Thor hears of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s fall when he returns to Earth to visit Jane, as promised.

Well. He may have a slightly ulterior motive.

He argues with himself - not with Jane, never with Jane; he may be the God of Thunder but no one argues successfully with Jane Foster - that he's just being efficient. Killing two birds with one stone, to coin an Earth phrase, though he's not sure why one would kill birds with a rock, or kill birds at all. But in all honesty, Heimdall has alerted him to the fact that certain energy signatures have become rather active on Earth as of late.

And so he travels to Earth, says hello to Jane and Erik, who both promptly say hello back (Jane gives him a kiss) and then turn back to their work, and he nods and heads for New York, as the crow flies.

Heimdall has directed him to this time of day at the tower Stark has erected for things like this, and so Thor finds himself in a meeting with Stark, Banner, and Captain Rogers, the latter of which tells him of Fury's death and the fall of the organization they all trusted.

Thor observes them as they talk amongst themselves. Heimdall had said they were changed, but had not said anything further. Now Thor sees the truth of those words.

He notices it in Stark first. The change is dramatic. While in their first encounter, the man had been confident, brazen, sure in his footing and his decisions, Stark has deep lines carved into the skin of his brow, something hollow in his eyes. For the first time, Thor wonders if Stark's trip through the portal that the Tesseract has opened had affected him more than he had immediately let on. He wonders what has happened since then to shake Stark's confidence loose.

He decides to table this for further thought later.

He moves to Banner next. Not much has changed with the doctor. He seems...fine. Normal. Thor has no problem with either Banner or the monster everyone else fears. In Asgard, he thinks, Banner would be regarded in the highest honor. A warrior without weakness! He makes a mental note to invite Banner to a feast with the Warriors Four. He chuckles inwardly imagining the outcome.

Now, the captain. That's interesting. While the man Thor had met initially had been cautious, perceptive, a soldier, this man is...new. Interestingly, while Stark seems heavier, Steve seems...lighter. More sure-footed, confident in his next move. No one will tell Thor what exactly has happened when it comes to the fall of SHIELD and who all was involved, but Thor senses that perhaps something that had been holding Steve back before no longer exists.

Interesting.

The meeting draws to a close with Banner and Stark sequestering away into their lab to begin the search for their first target - apparently the agenda is to remove the rest of HYDRA, and while Thor knows they're searching for the energy signatures Heimdall had already told him about, he doesn't pretend to know how to track things like gamma radiation - and Thor and Captain America are left to themselves with not much else to talk about.

They make an effort anyways.

"So, how's life on another world?" Steve asks, gathering himself up and striding to the kitchen. Thor notes with amusement the similarity to Darcy's inquiry. So how's space? Space is fine.

"All is currently well in Asgard," Thor replies, his standard response.

"Really? I heard about that mess in London," Steve says. "Witnesses said they saw a man in a red cape flying towards the gaping hole in the sky. I'm assuming that was you."

Thor nods. "It was. However, we were able to handle it."

"We? You mean you and Selvig?"

"Him, yes, as well as Jane and Darcy." He almost adds Loki's name, but hesitates.

Unfortunately, Steve picks up on it. "Did something happen?"

Thor hesitates a moment more, but adds, "Loki is dead."

To his credit and to Thor's surprise, Steve's face is neutral and he only nods and says, "I'm sorry."

Thor nods.

It seems the conversation has drawn to a close, but Steve reaches into the refrigerator and holds out a beer to Thor. Thor takes it and Steve holds up his own. "To lost friends." Thor wonders at the sentiment, but it seems that's as forthcoming as the captain wants to be. He nods, and they drink.

They drink a lot.

Obviously, neither of them have the metabolism of a normal man, and nine beers in, Thor's inhibitions are just low enough to remember that he's got that flask burning a hole in the pocket of his Earth hoodie, brought as an afterthought to perhaps give as a gift to Jane and her friends. Eh, they're busy anyways. He goes for the flask and offers it to Steve, and Steve, knowing full well he physically cannot get drunk, says, what the hell, why not, and five shots later Steve is leaning rather heavily on Thor's shoulder and telling Thor all about his friend Bucky, Bucky who was dead and now he's alive and how crazy is that?! Thor, look me in the eye and tell me how crazy that is, that Bucky is hic alive and hic he doesn't remember me but I'm gonna make him remember me and I'm sorry your brother died, Thor, that's so hic sad, aren't you sad?

Thor, who is used to being the slightly more sober one out of his friends on occasions like this, is definitely sad, and also definitely amused that this is likely the first time Steve has been drunk in probably 75 years and it is all kinds of awesome. Darcy likes that word, awesome, and Thor likes it too, he decides. Awesome.

He's not certain how they end up in a field in upstate New York, because he's certain he wouldn't have flown and sure that responsible Steve Rogers would not have driven, but later when he comes to his senses he believes the conversation went something like this.

