Ash thickened the sky, drifting through the broken corridors of the black site like funeral shrouds. The fires were out, but heat still pulsed from twisted beams and shattered consoles, painting the ruin in smouldering reds and sickly greys. Once central to S.H.I.E.L.D.'s quiet work, the facility lay in pieces.
A column of agents moved cautiously through the debris. Nick Fury led the slow advance, boots grinding over scorched fragments of metal. Compound sensors were blind; surveillance feeds whispered static. From somewhere deeper came the tang of burned circuitry—and something older, stranger.
"Catalogue every scrap," Fury said, voice low. "Anything that shouldn't be here."
An agent knelt, gingerly lifting a palm-sized construct. It glimmered in the dim light: an artificial scarab, its shell etched with angular runes and threaded with sensors. "We're finding them everywhere, sir. Most are slagged, but a few still show faint energy signatures."
He hesitated, checking his tablet. "We caught an energy spike uplinking to the satellite just before Luthar vanished. Looks like he used orbital assets to vector the exfil."
Fury's single eye narrowed. "We already know he can jump. Satellite assist doesn't explain why the whole compound decided to eat itself."
Uneasy glances passed between agents. A woman from Forensics cleared her throat. "The prison wing shows shaped charges—clean angles, directional blast. Everywhere else…" She gestured at a buckled ceiling, a corridor flensed to bare rebar. "Secondary detonations. Too mangled for hard conclusions."
Fury absorbed it, jaw set. He had authorised charges to seal the prison wing if the site was breached—not to turn the grid into a crater. Somewhere behind the scenes, Hydra hands were already busy—bending logs, whispering that S.H.I.E.L.D.'s negligence lit the fuse. Their own plan had been to blow the facility after extracting their people. Fury's failsafes had kissed their sabotage, and the whole thing went early. Everyone lost but the rumour.
"Bag everything," he said. "Before next Friday, I want conclusions, or I'll send you to Antarctica."
Far from ruin, in a hidden forge-lab, Luthar watched the chaos unfold. Arcane machinery murmured: crystalline cores spun in containment fields, their light rolling in spectral hues. Racks of unfinished constructs lined the walls, quiet as a prayer.
Monitors flickered with feeds from the black site. S.H.I.E.L.D. agents moved like ants through ash, lifting his dead toys by the handful. Luthar's expression did not change. These were shells—expendable. Intelligence lived in the vibranium-core couriers, the carriers that slipped away before the lights died. The network breathed elsewhere.
He turned from the screens.
Anton and Ivan Vanko were on tight house arrest—alive, contained, and working. They would rebuild their suits heavier, smarter, and less vulnerable to Stark's tricks. Hephaestus stood at a workbench beyond them, single eye intent as she balanced divine strain against engineered tolerances, grafting god-metallurgy to mortal frames.
But Luthar's thoughts were already drifting to Mexico. The mission had to proceed cleanly; he needed to ensure Lily and Freya did not sustain injuries in the upcoming conflict.
By dawn, order was attempting a comeback in New Mexico. Sirens had stopped. Hospital staff spoke in hushed voices about a hammer that had punched the sky. Outside, the air was clean and bright, as if the night had decided to pretend it had never happened.
Thor stepped into that morning, disoriented but proud by reflex, dragging the tattered majesty of an exiled prince. He did not yet understand the shape of his fall; he only knew the weight of the empty space where Mjolnir should be.
Across the parking lot, Lily and Freya approached with very different kinds of patience. Their shuttle—a defensive marvel—had been damaged. Repairs were trivial for Luthar. Pride was less forgiving.
"It's not every day our shuttle gets sideswiped by a flying hammer," Lily said, annoyance clear. "You owe us—big time."
Thor's head snapped up. "Mortal," he boomed, swelling on habit, "tell me where my hammer is, and, in exchange, I shall gift you a new vessel."
Freya laughed, warm and sharp. "Calling a goddess a mortal? Perhaps your brain took a harder blow than your honour."
He turned to retort, but Freya's eyes flashed. Gravity sank into his limbs. The storm god found himself frozen, muscles locked, pride arrested mid-breath.
Lily stepped in, already pulling a sleek sampler from her belt. "Hold still, big guy. Just a drop." The needle kissed Thor's forearm; divine blood flowed to the glass. Freya's pressure ebbed a fraction. Lily capped the vial and tucked it away—then, as Freya's divine power loosened its grip, Lily landed a sharp punch squarely against Thor's left cheek. The impact echoed with her resentment.
"Next time, watch where you throw your weapons!" she snapped, her eyes flashing with indignation.
Thor staggered back, taken off guard by the fury in her attack. Before he could recover, Lily landed another hard punch on his right cheek, making sure he felt every ounce of her irritation. Thor's eyes widened with disbelief that such force could come from someone so small.
Freya, serene but resolute, watched silently as Jane and her group approached, their expressions a mix of shock and concern—witnessing a big man getting punched by a little girl, they couldn't understand.
Darcy leaned in to whisper, eyes wide. "Is that his daughter, whom he abandoned a long time ago, and now she's come to get revenge?"
"This is not a TV show, Darcy," Selvig said, frowning as he looked at Freya, her face covered by cloth, and then Lily, armoured like a figure from a comic book. "They're not… normal. I think we should just leave him." He did not want to get involved with this strange group.
Lily rolled her shoulders, irritation cooling into practicality. She produced a small parchment with inked columns in tight, neat script. "That's for the fright. Now, let's settle accounts." She began to read, her tone pleasantly bureaucratic. "One replacement shuttle substructure. Two coils of skysteel. Three drams of aether-quartz. Five kilograms of phoenix ash. Eight tons of refined uru, which is the most important."
Thor's confusion deepened with each item. Even in the halls of Asgard, half the list would require favours he did not currently own. This was clearly blackmail.
Lily folded the parchment and tucked it away. "We'll send an invoice. Pay quickly so you don't get the late fees."
Thor found his voice at last. "I think first I should get my Mjolnir. Then we will renegotiate."
Freya tilted her head. "Little boy, this is not how things work. You pay us for damages, or we take your head."
Jane stepped closer, caught between awe and academic hunger. "Did you say uru?"
Lily, looking at Jane, replies, "You heard right; it's excellent material. I think, exchanging the Prince of Asgard for eight tons
uru is a good deal."
This was the day Thor would realise even gods must pay for what they break.
Author's note: If everything goes all right, I should be able to restart writing in a few days. First time going to try to write two chapters a week, then speed up based on the situation. Going to be a little troublesome restarting writing since I feel like my mind is too distracted.
I am also trying out ko-fi because they have lower charges for donation while I haven't uploaded chapter there but it's a good flat form for one time donation but if you just want to read ahead the at least for now patreon is better choice
https://ko-fi.com/silverdvs95