Castle watched Fury at the helm of the futuristic-looking deck of the aircraft carrier with only half-interest. Under any other circumstances, the author might have been following Nick Fury around like a puppy, trying to find out what each and every button on the command deck was for. His current set of circumstances, though, were far from normal.
He was sitting next to an alien. An honest-to-goodness strange visitor from another *planet*. And one who had, apparently, been to Earth so much that the ancient Scandinavian people had seen fit to consider him a *god*.
How do you start a conversation with a *god*? Castle kept stealing quick glances at Thor, trying to figure out how to talk to him. Finally, he threw caution to the wind, deciding that it was better to just say *anything* than to continue to sit there in awkward silence. "So..." he began, "do you come here often?" Esposito blushed and rolled his eyes, embarassed on his friend's behalf.
Thor, for his part, didn't seem to notice. "From time to time," he replied. "Although this is the first time I have found magic here."
"Really?" asked Castle, surprised by Thor's statement. "You've *never* encountered magic before, here on Earth?" Thor shook his head...leaving Castle dumbfounded. "But...the legends..."
Thor, to Castle's amazement, blushed. "Most of those legends were about me or my people," he admitted.
Castle's eyes flew wide. "Is magic *common* among your people?!"
"No," Thor replied quietly, shaking his head. "It is, however, common among the royal family."
Beckett overheard Thor's comment as she re-entered the conference room. "What is common among the royal family?" she asked.
Thor turned around to face the quiet Guardian. "Magic, miss. Or rather, what those on your world might consider to be magic. Our 'magic' is powered by an object called the Tesseract. I believed it to be similar to your North Star..."
"Until you met us," said Castle, completing the thought. Thor nodded.
Beckett took a seat at the large conference table next to Thor, focusing all of her attention on the being in front of her. "Can your Tesseract enchant objects, by any chance?"
Thor frowned even as he nodded in reply to the question. "If I am understanding what you mean by enchantment correctly, miss, then aye, it can."
Castle watched the exchange between the 'god' and his fiancée with an ever-growing curiosity. "What did they tell you?" he asked Beckett.
While Thor had no idea who 'they' were, Beckett understood the reference immediately. "They said that the only thing that can destroy the North Star is one of us wielding a hammer forged by the gods."
Thor went from confused to shocked in a heartbeat. "A hammer?"
Beckett's smile grew even wider. "The legends about you spoke of a hammer..."
"Aye," Thor agreed quickly, cutting Beckett off. "But your...friend said that one of *you* needs to be wielding it?" When Beckett nodded, Thor stood up from the table. "Then perhaps we should see if it will let you wield it..."
Esposito frowned in confusion as he and Castle followed Thor and Beckett out of the conference room. "Hold up, his hammer has to *let us* use it?"
Castle could only shrug.
#
The walk from the conference room to the cargo hold was quiet, but also quick, for which Castle was grateful. Thor seemed to be focused more on walking than talking, and the silence was making Castle uncomfortable.
Thor, for his part, seemed far more intent on finding the reinforced container where Fury was keeping his hammer. It didn't take him long; the container started shaking from the moment Thor entered the room and didn't stop until he touched the container. "My hammer is known by the name Mjölnir," he announced to the group as he opened the container.
Esposito studied the oversized lump hammer as its owner lifted it from the exceedingly large, heavily reinforced case. "Whosoever holds this hammer, if he be worthy, shall possess the power of Thor..." he told the group.
Thor stared at Esposito in amazement. "How can you read that?"
"You shook my hand when we first met," Esposito replied with a shrug.
"Director Fury called you the Warrior Prophet," Thor mused out loud, recalling the earlier conversation. "Is that your gift, Mister Esposito?"
Esposito nodded. "Once I shook your hand I learned everything about you. Including how to read this inscription."
Thor backed away from the container. "That inscription has, so far, prevented anyone from being able to lift the hammer other than me. There was a time where the inscription stopped me from being able to use it..."
"Your own hammer deemed you to be unworthy to pick it up?" asked Castle incredulously.
Thor nodded again before turning his attentions solely back to Esposito. "Perhaps we should start with you, Mister Esposito."
