Chapter 9

They drive through the day and part of the night, and Parker falls asleep somewhere near the New Mexico border. Phil shakes her awake at a gas station, passing her a bottle of blue Gatorade that he had picked up inside the convenience store, and she peers over his shoulder to find the night clerk staring in shock back out at them, two men unconscious on the floor inside.

"Do I want to know what happened in there?" she asks around a yawn as she cracks open the Gatorade and takes a swig to soothe her dry throat and Phil cracks a grin.

"No, you really don't." He ruffles her hair affectionately before climbing into the driver's seat and starting the car up again. "We're almost there, just a few miles out now. Do you want to call Stark and check in?"

"Yeah." She fishes her phone out of her pocket, pressing the speed-dial for Tony's number, but it goes straight to voicemail. "Huh." She presses the speed-dial for Pepper's number next, but it goes to voicemail, too. "JARVIS, are you awake?" she requests once she presses the speed-dial for JARVIS last.

"For you, Miss Parker, always. How may I help you?"

"Tony and Pepper aren't picking up their phones, I just wanted to check if everything's okay," she says.

"Mr. Stark and Ms. Potts are currently dealing with a situation at the Stark Expo in New York," JARVIS explains. "Shall I have Mr. Stark call you in a few moments when he's available?"

"Yes, please. Thanks, J." Parker hangs up the phone.

"Everything okay?" Phil frowns at her worriedly.

"Something's going on at the Expo in New York." Parker stares at the phone in her hand, somehow hoping that it would make Tony call her faster.

"I'm sure he's fine," Phil reassures her. "I got a call from Fury earlier while you were asleep, by the way. They've set up a base for us at the site of the 084. You'll be up with Barton in the air to keep an eagle eye out for intruders while we research it."

"You can just call it a magic hammer instead of an 084, you know," Parker points out dryly as she takes another swig of Gatorade and Phil rolls his eyes.

"It's not a 'magic hammer.'"

"It's an ancient hammer that appeared out of nowhere, I feel like that qualifies as a magic hammer," she reminds him, but then is distracted when her phone rings, Tony's name flashing across the screen. She scrambles to answer it as Phil returns his focus to the road. "Dad?"

"Hey, Park. JARVIS said you called." Tony sounds slightly out of breath. "Long story short, Justin Hammer tried to take over the Expo with an army of armored drones and Rhodey's suit was taken over remotely by Ivan Vanko."

"The guy with the electric whips from Monaco?" Parker sits up a little, concerned. "I thought you said he died in a jailbreak attempt."

"Not the case, but he's dead now, anyway." She can hear the grimace in Tony's voice. "I synthesized that new element, by the way, the arc reactor took to it well and my blood toxicity level is going down as we speak."

She sinks back against her seat, immense relief flooding through her. "Good. That's good. Is Pepper okay? She wasn't picking her phone up, either."

"She's fine, she's right here. Pep! Parker's worried about you!" Tony calls and Parker hears Pepper's heels clicking closer on the other end of the line before she takes the phone from Tony.

"Everything's okay, Park, don't worry," she says and just hearing her voice, exhausted as it sounds, makes Parker relax more. Even when they're miles apart, Pepper never fails to make her feel better.

"You're sure?"

"Positive. You go ahead on your mission, stay safe. Check in every now and then, okay?" A twinge of worry enters Pepper's voice.

"She'll be fine, Pep," Tony says from a little further away and presses a kiss against Pepper's cheek loudly enough that it's audible even over the phone.

"Oh my God, are you two kissing? Gross," Parker says and Tony makes an affronted noise.

"Here I thought you'd be happy for us," he complains.

"I am, but I don't wanna think about my parents kissing," Parker protests and Pepper sputters a little, embarrassed. "I'm kidding," Parker reassures them quickly. "I really am happy for you. You're both okay? You're not hurt?"

"We're fine," Tony answers. "I'll get Pepper home safe. Focus on your mission and call when you can."

"I will. Love you, Dad."

"You, too." Tony hangs up and Parker pockets her phone again, feeling a lot more at ease than she had before.

