So I recently rewatched Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium for the first time in a few years, and I was really surprised to see that Mahoney was played by Natalie Portman! And I'm sure everyone reading this can at least guess who else Natalie Portman plays.
Disclaimer: I do not own Mr. Magorium or Marvel.
1.
"Wow, your own science station? That's so cool, Jane!"
Jane smiled, despite the fact that Molly was on the phone with her and couldn't see. "I know! I had to call and tell you as soon as I found out."
The thing was, Jane Foster and Molly Mahoney were twins.
It was difficult to figure this out, unless they happened to be in the same room as each other, and then it was very obvious. Their parents had split when both girls were rather young, but not too young not to remember that it was an amicable split. Jane elected to go with her mother, taking her maiden name of 'Foster' as well, and Molly stayed with their dad.
They stayed in touch, too.
Their parents may have split, but they didn't cut all contact, and while the adults of the family preferred to limit their interaction, Molly and Jane called each other at all times of day and night - sometimes too many times, prompting a parental intervention and a temporary ban, during which they resorted to writing letters. Whenever possible, they visited each other.
So Molly Mahoney and Jane Foster were twins, and even if they hadn't grown up in proximity to each other they had certainly grown up together.
"How's your piano thing been going?" Jane asked, changing the subject. Even if she'd always been more the science twin than the artsy one, that didn't stop her from being interested.
A sigh came through the phone. "I'm...working on it."
"I'm sure you'll get it eventually."
"I hope so. 'Bye, Jane! I gotta go or I'll be late for work."
2.
The next time Molly called Jane, she sounded like she was talking through tears.
"Jane?"
"Molly, are you okay?"
There was a loud sniff. "It's Mr. Magorium."
"Oh, no." Jane clutched her phone tighter. "Did something happen to him?" She was aware that Molly worked for an elderly man who ran a toy store.
Another loud sniff. "He's dead." Molly's voice wobbled on the last word.
"Oh my God." Jane's hand leaped to her mouth. "Are you alright? Should I go out there?"
"No, I - I'll be okay." Molly's trembling voice indicated that she was pretty far from okay right now. "I just-"
"No way. I'm flying out," Jane said firmly. "The store's in the same place, right?" She had visited once before - it couldn't be that hard to find the place again, could it?
"..Thanks, Jane."
"No problem." Jane was already looking up flights out to New York.
3.
"Who's that?"
"Oh, that's my new intern. Hey, Darcy!" Jane shouted, spinning around in her chair. "Say hi to Molly!"
"That better not be a joke, Jane." Darcy popped up from behind a precarious stack of half-filled journals and other science books Jane had been attempting to clean up when Molly's Skype alert distracted her. "Oh, it's an actual person."
On-screen, Molly waved, and Darcy's eyes narrowed.
"Hold on..." Her eyes flicked to Jane and then back to Molly, and then widened. "Dude! You have a sister! A twin sister!"
"Yeah." Jane smiled, turning back to the screen. "This is Darcy. She's just interning with me for college credit."
"Hey, Darcy." Molly grinned. "You never mentioned me?"
"Yeah, Jane," Darcy interrupted.
"She's only been my intern for about three days," Jane answered, rolling her eyes and flapping a hand at Darcy to get her to be quiet. "It never came up."
"Well, I feel cheated," Darcy announced, and Molly giggled and then looked away.
"Shoot, there's Eric. I gotta go. 'Bye, Jane!"
4.
"Okay, okay, slow down. Who showed up at your station?"
Jane shook her head, unable to keep from gesturing. "You won't believe me."
"Try me." Molly's voice was calm.
"Thor."
"Thor?"
"As in the Norse god!"
A brief pause came through the phone. "...Wow. Okay."
"You think I'm crazy, don't you?" Jane sighed.
"No, I know you wouldn't make this up." Molly sounded thoughtful. "Gods are a thing?"
"Apparently!" Jane sighed in frustration. "He said he came from some...other realm or something. He tried to explain it to but honestly I need more information!"
"Explain what, realms?"
"According to him there are nine, Earth being one - he calls it Midgard. But I'm a scientist, Molly, and he didn't give me enough! I'm curious!"
"I can tell." Molly said lightly. "So why don't you ask him?"
"He went back to his realm. After almost dying!" Jane was aware she was shouting into the phone at this point and tried to calm down. Or at least quiet down.
"Stinks for you." There was a crashing noise on the other end of the phone, as if something had fallen over. "Oh, sh - crap. Jane, can I call you back?"
Molly hung up without waiting for an answer, and Jane was left staring in frustration at the phone she'd only just gotten back from SHIELD.
