Streetlights and Gods (Part 2)

"Thank God, you finally came." When Natasha walked out of the room, her expression was terrible. It was rare to see such a mix of irritation and helplessness on the female agent’s face.

"Oh, Captain Steve, why are you here? Didn’t I only ask for a psychologist?" Natasha had just shut the door when she turned and spotted the tall Steve. Steve looked a little awkward as well. "Actually, the psychologist didn’t come. It’s just me."

"Just you? Then how do you plan to deal with that lunatic? Don’t say I didn’t warn you, he’s seriously sick." Natasha was clearly a little angry. "He’s an idiot whose male chauvinism has gone to his head. He’s unbelievably stupid. He actually said I wasn’t strong enough??? Told me to find a strong warrior to talk to him???"

"You didn’t let him experience the Black Widow’s skills?"

"You’ll understand once you go in." Natasha glanced back at the door, then added, "But I still have to say this: try not to clash with him. Nick just called me and said he’s important. He hopes the agents can communicate with him rationally."

"Don’t worry." As Steve pushed open the door, he turned back and smiled at Natasha. "I’m not that violent."

The moment he entered, he saw an exceptionally tall blond man pounding the wall and retching. Apparently, the Black Widow, whom he had thoroughly enraged, had given him a dose of Anti-Wolf Spray.

Steve clicked his tongue. S.H.I.E.L.D.’s Anti-Wolf Spray was not one of those low-powered products sold on the market. Anyone with a nose would be disgusted sick by it.

He pressed the earpiece in his ear, then said to the tall man, "Hello."

Hearing him, the man stopped retching and turned around. He brushed his long golden hair away from his ear, looked Steve up and down, and said in a booming voice, "This one is decent. Worthy of a fight."

"Human! State your name! I am Thor Odinson of Asgard!"

His voice was so loud that Steve’s head started to ache, but he still smiled amicably and said, "My name is Steve. Steve Rogers."

Thor walked over and grabbed the bar in the middle of the room. "That woman just now was far too frail, and she actually dared call me a patient!"

He shook the bar and said, "Release me, human! You are showing disrespect to the future Ruler of the Nine Realms!"

"Let’s not get into that yet." Steve looked Thor over as well. "Would you like to change clothes?"

Thor wore a suit of medieval armor and a helmet, but perhaps because he had landed face-first, the helmet was severely misshapen. The armor was shattered into pieces, its lining reduced to ragged strips of cloth caked with mud. Even if you dragged an ordinary soldier back from a medieval battlefield, he might not look this miserable.

Thor snorted. "Heroes on the battlefield never care about their appearance. They speak only with their enemies’ heads!"

Steve did not really understand that sentence. Thor’s English carried traces of Old English, along with some self-invented words from who knew where. It sounded like the transliteration of another language. Steve had only been asleep for a few decades, not several millennia. This accent, long eliminated from the human linguistic system, was truly a headache to listen to.

"Fine. Then can you tell me how you got here?" Steve spread his hands. "You fell out of the sky without warning and damaged quite a few houses. Your weapon is still occupying someone’s yard, and more importantly, thirteen people are still lying in the hospital because of your landing."

Thor waved dismissively. "That is because you humans are too weak. You are not warriors at all, and you have no conviction to risk your lives. In Asgard, you either die or get up and keep fighting…"

Even though Steve only understood part of it, his expression darkened. Captain America had always had a good temper, and few things could anger him. Yet Thor had clearly stomped all over his sore spots.

He opened the barred door dividing the room and walked in. Steve was not as tall or as powerfully built as Thor, but the two of them carried a similar air. Thor had obviously noticed it too. He asked, "It seems you are also a warrior, and one of the braver sort among humans."

Steve’s expression had just eased a little when Thor continued, "But it is still meaningless. The last time I came here, I discovered that you only turn your butcher’s blades on your own kind. That is shameful in Asgard. Your achievements are not worth boasting about."

Steve took a deep breath and pressed his earpiece. "Doctor Schiller, can we begin treatment now? If this drags on any longer, I’m afraid I really won’t be able to stop myself from punching him."

Schiller’s voice came through the earpiece. "I’m afraid you’ll have to endure a little longer. His information is useful."

Thor stood in the room with his hands on his hips, glaring at Steve. "What are you muttering about? Don’t use such petty tricks! They are useless against an Asgardian Champion!"