"So the new element worked?" Phil asks and she nods, settling back in her seat.

"Yeah, it sounds like it. I just hope he doesn't name that new element after himself."

Phil wrinkles his nose. "I wouldn't put it past him." He nods ahead. "We're here."

Parker sits up a little to see a vast military-like site set up in front of them, floodlights and white tents set up in the middle of the desert sand and focused on the tiny solitary object in the center. Phil stops the car and Parker gets out, her legs a little wobbly from the long road trip.

"Go ahead and take a look," he offers and she nods, heading into the site. She doesn't even have to flash a badge at any of the agents standing guard, but Phil does as he follows behind her. She supposes that she's so recognizable now that no one would ever ask her for identification.

"This is it?" she asks as she walks out to the center of the crater that the site had been built around, where a large sledgehammer is sticking up handle-first out of the ground. It's ancient-looking just as Phil had said, with runes carved into the metal and strips of leather wrapped around the handle. She reaches out to try and lift it, mostly out of curiosity, but only succeeds in budging it an inch before she gives up altogether, feeling like her arm is on fire from the effort of lifting it. It's as though the hammer is either rooted to the ground or weighs a thousand tons.

"Well, at least you got it to move more than anyone else did," Phil says dryly, watching her massage her arm ruefully before he nudges her away from the hammer gently. "You want to get some more sleep or are you good to stand guard?"

"I'm okay," she reassures him and he pulls out a comms unit, placing it in his ear.

"Barton, I'm sending her up with you," he says into the comms unit and Parker looks up to see a cherry picker positioned high over the site. Clint Barton is sitting inside, one leg swinging lazily and the other drawn up to his chest as he watches over the site with his bow and quiver strapped to his back. She waves up at him and he waves back with a small smile as he gets to his feet. The cherry picker lowers just enough for Parker to climb in and soon enough, she and Barton are high in the air again.

"So how's Nat doing? Still pretending to be a secretary at Stark Industries?" he asks as he sits back down, swinging his leg back between the rails of the cherry picker, and Parker imitates him.

"Pretty sure that cover's blown," she answers. "How long have you and Natasha known each other, anyway?"

Clint frowns thoughtfully. "A while now. I brought her in to join SHIELD." He peers down at the site to keep an eye on the SHIELD agents walking around the hammer below. "Did I imagine it or did you move that hammer?" he asks abruptly.

"Just an inch or so," she answers with a shrug. "Why do you ask?"

"It's just that I watched a truck try to pull that hammer with a cable earlier today and the truck nearly tipped over. The hammer didn't move at all," he explains. "You sure you don't have super-strength on top of shooting fire out of your hands?" He wiggles his fingers to make his point.

"Pretty sure." She reaches up to pull as hard as she can on one of the metal rails of the cherry picker, but it doesn't so much as budge. "See?" He doesn't look convinced, although he cracks a smile all the same.

The rest of the night passes uneventfully and by dawn, Parker is drifting somewhere between the realm of sleep and wakefulness. As the sun starts peeking over the desert horizon, she feels Clint nudge her foot with his own and jolts awake.

"I was up already!" she says defensively and he cracks a grin.

"Sure you were. Our shift's over, I'm taking you down so you can get some more sleep." He presses a button to bring them down to the ground level and Parker hops out into the crater surrounding the hammer. She's tempted to try picking it up again, wondering if she can make it budge any further, but then Phil comes out of the nearest building, waving her over.

"Come on, you look dead on your feet," he says when she's close enough, wrapping his arm around her shoulders to usher her inside. "We've got some bunks set up, you should get some sleep and then you can start looking at the hospital records in town before tonight, if you want."

Parker perks up a little at the thought. "Yeah? Okay." She lets Phil lead her through the SHIELD base, looking around as they walk and taking in the site properly for the first time in the pre-dawn light. "How'd SHIELD set this up so fast, anyway? This place is in the middle of nowhere."

"This town used to be a military research base around fifteen years ago," Phil explains. "We already had the supplies here, all we had to do was set it up again."

