Chapter 10: Mjolnir!

Chapter 10:

December 21st ,2010:

The next day I had a day off from everything, so I slept in until noon, when I woke up completely rested. It had felt good to let it all out yesterday. It made me feel human once again. I did still miss Gwen, but not like, 'I want to kiss and hold her right now' miss, but like I miss her presence. Well I did get used to her pretty quickly, so that's expected. Time to get busy then!

After freshening up a bit, I work out for an hour and then went to my lab to finally study Banner's blood. I'm not a geneticist but I still have rudimentary skill in operating the machines. What I found in Banner's blood was amazing. He had a form of super soldier serum in himself, as I suspected which mutated Banner due to the exposure to Gamma radiation. But there was also something more.

When Erskine made the original formula, he used Vita rays to energise the growth of a skinny Steve Rogers to bulky Captain America. Ross tried to replicate the procedure knowing only that there was a serum as well as radiation involved. Well they made the serum at least partially correct, as seen by the Human Blonsky dodging all of Hulk's attacks at Culver University.

Banner's father was a geneticist too. He had already tried to recreate the Super Soldier Serum for General Ross but failed. But he did create something, some serum and injected himself with it before Bruce's conception, which we know turned him into the Absorbing Man in the future after Gamma exposure. Now, that serum made Brian, Bruce's father very prone to anger, which resulted in him killing his wife in front of Bruce and later getting arrested by Ross. Why did I tell you this? Well because, my young Padawan, Bruce had the diluted serum running through his veins.

Now these 3 factors: Brian's serum, the new SSS, as well as the Gamma radiation came together in Bruce Banner and reacted spectacularly.

My hypothesis is this: Brian's serum, which was diluted in Bruce first reacted with the new Super Soldier Serum Bruce injected within himself and made him stronger while also making Bruce very good at adapting to the environment. However, he needed energy to fuel the change. That's where the Gamma radiation came in. The Gamma radiation powered the change alright, but it proved to be a little more than what was necessary. So Bruce basically absorbed the excess Gamma radiation which got stored within Banner and created a new identity for itself. Ergo, The Hulk.

But that identity was not a separate identity. It was like a multiple personality disorder. Bruce was Hulk and Hulk was Bruce. Only the thing that made Brian kill his wife caused Bruce to change into the Hulk. But since they are technically different identities, only one of them is in charge at a time, and they don't remember each others lives for the most part.

So.. What can I do with the blood? Well I can't do shit about it. Maybe I could manage to separate the two serums within his body and see if Brian's serum is compatible with me and use it on myself. Being an absorbing man would be awesome. I don't think the super soldier serum would work on me. I already have a strength enhancing drug in me, the Oz-2. So either the SSS will do nothing or it will turn me into something hideous. Not exactly my aim, that one.

Well.. let's get to it. I start with taking a small amount of Blood and put it in a centrifuge. The priority was to separate the Gamma radiation from the blood first. It's still pretty harmful even after being out of the body for close to a month. That didn't work out so I try the next method, and the next, and the next.

I worked on Banner's blood for close to 7 days and nights with barely 5 hours of sleep without exercising for that time, but I finally manage it. I manage to separate the two serums and the Gamma radiation infected blood cells.

Unfortunately, none of those serums are compatible with me. Tweaking the Absorbing serum might work for me, but is it really necessary? Not yet, no. But who knows when I'll need it. So I separate the 3 components of the blood for the whole canister and store the serums separately in the freezer while I burn the Blood on an empty field. Not going to take a risk with the blood.

Next I check Samuel Sterns' blood. I learn nothing new from his blood. Whatever happened affected his brain the most probably, and I couldn't exactly ask SHIELD for his brain matter. No worries, I'm already pretty smart so I don't need drugs to make me smarter. I do need drugs to make me stronger though.

After cleaning up the lab of any harmful substances, I speak up to Siri, "Siri, start a new project, titled 'Unstable'. Give Peter access to this project whenever he asks for it."

"Yes Boss. May I ask what this project is about?" Siri asks me.

