The piercing alarm still screamed through the base, its crimson light painting every face with a savage glow.
Agents moved in full tactical gear, their footsteps chaotic and urgent, merging into a storm of motion as they poured through the steel corridors toward the unknown threat.
But in this chaos—enough to shatter ordinary nerves—Paul stood apart.
Fear was the last thing on his face. Instead, a faint smirk played on his lips as he casually twirled a shimmering syringe filled with starlight-like liquid between his fingers.
Coulson yanked him back, his weapon trained forward, voice cool and mechanical as he barked orders through the tactical comms.
"All units, lock down Sector A! Repeat, lock down Sector A! Snipers move to position—I need eyes!"
A sharp glance backward at the eerily calm teenager made his brows knit together.
"Paul! This isn't a drill! Stay behind me!"
"Relax, Agent Coulson." Paul's voice, quiet yet unnervingly clear through the blaring sirens, carried an almost bored amusement. "Like I said, it's just my future brother-in-law's big brother throwing a tantrum. Teenage rebellion, what can you do?"
"Future brother-in-law's... brother?" Coulson's brain stalled processing the linguistic labyrinth.
BOOM.
A deafening crash ripped through his thoughts.
The base's reinforced alloy perimeter fence tore apart like wet paper, a gaping maw ripped into its structure.
Two patrolling agents barely had time to register the golden blur before they were launched like ragdolls, bodies slamming into the ground without so much as a scream.
On the monitors, a towering figure stormed toward Mjölnir's crater. Drenched, his golden hair plastered against his face, yet the aura of a king undiminished.
"Hawkeye, status," Coulson demanded, voice steel.
"Target's in the crater. No visible weapons. He's—" A pause. "He looks pissed, sir." Barton's voice held its usual calm, but a thread of confusion bled through. "Requesting permission to engage."
"Stand down. Observe."
Coulson and Paul reached the crater's edge, watching through bulletproof glass as the scene unfolded below.
There stood Thor, Prince of Asgard, before a hammer that looked painfully ordinary.
His face burned with absolute certainty.
He bent, seized the handle with a grip that could crumple steel—
And pulled.
Muscles strained. Veins bulged.
Mjölnir didn't budge.
Thor's confidence shattered. He stared at his hand, then the hammer, as if it had grown roots into the earth.
Impossible.
This was Mjölnir. His companion across the Nine Realms!
He tried again, feet sinking into the dirt, face purpling with effort—
Still nothing.
A guttural growl of denial tore from his throat, raw with confusion and agony.
Again. And again. From confidence to disbelief, from rage to despair until—
"AAAAARGH—!"
The once-god of thunder crashed to his knees, fists slamming into the dirt as he howled at the storm-choked sky like a wounded beast.
Every agent froze.
This… this was the same force of nature that had bulldozed through their defenses moments ago? Now sobbing into the mud like a child robbed of his favorite toy?
The whiplash was surreal.
And in that heartbeat of tragic spectacle—Paul moved.
"Gonna say hi," he tossed casually at Coulson.
"Have you lost your—?!" Coulson lunged, but the boy slipped past like smoke.
As Paul strode toward the crater's access door, his thumb tapped a hidden switch in his pocket.
An invisible pulse—technology beyond Earth's reach—rippled outward.
[Perception Scrambler active. Sleep tight, Heimdall.]
No way Odin exiled his heir without surveillance. The All-Seer was the ultimate security camera.
Not tonight.
The door creaked open. Paul stepped into the crater, boots sinking into soft earth as he approached the broken demigod.
Thor didn't sense him.
The world had greyed out, drowned in loss.
Then—a needle's prick at his neck.
Sleep hit like a wave. His face thudded into the dirt.
Paul withdrew the syringe, eyed the crimson liquid within, and nodded.
Done.
For good measure, he flicked out custom scissors—snip—and pocketed a lock of golden hair.
Smooth. Clinical.
As he turned to leave—
A prickle at his nape.
Not the vast gaze of Asgard's watcher.
This was sly. Calculating. A serpent's gleam from the shadows.
Gone in a blink.
Loki.
Paul's lips twitched.
So the God of Mischief had come to witness his brother's disgrace.
Interesting.
He didn't linger.
Back in the control room, agents finally swarmed, binding the unconscious Thor in high-tensile restraints.
Coulson's gaze flicked between Paul and the faint red glint in his pocket, plus that unmistakable tuft of gold.
His mouth opened. Closed.
His worldview had been steamrolled tonight.
Myths made real. Then shattered.
And now? Their star player got knocked out by a fourteen-year-old's sedative.
With samples taken.
What even was reality?
Paul ignored Coulson's existential crisis. He tossed the blood-filled syringe once, caught it, and slid it into an inner pocket.
Through the glass, he watched Thor being hauled away, eyes dark.
Asgardian DNA. Secured.
Far more tangible than Cosmic Cubes or Infinity Stones.
This was the key. The Rosetta Stone to godhood's power.
"Agent Coulson."
"Huh?" The man was still rebooting.
"Ready for the storm," Paul murmured, eyes on the star-flecked void. "One that'll rage from the heavens."
This time, he wouldn't be watching from the sidelines.
He'd be the one wielding the lightning.