Natasha briskly carried her phone through the hallways of S.H.I.E.L.D., shoved open the door to an office, quickly turned back around to shut it, her conversation peppered with words such as "hammer", "New Mexico", "aliens", and so forth.
Coulson handed her a cup of coffee. Natasha looked at it before setting it aside. Coulson appeared puzzled, but Natasha paid him no mind.
Quickly, Natasha ended her call, picked up her leather jacket from the side, donned it, and told Coulson: "Emergency mission, New Mexico, leaving in ten minutes!"
The whirling dust kicked up by the chopper's blades compelled Natasha to wave her hand in front of her face and cough a few times as she descended.
She stood atop the base rooftop, gazing over New Mexico's vibrant landscape, while Nick was busy making calls as usual.
They passed through the safety barrier quickly to reach ground zero, where they found the familiar hammer. Natasha raised an eyebrow, walking around it a couple of times before telling the man in charge, "So you mean to tell me that no one can lift this thing, and you decided to put a barrier around it?"
Nick took a deep breath, visibly annoyed. Pulling open his jacket, he retorted to the manager, "Do you have any idea how busy I am? You dragged me all the way here for a hammer, I thought you'd caught an alien!"
The man in charge replied awkwardly, "We have only made a preliminary determination that it's from outer space, whether there are aliens or not is still uncertain."
Seeing the fury rising on Nick's face, he quickly added, "But the reports regarding this hammer, we didn't exaggerate anything. We tried to get strong agents, boxers, even retired special force instructors, and none of them could lift it."
"Of course, we also started machinery like cranes, excavators and the like, but it seems the ground underneath has been solidified. Nothing can damage it."
Nick glowered at the man in charge as he moved towards the hammer, his expression seemed to say, "Try making a fool out of me and you'll be stuck in Mexico forever."
He stepped beside Natasha, grabbed the handle of the hammer and pulled hard, but it didn't budge.
Nick tried a different approach, gripping the end of the handle with both hands, planting his feet firmly on the ground, bending his knees and waist, and hauled it up. After a grunt, he found himself sitting on the ground.
Coulson rushed over to help Nick up, but Nick waved him away impatiently, asking him to start the special item containment procedure.
Leaning on the fence with interest, Natasha looked at the hammer. She too had gone through the same ordeal, but when she arrived Thor was already there, resulting in her shifting her attention onto the alien rather than the hammer.
She has since seen the hammer in Loki's possession several times. It's reportedly called Mjölnir, originally Thor's weapon, then thrown to Earth by Odin after he put a seal on it.
However, after Thor's succession, to carry on the demeanour of the Father of All Gods, he switched to a long spear. Loki started to wave the hammer around daily. During Asgard Court's system reform, it became his mole-hammer, hitting wherever there is a mistake, exercising his right to penalize first and report after.
Natasha has never tried pulling the hammer before. After looking around, she licked her lips, walked over, bent down, used her muscles just like Nick did.
With a loud "thunk", she ended up sitting on the ground, only this time, with the hammer in her hands.
Hearing the noise, everyone turned to stare at Natasha and the hammer in her hand, everyone was stunned, including Natasha herself.
The moment Natasha tried to pull the hammer, Loki, in the Star Devouring Engine, snapped his fingers. A ray of light ran across the surface of Thor's hammer.
He exclaimed excitedly, "I can't wait to see the look on Thor's face when he finds out that his beloved hammer was lifted by a human woman, hahaha!"
Thor, from behind, reached over and rubbed the wildly laughing Loki's head, and shrugged helplessly at the sight of his immature past self's behaviour.
Natasha stood up, took a deep breath and looked at the hammer in her hands.
Ignoring the yelling match between Nick and the man in charge in the background, she swung the hammer a couple of times. Realising it wasn't heavy, she swung it a few more times.
"Crack!"
A bolt of lightning shot down directly onto the base's satellite antenna, startling everyone. Natasha reflexively jumped back and stared wide-eyed at where the lightning had struck.
Suddenly understanding, she glanced at Thor's hammer in her hand, then back up at the clear sky. Apparently, she was staring at Thor and Loki in the Star Devouring Engine.
Besides the two of them playing tricks, it's impossible for anyone else to have prematurely lifted the seal on Thor's hammer. Now have given her the right to wield Mjolnir, but what about the universe's Thor?
Just as Natasha thought of this, a commotion started at the door. After taking a call, the man in charge shouted, "Intruder alert! All security personnel, take positions. I repeat, we are being invaded..."
Natasha knew instantly that Thor must have arrived. But when she glanced at the sky, something felt off. As far as she remembered, Thor from her universe arrived at night. Why was the Thor from this universe quite early?
Standing where she was, Natasha hesitated whether she should put the hammer back. Based on her previous encounters with the early Thor, the big guy was rather sensitive at this stage. If he saw a human woman wielding his hammer and the power of Thor, he might collapse on the spot. That would add a lot of trouble to S.H.I.E.L.D.'s work.