I smile at her hologram reassuringly, and go into lecture mode, remembering everything I know about unstable molecules, "Well theoretically, unstable molecules areconfigurations that exist on the Armstrong edge between matter and energy with the ability to become either of them. Alone, they can't do much. However they can be bonded to normal anchor molecules which remain unaltered. Yet when an atomic shifts occurs in their proximity, the unstable molecules mimic that change and through them, the anchor molecules change as well.

"My aim for the foreseeable future is to synthesise these unstable molecules and bond them with my old armour and make a super strong armour which, supposedly will never tear, get pierced or get burnt. Almost completely indestructible suit of armour. That's my aim. However it's still a dream for now. I don't even know if it's possible, but still worth a try, eh Siri?" I smirk at her. This will be my hardest project up to date and I'll need Peter's help for this. A lot of help actually, but Peter is the only one I trust with this.

May 28th,2011:

I seriously underestimated how smart Reed Richards was and overestimated how smart me and Peter are. It took us a full 2 months to even start making progress at synthesizing the Unstable molecules. We had some spectacular explosions in our faces, because the molecules were.. well unstable. It took another two months for us to figure out how to bond these molecules to a piece of cloth successfully.

All in all, it was a busy few months. I got over my break up, and so did Gwen. We met a few times at Oscorp and the talking was not at all uncomfortable for any of us, as I expected it to be. We talked just like old friends. It was therapeutic. We just talked about work and then after the talk, I went to work again. I did promise to give her a project I was working on. Tweaking the Absorbing Serum for me was not something I could do successfully. So who better to do it than a geneticist. I'll have to tell her about me being Black-spider probably. So we'll see.

I applied for an MS in Computer Engineering at NYU. I simply did not want to leave New York. The terms were going to start in September so I had started studying some from the get go so as to get a head start. I wanted to pass out of this early too.

I met Fury a few times. He did what I asked him to do and brought someone who was one of the best in hand to hand fighting. He came in with an Agent Melinda May to watch me train with Peter. Peter already was a candidate for the Avengers so Fury obviously found out everything to know about him an already had a talk with him. Melinda demonstrated a few tricks and locks that we could use. It was actually a good session. I asked Melinda to come again sometime to train us like this and she agreed and later came to my house at least once a week.

I knew she was also there to keep an eye on me, but I didn't mind. I just didn't let her enter my lab. It was a private room, ya know?

My company was booming in business. Electricity bill went down to zero because of the Sun I had in my basement, we had a few contracts for the Army, Navy, Marines as well as Air Force for the guns we had started developing. I personally developed a short range explosive device to break down bunker doors, but made sure that it was available only to the government. I did not want a repeat of Iron Man to happen to me. My genetics department had procured a healing pad which when fixed on a deep cut, healed it within 2 days. It was based on a serum that Gwen had developed. The serum was not exactly costly so I had no trouble selling it to the military as well as the cops. I don't think the general public could afford it.

Finally after 5 months of starting the project, we managed to make 2 suits for both of us. Peter made his in red and black, while I made mine in black with blue highlights. We bonded the unstable molecules to the first carbon fibre suit I made. It was very basic, but after adding the unstable molecules, it made space for many upgrades. So I installed everything from a tracker to even a music system in the suit. I gave Peter his own Carbon-fibre suit the last night and he bonded it with the unstable molecules.

We tested the suit for various things. It was impervious to damage by fire, degradation and even bullets up to and including a shotgun. The higher one's, like from a sniper would still manage to penetrate it. But we had our Spidey-sense for that.

Speaking of Spidey-sense, Melinda managed to get together a system to train our senses. Basically she blindfolded us and threw various items like tennis balls, baseballs, knives, frying pans and so much more at us from all over the training room. It was fun for us while frustrating for her as she failed to hit us. As I said before, even bullets would have trouble getting us.

Also, now Peter was close to completing his Bachelor's too. He first wanted to ride through the complete course, but after thinking about it he decided to pass out early. He was aiming for Chemical engineering MS at NYU. Being as smart as he is, he won't have any trouble getting in on scholarship.

So that's how our last 5 months went. And now we were testing the suits to their limits; first we ran like hell at our fastest speeds for 2 hours and then started trying to beat each other up. It's a lot of fun for me. For him, not so much.

"Come on Peter, certainly you can hit harder than that?" I taunt Peter when his punch is caught, again.