"Fifteen years ago?" Parker can't help but think it's not a coincidence that she had also been born fifteen years earlier in the same town, filing it away as one more thing to look into at the hospital later that day.

"Any luck finding your records?" Clint asks as he peers into the records room of the small town hospital to find Parker sitting on the floor of the secretary's office amongst several boxes full of folders and paper records.

"Nope." She carefully tucks the folder she's holding back into the box. "Turns out there were a bunch of clerical errors and they don't actually have my official birth certificate, but they might have other paperwork like discharge or adoption papers. So now I'm going through every single record of babies born around my birthday to try and find mine. And their organization skills aren't great, to say the least." She looks up at Clint. "You don't have to babysit me, you know, Phil does that plenty."

He huffs with amusement. "Sure, but he's following up on a lead with the magic hammer, so I volunteered to keep an eye on you."

"It's nice that other people are starting to call it the magic hammer, too," Parker muses absently as she goes back to rummaging through the folders. "What kind of lead did he find?"

"The word around town is that there was a big storm in the desert right before the hammer showed up," Clint explains as he joins her, taking a seat on the floor beside her to thumb through some folders, too. "There were a few astrophysicists out there studying some phenomenon during the storm, so Coulson went out with a team to check their findings." He pauses, staring at the file in his hands. "Hey, this might be you." He passes the folder to Parker, who takes it and skims through the basic information on the single page inside.

"Black hair, brown eyes, born on May 23rd, 1995, closed adoption," she reads off, feeling a spark of hope. "This is the closest one I've found so far." She looks at the fields for the parents' names, but they're both empty, which makes her heart sink a little. The rest of the folder is empty where all of the other folders had been full of papers, as if someone had gone in and taken all of the information out.

"Considering how little information there is, that definitely does seem like yours," Clint offers, but then catches the look on her face. "Hey, I'm sorry, kid."

"It's okay." She shuts the folder, stuffing it back into the box he had taken it from. "Not like I knew what I was gonna do with that information when I found it, anyway."

Clint's phone rings and he grabs it, flipping it open. "Barton," he says stiffly, the warmth in his voice gone. "Yeah, we're both in town. Why?" He pauses, listening to the person on the other end for another moment. "Alright. ETA fifteen." He hangs up, shoving his phone into his pocket again. "That was Agent Sitwell, he wants us back on base to watch the magic hammer," he explains with a wry grin. "Coulson and his team confiscated the research from those astrophysicists and are going through it all now."

"They confiscated all their research?" Parker asks, getting to her feet to stretch her arms over her head; she had been sitting on the floor for a while. Her shoulders audibly pop and Clint looks mildly impressed. "Why not just take copies?" she asks once she lowers her arms again.

"If it's as dangerous as we think it might be, we don't want just anybody getting their hands on it." He places a hand on her shoulder, leading her out of the hospital office and down the hallway. "SHIELD doesn't just stop potential threats, we protect the public from ever finding out about them in the first place."

"Still, that could've been their life's work," she points out with a frown and Clint squeezes her shoulder.

"Try not to get hung up over it, Park. We're doing this for their good." He leads her to the parked car outside and she gets into the passenger seat so that he can drive them back to the SHIELD base.

"Any luck?" Phil asks when they enter the base and Parker shakes her head.

"No. My record's empty."

"I'm sorry." Phil looks sincerely sympathetic, but it doesn't really make her feel better. "Stark called while you were out, he said he and Miss Potts just reached Malibu and to call when you can."

"I'll check in with him," Parker promises.

"Looks like rain coming in tonight," Clint notes as he glances up, noticing the dark storm clouds rolling in over the desert. "Kid, I hope your waterbending's improved enough that you can make an umbrella for us up there."

As the first drops of rain begin to fall that night, cold despite the heat of the desert, Parker finds that she can indeed divert the water around them as long as she concentrates, leaving herself and Clint completely dry.

"I might just take you along for stakeout missions in the rain now on, this is neat," he says appreciatively, watching the raindrops veer around them as if there's an invisible force field around them.

"You'd have to ask my dad for permission," she points out dryly.