Thor’s voice was truly deafening, making Steve’s ears ring, but he still followed the prepared questions. "That hammer about seven kilometers away is your weapon, correct?"

"Yes. That is Mjolnir, born from an extinguished sun and the fires of dwarven forges! The branches of the World Tree gave it new life! The All-Father’s blessing gave it strength!"

Steve skipped over the chant, which he did not understand at all, and continued, "All right, that isn’t important. I already told you, that hammer is still taking up someone’s yard. If it is your weapon, please take it away immediately."

Thor opened his mouth, seeming a little troubled, but too embarrassed to say why. In the end, he sighed. "Fine. A great god cannot lie. I can no longer lift it."

"But isn’t that your weapon?"

"The reason is complicated!" Thor sounded somewhat impatient. "I had an argument with the All-Father…"

"And then you and your hammer came here?"

Steve paused. "Let’s assume, for the moment, that everything you said is true and not the ramblings of a mental patient."

"The All-Father you mentioned should be your biological father. After you argued with him, he threw you out of the house…"

"The only question is, what does that have to do with Earth? What does it have to do with humanity? If he wanted to throw you out, the so-called Nine Realms are so vast. Why did he have to throw you onto Earth?"

Unexpectedly, that opened the floodgates for Thor, and he began pouring out his grievances. "I am the All-Father’s biological son, Prince of Asgard, the future master of the Nine Realms, but during my coronation ceremony…"

"…Forget it. You humans would not understand any of this anyway. In short, I stormed into Jotunheim and caused a little trouble. So what?"

"…I cannot understand it either. Even if he had thrown me onto an ancient battlefield, that would have been better. Why Earth, this remote and barren corner?"

Thor was clearly furious. He pounded the wall with his fist and shouted, "There isn’t a single warrior here! I’ll be bored out of my mind here. That satisfies him, doesn’t it?!"

Steve finally understood why Natasha had worn that helpless and irritated expression. The big man before him thought like a steel bar. Everything revolved around words like war, courage, warriors, glorious Asgard, and so on. No matter what topic you discussed with him, it always circled back to those few words.

Watching Thor rage, Steve pressed his earpiece and said to Schiller, "Earlier, you told me this was an alien with a bad brain. I didn’t quite believe you. After all, how stupid could a species capable of space travel be?"

"But now it seems that putting all his upgrades into his muscles was also a possible path."

Schiller replied through the earpiece, "Indeed. If they did not have enough refined intelligence to build a spaceship, they could simply jump straight to Mars from where they stood."

After saying that, both of them laughed.

But Thor mistook it for them laughing at him. He swung his arm hard and roared angrily, "Mortals! Even if an Asgardian god has lost his power, you are not permitted to mock him!"

Steve stepped back. Captain America clearly knew that getting into a physical conflict with the big man at this moment was not a good choice. He said to Schiller through the earpiece, "What do we do now? He seems completely impossible to communicate with."

"Let’s give him some psychological treatment first. If that doesn’t work, we’ll think of something else. Start by doing this…"

Steve asked Thor, "It seems you do not understand your father’s decision. Honestly, I also think that banishing you somewhere so far away over one argument was a little excessive…"

Thor looked as though he had found a kindred spirit. "I never expected a human to understand me. Everyone around me says I was wrong. They all sided with Odin, but I did not actually do anything!"

He snorted heavily and complained, "I achieved so many victories before, made so many contributions to Asgard! Yet they all acted as though they could not see any of it. Because of one impulsive act, they cast me out and even forbade me from using my weapon. This is an insult to a warrior!"

"Could it be that it was not merely because of this one incident? Perhaps you and your father had long-standing grievances?"

Thor pursed his lips, seemingly unwilling to admit it, but he still said, "I thought that too. I had noticed before that Odin was somewhat dissatisfied with me, but I thought that as long as I achieved greater accomplishments, he would no longer be angry with me…"

"I fought bravely on the battlefield and won achievement after achievement, but in the end, he still treated me like this." His voice finally softened, tinged with sorrow. "He drove me out of the homeland I had always protected, the place where I was born, beautiful and sacred Asgard…"

"All right, but being sad is useless now. Things are already like this. What do you plan to do?"

"I must first reclaim my weapon!" Thor said in great distress. "How can a warrior be without his weapon? It is the greatest humiliation!"

