Michael reached the town nearest the hammer site with no luggage, no cash, and barely enough strength to hold his shape.
He released the Nakfoji form behind an empty service building. Fatigue folded through him at once. The flight had crossed more distance than any test over the manor, and his body collected the price without offering an installment plan.
He leaned against the wall and checked his pockets. Phone. Keys to a car that was several states away. No wallet. "Excellent planning," he told himself.
He called Tony.
JARVIS answered. "Mr. Stark is occupied. May I assist you?"
"Find the nearest Stark facility and tell someone to bring me a thousand dollars."
JARVIS paused. Somehow, the silence sounded judgmental.
Tony's voice replaced the AI. "Michael Clyborne, alleged millionaire, is stranded without lunch money? This is the best thing that's happened to me all week."
"Bring it in the next five minutes, or I tell Pepper what you did the night we became friends."
"That story was sealed by mutual agreement."
Michael checked the clock on his phone. "Four minutes, fifty seconds."
"JARVIS, locate him."
Michael ended the call smiling and slid down the wall. He meant to close his eyes for a minute; sleep took ten.
When he woke, Tony Stark was crouched over him in civilian clothes with an expression of fraudulent concern.
"Michael? Can you hear me? How many fingers am I holding up?"
Michael pushed himself upright. "When did you get here?"
"Just now. I found you abandoned, vulnerable, completely defenseless. It's a dangerous world."
Tony was enjoying himself too much. Michael opened the camera on his phone. A small green turtle had been drawn across his forehead.
"You flew here to vandalize my face."
"I flew here to rescue a friend. The art was community service."
Michael opened his mouth to object, but Tony clapped a hand over it. "The embarrassing story remains buried. In exchange, you may raid my wine cellar once. A reasonable bottle, not the Romanée-Conti."
Michael pulled his hand away. "The Romanée-Conti."
Tony shook his head. "I hate friendship."
They walked toward the center of town. Michael cleaned the ink from his face with a handkerchief Tony produced only after the damage had been documented.
Then he noticed the device beneath Tony's shirt. The glow at his chest no longer formed the familiar circle. It was held in a triangular assembly, and the dark veins along his neck had faded. Visit NovelPing for the full chapter.
"You fixed the poisoning."
Tony's irritation gave way to pride. "I built a replacement core. Three components balance one another well enough to stop the palladium damage. It's not elegant yet, but neither am I."
He tapped the housing. "The toxins already in my blood still have to clear. The balance drifts under high output, and the triangle keeps the components from eating one another. But the reactor isn't poisoning me anymore."
Michael understood perhaps half of that. The important half was written in Tony's color and the steadiness of his hands.
Michael stopped walking. Tony had saved himself without them. "Fury still hasn't returned Howard's materials?"
"What materials?" Tony's surprise was answer enough.
"Your father left work for you. Fury has it."
Tony's expression closed. "How do you know that?"
"The same way I knew you could build a solution. Incomplete information and unreasonable confidence."
"That's not an answer."
"It's the one I have. Whatever Howard left behind, you built this core."
Tony looked at the new core rather than at Michael. "Howard was very good at leaving explanations for later. Usually after he was done making it clear I hadn't met his standards."
"If you ever have a child, they'll begin with everything you spent your life learning. That doesn't make their work yours. It means they had a higher floor."
"You expect me to believe Howard thought that way?"
"No. I expect you to be better at saying it."
Tony's mouth opened, then closed. He looked away. Michael had heard Tony accept praise more easily when it was disguised as an insult; this silence would have to do.
"Why do you sound like my elder?"
"Because one of us behaves like an adult in public."
"You have a turtle on your face." Michael scrubbed harder.
The sky darkened before either of them found food.
Clouds rolled toward the restricted zone in a dense black front. Thunder moved through them in long, continuous growls. Michael felt pressure answer along instincts that were not currently physical.
"Interested in extraterrestrial metal?" Michael asked.
"You flew all this way for a hammer and didn't bring a research team, transportation, or money," Tony said.
"I brought vision. You brought a wallet," Michael said.
Tony activated JARVIS through his phone. Magnetic readings appeared, fluctuating with the storm.
"Record everything," Tony said. "Field strength, radiation, atmospheric charge."
Michael stepped into an alley and called the Nakfoji form despite the fatigue still waiting in his bones. Blue armor closed over him. Wings unfolded.
"You could have led with that," Tony said. "That's at least six secrets wearing wings."
Michael phased through the wall and accelerated toward the clouds.
Lightning cracked close enough to bleach the world white. For one unpleasant second he wondered whether becoming half-ghost made thunder more or less interested in him. The system supplied no folklore setting.
He stayed low and entered the restricted site through the ground.
Agents ringed a crater. Floodlights cut through the rain. At its center stood the hammer from the broadcast, unchanged by cables, vehicles, and human frustration.
Thor fought his way toward it.
Even without the power Michael associated with him, Thor moved with practiced violence. Guards fell to strength and timing. He hit as though he expected the world to move for him.
Michael revised one assumption immediately: powerless did not mean harmless. If he approached Thor for blood, he would need consent or an advantage better than surprise. The god had lost lightning, not training or reach.
Michael hovered out of sight and watched.
Thor reached the hammer. Thunder gathered overhead until the entire site seemed to hold its breath.
He wrapped both hands around the handle and pulled.
Nothing moved.
Thor tried again. The storm answered with light, not obedience.
His arms dropped. He fell to his knees in the mud, and the sound that tore out of him was too raw to be anger alone.
Agents held their distance. None of them celebrated. Thor no longer looked like an intruder reaching for a weapon. He looked like someone who had expected home to answer and discovered silence instead.
Michael remained phased beneath the rain. He had come for a sample. For the moment, he witnessed a god discovering that inheritance could refuse him.