Puente Antiguo, New Mexico - Night
The portal deposited them on the outskirts of town, near the familiar silhouette of Jane Foster's research station.
The lab was quiet. The earlier chaos of evacuation had settled into an exhausted stillness. But Jane Foster was there, sitting on the hood of her battered van, staring at the sky.
Beside her, Selvig nursed a lukewarm coffee, his expression distant. Darcy was poking at her iPad, which Coulson had graciously returned, though her attention kept drifting upward to the stars.
Thor stepped out of the shadows.
"Jane Foster."
Her head snapped toward the sound.
For a second, she just stared, as if she were seeing a ghost. Then she scrambled off the hood, stumbling slightly in the sand, and ran to him.
Thor met her halfway, sweeping her up in a hug that lifted her feet off the ground.
Arthur leaned against a nearby wall and watched with a small smile.
He wasn't entirely sure what to make of their connection. Was it love? Or was it something simpler? The intoxicating collision of two people from utterly different worlds, each fascinated by what the other represented?
Jane had been the first person to treat Thor as a man rather than a god. And Thor had dropped into Jane's life like a comet, turning her theories into reality, making the impossible tangible.
Whether that foundation would hold when Thor's duties called him to Asgard and Jane's research kept her on Earth... Arthur didn't know.
Perhaps they'd surprise him.
Thor set Jane down but kept his arm around her waist, as if afraid she might vanish if he let go. He turned to Selvig.
"You came back," Selvig said, something like wonder in his voice. "I didn't think you would. I thought..." He shook his head. "I didn't know what to think."
"I nearly couldn't return," Thor admitted. "But Arthur made it possible."
Selvig's gaze found Arthur. "Mr. Hayes. Good to see you back safely. There would have been considerable chaos if you'd gone missing."
"I appreciate the concern," Arthur said, "but that possibility was always negligible. I take it you recovered your equipment?"
"Agent Coulson was kind enough to return everything before he left," Jane answered, finally pulling her attention away from Thor long enough to join the conversation. "He said he had some urgent matters to attend to."
"Did he now?" Arthur's smile took on an edge of amusement. "Interesting. I believe I owe him a visit."
He pushed off from the wall. "You all catch up. I need to head home and check on my family. I'll return in a few hours to collect you, Thor."
Thor's expression softened with genuine gratitude. "Thank you, my friend. For everything."
"Don't mention it."
Arthur turned to leave—
"Wait!"
He stopped. Darcy had stepped forward, her expression suddenly nervous. She was fidgeting with her phone, not quite meeting his eyes.
"Um. Mr. Hayes. Sir." She swallowed. "I don't know if you remember, but... you kind of promised something? Before? About my, uh..." She gestured vaguely. "Student loans?"
Arthur blinked.
Then he laughed.
"I did promise that, didn't I?"
Darcy nodded vigorously, hope warring with disbelief on her face.
"Don't worry about it. I'll have someone take care of it."
"Take care of it how?"
"You'll receive a notification in a few days that your loans have been cleared. Full balance, zero remaining. You don't need to do anything on your end."
Darcy stared at him. "Just... just like that?"
"Just like that."
Her mouth opened and closed several times, processing what she'd just heard. Then she lunged forward and threw her arms around him.
"Oh my God, thank you thank you thank you—"
"You're welcome." Arthur gently extracted himself from the embrace. "Now if you'll excuse me, I have some business to handle."
He stepped back, offered a small wave to the group, and vanished without a sound.
Jane, Selvig, and Darcy stared at the empty space where he'd been standing.
"I'm never going to get used to that," Selvig muttered.
—
New Mexico Desert
The Destroyer lay where it had fallen after Thor sent it rocketing into the upper atmosphere.
The massive Asgardian automaton was dormant now, its internal fires extinguished, its terrible purpose concluded. S.H.I.E.L.D. had wasted no time establishing a perimeter. Floodlights illuminated the crash site, agents patrolled in tactical formation, and scientists in protective suits took readings with instruments that beeped and clicked in the desert silence.
At the center of it all, directing operations with calm efficiency, was Agent Phil Coulson.
Arthur appeared on top of the Destroyer's chest, making no effort to conceal his arrival.
"Intruder!"
Weapons came up. Agents shouted orders and scrambled into defensive positions. Red laser dots danced across Arthur's chest.
Coulson didn't reach for his weapon. He simply sighed.
"Mr. Hayes." His voice carried the weary resignation of a man who had stopped being surprised by impossible things. "I had a feeling you'd show up."
"Agent Coulson." Arthur hopped down from the automaton's chest, landing lightly on the sand. "Thank you for guarding my spoils of war. I'll take it from here."