"But Odin stripped me of all my divine power as punishment. Without divine power, I cannot lift that hammer."

Thor sighed. "He told me to learn on Earth, but I do not know what I am supposed to learn. Even without divine power, I am stronger than everyone here. Am I supposed to learn how to fight from these fragile mortals?"

"In your eyes, is your father an incompetent king?"

"Of course not!" Thor loudly retorted. "The All-Father is a wise ruler. He has governed the Nine Realms for so many years and has always been deeply beloved. How could he be an incompetent king?"

"Then if he is not an incompetent king, yet made this decision, have you never considered that he might have a deeper intention?"

Thor showed a pained expression. "Why are you saying that too? People were always muttering in my ear before, telling me to consider Odin’s deeper intentions, saying he must have other plans, other arrangements…"

"But that is not my job! That kind of guessing game should be left to Loki. My brother is best at that!"

"And me? I am a brave warrior! The vanguard who brings glory to Asgard! I hate standing around waiting, guessing every day without achieving anything…"

"As I said, things are already like this."

"As you put it, you have been stripped of your divine power and cannot lift your weapon. Earth has neither opponents nor comrades for you. You do not need to fight here, and even if you do not speculate, there is nothing else for you to do."

Thor let out a long breath through his nose. "Fine. If that is what he means, then so be it. Take off the armor, cast aside the weapon, become an unremarkable mortal, and live a boring life every day without even a shred of conviction or honor."

"If that is truly what he wants, then so be it. What was that word again? Right, vacation… I will give myself a vacation, far from the prosperous Nine Realms, and sprout and grow weeds in this forgotten corner…"

Thor took a few steps back and leaned against the corner wall, looking somewhat dejected.

Steve sighed and held down his earpiece. "Whenever I hear the adjectives he uses for Earth, I really want to punch him."

Then he said to Thor, "Since that is how you see it, I think we can talk now."

"Talk about what?" Thor raised an eyelid.

"First, without your divine power, you should still need food and drink, right?" Steve stared Thor straight in the eyes. "This is not a homeless shelter. We will not provide food and lodging. You need to find a way yourself."

"I am Prince of Asgard! Guardian of the Nine Realms! How can you…" Thor began shouting again.

"Then you can try and see whether that identity can help you find a job on Earth and support yourself."

Thor turned his head away and muttered, "When I came here before, I discovered that humans were cunning and miserly. The reward they gave a Shepherd for a day’s work was only a single flatbread…"

"Also, your landing and your hammer damaged three homes and injured more than a dozen people. You need to compensate for those losses."

"Odin will…"

"We cannot contact Odin. We can only contact you. In any case, even though you did not do it intentionally, you still caused accidental injuries. If you cannot compensate for these losses, I’m afraid you will have to go to prison."

"Go to prison???" Thor raised his voice. In disbelief, he said, "I am Prince of Asgard! How can you make the future All-Father go to prison?!! That would be a stain on my reign, you damned mortals…"

As he spoke, he grew agitated again and even raised his fist to attack Steve. Steve retreated several more steps and said into his earpiece, "It seems psychological therapy is not very effective. Do you have any other methods?"

"Of course. Punch him."

"Wait, isn’t that a bit of a leap?"

"Not at all. This is the other treatment corresponding to psychological therapy, and also the backup plan for this communication. I call it physical therapy."

Steve bounced lightly on the spot twice, then rubbed his wrist. "Will that really work? Could beating up an alien cause a diplomatic incident?"

"That is for Nick Fury to consider. You only need to consider how much strength to use."

"How much do you think would be best?"

"My recommendation is ten percent. Even without divine power, he still has a god’s body. You cannot break him."

"Human… what are you trying to do?" Thor noticed Steve’s movements as well. He said disdainfully, "You do not intend to trade blows with Asgard’s bravest warrior, do you? Then I will let you know that gods cannot be provoked…"

Bang!!!

Thor flew backward, embedded himself directly in the wall, and passed out. Steve withdrew his fist and said, "What a weak god."

At that moment, Natasha returned from outside after having a cigarette. The moment she entered, she saw Steve standing in the room while Thor lay unconscious nearby. The female agent gasped. "What happened? Is this your… psychological treatment?"

Steve turned around with a smile. "…This is physical therapy."

Odin, who was watching this scene:

🙂