"We've got an intruder," Phil's voice crackles through the comms unit in her ear and she sits up abruptly. Clint follows suit, frowning as he presses his own earpiece to listen in. "Southwest perimeter, DeLancey and Jackson are on their way to intercept him. Barton, you got a visual?"

"Sure do," Clint says as he climbs to his feet and draws an explosive arrow from the quiver strapped to his back, nocking it onto his bow string and pulling it taut as he aims at the shadowy figure climbing under the wire fence surrounding the SHIELD base.

"And here I thought the bow and arrows were just for show," Parker deadpans as she gets up and peers over the metal rails of the cherry picker at the intruder.

"Hey, I'm not gonna fire unless he's on top of us." Clint wrinkles his nose thoughtfully. "Well. Underneath us, anyway."

"Hold off on any confrontation unless he gets near the 084," Phil confirms.

"Magic hammer," Parker whispers just loud enough for Clint to hear her and he smirks, keeping his arrow trained on the stranger making his way stealthily around the compound. A Jeep pulls up to his location and Parker and Clint watch him duck out of sight of the headlights and roll underneath the Jeep.

"That'd be DeLancey and Jackson," Clint says under his breath. "They're not gonna notice him." Sure enough, the two agents who climb out of the Jeep wave their flashlights around the area, but miss the stranger clinging to the underside of the Jeep.

"Should we warn them?" Parker asks and Clint shakes his head.

"Coulson's not calling it in yet." He keeps his eyes fixed on the stranger as he climbs out from underneath the Jeep and then efficiently dispatches the two agents before they can so much as shout an alarm, leaving them unconscious on the ground as he slides on one of their rain slickers and saunters casually towards the compound as if he owns the whole thing. Clint whistles quietly, impressed. "Guy's good." He lowers his bow and arrow and presses his earpiece. "Coulson, he took DeLancey and Jackson out like they were made of tissue paper. Do we engage?"

"Hold," Phil answers, still sounding calm. "He's not near the 084 yet. If he is, you stay in the air and Parker will engage."

"I will?" Parker echoes, surprised.

"You're our last line of defense," Phil explains. "Hopefully, the sight of you bending will be enough to scare him away when he realizes he's out of his league here."

"Let's hope," Parker agrees reluctantly. As the stranger makes his way into the compound, an alarm begins to ring as one of the patrolling SHIELD agents finds DeLancey and Jackson unconscious in the rain and calls it in on his walkie-talkie.

"Alright. Everyone in this base is on red alert and after this guy now," Clint says quietly, studying the silhouette of the man below through the thin white material of the tents enclosing the hallways of the compound. "Let's see what he does."

As they watch the man stroll through the compound, taking out guards left and right without so much as a pause in his stride, the rain picks up until it's a steady downpour, turning the crater below into a giant mud pit. Parker has to concentrate just a little more on her waterbending to keep them from getting soaked, waving her hand over her head to keep the rain at bay while chewing her lip anxiously. Thunder suddenly cracks overhead, lightning forking through the storm clouds, and she jumps, briefly losing her concentration as a deluge of rain drenches both her and Clint.

"Hey," he complains goodnaturedly, but to her relief, he doesn't sound actually upset about it.

"Sorry," she apologizes, but before she can dry them off again, the stranger makes his way to the center of the compound. As he rounds the corner and comes out into the rain, Parker finally gets a good look at him as he discards the stolen SHIELD rain slicker; he's tall and built like a tank, with shoulder-length blonde hair and a beard. Even with the plain T-shirt and jeans he's wearing, he looks like he's just stepped out of a Shakespearean play, walking with purpose and casual grace towards the center of the compound.

"Park, you're up," Phil says over the comms unit.

"You need backup, just say the word, kid," Clint adds as Parker reluctantly climbs up onto the railing, bracing herself before hopping down. She cushions her fall with a burst of air and, to her relief, lands neatly between the stranger and the hammer. Mud squelches under her shoes and she has to suppress her instinctive grimace at the sound as the stranger stops in his tracks, visibly startled by her sudden appearance.

