The air in the interrogation room was thick and cold, like solid lead.
The walls were a dull shade of gray-white, and the harsh glow of the overhead fluorescent light cast no warmth, only making Thor's dejected face appear even paler. He sat on a metal chair, his once-brilliant golden hair now dull and matted with dirt and grass. His bright blue eyes, once full of vigor, were lifeless, like pools of stagnant water reflecting no light.
He was like a lion stripped of its fangs and claws—nothing remained but exhaustion and emptiness.
Agent Coulson sat opposite him, hands folded neatly on the table in a textbook-perfect posture.
"Let's try this again," Coulson said in an even, unreadable tone. "Your name? Where are you from? What is that hammer?"
The barrage of questions fell upon Thor like pebbles dropped into the deep sea, stirring not a single ripple.
Thor remained silent.
He didn't even glance at Coulson. Instead, he stared fixedly at his hands, bound tightly by the restraints. Those same hands had once felled giants, had once wielded Mjolnir with effortless might—yet now, they couldn't even break the bindings of mere mortals.
How laughable.
How… humiliating.
"Your silence isn't helping," Coulson pressed. "We detected an unusually high level of gamma radiation on you—similar to Dr. Bruce Banner's condition. But your physiology… is entirely different. What are you?"
Thor's throat moved faintly. His lips parted, but in the end, no sound came out.
The Allfather's words still echoed in his mind.
"You are unworthy!"
Each syllable was a brand seared into his soul.
Unworthy of the hammer.
Unworthy of Asgard's power.
Unworthy… even to be called Odin's son.
Just as the suffocating silence threatened to swallow them whole, the heavy metal door of the interrogation room slid open without a sound.
A tall, slender figure stepped inside.
Dressed in immaculate Midgardian attire of deep emerald, his pale face was striking, framed by neatly combed dark hair. His green eyes were as deep and shadowed as an ancient forest.
Loki.
Thor's head snapped up, the deadened blue of his eyes igniting with sudden fire—flames of joy, disbelief, and desperate hope.
"Loki!"
His voice was hoarse, trembling with emotion.
Coulson's brow furrowed. In an instant, he was on his feet, his hand moving toward his holstered sidearm. The interrogation room door had the highest security clearance—how had this man gotten inside?
"Relax, Agent," Loki said with perfectly measured sorrow. His gaze slid past Coulson, landing solely on Thor. "I'm only here… to see my brother."
His voice was gentle, soothing—like a balm to a wounded spirit.
Thor's restraint shattered. He strained against his bonds, the straps creaking with the force of his effort.
"Loki! How did you get here? What of Father? Has he forgiven me? Did he send you to bring me home?"
He sounded like a drowning man clutching at his last lifeline, his voice thick with pleading and fragile hope.
Loki stepped closer, moving past Coulson with deliberate slowness. The agent hesitated but ultimately stood aside, observing the sudden reunion with narrowed eyes.
"Brother," Loki murmured. He reached out and placed a hand on Thor's shoulder—a gesture meant to calm. "Be still."
"How can I be still?" Thor growled, his eyes glistening. "I must return! I must kneel before Father and beg his forgiveness—I—"
"It's too late."
Loki's interruption was quiet, but the words hit Thor like a hammer to the chest.
Thor's voice died in his throat. He stared at Loki, frozen.
"...What do you mean?"
Loki lowered his head slightly, his long lashes casting a faint shadow over his face. His expression twisted with such grief it seemed barely containable.
"Because of your recklessness… because you reignited the conflict with Jotunheim… Father's old wounds reopened."
Thor's breath hitched. "Is he—?"
Loki lifted his gaze, his green eyes locking onto Thor's as he uttered the next words with chilling clarity:
"Father… is dead."
A sharp, deafening silence.
Time itself seemed to stop.
Every trace of emotion drained from Thor's face. The hope that had flickered in his eyes a moment earlier was extinguished, swallowed by an abyss of horror.
"No," he whispered, shaking his head as if denying the very words. "No, it… it cannot be. Father is—he is the Allfather! He cannot—"
"You killed him," Loki hissed, his voice now sharp with accusation. "Your pride and recklessness dragged Asgard to the brink of ruin. Father expended the last of his divine power to stop the disaster you unleashed."
