So very not calm.
"The magic is gone," I pointed out.
"I noticed that, yes," Loki said.
"Could....could the hammer be reforged?" I asked, and I hated how little-girl my voice sounded.
"I don't see how," Loki said after a moment. "The dwarves of Nidavellir forged it in the heart of a star. It is uru, with characteristics of both metal and stone; only a few are capable of working it."
"Are you saying I can't do it?" I demanded to know, my pride momentarily stung, overlooking the whole "forged in a star" thing.
"Well, I cannot say for certain," he said, backpedallingfast. "If you manage it, fair Emma, you will take your rank among the legendary smiths of the Nine Realms." For one wild moment I wondered if that honor came with a plaque and entry into a clubhouse where the smiths could talk about techniques and wild forge stories.
"But that only solves the problem of the physical hammer," I said, chewing on a nail. "Where did the magic come from, originally? Could you redo the spell?"
"I cannot," Loki said heavily. "Odin himself enchanted the hammer. The Allfather used the Odinforce, which is his alone to command. While he lives." He silently picked a piece of the dull metal out of the box, rubbing his thumb over it, then dropped it. "Emma, if Mjolnir lies here in twisted shards, my brother must be dead," he said, more to himself than me. He spun away violently. "Heimdall!" he screamed, rage and panic and fear twisting in his voice.
The Bifrost didn't open. I didn't really expect it to.
What I also didn't expect was a shaft of light and the appearance of a great sword clattering to the floor.
Loki seemed similarly taken aback. He approached it and picked it up, recognition shading his features. "Laevateinn," he murmured, "I thought you lost." Hastily spinning down my vision, I saw a mediocre sword over which a subtle magic writhed. It matched Loki's own. "I made this myself," he said, still murmuring. I prudently held my tongue.
"I know I promised not to escape," he said abruptly, "but circumstances have changed." Before I could do or say anything, he brought the sword down on the seam of the high-tech door, shearing through the locks with ease. Loki shouldered through the door, threw me a smile that was equally sad and fierce, and strode for the door. I ran after him, chasing him down the hall and up the stairs.
"Loki, wait!" I called, and he turned to look at me. Just as the Bifrost bridge opened to him.
And he was gone.
"Son of a bitch!" I shrieked, then pulled out my phone and called Nick.
Nick was inclined to rant at me about letting Loki go, and this perturbed me enough that I got into his face and pointed out that I was unarmed, under six feet tall, and really not able to stop a god who was much taller and stronger and POSSESSING A MAGIC SWORD THAT JUST FELL INTO HIS CELL. So Nick had to stop, reevaluate his position, and went off to collect the recordings of the episode. I trudged down to the basement to retrieve the box of Mjolnir bits.
Then I hurried over to the clinic and up to Odin's room. The guard was surprised at my appearance, but the ravens appeared on cue. It was kind of eerie how they always showed up when I did. I held out the box to the ravens, who cocked their heads and looked in. Then I apprised all three of them of the recent developments, including Loki's dramatic escape, and waited for a response. One of the birds said "caw" but I didn't know how to take it.
"It would be great if you would wake up and provide some guidance," I said without much hope, and the silence stretched out. "Didn't think so," I muttered, and opened the window for the birds to exit. They didn't budge, so I let the guard know that they might be staying for awhile. He looked as thrilled as I felt.
As I was walking down the path to my workshop, my phone chimed with an immediate summons to a meeting. As we filed into the conference room, everybody else looked confused. Tony took one look at me and said, "I bet you know what's going on."
"I wish," I said glumly, clutching my box to my chest as I took my seat. "I just know what happened." Tony's brow furrowed as he tried to figure out the distinction.
"All right," Nick said briskly as soon as we were all seated. "Congratulations on the successful test of the new engine. Now we've got other problems. I'm going to let our eyewitness tell you what happened." I bared my teeth at him.
"Ok. After the test, I went back to my workshop and found this on the bench." I placed the box on the table and opened it, extracting a shard to show to everybody.
"What is that?" Bucky asked, puzzled.
"Mjolnir. Or rather, it was Mjolnir." I shook my head and tossed the bit back in with the other pieces. "Somehow it was shattered. The magic's gone." Everybody stood up to look in the box.
"Then what happened?" Steve asked, taking my hand in his.
"I scooped it all into the box and took it to Loki, hoping that maybe he'd know what destroyed it."
"Did he?"