Just then, the commotion outside grew louder. Sensing something was wrong, Natasha rushed out, hammer in hand, and saw Hawkeye Barton drawing his bow at a burly blond man.
"Stop! Barton!" Natasha yelled.
Her yell made Barton hesitate. He saw the hammer in her hand and, in shock, released his hold. But due to the lack of pull on the bowstring, and without properly aiming, his arrow flew off course.
Natasha finally concentrated her attention on the chaotic situation in the field, where the blond hulk had already knocked over a squad of security personnel, and the gate shredded by him was laying nearby.
Natasha gritted her teeth and cursed. She had no idea Thor had caused such a commotion when he first arrived on Earth.
However, Thor inside the Star Devouring Engine suddenly stood upright, his eyes narrowed as he stared at another his own image on the screen and said, "Something's not right."
Loki also stepped forward, watching Thor's performance in the fight, he shook his head and said, "Even Thor of that time couldn't possibly fight in such a disorderly manner, what's wrong with him?"
Looking at Thor's condition, Loki's expression became increasingly grave.
Natasha and Hawkeye both realised that something was wrong with Thor in the field. The two exchanged a glance, Hawkeye swapped his arrowhead for a net arrow, and Natasha raised her hammer.
"Crack," a bolt of lightning split right before Thor, who looked dazed as he stared at the dissipated Power of Thunder. With a soft thud, a net pressed him to the ground.
Thor started to struggle desperately, constantly uttering painful howls. Just as Natasha was about to go over and investigate, Nick bellowed from the side: "Don't go over."
The next second, Thor tore through the net and leapt out, charging towards Natasha.
Natasha raised her hammer to block, Thor's heavy fist crashed on the hammer's surface, "bang," Natasha was sent flying, flipping through the air and landing on her hand.
Looking at Thor's painful expression, although Natasha was puzzled, she could only choose to temporarily retreat.
Just then, a woman suddenly rushed in through the broken gate, a car had just stopped behind her. Upon seeing her face, Coulson hurriedly rushed forward to stop her.
"Dr. Foster, Dr. Foster, calm down, he's very dangerous right now!"
The woman known as Dr. Foster turned her head and snapped at Coulson, "If you hadn't taken away my atmospheric research data, why would he have rushed over here?!"
"Thor! Thor! Listen to me, calm down, we can talk about whatever the problem is, you can't behave like this..."
But all she received in response was a painful roar, Thor pounced towards her, but fell halfway, clutching his chest, he mumbled: "Go, Jane, go, uh... uh..."
Like a fish out of water, Thor struggled on the ground. Jane, shocked, looked at him, then turned to Coulson and asked: "What on earth is going on? What did you do to him?"
"Get out of the way!" Natasha coldly pushed Jane aside, stepping forward to press her hammer on Thor's chest.
She knew that Thor couldn't lift this hammer before being recognized by Mjölnir, so she hoped to use this to calm Thor down.
However, once the hammer was lowered, while Thor did stop moving, he still looked painfully at the convulsing limbs.
At this point, everyone in S.H.I.E.L.D. was confused about what was going on. Natasha reached for the cure potion that Nick had previously given her, but thinking about how Tony in this universe had nearly died due to the injection, she hesitated to give Thor the potion. If a prince of Asgard died on Earth, it would be a huge problem.
With a "whoosh", a dark-green figure appeared beside Thor. Dressed in black armor with a green cloak, he wore a dazzling golden horned crown on his head.
"Everyone move aside, I'm his brother."
Natasha's pupils contracted, but a golden wand appeared in front of her, gently pushing her back.
The vigilant expression on Natasha's face disappeared instantly. She stepped back two steps, crossing her arms and watching Loki, who was both familiar and unfamiliar, with interest.
Loki slowly knelt down, reaching out to hold the Mjölnir press on Thor, who shook his head painfully, his mouth constantly saying, "Go... Go..."
Loki smiled triumphantly at him, but the next second he heard Thor's distracted eyes say, "Go... Loki...danger...heart! Go..."
Loki held the handle of Mjölnir, discarded the hammer, and pressed his hand to Thor's chest. A flash of magic glow followed and Thor's muscles relaxed.
However, Loki stood up slightly confused. He stared at Thor, looking him up and down, then turned around and mouthed to Natasha, "He's fine."
Natasha was also confused. She had clearly seen Thor going mad with pain, that kind of crazed state shouldn't have been faked, but Loki claimed he was okay. Surely, Thor of this period isn't foolish enough to pretend to be mad, right?
With a flash of light, Loki disappeared. As Thor looked on in shock, Natasha grabbed Mjölnir and pointed at him, saying, "You better explain what's going on, or else..."
"Crack!"
A lightning bolt fell less than ten centimeters from Thor, who lifted his eyes and glanced at his singed hair through crossed eyes before swallowing and saying,
"I'm the prince of Asgard, you can't treat me this way!"