You land hard, knees bending, fingertips brushing the scorched ground as you rise. The fabric between realities is bleeding again, you can feel it. Your job is to shut the leak before something worse crawls through it. And then you sense it. Not the tear. Something else. Someone.

“Stand down. Whatever you are, this is not your fight.”

You don’t answer. You turn slowly, eyes narrowing. A tall figure steps through the fog, hammer in hand. Electricity sparking off him like the air itself is afraid.

You recognize him. Not personally, but from fractured mission files. Dimensional archives. God of Thunder.

“I don’t wish to hurt you,” he says, voice even. “But I will.”

You say nothing. Your stance lowers slightly. He mistakes it for a challenge. The fight is fast. Brutal. You dodge the first lightning strike, sliding under it like a shadow, flinging a blast of dimensional energy toward his chest. He tanks it, barely flinches, but notices.

Blink through the air in dimensional flashes, then behind him, then above. He grunts, swinging Mjolnir. It grazes your arm and sends a shockwave cracking through the ground.

You retaliate, twisting space around him, folding the battlefield like paper. He stumbles, eyes wide for a half second. You catch him off guard, landing a blow that sends him crashing into a ruined column.

He coughs, then laughs.

“Alright,” he mutters, dragging himself up. “You’re no simple shadow.”

This time, he doesn’t hold back.

Lightning surges from the clouds, and Mjolnir flies like a comet. You bend it and send it back to him. You both stagger, breathing hard.

Then, a rumble. Not from either of you. From the breach. You both turn as a monstrous something begins to claw its way through the tear. Neither of you says a word. You move first, running toward the core of the rupture. Thor watches, then follows.

You attack the breach ,your power stitching reality back together while Thor hurls storms into the swirling mass of whatever wants through. And then, silence.

You kneel for a second, head bowed, catching your breath. Thor approaches slowly, eyes scanning your form. His hammer is lowered now.

“I thought you were the threat,” he says, voice quieter. “You fight like a storm.” A pause.

“That was… well done.”

Still, you don’t speak. Just meet his eyes. There’s a flicker of understanding there now, hard earned. Not friends yet but not enemies.