Suddenly nervous, Esposito nodded, quietly switching positions with Thor. He took a deep breath to steady his focus, wrapped his hands around the hammer's handle and pulled.
Beckett was beaming with confidence as she watched Esposito handle the oversize weapon. "Any problems, Espo?" she asked her partner, her tone half-teasing.
Esposito shook his head and shrugged. "Nah. Feels like a regular hammer."
Thor shook his head in amazement, then stopped quickly as inspiration struck him. "Mister Esposito, would you be so kind as to take Mjölnir to Doctor Banner and Mister Stark?"
"Why?" asked Castle.
"The hammer has the power to work as a mystical object detector," Esposito replied, his copy of Thor's memories making the same connection that the Norse god had. "It's possible that ability could be used to find the North Star."
"Aye," agreed Thor.
Esposito turned and sprinted, hammer in hand, toward the lab.
#
Ryan felt two intense pairs of eyes staring him down, looking for answers. "What just happened here, Mister Ryan?" asked Banner. "First you tell me you're going to test out a theory. The next thing I remember after that is waking up on a pile of plywood in a room that where the big guy put in an appearance but *didn't* trash the place and Stark tells me that he actually caught him *smiling*."
"Why is that a problem?" asked Ryan, confused.
"Because he doesn't smile!" exclaimed Banner.
"How do you know?" countered Ryan.
Banner seemed stunned for a moment by the question. "Because...because he's...he's a creature of pure rage. He's...he's triggered by it. *Fueled* by it. And a big green rage monster sure as hell doesn't..."
"You're wrong," Ryan insisted, quietly cutting Banner off.
Banner was rendered speechless by Ryan's quiet, assured confidence. So Stark spoke for him. "He's *wrong*?" he asked Ryan.
"The 'big guy' is not a creature or a monster," Ryan replied to Stark's question, but his words were directed entirely at Banner. "He's you. He's as much a part of you as the man I'm standing in front of right now. And he wants the same thing that you do."
"And what is that, exactly?" asked Banner, his voice laced with annoyance.
Ryan knew the answer to Banner's question could be summed up in one simple word. "Peace." Banner swallowed hard...but didn't respond, because he knew that Ryan was right. Ryan, though, was just getting started. "I think you were supposed to be an empath," he mused. "A pretty powerful one, if the big guy's any indication..."
"Okay, now I'm really lost," said Stark. "What are you talking about?"
A third voice joined in the conversation, providing the explanation Ryan's mind had been searching for. "The chance to become a Guardian is genetic," said Lanie.
The three men turned to find Lanie standing with Barton and a woman that Ryan didn't recognize...but Banner and Stark both did. "Agent Romanoff," Stark greeted Natasha with a warm smile. "It's good to see you on your feet."
"It's good to *be* on my feet," agreed Natasha.
Lanie seemed eager to get away from Natasha's healing and back to Ryan's problem. "When someone who is born with the predisposition toward Guardianship is exposed to large amounts of energy that gene kicks in and their ability emerges." She then switched her focus from giving an explanation to the group to helping her friend. "Ryan, do you think Banner got *flipped*?"
"Flipped?" asked Stark.
Ryan briefly explained the terminology to the group before answering Lanie's question. "It's an expression we came up with to mark the point when someone becomes...like us. But I don't think he got flipped...exactly." He turned to Banner. "Is this explanation making any sense? *Were* you exposed to massive amounts of energy at some point in your life?"
Banner swallowed nervously. "How much energy?"
"Enough to have killed you," Ryan replied.
Banner nodded. "Gamma radiation. I was working on an experiment..."
Ryan cut off Banner's story with a raised hand in order to make his point. "I was afraid of that. Doctor Banner, one of my abilities is to channel a pure form of the energy that fuels us as Guardians and, I *think*, is being radiated by the North Star."
"That's why anyone who comes in contact with the North Star gets flipped?" asked Stark.
Ryan nodded. "But the reason that Stark's initial experiment didn't work is that I can't pour that energy into just anything. I have to channel it into a person. Specifically, a person who has the gene."
"So you *do* think Banner got flipped?" asked Lanie, confused.
