The Mighty Thor of Asgard

He's sinking gradually, comfortably into blackness. It feels like sleep, like floating in a warm bath; all the pain and noise drifts somewhere above him. Time stretches into irrelevance.

( Something tugs at his mind, from far away. )

"We must go to the Bifrost site," he tells his friends. All his friends, but mostly his old comrades, the ones who will accompany him to Asgard, the ones who know what all this means. The ones who were betrayed too. All amusement has leached out of him now, leaving only grim anger. "I would have words with my brother."

Since long before Thor was born, the Destroyer has lain hidden in Asgard's treasure vault. It can be sent out at need, and has been, but mostly it remains behind its screening wall there. It's both one of the great treasures of the realm and a last protection for the rest, under normal circumstances. A great figure of hollow metal and sorcery, shaped like a man but twice as tall as an Asgardian, it has no true brain nor personality. But the magic in it will follow simple orders.

( Protect. )

One last glance at his friends -- old and new, all brave and valiant, all dear to him, some since childhood and some only in these last days of Midgardian strangeness -- and then he goes to finish this.

Jane corners Erik as soon as he's sufficiently alert to embark on an argument of great passion and duration about what exactly the storm surrounding the Bifrost site was, and what the Bifrost is, and how the cosmos is arranged, and what the other scientists of Earth will accept and under what circumstances. The word evidence comes up a lot.

( Thor drinks coffee, and (with the aid of directions and some discreet experimentation with the bright blue soap) cleans the dishes, and makes more coffee, and listens with half his attention. )

Thor turns towards the glass doors, seeing out of the corner of his eye his friends falling in behind him, following his lead -- and that's when the sky over the desert opens up.

Thor steps through the door onto the roof of Jane Foster's lab, with dawn paling the sky and Jane herself still asleep on a reclining chair behind him. The air is dry and chilly; it smells of dust and oil and human buildings and a far-off horizon beneath a wide and nearly cloudless sky. No time has passed at all, here.

Whoever designed Milliways's portal was very clever indeed.

Thor gazes around, reacquainting himself with the rooftop and the sky and the desert beyond. He has only spent a short time here, but he will be sorry to leave this home of friends.

He sits on the edge of the roof, his legs dangling over a short drop -- a long drop, to this human form -- to watch the pale Midgardian sun creep upwards, and wait for Jane to awaken.

Milliways deposits them back on the sidewalk of Puente Antiguo, right outside the bar. Thor's acquired a jacket of something called flannel -- at Erik's drunken insistence, though Thor likes the weight of it, and is bemused to find that in this mortal form he notices the chill of the desert night.

( Erik Selvig, who's only acquired water and some more time for the alcohol to drift through his bloodstream, stays in ebullient high spirits right up until he faceplants onto the sidewalk. )

"Yes," he says, "of course," and gestures for her to lead the way.

[Shortly before...]


Jane's van rattles down the winding desert roads. They're unpaved, and far more rudimentary than the wide roads between the hospital and Puente Antiguo. A horse would do well on this sort of trail, and an Asgardian steed could run faster than the speediest car, but the van shakes and bumps at every irregularity. Privately, Thor revises his assessment of its capabilities downward. They won't reach Mjolnir until well after nightfall, at this rate. Especially since the van seems required by its nature or Jane's command to stay on the roads instead of taking a more direct route, as if a few rocks and crannies and scrubby bushes would defeat its wheels. Still, it serves well enough for this purpose.

( Earlier, Jane snapped out a furious tale of government scientists, craven thugs stealing her work. )

Thor has no better words to give her, not with any certainty of greater success. He'll show her, soon enough, and then she'll be better able to understand the rest of his answers. For now, instead, he watches the New Mexico desert roll by. It's a fascinating country.