A/N: I should've typed this out sooner. This happened a little while before Jessica's kidnapping.
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Thor Odinson was a boisterous youth. Proud and strong he was, and the realms knew it.
Thor Odinson had, in his fairer youth, thought the world of himself, and not only himself, but of his brother, his father and mother, of Asgard in its splendor and might – and he had thought the grandest of it all.
Battle, glory, bloodshed and mead – A few short years ago, that was the only thing his life revolved around.
A proud and vain boy: his father had told him as much right before slapping him into exile down to Midgard.
It took a short time in his exile – a blink of an eye when compared to the years he's lived – for the scales around his eyes to shed away, and while the circumstances they did were regrettable, Thor knew for a fact that it was the regretful nature of those events that changed him for the better.
For one he learned that he was a spoilt child with a hammer looking for trouble where there was none, blissfully ignorant in all his years that the titan of war the tales told of his father, as he was in his past, was far removed from the man he was today.
For another, he grew to learn humility and responsibility from his time as a mortal. And regrettably, in that same vein he learnt of the consequences of lies. Of the lies his family has lived in for millennia.
Now, a handful of years later, Thor would say that there was hardly anything about his life that would surprise him…
He would be wrong. In every breadth someone could be wrong, he was just as wrong.
Sure, as a joke, in one of his many flights of fancy in his youth, he might have fantasized about wielding two Mjolnir. Twice the bashing, twice the lightning and twice the fun. All good and jolly.
Not once in his fantasies did he think of what wielding two Mjolnir would mean.
Well now he knew.
A Mjolnir that belonged to Thor. A Thor that was both him and not him. A Thor from another universe. A dead Thor to be precise.
He had no idea of what to expect when he purchased the hammer—definitely not the constant bout of depression that adorned his every waking moment.
"Is our family cursed?" He remembered asking his mother when he had enough snippets of memories to summarize what happened to him in that universe.
A drunk. A mad weapon. A dysfunctional family. A failure of a father – which seemed to be the running gag of his family. The other Thor had a wife, two sons and a daughter. He lost both sons, failed to get revenge for them, had no idea how to mourn them – because he raised them to fear him instead of caring for them, massacred a few settlements, and instead of being the bastion of support and comfort to his family he returned to being a raging drunken fool who alienated his wife and daughter.
And at the end of it all, he died to his own father's spear when he finally decided to redeem himself.
"I feel like we are cursed." He hardly remembered his mother's response to that insistence, but he could never forget the sad look on her face.
All he felt for that version of Thor was disdain and contempt. He sympathized with his death, but he lived his life as nothing but a blind weapon to his father's vile machinations.
His father. Honestly, Thor had no idea how to process that. He did not know why that Odin killed Thor, or the nature of the falling out they had, but the flash of memory he had of that spear piercing through him with ease was a haunting one.
He shoved that particular memory deep in his mind, and intentionally ignored it as he went on with his day.
…. Yet still, there was another complication with that.
Sif.
Yes, his bosom friend and comrade, the staunch Lady Sif.
Thor had been… ignorant of her subtle affections for him in the past, and well, he didn't have any for her. He only saw her as one of his best friends and confidants.
He still did.
But thanks to the insight of those memories, he was now… noticing things.
He still didn't see her any different, but er, he was making deeper observations about her with every passing day.
Oh, and he once absentmindedly commented that war braids would look good on her. He silently removed himself from that scene before the dumbfounded silence had a chance to settle.
Well, that was as far as he could go with ignoring the complications because now he was off to reforge his hammers without anything distracting him.
That and the fact that the flashes of memories were getting stronger; it was either because of the passing days or a result of him frequently using the hammer.
"So how are we doing this?"
Thor's shoulders fell as he heard Fandral's voice behind him and multiple footsteps walking into the Bifrost chamber.
He gave Heimdall a look and the stoic gatekeeper simply stared back at him.
"Looking good, Heimdall." Fandral said in his own fanciful greeting, arriving with Sif, Volstagg and Hogun.
"With how silent you've been moving the days, I almost thought you would leave without us." Hogun uttered softly as he came up to Thor.
"Of course not. Heimdall and I were waiting for you guys." The lie felt natural as it came out that Thor let it settle without taking it back.
"You've been silent and down these last few days. Are you feeling well? Honestly I'd thought you getting your hammers remade would've turned you into a spark show for a week."
Sif stood in front of him with a look of curiosity that was wrapped with concern. He also noticed the side glances the Three were giving him.
He also noticed that Sif's hair was now twisted in war braids half through.
"I've been thinking a lot lately."
"Sounds like you've been 'thinking' more than a lot."
Before anyone could ask him anything else, he turned to Heimdall who had remained standing in the same position since he arrived.
"Are you shooting us straight to their doorstep?"
"Eitri, the King of the Dwarves, has been notified of the nature of your visit. He and his forge are waiting for you."
"I can't believe I'll be seeing Nidavellir with my own eyes." Hogun muttered under his breath with professionally restrained awe.
