not an investigation of a satellite impact," Jane whispered, her voice laced with outrage. "This is an active containment and reverse-engineering operation. They should have simply removed the debris, not built an entire self-sustaining city around it!"
Thor, focused entirely on the center of the complex, suddenly seemed to sense the hammer's presence. An excited, fierce smile appeared on his face. He turned to Jane, his voice low but utterly dominant.
"Lady Jane, you must remain here. Once I retrieve Mjolnir, I will return what these arrogant Midgardians stole from you, and we can speak of bridges and gods."
"Absolutely not. Look at that place, Thor! Do you think you can simply stroll in, grab our gear, and stroll out past that army?" Jane insisted, grabbing his massive forearm.
"No, mortal," Thor countered, looking at the distant sky with divine confidence. "I will fly out."
After uttering the single, powerful statement, he moved, turning his back on them and walking out of the cover of darkness toward the compound without paying any further attention to the others.
Daisy quickly patted Leo on the shoulder, her eyes wide with mounting panic. "Leo! Aren't you going to intervene? Don't you know that Agent Coulson guy? They're going to shoot him!"
"Don't rush me, Sister Daisy," Leo replied, his voice calm, yet his eyes held a strange, calculating light. "I want to observe precisely how Thor attempts to solve this 'problem' in his current, limited state."
Leo watched with great interest as the God of Thunder, relying solely on his superhuman biology and centuries of martial experience, charged down the hill toward the heavily secured encampment.
As Thor's massive form rapidly approached the perimeter, Mjolnir, lying in the center of the camp, seemed to respond. A profound, low-frequency hum emanated from the containment area, and faint, blue-white energy began to pulse from the hammer.
Simultaneously, several streaks of intense lightning appeared in the already dark, cloud-heavy sky, suggesting a sudden, violent downpour was imminent.
Mjolnir's immense energy interference caused all the surrounding electronic devices—lights, patrol vehicle displays, and agents' walkie-talkies—to flicker violently, almost shorting out. Even the high-altitude surveillance satellites suddenly lost all ability to monitor the area.
Thor simply located a section of the perimeter, gripped the heavy barbed wire with his bare hands, and ripped it apart with a grunt, rushing inside.
His breach was instantly discovered. Several agents, startled by the sudden intrusion and the chaos in their electronics, rushed over to apprehend the massive man.
But Thor was now focused solely on retrieving his beloved hammer, and no mortal impediment could stop him. Thor's extensive, brutal combat experience, combined with his inherent superhuman physical abilities (even sealed), allowed him to easily and efficiently defeat the trained agents. He moved with a speed and ferocity that shocked his opponents.
Looking up at the night sky, which was now filled with jagged lightning and rumbling thunder, Thor felt an extraordinary sense of familiarity and homecoming. He burst through the first fabric panel and entered the brightly lit, inner white passage with a loud, victorious laugh.
Jane watched the scene unfold with terrified anxiety. She grabbed Leo's arm with her right hand, her nails digging into his sleeve.
"Leo, please, you said you knew this Coulson! Aren't you going to go in and ask someone you know to call off their men? They're going to kill him!"
"It's alright, Jane, relax," Leo repeated, his gaze fixed on the center of the makeshift base.
Leo's eyes gleamed intensely—a deep, vibrant gold now—as his focus locked completely onto the hammer lying in the center of the earth mound.
While others only saw a large, square, metal hammer lying diagonally in the dirt, Leo's energy vision allowed him to clearly observe its inner workings.
He could see the enchantment—the powerful, ancient magic that bound the weapon. On the head of Mjolnir, hidden deep inside the metallic core, Leo saw three distinct, oval-shaped colored seals pulsing with a deep, cosmic light. These seals were the living manifestation of the final, solemn command issued by Odin, the Allfather.
Leo internally recited the ancient words of the spell, burned into his memory from the myths: "Whosoever holds this hammer, if he be worthy, shall possess the power of Thor."
The hammer itself, not the banished god, would decide the true contest. The seals were active, awaiting a demonstration of worthiness that Thor currently lacked.
Leo glanced up at the tumultuous sky. The rain began to fall in heavy drops from the previously clear, pitch-black night, rapidly intensifying into a storm that mirrored the chaos Thor was causing below.