"Shut up, Harry! Not helping." He kicks at me, and I throw him away. I had already broken most of the bones in Peter's arms and legs at least once. And he had broken a few of mine. What? We heal quickly. Also it will help us. It was so that they adapt and become stronger ever time. Even now it was getting harder and harder for me to break his bones. It was while I was in the process of kicking Peter's butt, again that I get a call from Fury.

"Nicholas, my boy. How are you?" I say in my best Albus Dumbledore voice.

"Cut the crap Osborn. Your prediction came true. Some sort of satellite has crash landed out of a wormhole in the centre of Puente Antigua desert in New Mexico. You wanted to study it. A car will be at your house at 1600 today sharp. Agent Coulson would meet you on site. Be ready." And he cut the call.

At first I had stars in my eyes, I'm gonna meet Thor! I'm gonna get to study Mjolnir! Calm! Calm. Breathe in, out. I look at Peter with a smile on my face and say, "Petey, how would you like to study something out of this world?"

"What? Like aliens?" Peter asks, confused.

"Yup! I don't know yet what it is, yet. But I know that its alien." I'm grinning like the cat that got the canary.

"Why do you think it's alien?" Pete's doubting me? WTH Peter? I thought you knew me better than that!

"It came out of a wormhole on top of New Mexico desert. So coming?" I ask him.

"Oh. Oh! I'll go call Uncle Ben and tell him I won't be coming home for a few days. I'll have to call MJ too." Peter's worse than me at nerding out. He was going to go out with MJ 2 days later, maybe he's not going now. Damn! MJ is gonna be so mad.

As Fury said, at exactly 1600 hours a black Sedan came and parked in front of my house. Me and Peter had already packed any equipment we might need including our new unstable compact suits so we almost ran towards the car as soon as it stopped. We can't help it man! He thinks he's studying alien tech and I know I'm studying Mjolnir, the hammer of Thor! It's exciting!

The car drops us at a private airport, owned by Shield, obviously, where we take a Quinjet to New Mexico.

2 hours later and we're dropping down at some New Mexico airport. Wow this plane is fast! It brought us to New Mexico in 2 hours? A commercial flight would have taken 7 hours.

As expected, Agent Phil Coulson met us at the airport to drive us to the Base.

"Hello, Mr Osborn. I'm Agent Coulson. Director Fury said you were coming. Though I was not informed Mr Parker was coming as well." He looks at me with that creepy smile of his and says in his normal monotone. Although it was posed as a statement, you could hear the question in it.

"I brought him with me. I'd already told Fury that if I think Peter could help, I'll bring him along. Well he could help as he's smarter than me and has better instincts." I raise my eyebrow in challenge at Coulson. That was a shit excuse and we both knew it. But he nods in acceptance and turns around to walk towards a black Sedan.

We drive for over 1.5 hours before we reach the Base in Puente Antigua. It was as they showed in the movies, they had just finished building a razor wire fence around the satellite(Hammer) and had just about finished with the clear plastic access tubes for isolation. He leads us to the command room from where we could see the whole base in small monitors.

Coulson shows us one of the Security camera footages which shows the satellite and says, "This came here at 2230 yesterday, through an Einstein-Rosen bridge, or a wormhole and dropped down on that exact spot. Before we noticed it, this morning a lot of local civilians tried to lift it. Even a truck could not even move it. See what you can find out about it."

Peter's thinking hard, I can tell from the scrunch of his face. I look at the monitor, look at Phil and then again at the monitor.

"It's a hammer." I deadpan as convincingly as possible.

"Yes, it is shaped like a hammer." Coulson affirms.

"You're saying that this hammer is an alien satellite that came out of a wormhole." Once again I deadpan.

"Yes." Coulson doesn't say anything else.

"And nobody can pick it up?" This time Peter asks, still with the scrunch on his face.

"Yes. Not a human, not a machine, nothing. And there is nothing below the satellite, we checked." Coulson explains.

"Take us to it please." I say.