"Mr. Hayes—"
"Don't entertain any unrealistic ideas, Phil." Arthur's tone was pleasant but firm. "Call Fury. I'll help make things clear."
Coulson's expression didn't change. He pulled out his phone, pressed a speed dial, and waited.
"Director. He's here." A pause. "Yes, sir. For the robot." Another pause. "Understood."
He handed the phone to Arthur.
"Hayes." Fury's voice was flat, completely unsurprised. "I figured you'd come sniffing around for the big shiny weapon eventually."
"Nick. Always a pleasure to hear your voice."
"Cut the crap. That thing could help us develop real defenses against threats like what we just saw. The kind of defenses that might give us a fighting chance when the next god or alien or interdimensional nightmare decides Earth looks like a fun playground."
"The Destroyer is Asgardian technology bound to Asgardian magic," Arthur said, keeping his voice reasonable. "Your scientists can't learn from it. They'll spend years trying to reverse-engineer something they don't have the foundational knowledge to understand. They'll get nowhere, and you'll have wasted resources you can't afford to waste."
"You don't know that."
"I do. The Destroyer isn't a product of technology, Nick. It's a product of magic. Divine magic, woven by Odin himself. Your best engineers couldn't even identify what it's made of, let alone replicate it."
Silence on the line.
"And I don't have time to argue," Arthur continued. "The Destroyer. I'm taking it."
A longer pause.
"Do I have a choice?"
"No. But…" Arthur's tone shifted, becoming more conciliatory. "I'll give you something in exchange. Detailed information about Asgard. And some Asgardian metals for your R&D teams to actually learn from. How does that sound?"
Silence stretched.
"Fine." Fury's voice was grudging, but Arthur could hear the calculation beneath it. A fair trade, all things considered. "But the information better be worth it. I can only hold off the Council for so long."
"If the Council has concerns, have them contact me directly. I'll help them understand the situation."
The implied threat hung in the air, unspoken but clear.
"I'll hold you to that, Hayes."
Arthur ended the call and handed the phone back to Coulson.
The agent studied him for a moment, then asked, "How exactly are you planning to transport that thing? It has to weigh several tons at minimum."
Arthur walked into the crater without answering.
The S.H.I.E.L.D. agents scattered, uncertain how to react to someone casually approaching their carefully secured artifact. Arthur ignored them, placing one hand on the Destroyer's chest plate.
He closed his eyes, focusing.
The world twisted.
Arthur and the Destroyer vanished, leaving behind nothing but an empty crater and a dozen very confused federal agents.
Coulson stared at the vacant space for a long moment.
"I really hate it when he does that."
—-
Hayes Residence – New York
The house was quiet when Arthur returned. It was late.
Arthur appeared in the living room. He checked his watch. He checked his watch. He'd been gone for roughly twenty hours.
"Daddy!"
A small projectile launched itself from the direction of the sofa.
Arthur caught Elena mid-air, spinning her around as she squealed with delight. Tristan was right behind her, abandoning his half-built Lego fortress to wrap himself around Arthur's leg like a determined octopus.
"You're back!" Elena cheered, her arms locked around his neck. "You've been gone forever!"
"It was only a day, sweetheart."
"That's forever!"
Arthur couldn't argue with that logic.
Eileen appeared in the doorway, drawn by the commotion. She smiled, warm and relieved, though her eyes immediately scanned him for injuries. Finding none visible, she relaxed.
Winky popped into existence beside her, her eyes bright with happiness at seeing Arthur home safely. Though she could sense his depleted magical reserves, her expression betrayed nothing but pleasure at his return.
"You're late," Eileen said, crossing the room to kiss him. "I assume the outing went well?"
"Very well," Arthur said, setting Elena down but keeping one hand on her shoulder. "I made some new friends. Secured access to a rather impressive library. Oh, and I picked up a souvenir."
"A souvenir?" Tristan's eyes went wide. "Is it a toy?"
"Better." Arthur grinned. "It's a story."
"Tell us! Tell us!" Elena bounced on the balls of her feet, her earlier exhaustion completely forgotten.
"Did you fight bad guys?" Tristan asked, his voice taking on a serious tone. "Did you blow things up?"
"I did," Arthur nodded solemnly. "I fought a giant made of ice. He was very grumpy."
"An ice giant?" Elena gasped. "Like in the storybooks?"
"Exactly like the stories. But bigger. And considerably smellier."
"Tell us everything!"
Arthur looked at his excited children, then at Eileen, who was looking at him with an amused raised eyebrow.
"Well," Arthur said slowly, feigning hesitation. "I could tell you... or I could show you."
"Show us! Show us!"
"Winky, could you fetch the Pensieve, please?"
The house-elf vanished with a soft pop, her own excitement barely contained. She wanted to see Arthur's battle too.
