The clothes did not fit right. Raj stood in front of the small mirror on the wardrobe and looked at himself. He had put on his usual clothes, the ones previous owner of this body had brought in his bag. A plain black t-shirt. A pair of jeans that had faded from washing. Sneakers that were worn down but still worked. But nothing sat on him the way it used to.
The t-shirt pulled tight across his chest. It stretched over his shoulders like it might tear. The jeans, which had always been loose around his legs, now fit snug around his thighs. His body had grown after gaining that power, filled out, changed shape. His old clothes could not hide any of it.
He went back to his bag and took out a cap. It was blue, with a logo that had faded so much you could barely make it out. He put it on his head. Then he reached up and tucked his hair underneath, pushing the golden strands back, covering them. The woman at the front desk,the people in this hotel would notice if a boy walked in with black hair and walked out with gold. They would wonder. They might ask things. He did not want anyone asking things.
He looked at himself one more time in the mirror. From far away, if someone just glanced, he might look ordinary. Just a thin boy in a cap and a tight shirt. But if they looked closer, if they really paid attention, they would see. The way the fabric stretched across his chest. The way his arms filled the sleeves. The way he stood now, solid and still, like something heavy that did not move easily.
He nodded at himself in the mirror. Then he opened the door and went out.
The hotel was a small building with two floors. The paint on its walls had once been yellow, but the sun had faded it over the years. Raj walked down the stairs, passed by the reception desk, and went out the front door. Nobody looked at him. The woman at the desk had her back to the door, watching something on a small television.
He stepped outside and stopped walking.
The town lay in front of him. Puente Antiguo. The name fit what he saw. The buildings were low, painted in reds and yellows that had softened under the sun. The ground beneath his feet was dry and dusty, the color of old rust. Shops lined both sides of the street. Some sold food, some sold clothes, some sold tools and other things people needed to get through their days.
Beyond the shops, past the last buildings, there was nothing. Just the desert. Flat ground stretching out until it met the sky. Yellow earth, empty all the way to the horizon. The sky above was white with heat, not blue.
He started walking. The sun pressed down on his shoulders, hot even through his black t-shirt. The cap kept some of it off his face. He moved slowly, not in a hurry, looking at everything as he went. The people on the street. Old men sitting on plastic chairs outside a shop, not talking, just sitting. Women walking with bags in their hands. Children running past him, laughing about something. The signs above the shops, some in Spanish, some in English. The parked cars, dusty and old, the kind that had been driven for years.
He walked for a while, past the shops and the people on the street. His stomach made a noise. He realized he had not eaten since before. Since the truck had run him over and changed everything. The time in the shower, the way his body had transformed, all of that had taken something out of him. Now he needed food.
He looked around and saw a restaurant on the other side of the street. A small place with a glass front and a sign that had faded in the sun. He crossed the road, pushed the door open, and a bell above his head made a small sound.
Inside, the air was cool. The sun could not reach him here. The room was long and narrow, with a counter running along one wall and vinyl booths lined up against the windows. A few people sat scattered around. An old couple in a corner, eating slowly without talking. A man in a work shirt at the counter, drinking coffee from a white cup. In a booth near the window, two men sat facing each other. One was fat, with a round face and thick arms that rested on the table. The other was skinny, with a long neck and eyes that moved around too much.
Raj found an empty booth on the other side, also near the window, and sat down. The vinyl seat was warm where the sun had been hitting it. He picked up the menu, just a single sheet of paper sealed in plastic. A waiter came over. He was young, with a face that looked tired even though the day was not old.
"Sir, what do you want to order?"
Raj looked at the menu for a moment, though he had already decided. "One cheeseburger. One cola."
The waiter wrote it down on a small pad. "Okay, sir." Then he walked away toward the kitchen.
Raj nodded and turned to look out the window. The street was quiet. A dog lay in the shade of a parked car. An old woman walked past, pulling a small cart.He listened to the sounds of the restaurant. The clink of cups. The low murmur of voices. And then he heard the two men in the booth nearby.
They were not trying to keep their voices down. The fat one especially. He talked loud, the way some people do without meaning to.
"Hey, man, that hammer is really heavy," he said. "I couldn't lift it. Not even a little. I tried. It didn't move."
The skinny one nodded. His eyes were wide, like he was still seeing something that surprised him. "Yeah, that hammer is something else. You know that guy, the one with the truck? He tried to pull it out. Tied a chain to it and stepped on the gas. The truck almost flipped over backward, but the hammer stayed right where it was. Didn't move an inch."
"No way." The fat one shook his head.
"I saw it with my own eyes. The chain snapped. Broke clean in two. The hammer just sat there in the dirt, like it was part of the ground. Like it had always been there."
The fat one thought about this. "What kind of hammer does that?"