"Sorry, buddy," she says apologetically, brushing a wet strand of hair out of her face. "I'm not allowed to let you near this thing, whatever it is."

"It belongs to me," the man answers. His voice is deep, rumbling like thunder over the sound of the rain pattering around them, and has a British accent. He raises his eyebrows as he looks her over, clearly amused. "Bit young for a guard, aren't you?"

Parker can hear the derision in his voice and it makes her bristle slightly, offended, even as heat flares in her palms and forms daggers of fire that she holds up in front of herself like weapons. She hopes that the display is enough to scare him, but to her surprise, he relaxes, his smile widening.

"Ah. I see now." He dips his head in a cordial bow. "I've been looking forward to meeting you for many years, Avatar."

"You know me?" Parker is bewildered enough that her flames sputter and extinguish themselves; even though the world knows who she is, most people still don't entirely know what to make of her and her bending.

"Of course. Midgard's protector, able to control the core elements of the realm." The man tilts his head, studying her curiously. "You're smaller than I imagined you'd be. Younger, too. Most Avatars aren't told what they are until they turn sixteen years of age."

"Midgard?" Parker echoes, frowning at the unfamiliar term, but the man doesn't offer an explanation as he begins to move forward, making to step around her.

"I'll be having my hammer back now, if you please." He reaches for the handle of the hammer, but Parker reacts quickly, bringing up the mud around her and throwing it forward to send him sprawling back against the ground.

"Like I said, I'm not allowed to let you near it," she points out. "Even if it is yours."

"You're strong, little one," the man says cheerfully as he climbs to his feet, unfazed by the fact that he is now covered in mud from head to toe. "And I have no intention of harming you. But I've come too far for you to get in my way now." As he straightens to his full height, he stands more than a foot taller than Parker herself, his biceps almost as large as her head, and she suddenly feels a curl of fear as she realizes that he very easily can harm her, even with her bending to protect herself.

"That sounds an awful lot like a threat to me," she hears Clint murmur over her comms unit. "I can take him out if he's going to hurt her, Coulson."

"Hold your fire," Phil insists, although he sounds a little more tense. "I've got eyes on them now. She can take him."

Parker's a little mollified by the faith in her abilities as she stands her ground in front of the hammer, shifting her feet so that the mud wraps around them to secure her in place. Her sneakers are probably ruined for good, but she figures it's better than having the man run her over like a steamroller.

Whatever the man sees in her face makes his amused smile disappear as his jaw sets. "I suppose I have no choice, then."

He storms forward, but Parker's ready for him, bringing up another wall of mud to shove him backwards again. He stumbles, but doesn't fall like before, holding his ground. She brings one foot up and slashes it in a downwards kick as a wave of fire follows in its wake, pushing the man another step backwards away from the heat. He ducks under the wave of fire, much faster than Parker had expected, considering his size, and rushes at her. Before she can bring up more mud to defend herself with, he shoves her aside, sending her sprawling as her shoulder hits the ground hard. She grimaces as mud soaks into her clothes, clambering to her feet in time to see him reaching for the hammer again.

"Wait," Phil says suddenly into her comms unit, making her freeze in place. "Let's see what he does."

The man grasps the handle of the hammer, turning to give Parker a triumphant smirk as he prepares to lift it. "I'm sorry, little one, but it seems that-" He breaks off abruptly as he drops his gaze back to the hammer, staring at it in shock. He attempts to pull on it, but it doesn't budge.

"Don't take it personally," she reassures him. "I couldn't move it more than an inch, either."

"I don't understand." The man sounds shaken as he tugs at the hammer again, his muscles straining under the effort, but it's rooted to the ground. "I...I don't understand." He looks up at the stormy sky above them, as if beseeching it for an answer, but clearly doesn't find whatever he's looking for.

"Show's over," Phil says over the comms unit. "Ground units, move in." Parker steps back to allow several SHIELD agents to move in and arrest the man, who numbly allows them to cuff his hands behind his back and drag him back into the compound. She stays where she is, moving to the hammer to try tugging on it again experimentally. It shifts marginally, but she's still not able to pick it up. "Park?" Phil asks, startling her into reality, and she looks up to find him holding an umbrella out. "Come on, you should get cleaned up."

