Thor
There’s a man in the TVA records department who goes by Ted.
He thinks sometimes he had a different name once, but then another box of files will get dropped on his desk and he’ll lose his train of thought.
He’s tall enough that he frequently bangs his head on the hanging planter Jerry brought in. He’s large enough that the small office chair at his desk is sometimes unbearably uncomfortable.
He hates his job, hates the endless filing and paperwork, hates the recycled lifeless air, hates that he gets bored and distracted and doesn’t seem to be any good at it. But he’s always been here, and likely always will be here. For all time.
Once, he has no idea how long ago, he dreamt of moving up to the Hunter Division. He thought he might be happier there, be better there. He'd wanted to go out in the world, feel fresh wind on his face, smell the pending rain before a storm. Somewhere in himself he knew he could be a good fighter, knew he’d be good with a weapon. He practiced sometimes, in his cubicle, swinging around an old broken table leg he’d picked up in the evidence room.
So he’d applied for Hunter Division. He took the physical test, the psychological test. Again and again and again. Yet the application always came back with a big “rejected” stamped across the top.
There weren’t even any notes about his tests so he could improve next time. Every feedback box always contained the same message. “This applicant cannot be approved for field duty at this time.”
He’d tried once to find out what that note meant, find out how he could clear himself for field work. But the woman he’d spoken to had looked at his belly and suppressed a laugh, and the man she sent him too had suggested it was ridiculous someone like him had even applied, and he’d left the office feeling humiliated.
He knows he still applied, several times, after that. But eventually he’d stopped. He doesn’t quite remember why. Just that a feeling settled over him that the whole thing was pointless.
So he does his paperwork and sends files to the mailcart and takes his 17 minute stipulated lunch break. He tried not to dream of his life being anything different.
Sometimes, on the way out of the employee bathroom, he’ll catch sight of himself in the mirror. At his short professional haircut and clean shaven face and the stained collared shirt he wears. And he’ll have no idea who he's looking at.
Other times, the thought I need a drink will drift through his mind. And he'll puzzle at it. Alcohol is not allowed in the TVA records room. Only the higher ups get privlieges like that. He's never had a drink, he's just read about them in his forms.
Very occasionally, he'll get a static shock from a lightswitch or a desklamp or a handshake, and for a moment something feels right in his head, just within reach. But then the fog descends, the feeling leaving as quick as it arrives.
At his worst times, completely alone in his cubicle, he’ll look at his scars. He has them in scores, more than any office worker should. One wrapping around his belly, one cutting across his upper thigh. He doesn’t remember how he got them, which would strike him as odd if he didn’t have so much work to complete. But the scars he stares at most are on his left wrist. Two lines, evenly spaced, one long, one shorter and jagged at the end, as if interrupted. He knows, somewhere in himself, that they were deep wounds, meant to gravely injure. He wonders if they’re part of why he feels so lost.
But then the desk phone will ring, and it will be Kora from the Kree Records Department, asking why he hasn’t sent over the latest batch of forms, and the thought will leave him.
So he sits, and he works, because the work must be done, and that truth feels written into his bones. He files and he approves and he sends papers to different departments. He listens closely when Miss Minutes comes on the overhead TVs to explain new directives. He follows protocol. He stops dreaming of the Hunter Division, stops playing with the table leg in his cubicle, stops staring at his scars. He stops dreaming of anything better. He works, because it his his purpose.
Until one day, a soft voice from behind him says “Brother.”
And something like hope surges in his heart.