"I will greet him," Aryan said. "If he is an exiled prince, he will be disoriented, possibly hostile. He needs to be met with a controlling presence."
"Absolutely not," Tony said instantly. "No. We're not doing that."
"Tony is correct," T'Challa stated, his tone leaving no room for argument. "Your presence on the ground would be an unnecessary risk."
"A risk?" Aryan asked. "I'm not planning on fighting him. I'd be leading a diplomatic first contact."
"You are the chief strategist of this entire council," Namor interjected. "We do not risk our command center on a field operation. It is tactical insanity."
"With all due respect," Sharon spoke up, trying to find the logic, "Aryan has proven to be an effective negotiator. His presence could de escalate the situation."
"No," Wanda said.
She looked at Aryan. "You are not going anywhere. You are the brain. We are the shield. You will be right here, in this very safe, very secure room, monitoring the situation from a comfortable chair."
Aryan looked at the four determined faces. He gave a nod.
"Fine," he said. "Then who makes first contact?"
"No one," the Leader interjected. "This is a diplomatic situation of unprecedented importance. We will follow Pietro's surveillance reports. We will observe the subject's behavior, assess his threat level. Only when we have sufficient intelligence will we, as a council, decide on the appropriate method for first contact."
…
Hours later, in the New Mexico desert, the plan unfolded with inhuman precision.
Under the guise of a fungal spore outbreak, a soft quarantine was established by Sharon's EDF forces, rerouting traffic and keeping civilians miles away.
Inside that perimeter, Bucky's ERO team secured the inner zone. High above, Tony's satellites re-angled.
Suddenly, it happened.
A column of rainbow colored light erupted from the sky, slamming into the desert floor.
The ground shook.
But high above, the network of electromagnetic fields ignited in a coordinated pulse, containing and smothering the immense energy burst.
To any outside sensor, it looked like a minor tremor.
Seconds later, another, smaller object streaked through the atmosphere, crashing into the desert floor several miles away with a deafening boom.
Mjolnir.
Tony, in his Mark V armor, and T'Challa, in his black panther suit, were already moving.
They arrived at the crater where the hammer lay, radiating an energy Tony had never seen before. His suit sensors went haywire.
"The energy output is off the charts," he said over their private comm. "It's a conduit to... something…"
He deployed a series of high fidelity scanners around the hammer, the devices humming as they began a deep level analysis.
"Okay, it's definitely unliftable," Tony's voice crackled. "Tried it myself. T'Challa tried it. I even had a remote drone try to nudge it with a tractor beam."
"What about its composition?" Aryan asked.
"We're still analyzing. It's not anything on the periodic table. The metal itself seems to be rewriting the laws of physics on a local level," Tony reported. "Fascinating stuff. We'll need a few days to get anything solid."
Aryan then switched the main screen to a new feed. "Pietro, report."
The view shifted to a high speed shaky image from a camera mounted on Pietro's shoulder.
He was observing the Bifrost crater from a ridge over a mile away, the powerful zoom making the image crystal clear.
They watched as a blond haired man stumbled out of the crater.
"The subject is on his feet," Pietro's voice came through. "He appears disoriented, shouting at the sky. No sign of any weapons or technology. Physically, he looks... well, like a human, and acting like a lost tourist."
For the next few hours, they saw Thor wander the desert, his initial rage giving way to frustration, and then to a weary exhaustion.
They watched him stumble into the now quarantined town of Puente Antiguo, find it eerily empty, and eventually get discovered by a local scientific team that had been allowed inside the quarantine by Sharon's forces.
"He's powerless," Wanda observed, watching Thor get easily tasered by one of Jane's assistants. "Whatever that Bifrost did, it stripped him of his power."
"Or the power was in the hammer," Tony theorized from his position in the desert.
"This is good," the Leader said. "He has made contact with a civilian science team, which is the perfect entry point for us."
He looked at Aryan. "It is time to make a decision. How do we proceed with first contact?"
"Tony, T'Challa," Aryan commanded. "Secure the hammer site and withdraw to the command post. We'll meet you there."