Coulson nods and starts taking us there. On the way I see that Peter has lost his scrunch but is still in an intense thinking mode. It's not even 5 minutes later that we reach the room where the hammer is. While Pete takes out the scanners I go ahead and study it. It looks exactly like the movies showed; resting at an angle with the handle pointing upwards, gray metal hammer head with leather gripped silver metal handle. It looks like the head and handle were made out of a single piece. In one word, it was fantastic.

"Harry! See the energy readings coming out of this thing! It's constantly emitting some form of electromagnetic energy, but I can't get a fix on where the energy is coming from." Peter shows me after scanning the hammer.

"Well there's a Celtic knot on this side. So I don't think it's completely alien. The rest of the symbols look like Norse in origin to me. And it's a fucking hammer. Did someone called Thor drop by or something?" I say sarcastically.

I look up at Coulson and Peter who are looking at me with a raised eyebrow each. "What?" I snap at them.

"You think this is a Norse God's hammer, or a replica at least?" Peter asks me.

I think for a while saying how much to say. Finally I decide on my answer and look at Peter, "Every myth has some form of basis to the truth. What's to say the Norse mythology came from somewhere too. Only instead of actual Gods, we have stronger than normal Aliens. They could have had some technology to control weather and hence got born Thor, the God of Thunder. I'm not saying it's even a possibility, I'm just pointing out that a Nordic war hammer which no one can pick up is here, so either the owner kept it here, or he's going to be coming soon to pick it up. Which is why I asked, did someone named Thor visit? Which was meant as a joke but you assholes ruined it." I scowl at Peter who snorts.

"Yeah, yeah laugh up my conspiracy theory. Anyway Pete, keep an eye on the readings, tell me if something changes." Saying this I put one hand on the handle of the hammer. I feel a slight current flowing through me from the hammer. After getting used to it, I put my other hand on the handle.

Come on, come on. Worthy thoughts! Umm Humanity, saving people, punching drug lords, umm Expecto patronum!

I pull up using all my strength and to my utter astonishment.. it didn't fucking work. Fucking picky hammer. It did not even move an inch. My face was red due to the force I used to try picking the hammer. Thankfully I already knew I was not worthy, hence the worthy thoughts, so I wasn't much upset.

Peter is laughing his loudly at my face. Asshole. "Did anything change in the readings?" I ask him once he gets himself under control.

"Uhh.. yeah yeah. It spiked for just a second as soon as you touched the handle, but then it settled down.

"Huh. I did not expect it to work actually. Ok now you try to lift it. I'll keep an eye on the readings. Oh and try keeping happy thoughts in your mind." Peter just looks at me confused and then ignores me completely.

I take the tablet from him, aim it at the hammer, and even train a Med scanner on Peter himself, just in case. I can see a graph on the tablet with a almost straight line representing energy emitted by the hammer with only slight fluctuations other than the spike which Peter told me about.

Peter puts a hand on the handle of the hammer and the energy spikes again. I can see that the energy amplitude was higher this time than when I touched it. Peter puts another hand on the handle and the energy spikes again. Huh. This didn't happen with me. Peter pulls with all his might, I can see it in his face. The energy spikes keep on increasing in intensity and a wind starts blowing all over the base. I can see out of the open top of the room I'm in that clouds are starting to form.

I know what's about to happen even before it happens, my Spidey Sense starts to tingle really loudly so I pick up Coulson and throw him through the partition to the next room, I don't even see him drop in a roll and pull a gun at me when I turn to Peter, just in time to see him exert more pressure and slowly lift the hammer up. Holy Fuck! This Peter Parker is worthy!

I see more clouds forming above us almost in slow motion as I start running towards Peter to make him drop the hammer. Peter looks to be in some sort of trance, eyes white like the lightning, and mumbles to himself, "Whosoever holds this hammer, if he be worth, shall possess the power of Thor!" He shouts the last part.

As soon as I touch him to break him out of the trance and make him drop the hammer, a lightning bolt slams down on Peter, which hits me too. I get thrown across the room and through the plastic dividers and into the same room where I threw Coulson and lay there moaning for a while.

Damn! That hurt like a bitch. I see Peter is now knocked out with the hammer exactly as it first was before Pete picked it up. Ignoring Coulson who's asking me something I can't even hear due to the ringing in my ears, I slowly get up and walk towards where Peter is lying. I slowly remove his fingers which were still holding on to it, off of the hammer and start using my scanner on him. I feel a light slap on my cheek but ignore it in favour of checking up on Peter.

