There might have been a better way than simply entering into Odin's Vault without the permission of his father but Thor wasn't exactly in his compliance phase. He wasn't as hardheaded and stupid as he used to be, not after everything that had happened, but he also wasn't as compliant with his father's wishes as most would have expected of him. His father silently tolerated his decisions, even if it opposed him, as long as Thor presented himself as ready to bear the consequences.
This was one of those times.
Even after everything he had told his father, he had thought that at the very least his father would support him in recovering an Asgardian relic but that was not to be as his father adopted the same avoidant stance he did with most things nowadays.
Thor understood his father's reasons for being reserved, and after everything he had gone through in recent years, of course he understood, but understanding did not mean agreement.
He had no thoughts of blatantly disregarding his father's wishes, so why was he in the most secured place in the whole of Odin's palace without his father's knowledge? Frankly, and similar to his father's usual reservations, Thor was uncertain.
Odin's Vault held treasures from eons when stars shone dim lights. Treasures that shaped and shook the corner of the cosmos. Treasures that were more myth than legend, that had titles instead of names.
This vault of treasures was a steady reminder of just who had carved Asgard's foundation and still held the cornerstone.
"Are you done gawking at them?" He wasn't surprised to hear his father's voice behind him. It would take someone beyond both Heimdall's and the Allfather's eyes to sneak into Odin's Vault without either of them knowing. "Or are you still deciding which one you can hide under your cape?"
"Neither." He sighed tiredly. He ran his hands through his hair and finally turned to his father. "You don't know what I felt."
"An astonishing observation. Anything else?" His father said, mimicking his mother's specific brand of sarcasm.
"Mjolnir—"
"—is not yours. Not that one at least." His father said as he walked towards a cauldron that boiled a black obfuscating smoke. He peered into it for a few seconds and looked away a moment before the cauldron belched out its black breath.
The blunt remark made him stumble for a second but he didn't rescind his words. "I have to understand. Why I—he died. Why did his hammer appear here."
His father scoffed. "You barely understand yourself and you want to understand another you. More words like that and I will have to declare you daft."
"And didn't you say the merchant acquired the hammer himself and then brought it here? What's there to understand?"
Thor looked at his father who now stood backing one of the strangest armor he had ever seen — a sentiment he shared with many of the things here. Odin was looking at him with an eye that told Thor his father was listening and judging the words that were coming out of his mouth. He preferred this to an easy disregard.
"You told me nothing in the universe happens by chance, that even the tiniest grain of sand on the shore has a reason for being there and that no matter how small and insignificant that reason might seem to be, the universe ensures that there is one."
He didn't raise his voice as that would be childish. And also the vault produced sharp echoes that made speaking louder a general bad idea.
"That why is what I want to understand. And maybe it will finally help me better understand myself. I cannot leave Mjolnir to rot in some merchant's shelf."
"And what will happen when you see a bigger hammer from another dead Thor? Will you purchase it too? And what will we call you then? Thor, the God of Hammers mayhaps."
Thor looked at his father. "You would have the hammer remain there?"
His father shrugged. "No, I wouldn't."
"Then why?"
"Because you don't know why." The message was delivered in a neutral tone but it sounded like Odin's furious roar in Thor's ears. "If you want to have the hammer, then do so. Not because of a dying curiosity or some vague visions. Do it for something with substance. Even if it is for a vain reason like power or pride. Never allow yourself to be put in a position where your decisions matter because of something else. Your enemies will rip you apart faster than you can defend those choices."
With that, his father started walking out of the treasure room while Thor remained transfixed as his father's words seared itself into his head with forceful serenity.
"What should I take?"
"Use your head for that one." Was all Odin said as he closed the doors behind him, leaving Thor to contemplate both decisions. He wouldn't be touching any of the truly terrible artifacts but he also had to find something of equal value to a Mjolnir on sale.
Odin had asked him earlier in the throne room why he did not just take the hammer if he was that obsessed with it and he had to explain to his father that the merchant was not a man of easy means. Someone capable of snatching a Mjolnir midair and easily suppressing the power of another one was no simple man.
He knew gods who weren't even capable of the first one, much less the second.
A trade it was.
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...
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[POV: With the Morlocks]
Under Mikhail's new proactive decision-making, the Morlocks could only give stupified nods and silently follow along with every new thing he did, especially since Callisto lurked behind him through all of it with her silent support.
The older members who were too advanced in age and were simply waiting for their last day wholly supported the new changes with brighter smiles, especially when Mikhail let it known that these changes were behalf of them investing their X-gene into the future of the Morlocks.
The pocket dimension was the most shocking thing any of them had expected, even Callisto, but just like with everything else they easily accepted it.
What was there not to accept?