Reminded suddenly that she's still covered in mud and rain, she nods and ducks under the umbrella to let him usher her inside. "He said the hammer was his," she points out.

"We'll find out if he's telling the truth," Phil reassures her, although he doesn't appear convinced. "He must be well-trained, he took out some of our best agents."

"He called me 'Midgard's protector,'" Parker adds as she wipes mud off her face with her sleeve. "What even is Midgard?"

Phil pauses, his nose wrinkling in thought. "Well, in Norse mythology, Midgard was how they referred to Earth. Maybe he's just really into that kind of thing."

"Maybe." Parker chews her lip thoughtfully. "He seemed to know a lot about me. Or the Avatar, anyway. Not many people do."

"Don't engage with him," Phil warns her. "I'll deal with interrogating him. You focus on getting cleaned up and getting some rest." He gives her a small smile, which makes her relax a little. "You did great tonight."

She feels her mouth curve into a smile automatically at the praise. "Thanks." He ushers her towards the showers and she obediently heads off to clean up and change into fresh clothes, although her mind is still on the stranger and his mysterious hammer.

"Any luck getting information out of him?" Parker asks as she makes her way to the holding cell in which the stranger is being kept, separated by a glass wall from the rest of the room. She can see Phil talking to him inside, the glass wall keeping her from hearing the interrogation, but he keeps his mouth firmly shut, his eyes averted as he stares at some point over Phil's shoulder.

"Not so far," Agent Sitwell replies, casting a glance in Parker's direction. "I thought Coulson told you to go to bed."

"He did, but I wanted to know what was going on." She drops into a chair at the table in the corner, watching the interrogation. "Where's Clint?"

"Agent Barton just left his post to get some sleep before his next shift." Sitwell frowns back at her. "You really shouldn't be here."

She wonders why he's trying to get rid of her and purposely leans back in her chair, getting comfortable as she crosses her arms over her chest. "If anything goes wrong, I'll leave," she offers, but he doesn't look mollified, still frowning deeply.

The stranger turns his head, catching sight of Parker, and she waves back at him. He cracks a tiny smile at last, although it's far less confident than he had been earlier, and turns back to Phil to say something quietly. Phil's expression doesn't change, but Parker sees his shoulder tense as he shakes his head. The stranger says something else and Phil exhales sharply, turning to Parker and waving her in. She feels a small, vindictive stab of triumph as she walks past Sitwell, who's still scowling at her, and opens the glass door to let herself into the holding cell.

"He says he'll only talk to you," Phil tells her once she's inside, passing her to head out. "If there's trouble, get out fast."

"I know," she reassures him. "I'll be okay, Phil." He squeezes her shoulder before leaving her alone with the stranger. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees him take her abandoned seat at the table outside, watching them intently.

"Is he your guardian?" the man asks. His voice is hoarse now, as if he hasn't spoken since their last conversation a couple hours earlier.

"No, but he's looked out for me my whole life," she admits, taking a seat in the chair opposite his. "So what's your name, anyway?"

"I am Thor." He doesn't offer a last name.

"Like the god of thunder?" She wonders if he really is into Norse mythology so much that he's legally changed his name.

Thor smiles faintly. "Yes, something like that. Now, do you have a name or should I keep calling you 'little one?'"

"Please don't," she says, feeling more and more like she's being mocked each time he calls her "little one." "It's Parker."

"Hello, Avatar Parker." He pauses. "There's not much I can tell you that the men outside will want to know."

"Whatever you can tell me would be pretty nice," she offers.

Thor's smile fades as he drops his gaze to his knees. "I was not worthy to lift Mjolnir."

"...you lost me already," Parker confesses. "Myeh-meer?" she tries to repeat the foreign word.

He shakes his head. "Mjolnir," he corrects her. "My hammer. That is its name."

"And, what, only somebody who's worthy can lift it?" she asks and he nods.

"It's difficult to explain when you understand little of the universe."