"You three go back to the jeep right now and take shelter from this rain," Leo commanded, his tone sharp and decisive, his focus moving from the hammer to the overall security threat. "I'll bring Thor and your documents back. Trust me."
He didn't wait for a response. Leo took no more than two steps before he activated his energy manipulation, disappearing into the dark, rain-drenched night in a flash of undetectable, golden light, vanishing without a trace of footprints or sound.
At that very moment, Thor's uncontainable entry had caused absolute pandemonium in the S.H.I.E.L.D. camp.
Agent Coulson, coordinating the operation from a command structure perched on the second level of a prefab unit, quickly learned the source of the riot: an unknown, incredibly strong man had incapacitated over a dozen agents and was storming the core containment area.
He immediately raised his walkie-talkie. "I need immediate aerial support and suppressive fire. I need a clear line of sight and authorization for a non-lethal takedown."
Inside a non-descript container truck parked just outside the main passage, the interior walls were lined floor-to-ceiling with countless specialized weapons, ammunition, and gear. A lean figure, lying prone and focused on monitoring the exterior, received the message. Right next to him lay a high-precision sniper rifle, but he ignored it.
He quickly sat up, reached down to take a sleek, black compound bow from a specialized rack on the wall, and agilely jumped out of the truck.
Running directly to a small, temporary platform built specifically for surveillance, he was quickly lifted into the air by a hydraulic mechanism. A pair of sharp, intensely focused eyes—the eyes of a world-class operative—appeared above the base, scanning the turmoil below through the rain.
Leo, having just slipped inside the perimeter, briefly paused at the base of the surveillance platform. He looked up, a slight smile on his face.
Clint Barton. Hawkeye. He thought, recognizing the figure.
With an immediate burst of speed and a subtle, localized energy field to suppress sound, he quickly ducked through the torn barbed wire, bypassed the panicking agents, and slipped into the white passage that Thor had entered.
Clint Barton, the operative known as Hawkeye, reflexively glanced down, his eye momentarily catching a flicker of movement—a brief distortion in the rain, or perhaps just a trick of the flickering light. He felt a moment of professional confusion.
"Coulson? I think someone just breached the fence again right now, but I didn't get a clear visual. I couldn't track it through the rain," Clint reported over the comms, his voice perfectly level despite the strange admission.
"What? You couldn't even see the intruder?" Coulson snapped, putting down his walkie-talkie and moving over to the main surveillance console.
The computer screen continued to flicker violently, the electromagnetic interference from Mjolnir overwhelming the signal processors. A short, bald agent named Sitwell addressed Coulson from the side.
"Sir, that structure is emitting strong electromagnetic vibrations. The entire perimeter surveillance system is unable to maintain a stable connection."
"Barton? Report on the current situation in the containment area."
The rain was now heavy, turning the ground to slick mud. Thor, covered in grime and breathing hard, crawled out of the last mud-slicked passage, having just taken care of the last large, specialized agent.
On the high platform, Clint Barton had already drawn his bowstring taut, the specialized arrowhead aimed steadily through the downpour. No matter how heavy the rain, his hand was absolutely steady, pointing directly at the center of Thor's chest.
"Sir, do you want me to neutralize him, or should I wait for more ground forces to attempt a capture?"
"Wait for my command, Barton."
Thor, ignoring the rain and the armed agents, tore off the final layer of protective plastic sheeting. He looked at Mjolnir, which sat securely in the center of the pit, with an expression of ecstatic, overwhelming happiness.
He strode forward, his eyes burning with excitement, and reached out his hand, ready to grasp the familiar leather-wrapped hilt.
Coulson, meanwhile, arrived on the second-floor observation deck, looking through the reinforced glass at the solitary figure in the center of the raging rainstorm.
Barton slightly pulled back his right hand—the final, critical movement before release. "Sir, I need a decision. Last chance."
"Wait, I want to see this first," Coulson murmured, his curiosity momentarily overriding his tactical sense. He stared intently at the figure, stopping the other reinforcements from rushing in.
A small figure suddenly appeared directly beside Coulson—as if teleported—and looked out at Thor together with the bewildered agent.
"Coulson, do you honestly think he can pick it up now?" Leo asked conversationally, completely unperturbed by the chaos.
Coulson jumped violently, whipping around. He hadn't heard or seen anyone approach. His eyes widened in shock. "Leo! What in the absolute hell are you doing here?!"