Marvel's Strongest Mage

In the quiet embrace of early morning, Daniel sat alone atop a windswept slope. Below him, the hidden base buzzed with activity. SHIELD agents and military personnel moved like disciplined ants, systematically dismantling the remains of a facility that had, for a short time, been a cradle for gods and giants.

Thor had already departed alongside the Asgardians. With the storm settled and the Destroyer defeated, the base had outlived its purpose. SHIELD and the military couldn't afford to keep pouring resources into a site that no longer held strategic value.

Everyone else was leaving. Stark, Dr. Erik Selvig, Jane Foster, even Darcy were busy packing instruments and boxed data.

Only Daniel remained.

He hadn't moved since the night before. No packing. No farewells. Just him, the wind, and the hammer resting quietly before him—Thor's Hammer.

It was not Mjolnir, not truly. It lacked the enchanted core that made Thor's original weapon a divine artifact. And yet, the power it held—raw, crackling, untempered thunder—was formidable in its own right.

Thor had returned it to him without hesitation.

That single act... had shaken Daniel to his core.

Thor didn't need to say it aloud. In returning the hammer, he had offered more than gratitude. He had offered trust. Acceptance. Even legacy.

Some, like Stark, had speculated that Thor only won against the Destroyer because of the hammer's twin resonance—two weapons, forged alike, echoing their power in harmony. Both had been crafted together. Structurally, they were nearly identical.

But Daniel knew better now.

Thor had defeated the Destroyer not with tools, but with clarity. With belief. With awakening.

That changed everything.

Before, Daniel had assumed Thor would need both hammers to stand against Loki—two forces of thunder to overpower one master of deception. That was why he had willingly handed his own hammer over, expecting Thor to wield it in the coming battle.

But Thor had returned it.

Returned it.

He hadn't kept the weapon as a backup. He hadn't held it hostage. He had let it go.

And with that gesture, he shattered one of Daniel's most deeply ingrained fears: the fear that one day, if he relied too much on the hammer, someone could take it from him.

He had always suspected Odin and Heimdall were watching, pulling his strings. He didn't trust them. He didn't want to be their puppet. And so, he had treated the hammer not as a gift, but a liability. A leash.

But Thor had no such manipulative intent. He saw Daniel. And he honored him.

And then, as if to dispel any lingering doubt, Thor invoked the name of Beta Ray Bill.

The horse-faced warrior. The other Thor.

Bill, like Daniel, had once held an incomplete hammer. And like Daniel, he had proven himself worthy. Not by Odin's standards. Not by prophecy. But by choice. By courage.

If Bill could forge his own path—if he could break free of fate's iron script—then why not Daniel?

Daniel tried to believe it. Tried to anchor his resolve in that truth. But deep down, fear still lingered.

Because his real enemy wasn't Odin.

It was Thanos.

Not the Kree. Not the Dark Elves. Not even Hela, Goddess of Death. All of them were threats. But none compared to the Mad Titan.

Thanos was more than strong. He was brilliant. Calculated. His Black Order alone could tip the balance of planetary war. Ebony Maw. Proxima Midnight. Corvus Glaive. Cull Obsidian. These weren't just lieutenants—they were annihilators.

Daniel had seen what Thanos could become.

He had snapped the universe in half. Even beheaded, even broken, he succeeded first.

That truth haunted Daniel.

If he wanted to be strong enough to stop Thanos, the road would lead inevitably to the Infinity Stones.

And the moment he reached for them, he would no longer be a shadow beneath Odin's gaze. He would be a target.

If Thor's Hammer became his crutch, he would fall the moment it was stripped from him.

That was why he had resisted. That was why he had feared.

But Thor's calm—his serenity in letting go—had changed everything.

Maybe it wasn't about the hammer at all.

Maybe it was about trust.

And freedom.

Maybe Thor had let go of his hammer not because he was done with it—but because he no longer needed it to be whole.

Daniel let out a low laugh. Then a louder one.

The SHIELD agents and soldiers turned, startled. But they saw only a solitary figure descending from the ridge, laughing to himself as if he had just solved a riddle no one else could hear.