"No." I sighed. "And then--"
"There's a then?" Tony quipped, but he wasn't laughing.
"Yep. And then. Then a big-ass sword fell into the cell out of nowhere. Loki recognized it as something he'd made, very average work but it had that creepy magic to it, cut the door open, charged out, up the stairs and out. Where he was sucked up by the damned Bifrost! And then I went to tell Odin about it because even if I can re-form Mjolnir, he's the one who'd have to renew the enchantment on it, but predictably, he just lay there." I was a little resentful about that. Everybody gaped at me for a second, then exploded with questions. Nick put the surveillance footage up, and it was just as I'd said.
"Can you fix it?" Steve asked me under the fuss.
"I don't know," I said truthfully. "Loki said that it was made in the core of a star. I don't have that kind of pyrotechnics available."
"You can do it," he said encouragingly. I just looked at him. "It has atoms, doesn't it? And if it has atoms, you can shove them around." I smiled at him. Bless him for trying to buck me up.
After everybody was brought up to date and had the opportunity to ask questions, the meeting broke up and Steve walked me all the way to my workshop, coming in and looking around for more surprises. There were none, but he had earned a hug. I snuggled in so I could hear his heartbeat, and he kissed the top of my head.
"I'm not trying to pressure you, sweetheart, but I'd like you to try to remake that hammer," he said, and I liked the way his voice resonated in his chest, deep and reassuring. "One step at a time, but if there's as much trouble afoot as seems likely, we'll need it. And you can use it."
"I could lift it," I corrected. "Before it was destroyed. I never tried to use it, and who knows what would happen IF the enchantment was renewed and IF I can still lift it?"
"Still, he said, and after a moment I sighed.
"Still," I agreed.
After a moment, he kissed me thoroughly and smacked my butt. "Ok, tiger, get to work," he encouraged/directed me before departing.
I took a shard out of the box and began to explore its properties.
It was hard going. The atoms were very resistant to moving, very unlike a metal, and unlike stone as well; I picked up a rock outside and poked around for comparison purposes. By the time Steve picked me up for dinner, I had a headache. I had a headache for most of the next few days, in fact, and I wasn't sleeping well. Finally Steve almost literally dragged me to the clinic, where they measured my brainwaves for comparison with previous scans. We had to wait awhile for the doctors to interpret the results.
"Interesting," Dr Harris said succinctly. "Activity in the hypocampus, which governs memory, learning, and recalling spatial relationships in the world around us, and the parietal lobe, associated with movement, orientation, recognition, perception of stimuli, as well as the frontal lobe, which is associated with reasoning, planning, parts of speech, movement, emotions, and problem solving, are highly stimulated. Activity in the parts of the brain that deal with body movement and sensory analysis, such as the pons and midbrain, emotion in the amygdala, and audio and visual processing in the occipital and temporal lobes are a little depressed. None of this is dangerous, at least at this time, but it appears to be throwing things out of whack in your brain and hence your headaches. This does seem to correspond to scans we have of you using your mental ability, but these scans show a much more acute effect. So my diagnosis is to stop doing whatever it is that you do for a bit, allow your brain to rest and recover. Perhaps engage in physical activity; endorphins might help." I thanked Dr Harris and Steve made me eat a large, healthy dinner before taking me home and engaging with me in some fairly strenuous physical activities that definitely stimulated my brain stem functions and created a surge of endorphins.
The next morning started off with more vigorous exercise, followed by the obstacle course and leg day at the gym, which almost overcame all my lovely warm feelings for Steve. Since I couldn't use my ability and I didn't have any data from the engine testing to work with yet, I went to my forge and created some decorative elements for my costume, taking the time to do some engraving on them for aesthetic appeal. There was a zipper for the summer costume that came up my torso to end between my boobs; on the toggle, which rested over my heart, I engraved Steve's star. It was hidden under the upper portion of the costume, which was separate like a bolero jacket that I could take off when I wasn't in the thick of it, so it would be just my secret. For the rest of it, I used variations on the art nouveau whiplash; it was elegant and reminiscent of the urumi. In response to a questionnaire from Promotions, I named my new poleaxe Nike but refused to name the urumi. I felt kind of bad about liking a weapon like that; it could reduce a person to a screaming, bloody heap on the floor with just a few passes. Promotions was unfazed by my disinclination to name the weapon (I didn't explain why; the more info you gave them, the more they would us it to shape your public image) and named it "Nemesis," using the Greek goddess of revenge, balance, righteous indignation, and retribution to balance the use of the name of the goddess of victory.