Clear skies and favorable seasons. Fully furnished buildings and wide spaces. It even came with a small lake. And the best part about it was how exclusive it was. For decades since the first group of Morlocks bounded together to survive, the Morlocks now had a place that was completely theirs and safer than most places on earth.
It only took a series of spontaneous decision making for the Morlocks to start seeing Mikhail as a leader on the same level as Callisto.
Their lives couldn't be any better.
As for Mikhail, he was currently being hounded by none other than his sister as he took her around the dimension.
"Damn, they sell pocket dimensions now?" She had whistled in the first few minutes. "What did you pay for it? A thousand frenzied souls?"
"No," he had sighed. "Money."
"Then you must be loaded as f—hell." He was still getting used to the idea that his sister was now a lot older than she looked, but that would take time, a lot of time, and he let her know he was in no rush to do so either.
They ended up back in his house after their little work and it had taken her all of five seconds to realize that he wasn't living alone.
"Let me guess, it's the crazy chick, isn't it?"
"Illyana." She raised her hands from the look he gave her and once again the disparity hit him. "And she's not crazy. She's… difficult."
"Da." She rolled her eyes and he had to rub the bridge of his nose when he realized that they would meet each other soon and it would likely result in a fight.
"Well at least you have something to focus on instead of that stupid idea of yours." She said as she followed him into the kitchen and sat on the counter.
The stupid idea she was talking about was when he had brought up the idea of doing some kind of treasure hunt in Limbo(as he killed every demon he came across). She had called the idea stupid and had called him foolishly suicidal for thinking about something like that in the first place.
"So what is it you guys do around here?" She asked.
"Nothing really." He replied as he dished food into two plates and handed her one.
"So what? This place is some kind of retirement home?" Her second question made the spoon heading for his mouth pause as he thought over her words – whether it was insulting or badly worded curiosity. He gave her a lazy shrug, which was the perfect nonanswer.
They ate their food in relative silence, and even though Illyana was dying to ask him something, he was happy that she remained respectful enough to observe proper table manners.
"… Petya wants you to visit." She said as she took his plates to the sink after he finished eating.
Right. That.
Honestly, he was the stranger amongst his siblings so it was no surprise that Illyana was closer to Piotr than she was with him, and that she spent more time with him at the X-Mansion, even despite the differences between the X-Men and her benefactor. Growing up faster as the eldest brother usually did that, so he had complaints. He was just glad that he wasn't too much of a stranger that she couldn't be familiarly casual with.
She did the mature thing by not needling for a reply when he couldn't give one.
"So are you going to introduce me to whoever is hooking you up with these things?"
"No." He almost smiled when he saw her whining. But now that she mentioned it, he couldn't help but remember those weapons he wanted to get a while back. Especially the one he wanted to get for her. He added that to the list of things he would be working towards.
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….....
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Deep within the frozen peaks of the Alps, gunfire and explosions heavily disrupted the zen of the scenic mountain range.
There were a lot of shouting in foreign languages and they were all coated in different flavors. Some were panicked screams, some were angry shouts, some were hateful curses, while some were just the body's biological response to Wednesday turning into hell.
"So no one is really going to bring up the fact that Fury has an alien ship? No?" Tony asked into the open channel as he dropped nuggets of extreme yield explosives on top of an escaping convoy. "And that our house spies couldn't even give us the heads up until the very last second."
"Because Fury wanted to keep it under wraps for as long as he could." Tony rolled his eyes as Yelena's voice came through.
He weaved through the reception barrage of energy weapons being fired at him and did what he did best — he dropped a cluster of bombs on them.
"Yeah, and how well did that work out?" He sniped sarcastically. "In case you don't know how to answer that, here's a tip: we're currently doing cleanup in the Alps."
"Can we just focus?" Steve Roger's tired voice came through the channel along with the hip-hop background noise of a lot of hateful screams. What an icon, Tony thought with a smirk.
"I'm just saying, Cap, that I think that we're being two-timed by the cool kids."
"Tony, can we do this another time? Like maybe when we're not being shot at by angry HYDRA terrorists?" Clint shouted, and from where Tony was in the sky, he saw Clint pulling on his alienware bow and reducing armored tanks and energy-shielded strongholds to a pile of rubble and smoke.
"I don't know. You tell me. From what I can see you're doing mighty fine. I mean, two backflips in an active shootout, you look like you're barely breaking a sweat."
"Tony, focus! We can talk all we want later. For now we have a job to do." Steve said with the tone of a fed up kind grandpa finally scolding the wayward brats. Which was kind of on point with him, all things considered.
"JARVIS, give me a beat." If his digital bud had been a real person, Tony would have given him a raise on the spot as his ever faithful assistant pumped out the tune of Eurythmics' 'Would I Lie To You' into the open channel.
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