"Dude, remem-remem...rember when your brother, remember when he took that cube thing, and remember when you, when we were fighting - "

"Excuse you, Captain, I was being perfectly reasonable; you and Stark were being human turds."

"..."

"...Darcy enjoys using that particular turn of phrase when she is angry with someone."

"Mkay. Anyways, we were fighting and remember when I told you to put the hammer down, and you were all, 'oh you want me to put the hammer down,' and then you, you did, and then it went..." Steve blows a rather concussive raspberry and makes a blowing-up gesture with his arms.

"I do, I do remember."

"Dude. We should try that again, but, you know, on purpose."

"Dude."

"Dude."

"Are we saying dude correctly?"

"I honestly have no idea."

And then they're in a field, and slightly more sober but not quite sober enough, because Steve is holding his shield out in front of him and Thor has his hammer in his hand and Thor can't quite seem to make the earth stop moving long enough to get a fix on his target.

"So, like, should I throw it at you?"

"Nah, man, cmon, scientific experrments are all about the constituency. Constitutiony. Consistuency."

"Consistency?"

"Yeah, that. Cons - agh, forget it, it's too hard. They gotta be the same, man. Like, the same conditions, to establish control. So we gotta be in the same positions and stuff. So like, I was like this..." Steve approximates the general idea of how he had been standing with the shield over his head, but with seven shots of Asgardian mead in him, his crouch, if Thor is being honest, looks as if he's sitting on an invisible privy. The mental image makes Thor laugh out loud heartily.

"What's so funny?"

Waving a hand dismissively, Thor shakes his head. "Right, right. And then so I was like, 'Do you want me to put the hammer down?' And now, now I swing, down, and boom, right?"

"Right."

The resulting concussive blast breaks windows in a farmhouse a mile away.

The second time Thor comes to Earth, it seems as if Stark has actually located a major HYDRA base. He says they've called Thor in for backup as the weapons HYDRA has control of apparently stem from the same power source as the Chitauri weapons. It looks like the humans have been making rather good use of the extraterrestrial debris. That, and they could use the extra muscle. Thor is more than happy to oblige.

Steve seems happy to see him, though there's no talk of their experiment two weeks ago. Until they're in the melee, and apparently enraged at having their organization brought crumbling to the ground, HYDRA goons have Captain America pinned, and Steve can't keep up with the numbers.

"Thor!"

Thor hears his name from across the battlefield and sees Steve lift his shield slightly above his head. Thor understands immediately, and launches himself into the air as the goons close in on Rogers.

Thor's not sure if it's the angle, the force, or simply the contact, but when his hammer hits the vibranium shield, the blast not only knocks every HYDRA agent into the air and onto their backs, but the kickback is so intense that it throws both Cap and Thor back; Cap several feet back and into a hillside, and Thor twenty feet in the air and into a tree.

The fact that Stark has to disentangle his cape from the tree's branches and lift his down by his armpits is more than enough humiliation for Thor that day, and he retires back to Asgard rather quickly instead of deigning to stick around for the victory party. He soaks his wounds from the infernal tree in a bath - his back hit the trunk at an alarming speed and there had been needles - and promptly goes to bed.

"So, I've been thinking," Steve begins, and Thor's alarm bells start ringing, because when Steve has been thinking and has an idea things do not go well for Thor, "maybe we should practice that move a few times. It might actually be helpful in the field. What do you think?"

Thor groans inwardly but has to concede the point. Any move, no matter how reckless it may seem, that is helpful in a battle situation should be exploited. And at least with practice, the chances of Thor ending up in a tree again become less likely.

Stark makes them go somewhere that has nothing but open space for at least a ten-mile radius, and once they've arrived, landing the Quinjet in a flat, thankfully treeless area far north of any civilizations, Thor is actually really looking forward to this.

They practice force, angles, and swing until they're sure they've got it down. They set up a few random boxes they found in the jet and manage to knock them over with the resulting blast.

It's only when Steve asks if Thor has that flask on him, and Thor obliges, that they begin practicing actually throwing each other into the air on purpose - it's easy for Thor to launch himself off the shield, but it takes a few swigs of the mead for Steve to let Thor launch Steve into the air like a batter taking a swing at a ball.

They only do that once.

Especially when it takes Thor twenty minutes to find Steve laying on his back in some tall grass half a mile away.

At least he's laughing.

By the time they discover the secret HYDRA base in Sokovia, Thor and Steve have devised and perfected their strategy. It's a little less exciting than launching each other into the air, but it's effective and efficient.

"They're lining up," Thor says to Steve, knowing that Steve has that same taste in his mouth, that tentative-victory sweetness, that thirst to know.

Steve grins at the approaching hoard.

"Well, they're excited."