"... born? Mr Osborn can you hear me?" I finally look at Coulson, nod once and again start scanning Peter.

"What happened to Mr Parker?" Coulson asks. I look at the scan results and I'm amazed. He's gotten dense! Not in a stupid way, but his muscle and bone density have increased! Almost like what I would expect an As...gardian to look like. Uh oh! Did the hammer turn Peter into a bloody Asgardian?

I finally answer Coulson while giving him the scanners and showing him both old and new scans of Peter. "He lifted the hammer. The son of a bitch lifted the hammer. The energy produced by the hammer kept on increasing when Peter touched it. Somehow either the hammer, or the lightning bolt that dropped down on him changed Peter. Coulson you can't let anyone other than Fury and Hill know about this, and make sure the room is secure when you tell them. Or Peter will be turned into a weapon by the ones above Fury."

Coulson nods, because even he knows that it's true. They're still trying to look for Captain America to replicate the serum. I don't mention that the lightning bolt dropped on me too. I don't feel any changes so I don't mind.

"His muscle density has doubled." By my estimation, strength wise he's somewhere in between me and Hulk. He's stronger than me now. Huh. And I thought I would have to force him to take the Oz-2 serum just to keep up with me. He could now probably take on Loki and come out on top.

"Lets take him to the med bay." Coulson offers.

I shake my head and say, "No. His body won't accept any of the drugs. Don't worry, he'll heal fast. By tomorrow he'll be right as rain." I say with a smirk. Coulson looks doubtful so I add, "I've broken 3 of his bones in the same day and he was healed up in the morning."

Coulson widens his eyes and looks at Peter in a new light. He probably thought he was just a nerd with some super strength. I carry Peter and follow Coulson to our rooms. He needs rest right now, so I drop him in his bed, softly and go out. Coulson was waiting for me. He says, "I won't tell anyone here about this incident. I'll even erase the recording from the room for that much time. But at least one person already knows."

I shake my head and say, "No need to delete the footage, I knew that there already had to be a few agents monitoring the hammer so I hacked the video feed before we entered the room and kept it on a loop. I released the loop as soon as we came out, so don't worry. And Who?" I ask already knowing it's Barton.

One person drops down from.. somewhere and lands beside Coulson. He does not even bat an eye, clearly too used to it and introduces us still in that monotone, "Clint Barton, Harry Osborn. Mr Osborn, Clint Barton, our resident marksman."

I shake Clint's hand and ask him, "Does he always talk in a monotone with that creepy smile on his face, even with you?"

Coulson smiles while Clint snorts at him and says, "Yeah he does. Creeped me out in the beginning too. And don't worry, I don't want the kid to end up in a lab or a training camp either."

I know Clint's telling the truth so I give him a genuine smile. I'm about to speak when a voice from Coulson's radio says in an urgent voice, "Agent's down, we've got a perimeter breach!"

Both agents put a game face on and Coulson starts runs towards the Camera room while Barton starts going toward what I think is the armoury. I follow Coulson because I know what, or rather who's coming. On the way there, all the lights turn on and an alarm starts blaring.

We're still running when suddenly there's a sound of glass breaking and an out of control ATV comes towards us and crashes into a crater. Many agents start helping him and even Coulson approaches the crater to see if he's okay. Light rain begins falling on us along with another lightning storm. Coulson, being the one in charge of this operation starts barking out orders.

"I want eyes up high, with a gun, now!", he says.

Lightning still cackles around the base and it's now starting to affect even my tablet and the scanner. Ignoring everyone else, Coulson enters the command trailer and I follow him there. There's a few agents sitting at different monitors while another agent stands in the centre of the room. He's that hydra guy, right? Sleepwell? No! Sitwell! Something Sitwell!

"So, what have we got?" Coulson asks Sitwell.

"There's a mass of electromagnetic surge coming off of that thing. The systems are barely coping." Sitwell answers.

Coulson clicks the radio and talks into it, "Barton talk to me."

There's a sarcastic voice on the other side of the radio, "Do you want me to slow him down, Sir? Or are you sending more guys for him to beat up?"