Ryan shook his head. "I think he *would* have flipped, if he had been exposed to the right energy source." While he finished explaining his theory to Lanie, Ryan turned to deliver the last part of that explanation mostly to Banner. "But because you were exposed to this gamma radiation instead..."
Banner immediately knew where Ryan was headed. "I got *him*."
"You got him," agreed Ryan.
"Is there any way to flip the switch back?" asked Banner, stubbornly refusing to give up on his last shred of hope.
Lanie shook her head. "Not that I've seen. But I can try if you'd like me to."
"Please." Banner crossed the cluttered lab in a hurry, not wanting to waste a second. Remembering the legend, he grabbed Lanie's hands as soon as they were accessible to him. "Please," he begged, "if there's anything you can do..."
Ryan shushed the group as he watched Lanie close her eyes. He opened a connection to the healer, ready with the support and focus he thought she might need, and he felt Lanie draw from that well of energy almost immediately.
Natasha watched, fascinated, as the trio staggered and twitched while Lanie worked on Banner. "Did it look like that when she..."
Barton shook his head. "It just looked like she was holding your hand. How did it feel?"
Natasha hesitated, having trouble putting words to the experience. "It was a little like getting a massage," she finally admitted, "from the inside out."
"Wow," mouthed Barton, having trouble wrapping his head around the idea. Finally, though, he finally decided to focus on what was most important. "I'm just glad you're okay, Natasha..."
The hitch in Barton's voice was what caught Natasha's attention. She turned her attention away from the scene in the lab and studied her partner. There was a fatigue in his eyes and a residual sadness in his expression...it spoke to her of something she wasn't sure she was ready to face yet. So Natasha returned her focus to the lab just as Lanie and the two men snapped out of the healing trance with a collective gasp for air. Lanie's expression turned grim almost immediately. "I'm sorry," she apologized. "I tried to get down to the chromosomal level, but I just couldn't drill down that far."
Banner waved off the apology. "I haven't felt an energy surge like that since the experiment," he insisted. He turned to Ryan. "Was that *you*?"
"I'm just the battery," Ryan replied, dismissing the question. "The rest was all Lanie."
"And with all that energy there was still nothing you could do..." Banner collapsed into a nearby chair.
Lanie studied the despair in Banner's features and felt compelled to apologize again. "I'm sorry," she told him.
"Don't be so quick to give up," Ryan insisted. "I was just testing a theory. I never said it was the solution."
Banner looked up, his expression confused, but hopeful. "It's not?" he asked Ryan.
Ryan shook his head. "At this point, all we've done is establish the ground rules."
"So what now?" asked Banner.
"Now," Esposito announced to the group as he joined the conversation. "Now we find the North Star. And destroy it."
Stark's eyes widened when he saw Esposito. "Do you know what that is?" he asked.
Esposito tossed the hammer between his hands, trying to remain casual. "What, this old thing?" he teased. "This is going to help us find the North Star."
Stark was still stuck on the visual image before him and ignored everything that Esposito had said. "That's Thor's hammer."
"I know," said Esposito.
"You don't understand," Stark insisted quickly, "that's *Thor's* hammer. Until you walked in here I didn't think anyone else could even pick it up."
"Really?" Esposito replied, trying to act surprised. He tossed the hammer in Stark's direction.
Stark tried to grab the hammer by its handle, only narrowly missing losing his toes when the hammer crashed unceremoniously at his feet. He started to pull at the handle of the hammer, grunting with exertion at the amount of effort it was taking out of him to try to lift the hammer.
Natasha couldn't resist the opportunity. "Not quite so powerful without your suit, are you, Stark?" she teased.
Stark rolled his eyes at Natasha's comment before returning his attention solely to Esposito. "How the hell did you do it?" he exclaimed, exasperated.
"Doesn't matter," Esposito replied with a shrug. He picked up the hammer by the handle and gave it a flip. "What does matter is that you should be able to use this hammer and that super-sized brain of yours to track down the North Star."
"How?" asked Stark.
"Mjölnir has the ability to find enchanted objects," Esposito replied. "All you have to do is point it in the right direction."