"I like learning," she offers, but he only shakes his head again, a wry smile tugging at his lips.

"It would take much more time than we have to teach you all that you need to know." He pauses, considering her. "You didn't enter the Avatar State when we fought. I'm a little disappointed, I would have liked to see it."

"The what?" she asks, bewildered.

"The-" He breaks off, seeing her expression. "You don't know about it," he says, stunned.

"I have no idea what you're talking about," she admits.

"You really don't know much, do you?" he says with a sympathetic smile and she feels a little like she's being mocked again, although his tone is kind.

"I know plenty," she answers, insulted. "I know how to bend all four elements, and I can control it a lot better than I could even two years ago."

"But to not even know about your full potential-" Thor breaks off when the door opens again and Parker's a little disappointed to see Phil standing there. She had been close to getting some real information about herself.

"Sorry to interrupt," he says apologetically to her before turning to Thor. "You've got someone vouching for you outside. You're free to go."

"What?" Thor says, confused, as Phil enters the cell to undo his restraints, allowing him to get to his feet.

"Donny, there you are!" An older man enters the cell, grasping Thor in a tight hug.

"I thought you said your name was Thor," Parker points out as she climbs to her feet.

"Oh, that's just a nickname he goes by," the other man tells her, clapping Thor's broad shoulder. "Come on, it's going to be alright, my friend. Let's get you home." He leads Thor outside, but Thor keeps shooting looks back at Parker over his shoulder, seemingly just as confused as she is.

"His name's Dr. Donald Blake, supposedly," Phil says, placing a hand on Parker's shoulder to guide her outside as well as they watch the two men leave. "He works with Dr. Selvig and some other astrophysicists in town. He was upset when we acquired their research, got drunk, and decided to break in here to steal it back."

"But he was after the hammer, not the research," she says, frowning.

"Let's let them keep thinking we believe them for now," Phil reassures her, patting her shoulder. "Did you find anything out from him?"

"Not much," she admits. "He said he wasn't worthy to lift the hammer. He kept calling it some weird name that I can't pronounce. And-" She breaks off, not sure whether to mention the Avatar State to Phil.

"And?" he prompts, noticing her hesitation.

"Nothing," she answers, shaking her head. "That's all he said. He was probably just drunk. Or crazy. Sure talked like he was."

"Well, we'll be keeping an eye on them regardless. They're staying in town for some time, so we can keep watch in case he acts out again," Phil says, frowning even as he ushers her down the hall. "Go get some rest, Park. It's been a long night. And check in with Stark in the morning."

"I will," she agrees, heading in the direction of the bunks, but her mind is still on her conversation with Thor. From the window of the bunks, she watches Selvig and Thor climb into an SUV waiting outside and drive in the direction of the town, Phil staring after them from the entrance of the compound pensively, before making her decision and climbing out of the window the moment Phil turns his back.

She starts walking along the desert road, but by the time she's over the hill and the compound disappears behind her, she realizes that Puente Antiguo is still several miles away and she doesn't have any way of getting there before dawn, much less back to the compound before Phil notices she's gone.

"Need a ride?" Clint pulls up on the road beside her in a sleek black car, grinning wryly at the startled look on her face.

"I thought you were off the clock," she says, too relieved to be embarrassed by getting caught as she climbs into the passenger seat.

"Nah, just told Sitwell I was so he'd leave me alone. I can't stand that guy." Clint starts driving down the road once she puts her seatbelt on, drumming his fingers on the wheel. "So let me guess, you wanna go after the guy and ask him more questions."

"Was it that obvious?" she asks sheepishly and he smirks.

"You really thought you could sneak past Coulson without him noticing?"

"Never let it be said that I actually think my plans through," Parker says dryly, earning a laugh from Clint in response as they head towards the town.

Also never let it be said that writer's block isn't a thing, because it most definitely is, and work has been keeping me very busy for the past couple months, lol. But it was a lot of fun having Parker and Thor finally meet, and I liked the idea of Thor (and the universe, really) knowing about the Avatar and their role in protecting Earth/Midgard.

Hope you enjoy this chapter!