Coulson, still in serious mode answers, "I'll let you know." He starts going in the back of the room after an agent opens the door and after getting a nod from him, I follow. We enter a corridor overlooking the hammer and see another agent, this one bigger than the rest, pushing Thor in the mud right outside the chamber and start fighting.

"You better call it Coulson, 'cause I'm starting to root for this guy." Barton speaks into the radio.

Coulson says nothing and just watches Thor finally defeat the big Agent and slowly enter the Hammer room. He stands right next to the hammer and catches his breath for a while.

"Last chance, Sir!" Barton almost shouts.

"No, wait! I wanna see this." Coulson answers calmly.

Thor smiles looking at the hammer, puts his right hand on the handle and tries to lift it. His smile turns to a grimace and he tries harder, this time using both hands. It still doesn't work. It's still raining, lightning is still cackling above. But no matter how hard he tries, the hammer doesn't move. Thor slowly loses his grip and takes a step back. He looks up into the sky, with a face like someone just stole his favourite toy, which in this case is true.

"WHYYYY?!" he screams out loud and just drops down to his knees.

Coulson looks at him sadly, and says into the radio, "Alright, shows over. Ground units move in." The agents follow the order and go apprehend Thor who gives up without fighting this time. I don't even think he's aware he's being arrested.

Coulson looks at me once we are alone. "You know who that is and what the hammer is," he states more than he asks. But I nod the same.

"The guy is probably the supposed God if thunder, Thor. And that's his hammer, Mjolnir. Either that or he heard that there's a hammer no one can pick up and came here to get the powers of Thor." I tell him.

"Powers of Thor?" Coulson asks, confused.

"Right. Before Peter got struck by the lightning bolt he said something. He said, 'Whosoever holds this hammer, if he be worth, shall possess the power of Thor!' Like he was sort of in a trance when he said that. I'm twice as strong as Peter and I couldn't even move the hammer. So it was probably looking for someone to fill up a criteria to allow it to lift itself. Even in Norse mythology, no one can simply lift the hammer. You have to be worthy enough to lift it." I explain.

Coulson thinks for a bit and then asks, "And you think that the guy who failed to lift the mythological hammer of Thor is Thor himself? Why?"

I had to think about that answer, I can't just say I knew it already. "When he looked at the hammer, he did not look at it like it was a treasure to be stolen. He looked at it like it was a close friend that he met after a long time. Like it was already his, but he lost it for a while."

"And what? The Hammer is sentient? No hammer can select its users Osborn. It's not a magic wand that Ollivander sold." He jokes. Wow, Coulson made a funny.

"It doesn't have to be sentient to be able to select someone worthy. It's probably a program written into it or something. I don't know, okay? We can't exactly cut into it and see how it looks inside, can we?" I snap. I'm tired, my friend has passed out and I got hit by a bloody lightning bolt. So sue me for snapping at him.

Coulson looks at me and knows that I'm hiding something, but nods anyway. After a while of us both staring at the hammer, he breaks the silence again, saying, "So the Norse God of Thunder is here but he can't get it up. So what do you think he is? An alien?"

"I don't know. He could be of a different race that our Norse ancestors had the honour of meeting and they named them Gods seeing their higher technology. Maybe Thor is not a person but a title. Or maybe their race just lives that long. There's a lot of maybes here." I lie. I don't want to just destroy the plot of Thor.

Coulson nods and turns away to leave so I follow him. He escorts me to my room at the base and I sleep after checking in on Peter.

How did Peter get proved worthy? Wasn't he not worthy in the comics? Even in movies I don't think he was ever worthy. I'm not trying to undermine him, but Peter's a good person. He fights the right fight when he fights. But he never kills, not even when the enemy needs to be killed. The only fight he's killed in would be the Endgame fight where he killed Chitauri.

But it's not the same universe, is it? I'm here with Peter. I was there with him when he was supposed to kill Osborn and regret it forever. Maybe my presence and my talk that night meant that now he could kill if needed. Maybe.. we'll see.

Tomorrow I'll have to do some tests on Peter after he wakes up. First of which will be a test of strength. Oh boy it's gonna be fun.