"No! It wasn't me!" Thor's protest was frantic, his voice breaking. Tears spilled down his face, mingling with despair.
Loki ignored his anguish. With cruel detachment, he delivered the final blow.
"Mother rules Asgard now. Her decree is final: you are exiled to Midgard… forever, Thor. You will never come home."
A roar tore from Thor's throat—raw, anguished, primal.
It was the sound of a man whose world had just been ripped apart—of a being who had lost everything in an instant. Father, throne, home… all gone.
He lurched against the restraints, the metal chair rocking violently under his thrashing. His screams filled the room, the straps straining against his fury.
He was no longer a god.
Only a broken, pitiful husk.
Meanwhile, in another room of the temporary SHIELD facility…
Paul slouched in a chair before a monitor, fingers dancing absently over the keyboard.
The screen displayed a live feed of the interrogation room—crystal clear, even capturing the minute details of Loki's carefully crafted sorrow.
This wasn't SHIELD's surveillance system.
This was Paul's custom setup—his Magneto array. Using the quantum detectors he'd earlier placed around Mjolnir, he'd locked onto the energy signatures in the area and established his own surveillance network.
The moment Loki appeared, a sharp green spike flared on the energy readout in the corner of the screen.
"Oho," Paul murmured, leaning back in his chair with a steaming mug of cocoa. "Enter the thespian."
With unhurried amusement, he watched as Loki meticulously dismantled Thor with words—shattering his hope, twisting his grief into devastation.
A tap of a key expanded the energy graph.
"Interesting," Paul mused, his lips quirking in a smirk.
The moment Loki announced Odin's death, a subtle but unmistakable spike appeared—the signature of illusion and mental manipulation.
This wasn't just information.
It was a psychological assault.
"Oh, Oscars really need to give you a statue, Princess," Paul muttered, chuckling darkly.
He knew the God of Mischief too well.
Odin, dead? Please. At best, the old man was in the Odinsleep.
But to Thor—stripped of power, lost in despair—the lie was poison. It severed his last fragile thread of hope and left him drowning in a mortal's helplessness.
On-screen, Loki concluded his performance.
With one last look at the broken figure of his sobbing brother—his eyes flickering with something complex, something like triumph—he turned to leave.
And in that split second when his back was turned to Thor and Coulson…
Paul's recording zoomed in.
Captured.
A smirk.
Cold, victorious, utterly satisfied.
Then Loki vanished into thin air.
Coulson, now alone with a shattered Thunder God and an empty doorway, pinched the bridge of his nose.
Today had already exceeded his quota of too much.
Gods. Hammers. Alien princes. Sibling betrayals. Dead kings—
His communicator beeped.
"Medical team to Interrogation. Subject in distress—needs sedation."
Exhausted, he trudged out of the room, desperate for air.
And right outside the base's entrance, he was intercepted.
"Agent Coulson! Please!"
A silver-haired man in a rumpled jacket stood there, looking harried. Behind him, a young woman clutched a laptop.
Erik Selvig. Astrophysicist. Mentor to Jane Foster.
Coulson barely suppressed a groan.
"Yes, Doctor?"
"That man you took in—the big blond one! He's my assistant!" Selvig insisted, pulling out a fake ID. "His name is Donald Blake! He's a researcher—just had too much to drink, that's all! He's harmless!"
Coulson accepted the ID, staring at the unfamiliar name paired with Thor's face. His frown deepened.
Donald Blake?
Seriously?
Back in the control room, Paul smirked, switching feeds.
On one screen: Loki's frozen smirk.
On another: Thor's genetic sequence, rapidly decoding.
Asgardian DNA.
The key to godly power.
Paul's eyes gleamed.
Loki thought he had played the perfect game, puppeteering his brother's suffering.
But he didn't realize…
Behind the mantis, waits the oriole.
Paul tapped his comm.
"Coulson."
A weary sigh. "What is it, Paul?"
"Let Dr. Selvig in."
His fingers hovered over the data streaming in—genetics, lies, a brother's deceit—
"Our guest needs a custodian."
He exhaled, smiling.
"After all… the real show is just beginning."