Black Widow finished her assessment in a measured voice, and the effect was immediate.
The air changed.
Stormbreaker crackled to life in Thor's grip, blue-white lightning threading up his forearm and into the sky. Colonel Rhodes's armor snapped open at every hardpoint simultaneously—repulsors, shoulder cannons, back-mounted rail array—the suit cycling into full combat mode with a hydraulic hiss. The assembled heroes' expressions locked into the same expression: controlled, alert, ready to kill something.
Not that it would necessarily help.
"Alright, everybody take a breath." Rocket Raccoon's tone was conspicuously unmoved by the tension gathering around him. He hefted his energy cannon to one shoulder like a man carrying groceries and squinted at the figure descending through the smoke-streaked sky. "I dunno. Feels like he's on our side. Also he's been on our side for the last ten minutes, so."
"Best if he is," the Captain said quietly.
He took a breath, squared his shoulders, and led the group forward.
Jordan felt the displaced air rush upward past him as he dropped the last twenty meters—and made a decision.
He could land like Magneto. Arms clasped behind his back, perfectly vertical, not a hair disturbed. Effortlessly superior. He'd done it before. It was certainly an option.
But the group ahead of him were battle-worn, grief-stricken, and had just watched half of everything they loved get erased from existence. The last thing they needed was a show of cold dominance from a complete stranger.
So he went with the other option.
One knee down, one fist on the ground, head tilted just slightly toward the camera that wasn't there.
The SuperHero Landing.
Concrete cratered faintly beneath him. A plume of dust rolled outward. Every action movie cliché condensed into a single beautiful, ridiculous pose.
Style factor: secured.
The effect worked. Several of the tight, battle-ready expressions around him softened by a fraction—involuntary, unconscious. The human brain's hardwired association between that particular posture and protagonist was doing most of the work. The rest was Jordan's biomagnetic field, radiating calm goodwill outward in every direction without a word spoken.
Even Thor felt it. He didn't stop holding Stormbreaker, but his knuckles unclenched a millimeter.
"Hey buddy." Rocket had scrambled up to Thor's shoulder at some point, apparently treating the God of Thunder as convenient elevated terrain. Thor glanced sideways at him with an expression that had long since given up on dignity. "Quick question—which side are you on? Because I've got some real heavy hitters around me right now who are in genuinely terrible moods, so the answer matters."
Jordan straightened from his landing and pressed one hand to his chest—a small, universal gesture of introduction.
"My name is Jordan. Earthling, obviously." He offered the group a mild smile. "I'd hope that's not hard to tell."
He tapped his sternum, and the armor answered.
The superhero suit disintegrated into threads of blue-gold light that spiraled inward and vanished. Beneath it: a simple, slightly rumpled set of civilian clothes. No weapons visible. No armor. Just a blond young man standing in the middle of a debris field like he'd wandered out of a coffee shop.
The shift in atmosphere was immediate. Cold and imposing became sunny and approachable in the span of about two seconds.
"—Is that Tony's tech?" Rhodes was already stepping forward, eyes sharp behind his visor. The transformation had caught him off-guard in a way that Thanos's army hadn't. "That storage integration, the on-body deployment, the—"
"Easy." Jordan snapped his fingers.
The force field structure reappeared in the air between them—suspended, luminous, rotating with deliberate slowness through a full three-sixty. Every angle visible. Every surface examinable. Not threatening. Not concealed. Demonstrating.
"No leaked schematics. Not high technology at all, actually." He let it hang there another moment, then dispersed it with a wave. "Just a special effect."
The Avengers stared at the empty air where it had been.
Then Steve Rogers stepped forward, hand extended, and Jordan shook it.
"Steve Rogers." His grip was firm, his assessment quiet and continuous. "So—Jordan. Are you a wizard?"
"Hello, Captain. I know who you are—everyone does, to be honest." Jordan released his hand and turned the question over briefly. "I know some tricks. But calling me a wizard is overselling it."
After that, the exchange took on a different character. Wary, still—these were people who had just lost everything and were right to be careful—but the edge came off. The weapons stayed up, but nobody was aiming at anything.
Two reasons for that, Jordan noted, watching them recalibrate.
First: his combat output during the cleanup had been visible. Thor, for all his current misery, was still the most powerful being in the room, and he was the one who'd gone quietest after the fight ended. He'd run the math. The conclusion was obvious to everyone who'd seen it.
Second: actions speak. Jordan had spent the last several minutes helping eliminate what remained of Thanos's army. That wasn't a declaration—it was a demonstration.
(Somewhere in the back of his mind, he filed a note: they hadn't yet encountered Captain Marvel. And Bruce Banner's internal disagreement with the Hulk had apparently reached the point where the big green one simply refused to cooperate. Poor Thor.)
Speaking of which—
"So." Thor's voice was a low rumble, and the pleasantries were clearly over. His jaw was set, his eyes distant with something heavier than anger. He was still holding Stormbreaker, and the lightning in it had the quality of a storm that hadn't decided where to strike yet. "What exactly brings you here, mage?"
The tone wasn't conversational. It wasn't hostile, precisely. It was the voice of a man who had just watched his brother's killer escape, just watched half the universe disappear, and was out of the emotional budget for small talk.
Jordan generously forgave him. The man had also just lost his hammer, his home, and his father, more or less in that order. He was one catastrophe shy of a complete set.
Besides—he had a lot of ninjutsu in his skill tree, if Thor wanted to call it magic. And the God of Asgard had correctly identified a mage standing in front of him, which meant his instincts were still working, even through the grief.
Write it as ninjutsu, read it as magic. Perfectly reasonable.
"Excuse me, Hammer God," Jordan said pleasantly. "I should clarify—I'm not a mage. Though I do find the magic of Kamar-Taj genuinely fascinating."
A muscle at the corner of Thor's mouth jumped.
"I am not the God of Hammers," he said, his voice dangerously controlled, "I am the God of Thunder."
Jordan nodded. "Right. Hammer God."
Thor bared his teeth: "You—"
"He's not at his best right now." Natasha moved forward between them like water finding the most efficient path, blocking their lines of sight with a pleasant smile that somehow managed to be both disarming and immovable at once. She turned it on Jordan. "So—what would you say your profession is, Jordan?"
Diplomatic of her.
Jordan shifted his attention to Black Widow properly for the first time since landing—and found that the intelligence reports he'd read about her didn't quite do justice to the reality. She'd changed her hair since her early career, the burgundy traded out for a darker shade of blonde, but the genetic inheritance was unchanged: the kind of face and figure that turned heads even in a room full of superhumans.
Jordan met her eyes.
"It's all right, Miss Natasha. I know what's happened here, and I think I understand what everyone is going through right now." He paused, then offered the simplest available answer. "I'm a police officer, and I'm a hero. Honestly—my job is probably pretty similar to yours."