Chapter 8: Of Demigods and Mortals

When Tony came back from his latest personal mission, he found a piece of paper on his desk with Phil's handwriting on it:

'Was reassigned with Clint to New Mexico because of strange happenings there. Sorry I couldn't tell you in person. Had to go immediately. Phil

P.s.: Take care of yourself, if not Yinsen will tell me!'

Tony sighed with a fond smile on his face, he and Phil had even grown closer since the Palladium poison incident and since then Phil always tried to make sure that Tony was all right. He had even given Tony his emergency SHIELD number, which only few people had and Tony in return gave Phil a code that would alert Jarvis if something were wrong. To Phil's birthday Tony had even given him one of the bracelets that had been with him when Maria had found him (of course he hadn't told Phil what they meant – to him and in general – and had to coax the slightly older man into taking it).

Tony broke out of his musing before turning to Jarvis. "J could you look into any strange happenings in New Mexico for me?"

"Of course sir... It seems like what the government call a satellite crashed near Puente Antiguo and was secured but" "but since Phil was assigned there it means something else is going on. If Phil call for help tell me immediately."

"As you wish sir."

Hours went by with no word from Phil - which wasn't unusual but still - and Tony distracted himself with his newest idea for the suit, one that would only need some bracelets to built around him. He had some problem to get the suit to properly fold around him without hurting him since only bracelets on the hands wouldn't help the suit to know how his legs were positioned… The only solution would be to wear similar bracelets on his feet but before he could do that he had to work out the last flaws, so he would have to continue to use the Mark VI for the time being.

After a few more hours of tinkering Tony stood up and went upstairs to grab something to eat, otherwise Yinsen would tell Phil and maybe he could even talk Yinsen into making one of these mean dishes he could cook…

Meanwhile in New Mexico:

Phil had been trying to interrogate the blond haired, blue-eyed man when suddenly his beeper went of and he went outside to see what it was that was important enough to disturb him.

In the end it hadn't been anything that important, just a fluctuation from the hammer that had been analysed when the blond man had been near it, which was admittedly interesting but it would have been able to wait a few more minutes.

As he stepped into the room, the blond man uttered the first words he had heard from him "Good bye."

"'Good by?' I just got back." Something was of about that man, he seemed to have the training of a soldier but didn't seem to work for anyone be it for money or just to serve his country.

After a few minutes of silence in which the man just stared at the ground with a mournful aura, one of Phil's subordinates came into the room to announce that the man had a visitor.

The visitor turned out to be Dr Erik Selvig who tried to sell Phil that the man they had in custody was named "Donald Blake" and a Doctor at that. Phil had meet many doctors in his life, be it medical or otherwise, and the man inside didn't strike him as one. The search also came up negative, despite that Phil was curious and he was sure if Tony was here he would just release "Donald" to see what would happen next just because of that curiosity. Normally he wouldn't just follow such wimps but it was because he had spend so much time with Tony that the younger man had rubbed of on him, whatever the reason he let "Donald" go with Selvig. He followed them with his eyes as they made their way to leave the premises – but not before "Donald" snatched one of Dr Foster's notebooks from a table (and who had let it lie there around so carelessly anyway?) – and played around with the bracelet on his let arm, while shouting out to them. "Doctor Selvig, just keep him away from the bars."

The doctor reassured him he would – as if – and Phil watched them go, before turning to another Agent. "Follow them."

Phil couldn't believe his ears when one of the Agents he had send to keep an eye on "Donald" told him they had sighted "a Xena, Jackie Chan and Robin Hood and Little John" just shortly after they had gotten massive energy readings.

But instead of just going to "Donald" to confront him, he concentrated on the strange markings before him in the ground. "Get someone from linguistics down here." He said while thinking, 'Where is Tony when you need him? He could really help with all the books he read about languages (be they dead or alive) and he would be a great help to decipher the reason behind these energy spikes.'

Suddenly the wind picked up around them and the sky darkened. 'That doesn't look good…'

And it wasn't, the clouds spiralled downwards to the ground and as soon as the dirt had settled a giant silver armour was standing where only moments before there had been nothing.

An Agent close to him asked, "Is that one of those Iron Man armours?"

"I don't think so." 'Tony would have told me about a new armour design and last I know he had been working on Mark VII…'

He tried to address the person in the armour, if there was anyone in there but instead of getting a reply the thing suddenly started to something akin to laser beams out of his face. He ran away, behind some cover and watched as the armour – or robot? – just walked away, ignoring them further.

It headed towards Puente Antiguo and Phil together with the other SHIELD Agents tried to follow it but most of their cars were damaged by that thing and so they had to walk to the small town, hoping there wouldn't be to late to do something.

When they came closer to the small town, Phil could make out "Donald" in some old-fashioned armour (and why did he have the feeling as if he had seen something similar before?) fighting against the silver armour (for a lack of a better word he would call it that but he was sure Tony would disagree).

"Donald" turned it into scrap metal and Phil took the chance to approach him to tell him that they would need to talk about the happenings.

"Donald" at first looked like he wanted to ignore him – he gave of the aura like someone who was in a hurry – but then something seemed to change his mind. "My name is Thor Odinson. Know this Son of Coul; you and I, we fight for the same cause the protection of this world. From this day on you can count me as your ally, if you return the items you have taken from Jane." "Stolen!" "Borrowed." He told Dr Foster that she would get it back so that she could continue her research."

Thor again addressed Phil. "Another condition is that you show me that artefact that you are having on you."

Phil blinked perplexed at the request. "Artefact?"

"Yes something that shouldn't be here but you have it your possession."

Phil pondered a moment what Thor could mean, the only thing he didn't know the origin of was that bracelet Tony had given him as a birthday present but the demigod couldn't mean that, could he? He pulled up the arms of his dirty suit jacket and asked, "Do you mean this?"

A silver bracelet with strange markings was now visible on his arm and Thor stared at it before regaining his composure. He nodded, "Yes that is it… When I return, I would like you to tell me how you got into its possession." "Of course but-"

Thor's attention had already shifted and he turned to Dr Foster, taking of with her after a small exchange.

Shortly after that Phil could make out another of these strange tornados, apparently Thor had returned wherever he came from. But his sudden disappearance had left question in its path. What was so special about this bracelet that the god would address it when he was clearly in a hurry? Where had Tony gotten it? Many more questions came to Phil's mind and it seemed only Thor and Tony could answer them and since one was gone to another world, he would have to confront the other…