"I don't know. But people are coming from everywhere to look at it. From the next town over. From the city even."
The words reached him and something clicked in his mind. Raj froze for a moment. A hammer that no one could lift. In the middle of a desert. The year was 2011. He had seen the movie. He knew exactly where he was now. This was the place where Thor's hammer had fallen. That's why Puente Antiguo had felt familiar. He had seen it before, on a screen, in a different life.
He sat back in the booth and let out a slow breath. There was no reason to worry. Not really. With Karna's earrings in his ears, nothing could hurt him. Not a hammer, not whatever came next. He thought about the Destroyer, the thing Loki would send to kill his brother. If it came, maybe he could use it. A chance to test what he could do. To see if the Sun Bow really worked. To find out what kind of strength he had now.
The bell on the door chimed again but he did not look up. He was still thinking, still turning things over in his mind.
Then the waiter was there, standing by his table with a tray. He set down the burger and the cola with the careful movements of someone who had done this many times. A glass of cola, dark and cold with ice floating at the top. A plate with a burger wrapped in paper, fries on the side.
"Here is your order, sir," the waiter said.
His voice pulled Raj out of his thoughts. Raj blinked and looked at the food in front of him.
The waiter waited a moment. "Sir, if you need anything else, you can call me."
Raj nodded. "Okay."
The waiter turned and walked away. Raj picked up the glass of cola. The glass was cold and wet in his hand. He brought it to his mouth and took a sip. The drink was cold and sweet, with that particular taste cola had, a little sharp, a little like caramel. It woke something in him. He took another sip and looked out the window while he drank.
Maybe he should go try. Before the Shield people showed up, before everything got complicated. Every Marvel fan had dreamed of it at some point. Walking up to that hammer, wrapping their hand around the handle, lifting it like it was nothing. He had dreamed it too, sitting in a theater, while watching that Thor movie.
His eyes widened slightly. Through the glass, coming down the street, he saw four people. A woman with dark hair, walking with purpose. A younger girl next to her, looking around at everything. An older man with glasses, carrying equipment. And a big man with long blond hair, wearing clothes that did not quite fit him, looking lost and angry at the same time.
Jane. Her sister. Her uncle. And Thor.
They were walking toward the restaurant. They were about to come inside.
Raj's eyes stayed on her. Jane Foster. She looked exactly like she had in the movie. Beautiful. Very beautiful. The kind of beautiful that made you look twice without meaning to. He had seen her on a screen before, but seeing her here, in person, walking through a normal door in a normal town, it felt different.
The door opened and the bell chimed. The four of them stepped inside. Jane first, then the young girl, then the older man carrying equipment, then the big man with the long hair and the ill-fitting clothes. Thor.A man who had fallen from the sky and lost something important.
They had only taken a few steps into the restaurant when Jane's eyes found Raj again. Then the others noticed too. He was still looking at them. He had not stopped looking. It was too obvious now. The young girl frowned at him. The older man adjusted his glasses and gave him a puzzled look. Even Thor, lost in his own thoughts, turned his head and stared at the boy in the cap who was watching them like they were animals in a zoo.
Raj felt his face grow warm. He knew he should not stare. It was rude and strange and he knew better. But who could stop themselves? When someone walked out of a screen and became real, when a face you had seen a hundred times in a movie was suddenly standing twenty feet away from you, it was hard to look away. Hard to act normal.
The awkwardness hung in the air. He could feel it. They were waiting for him to do something, to explain why he was looking at them like that.
So he waved again. The same small wave, but this time with an embarrassed smile. A smile that said, I know I was staring, I know it was weird, I'm sorry, let's just forget this happened.
The older man, the one with the equipment, turned to the others. His voice carried. "Ignore him. Another one with mental problems."
He said it like it was nothing. Like he had seen this before and it did not matter. He turned and walked toward a table in the middle of the restaurant.They sat down and Jane took the seat facing the door, but her back was to Raj now. The young girl sat next to her. The older man put his equipment down and settled into a chair. Thor sat across from them, his big frame folded into the vinyl booth.
The words from the older man hung in the air. Another one. Another one with mental problems.
Thor's face did not change much, but something moved behind his eyes. He looked at the older man, then at Jane, then down at the table. His hands rested on the plastic surface, large and still. Another one. The words repeated in his mind. Another one like him. The man thought he was crazy too. Just like the doctors in the hospital,just like everyone in this strange world who looked at him like he was sick in the head.
He was not sick. He was Thor, prince of Asgard, son of Odin. He had held Mjolnir in his hand and felt its weight. He had thrown it at enemies and watched them fall. He had stood beside his father on the rainbow bridge and looked out at the nine realms. That was real. That was his life.
But here, in this small restaurant in a small town, with the sun coming through the window and the smell of food in the air, it sounded like a dream. Like something a crazy person would say.