"Something the matter?" Agent Coulson or whatever he was called was standing nearby, but with sunglasses on it was impossible to tell what he was thinking.
"No," Jane said shortly, and stuffed the phone away.
5.
Jane almost dropped her phone in her rush to dial Molly's number.
"Come on, come on, pick up..." The TV in the background wasn't helping, showing fuzzy shots of...whatever the hell those things were prowling through the streets of New York. Jane felt a flash of fear as the phone kept ringing. "Come on, Molly!"
Click.
"Jane?" It was barely a whisper, but Jane sagged in relief.
"Molly, thank God. Are you okay?"
"We're in the basement. I took everyone in the store down here when I realized something was wrong. The door's locked, too. Jane, what's going on?"
"I don't know." Jane was suddenly much more interested in the TV. "It looks like aliens."
"Aliens?" Molly sounded half-hysterical. "Like Thor?"
"No, uh, these ones are a lot..." Jane watched one shoot something that looked like a blue laser and destroy the front of a building, making whoever was inside start screaming. "Meaner."
"Great!" The sarcasm was sharp even through the phone. "Is anyone doing anything about it?"
"I don't - ohmigod."
"What?"
Jane stared at the feed in utter disbelief. "It's Thor!"
"What?"
"He's on TV right now! There's a bunch of people out there fighting - shit, is that Iron Man?"
"What? Who else is there?"
"I'm pretty sure the military came in, but there's not a lot of feed." Jane was leaning closer without realizing. "Shit, that's definitely Thor!"
"I'm sure he'll be alright." Molly didn't sound very sure. "Jane, I don't have a lot of battery left. Does it look like it's gonna be over soon?"
Jane bit her lip, a nervous tic that hadn't resurfaced in ages. "I don't know."
6.
New York had finally been cleaned up, and it was almost impossible to tell that it had once been attacked by aliens.
So one thing Molly Mahoney did not expect to see outside the shop when she went to open it for the morning was Jane, surrounded by the Avengers.
"Molly!" Jane lit up when she saw her sister, striding over and giving her a hug that Molly returned, albeit in confusion.
"Jane, what's-" Molly gestured vaguely, and Jane glanced behind her, seemingly remembering that she was in the company of superheroes.
"Oh - well, I was staying at the Tower and thought I'd come down and see you," Jane explained, "And then Thor wanted to meet you and, well, it sort of snowballed. It's not all of them though - I don't know where those two spies are."
"Probably on some mission," The one who had to be Tony Stark said, "Or they've been discreetly following us this whole time."
Molly paused, nodded, and did her best to take it in stride. "...Right. Okay."
Thor beamed. "It is a pleasure to meet you, Molly!"
"Thanks." Molly shook the hand he offered. "You all came down just to meet me?"
"I was curious," Tony offered, grinning. "I didn't even know Jane had a twin sister."
"It would be weird if you did, since I never told you," Jane replied.
Tony pointed at her. "Touche. Hey, so you run this store?"
"Yeah," Molly answered. "The last owner left it to me."
"Wow."
The quiet voice interrupted whatever reply might have been coming, as the group collectively turned to see who had spoken, revealing a black-haired teenager in a baseball cap standing behind Bruce.
Molly grinned. "Eric, you're here early."
"I didn't know the Avengers were going to be here," He said, eyes wide.
"Neither did I." Molly admitted.
Eric edged past the group like he was afraid to touch them and up to Molly, then stared at Jane. "Mahoney, I didn't know you had a sister."
"Mahoney?" Steve asked, and Molly laughed.
"This is Jane," She told Eric, "And Mahoney's my last name," She added, glancing up at Steve before turning to the door. "Feel free to come in, but try not to break anything."
"I will be careful," Thor promised, and the doors opened on silent hinges as Molly walked in like a queen coming back to court.
Bruce stopped and stared at the moving magnetic displays of the toys they offered. "How did you get these to move without anyone pushing them?"
Molly only grinned as she stepped behind the counter, dropping her bag on a nearby chair. She stepped over to the cash register, and, grinning even wider, opened it.
The store burst into color.
Bruce ducked as a model airplane went whizzing over his head and then looked up to stare after it in amazement. Steve stared openly at the barrels of colorful bouncy balls that had started bouncing of their own accord and were doing their best to scatter themselves around the store. Tony had taken his sunglasses off to better view the rocket launch in progress over in the science corner.
Thor had started grinning when the store lit up and hadn't stopped. "I had no idea you Midgardians had such places of magic!"
Molly Mahoney grinned back, especially at the startled expression on Jane's face.
"Good morning," She whispered.
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