I took the box of Mjolnir shards with me everywhere I went; there was nothing on the security cams in my workshop to explain how they got there--they were not there one moment, there was a hesitation in the recording, then there they were, falling a short distance to the bench top in a little rain--and I didn't want to risk losing them again. I kept my promise to Steve to not try to force the atoms to move. I wasn't sure I could do the job, despite the poke to my pride that would produce. I did try a few method of physical formation of a couple of the shards, but I wasn't surprised when they didn't work.
That night I hosted a girls' night out--we couldn't really go out-out since the other two were so recognizable they tended to draw crowds and this would probably end my anonymity as Paladin so we met at my house. Natasha made a pitcher of martinis and we played poker as we decompressed.
"I wouldn't be so sure that Thor is dead just because the hammer is in pieces," Wanda said in reference to Loki's reaction, discarding an eight and a five. Natasha dealt her two cards.
I had a crap hand and discarded a two, a five, and a nine. "I was wondering about that," I admitted. "Thor really relies on the hammer and it would be crippling to him if he had to fight without it, but I don't think he'd be unable to function without it."
"He does have some kind of connection with it, though," Natasha said, discarding a single card. I looked at her sharply. She had no tells that I could discern, so I couldn't tell if she had a winning hand or crap like mine.
"Yes," Wanda said, casually anteing up. I folded. Natasha anted up as well, and raised with half her almonds. "There's some mystical link that allows the hammer to perceive worthiness, to obey Thor's commands." She met and raised with a full-sized peanut butter cup, a bold move. Natasha was still in and raised with two Crunch bars. Wanda called and the hands were shown; Natasha had crap, Wanda had a full house. She raked in the pot, sharing the Crunch bars with us.
"It must be that enchantment," Natasha said as the deal passed to Wanda.
"The material's weird stuff," I said. "It's conductive, but not, not malleable, not ductile...it's a pain in the ass, actually."
"I thought you were having headaches," Natasha said slyly as we picked up the cards. I flipped her off and they laughed. Then the conversation turned to sex, as it usually does at some point.
"So did you have to review the basics with Cap when you hooked up again?" Natasha wanted to know, taking the dangerous step of eating one of her highest point chips, a truffle. "I plan on winning yours, I can afford to live large," she said airily when I looked at it pointedly.
"Actually, no," I said, arranging my cards. "He has acquired a library."
"Do tell," she said, eyebrows arching. "I didn't see any sexy books the last time I was in there with James."
"Threesomes?" Wanda said, teasing her.
"Oh, no," Natasha said. "I'm not sharing James with anybody." We exploded, giggling.
"He got some books on technique and positions," I said, discarding two cards. "Some erotic fiction. They're on the lower shelf, behind his reading chair and the floor lamp. He said he wanted to be prepared in case I came back."
"Aw, that's kind of sweet," Natasha said.
"Prepared how?" Wanda asked. "Handcuffs and blindfolds, or just a new position?"
"I am not telling you guys," I said, laughing. "I will just say that we are both happy." Steve would freak if I told people what we got up to.
"I wonder if that's some old guy reticence," Natasha said, unwrapping a sucker. "James is fine about doing, but he gets all red if I get too descriptive. He blushes clear to his arm." I smiled. I could see that.
"Vision gets a little too analytical," Wanda sighed. "Sometimes I feel like I'm being evaluated." I pushed over three almonds and a mini Mr Goodbar in consolation.
After the game broke up (Natasha had indeed won all my truffles), I called Steve to tell him the coast was clear.
"Good. Tony's really lowering the tone around here," he said, and in the background I could hear Tony objecting. He offered to come over, for which I was grateful; it had been a long day. And maybe I was selfish, but I slept better in my own bed with the dogs having taken over one of the spare rooms, cuddled up with Steve.
At some point in the dark of the night, I woke up. I woke up instantly, I should say, completely alert, which just never happens. I eased away from Steve, unwrapping his arm gently, and went into the bathroom. With the box of Mjolnir.
This time I sat on the floor and poured all the shards out on the tile. Then I closed my eyes and sort of reached out to the pieces, showing them what I wanted them to become, providing direction and will. And slowly, they consolidated. And slowly, after a mass had formed, a little stump grew. And then the substance stilled. I put the box in the trash can and took Stumpy out with me, putting it on the night stand and crawling back under the sheets where I belonged, and I went right back to sleep.