Chapter 2

Thor's consciousness clawed its way back to awareness, a dull throb pulsing at his temple. The haze of pain slowly receded, revealing a sterile white room that felt like an antithesis to Asgard's golden splendor. Blank walls pressed in around him, a single chair his only companion in this void.

Powerless. The word echoed in his mind. Mjölnir gone, banished from his home, trapped in this featureless space. Yet something within him, an instinct honed over millennia whispered that maybe he wasn't as powerless as he previously thought

The visions that had assaulted him earlier still lingered. Fragments of futures, of losses yet to come, of battles yet unfought. His father's voice cut through the mental chaos with clarity: "That hammer was to help you control your power, to focus it. It was never your source of strength."

Thor closed his eyes, breathing deeply. The memories of his fall from grace, the impossible knowledge of potential futures, swirled like a tempest in his mind. He needed to verify, to understand. Were these visions truth or some elaborate deception?

And so, Thor turned his attention inward. He breathed deeply, seeking the core of his being, the source of power that existed beyond Mjölnir, beyond his title, beyond everything he had known. At first, there was nothing, just a hollow emptiness.

But then, he felt it. A subtle restriction, like invisible chains wrapped around his essence. Delicate yet unbreakable, intricate runic patterns of mystical energy pressed against his inner self. Odin's seal. A magical constraint designed to limit his power, to teach him humility.

Thor's fingers twitched, not with the lightning that once danced at his command, but with a newfound understanding. The power was still within him, simply restrained, waiting.

The door opened, the sudden intrusion jolted Thor from his meditative state. The threads of mystical energy he had been carefully examining scattered like mist, and he blinked rapidly, momentarily disoriented. The agent that entered looked like any man you would see on the street, remarkably unremarkable.

"You made my men," Coulson began, a hint of professional irritation in his voice, "some of the most highly trained professionals in the world, look like a bunch of minimum-wage mall cops. That's hurtful."

Thor watched carefully, recognition flickering in his eyes. This was the Son of Coul from his visions, yet something felt different more immediate, more real.

Coulson continued his interrogation, probing Thor's background. "Pakistan? Chechnya? Afghanistan?" His eyes narrowed. "No, you strike me more as the soldier of fortune type. South Africa, perhaps?"

A ghost of a smile flickered across Thor's face. These mortals and their attempts to categorize him if only they knew the breadth of his existence.

The agent leaned in, his final words quiet but laden with determination. "One way or another, we find out what we need to know. We're good at that."

A device buzzed in Coulson's pocket. Coulson looked at the device before leaving but not before a final warning "Don't go anywhere" the door closing with a soft, definitive click.

The white space suddenly shimmered, and Loki materialized in a green light. Impeccably dressed in Midgardian attire, his expression was a carefully crafted mask of concern. Thor's emotions churned a mixture of hope, suspicion, and the lingering weight of those impossible futures. His heart raced as he saw his brother before him, desperately wanting to prove these haunting visions false.

"Loki?" Thor asked, his voice carrying both surprise and a hint of wariness. "What are you doing here?"

"I had to see you," Loki replied, his tone measured.

Thor leaned forward, a spark of hope cutting through his skepticism as he repeated what was said in his vision, hoping that Loki would prove them wrong. "What's happened? Tell me! Is it Jotunheim? Let me explain to Father...."

"Father is dead," Loki said. Then, with a carefully calculated tone, he added, "Your banishment, the threat of a new war, it was too much for him to bear."

Thor felt his throat tighten. The words matched his visions exactly, and a wave of dread washed over him. No, this couldn't be happening, he wouldn't let it happen. He searched his brother's face desperately, looking for any sign that would contradict the future he'd seen, any small detail that might prove these visions wrong, before finally something snapped inside of him…

"Why do you lie to me, brother?" Thor asked softly, his voice carrying a newfound perception. The visions had shown him a depth to Loki's deceptions that he was only now beginning to understand.

He saw the flicker of surprise cross Loki's face before the mask slipped back into place. "I don't- What are you-" Loki began, then caught himself, a sardonic smile playing at the corner of his mouth. "Lie? How could you possibly know what is truth and what is fabrication? You, who has always been so quick to act and so slow to think?"

Loki took a step closer, his green eyes glinting with a dangerous mix of curiosity and challenge. "What makes you suddenly so perceptive, brother? Have the mortals taught you some new trick?" His voice dripped with mockery, but there was an undercurrent of genuine confusion.

Thor's heart sank further, he felt the weight of inevitability pressing down on him, but still he fought against it, desperately searching for a way to change this predetermined path. His next words came out raw, unfiltered, charged with his need to alter his future.

"Do you know what it is to lose everything? To feel the weight of failure pressing down on you? To realize that everything you believed about yourself was... never enough?"

He looked up, and there was a depth of sorrow in his eyes that transcended a level Loki had ever seen in him. "You are my brother," Thor said, the words sounding like a desperate lifeline. "Whatever else you may be, whatever schemes you weave... that truth is all I have left."

The room felt suffocating. Thor looked small, diminished, a god brought low not by an enemy's hand, but by his own profound sense of loss and failure.

"So I ask you," he continued, his voice growing solemn "why do you lie to me? When we've always looked out for each other?"

There was no anger in his words. No thunder. Just a vulnerability that laid bare the core of their complicated relationship.

The room grew heavy with unspoken tensions. Loki took a step back, his carefully constructed facade showing the first real crack. For a moment, he seemed unsure, caught between his typical mischievous demeanor and something more vulnerable.

"Farewell," Loki said softly, his voice uncharacteristically hesitant. There was a weight to the words, a complexity that Thor had never heard before. It was as if Loki himself didn't know how to respond to Thor's raw emotional state, his typically sharp-tongued brother now seeming almost uncertain.

"Goodbye," he said quietly, the word carrying the weight of finality not just of this moment, but of everything that had come before and everything that would come after. He would not let himself be led astray any further.

Just then, the door opened. Coulson stepped in just as Loki disappeared, his eyebrow raised in mild confusion. "Goodbye?" he said, a note of curiosity in his voice. "I just got back."

Thor said nothing, his gaze fixed on the empty space where Loki had just stood.