A moment later, the stone basin sat on the coffee table, the silvery substance inside swirling invitingly. The children gathered close, their eyes wide with anticipation.
"Ready?" Arthur placed the tip of his wand to his temple. He pulled out a long, shimmering strand of memory - silver and blue and violet, glowing softly in the dim room.
He dropped it into the bowl.
The family leaned forward together, and the world dissolved around them.
—
The children gasped.
They were looking at Asgard. Golden spires reaching toward an impossible sky, the Rainbow Bridge stretching across a cosmic ocean, nebulae and star-fields painting the heavens in colors that Earth could never produce.
"It's so pretty," Elena whispered.
"That's Asgard," Arthur explained. "It's another world, far away from Earth."
The scene shifted. Arthur had edited the memory carefully, showing the full scope of events without the graphic details that would give children nightmares. They saw Loki's betrayal of Laufey. They saw Arthur and Thor's arrival through the golden portal. They witnessed Thor's confrontation with his brother - reconstructed from Arthur's knowledge of events, filling in the gaps he hadn't personally observed.
And then came Arthur's battle with Laufey.
"He's huge!" Tristan exclaimed as the Frost Giant King towered over Arthur's memory-self.
They watched Arthur dance around the giant's attacks, striking and vanishing, testing and probing. They cheered when his spells found their mark and gasped when Laufey's counter-attacks came too close.
Then the dragons emerged.
"DRAGONS!" Tristan shouted, pointing at the massive fire serpent coiling through the air. "Daddy made real dragons!"
"Two of them!" Elena added, her voice rising with excitement as the lightning dragon crackled into existence. "One's made of fire and one's made of lightning!"
The children watched in breathless silence as the two elemental beasts merged into the Thunder-Fire Dragon.
Then climax came: the dragon compressing into a miniature sun, Laufey's final moments (carefully sanitized to show only brilliant light, not the actual death), and then the explosion of smaller spheres bursting across the Mirror Dimension's fractured sky like fireworks.
"Woooooow," both children breathed in unison.
The memory faded, and they returned to the familiar comfort of the living room.
Tristan was the first to speak.
"That," he declared, his eyes shining with unabashed hero worship, "was awesome."
"Can you teach me the fire dragon?" Elena asked immediately, practically vibrating with excitement. "Please please please?"
"Maybe when you're older," Arthur laughed, ruffling her hair. "And when you promise not to burn down the house."
"I promise! I'll be super careful!"
"Bedtime," Eileen announced, clapping her hands firmly. "The show is over. It's already far too late for either of you to be awake."
"Awww," came the collective groan.
But they went without too much resistance, their heads filled with visions of golden cities and fire dragons and a father who could make the impossible real. Winky accompanied them to ensure they actually made it to their beds instead of staging a strategic retreat to continue the conversation.
After they were gone, the house fell quiet.
Eileen sat back down beside Arthur, close enough that their shoulders touched. For a long moment, neither spoke.
"A sun, Arthur?" she said finally, her voice somewhere between impressed and concerned. "You dropped a sun on someone?"
"A small sun. Very localized. Entirely contained within the Mirror Dimension."
"That's not as comforting as you seem to think it is."
Arthur chuckled softly.
Eileen leaned into him, her head finding its familiar place against his shoulder. "Sometimes I forget how dangerous your world is. Then you come home and casually mention fighting ice giants and creating miniature suns, and I remember."
"I'm always careful."
"I know." She looked up at him, her eyes searching his face. "I just worry. I can't help it."
"I know." He kissed her forehead gently. "That's one of the many reasons I love you."
They sat in comfortable silence, listening to the distant sounds of their children settling in. Elena's fading chatter, Tristan's quieter questions, Winky's patient responses.
"So," Eileen said eventually. "What happens now?"
"I'm going to Asgard. Regularly. Study in their archives. Learn everything I can about their magic."
"For how long?"
"Hard to say. Their library is... extensive doesn't begin to cover it. Millennia of accumulated knowledge." Arthur paused. "I could send a clone, but I don't want to create a poor impression. The Asgardians value sincerity. They'd know the difference."
He turned to face her fully.
"But I'll come home every day. Consider it a part-time job in another realm. I'll portal there, study during Earth's nights and return before the children wake. They won't even know I'm gone."
Eileen studied his face for a long moment. Then she sighed - not with resignation, but with understanding.
"You're doing this for us, aren't you? For me and the children."
"For all of us. For Earth." Arthur's expression grew serious. "The things I know... the threats that exist out there... I need to be stronger, Eileen. Strong enough that when those threats arrive, I can protect what matters."
She reached up and touched his face gently.
"Just promise me you'll be careful. Promise me you'll come home."
"Always." He covered her hand with his own. "Always."