Inspiration hit Stark almost immediately. He practically ran over to his computer, punching in commands as soon as his fingers could reach the keyboard. "It could work," Stark exclaimed, running a hand over his face as he carefully considered the results in front of him.
Banner's curiosity was sparked by Stark's enthusiasm, and he moved away from the Guardians to stand next to his fellow scientist. "What did you find?"
Stark punched a few keys on the computer's keyboard to call up his results. "Well, before you...checked out," he told Banner, "the spectrometer was able to get an energy signature out of the energy that Ryan was pumping through the two of you." Stark then turned the camera on Esposito. "Notice anything here?"
The computer did all of the calculations faster than even Banner could. He studied the tendrils of energy reaching out from the hammer before reading the conclusions that the computer was telling him. "The hammer's a match. It's giving off the same energy."
"I think it's working like a bloodhound," Stark exclaimed, his excitement growing by the moment. "It's used Esposito to pick up on the scent and has started looking for a match. If we can just find a way to boost that energy and translate the information..." Stark jumped up with a start and sighed as the lab's state of disarray hit him full force. "Okay, all hands on deck," he announced to the group. "We need to get this lab back together asap."
"Barton, go get Castle," Ryan told the SHIELD agent. "He'll be able to put this lab back together a lot faster than we can."
"And grab Thor if you can find him," chimed in Esposito. "He'll be better able to read the signals coming from the hammer than I am." When Ryan started to study him curiously, Esposito simply shrugged. "He's still an *alien*, Ry. Some of his memories are a little hard to process..."
"On it," agreed Barton, taking off toward the cargo hold.
Ryan shook his head, chuckling as everyone else joined him to start pushing tables and equipment back into place. His smile faded, though, when he noticed the preoccupied look on Banner's face. "I was just trying to isolate your...problem," Ryan insisted, trying to be reassuring. "I haven't given up yet."
Banner barely acknowledged the comment as he pushed a cabinet back into place. "So do you have a plan?" Ryan shook his head...which seemed to grate on Banner's last nerve. "This was a mistake," he told Ryan as he started to pick up the broken pieces of the exam table. "We're done."
Ryan's eyes widened at Banner's declaration. "You're *done*?! We've barely scratched the surface, and you're *done*..."
Banner cut him off, using a piece of the wooden table to punctuate his words. "You don't understand. You have no idea what it's like to wake up in a strange place. Not knowing what has happened. Not knowing what kind of damage that, according to *you*, I should be blamed for. And all you can come up with is to mess around in my head and play it by ear..."
Ryan started to pour peace into the room, trying to calm the other man down. "Bruce," he spoke gently and quietly. "Take it easy, man..."
"That's enough!" Banner exclaimed. He flung the piece of wood at the nearby observation window...
All work ceased as the window shattered. The people in the lab stared at the broken glass, mostly in open-mouthed shock...except for the man who just entered the room. "Wow," commented Castle, "was that cheap glass or did a truck just run through here?"
"Jury's still out on the truck," Stark mused idly, never taking his eyes off the glass. "But that glass is the highest quality tempered glass on the market. It should be able to withstand large-caliber munitions fire..."
"And you know this how?" asked Castle.
"I made it," replied Stark. He turned to his friend, who was far less...angry than Stark was expecting him to be. "Bruce...did he..."
Banner, to everyone's surprise, shook his head. "Nope. Not a peep."
This confused everyone...especially Natasha. "But...earlier..."
"I was frustrated," Banner shrugged. "I lost my temper..."
Banner, Stark and Ryan shot furtive glances between each other as the same realization seemed to hit them all at the same time. "You're telling me that you didn't get anywhere near angry enough to let the big guy come out?" asked Stark. Bruce nodded. "And yet you got strong enough, all of a sudden, to do...that?"
"Apparently," Banner exclaimed, staring at the broken glass in amazement.
Ryan's...unique perspective on the inner workings of Banner's mind gave him a flash of inspiration. The smile that crawled across Ryan's face made Stark wish *he* was the mind-reader. "Bruce," Ryan approached Banner, "I know you just told me you no longer want me to try to find a way to cure you..."
Banner was wondering where the younger man was going with this. "What are you thinking?"
Ryan decided to just get to the point. "Do you think you can do it again?"