"Not only you, Hogun. Hopefully, tales of my valor have reached the dwarves and one of them will be willing to take a look at my weapon."
"You wish—"
"I will remind you that this is not a diplomatic visit but one of utmost importance to the realm. You'll be visiting the dwarves at the seat of their home, a race of beings that have been tied to Asgard's prominence since the very beginning of this realm… Do behave yourselves. Suffer them any slight and you won't return."
That was the most expressive Heimdall had ever been, even to Thor who'd known him the longest, and the first thing he did was to not-so-subtly threaten them.
Even this very place they were standing on was a piece of Dwarven ingenuity. Heimdall was not wrong when he said that the dwarves were pivotal to Asgard's rise from the beginning.
"We know as much, Heimdall. They are doing us, me, a favor. I won't squander it."
Heimdall looked at him with those golden eyes of his and nodded once before stabbing his sword into the cradle.
"Well said, my prince."
The Bifrost lights enveloped them and hurtled them across the sea of stars of the dreaming cosmos in the blink of an eye.
For a brief moment, light was all they could see, but it didn't last as the light receded quickly and they found their foot on sturdy cast metal ground.
"Whoa!"
"Magnificent!"
A nebula of dazzling frightening lights from the blazing neutron star at the center of the megastructure Dyson sphere of rotating metals that was Nidavellir, home of the best blacksmiths in all the realms.
"Why are they facing the other side instead of us? Is their Bifrost faulty?"
"Me thinks ol' one-eye is falling back to his penny-pinching ways."
A loud cough – two coughs to make it proper – came from behind Thor and his group and they all turned and quickly froze in shock as they got their first look at a 'Dwarf'.
"Eitri! Brokk! It is great to see you again!" Thor exclaimed with a beaming cheer as he took a step towards the dwarf king and his brother, both of whom also made Mjolnir.
While Thor delighted in the presence of the dwarf brothers, Sif and the Warriors Three took their first uncertain step.
"That is… I thought… We thought…" Fandral looked spooked to Hel and back.
"Oh… wow… I mean… oh.." Volstagg had no idea what he was trying to say. Hogun and Sif slowly got over their shock in silence.
"This is not one of the Allfather's conspiracy jokes, right? They are dwarves, right?" Hogun didn't mean it as a rhetoric, but it might as well be to Sif.
"You know we can hear you from over here, right?"
The warriors froze and craned their necks to look at the two giant dwarves looking down at them with raised, prominently visible, brows.
"Uh, I'm sorry. I meant no disr—"
"Eh, it's alright. We don't mind." Eitri, the dwarf king, shrugged uncaringly.
"Bah! It makes for a good joke every couple centuries, heh hehe!" Brokk laughed.
Thor quickly introduced his companions to the dwarves but anyone could see that neither of them cared or were even listening to him speak.
Their eyes were firmly stuck to the metal work strapped to the other side of Thor's waist.
"Right, right. Now show us."
Eitri led them to a workbench that was as wide as a room to Thor and his friends. The moment Thor dropped the hammer on the bench, the two elder dwarves leaned in and started studying it.
Their faces showed no excitement, only studious interest as they read all what they could from the hammer with their magic.
"Hmm. I guess I should have expected this." Eitri muttered as he observed the creator's brand hidden on the hammer. "The Huldra Brothers. Brok and Sindri. Why would I be named Sindri?"
"Hah! At least those dunderheads over there got my name right. But why bother putting a brand on it in the first place?" Brokk leaned back and crossed his arms of corded muscle across his chest.
"Thor, the other one."
Thor put down his Mjolnir. Eitri took a look at it and nodded with a grunt.
"Did the Allfather give it to you?"
"You mean this rock? Yes, he did. What is it? It feels weird to the touch."
"To you, just a rock. Best for everyone if we leave it at that." Brokk answered. "Let's go to the forge. It's been heating for seven days now. That's how long you were late."
Thor picked his hammers and followed the dwarves into a wide open area with floating concentric rings that had runes carved into them. Sif, Hogun, Fandral and Volstagg followed behind like a group of international tourists.
"Let's get this clear," Eitri started speaking as other dwarves started gathering around them, "you want to merge these two hammers together."
"Yes."
Eitri nodded. "The Allfather already removed all the troublesome seals, though I'll have to carve them into the new hammer. Again."
He raised his and scratched his beard while mouthing off intense grumbling in a tongue Thor had never heard before.
"We'll break the hammers down, but this time you'll have to be the one to push them together."
Thor looked surprised at the sudden inclusion. Normally, he expected them to kick him to another ring when they started their work.
"You'll understand why when the hammer is forged. And yes, it'll burn. A lot." He pushed a lever down and the carved rings on the floor started moving. "We are not casting a new hammer. We're breaking down two Mjolnir and forcing them into each other."
Brokk then expanded on what his brother meant. "Essentially, we'll be killing both of them to make something new. It's a hassle because weapons as these are big egotistical pricks, you'll see."
"I'm ready." The grown prince said resolutely.
"I know. It's why you're here." Eitri deadpanned before shaking his head. "You and your friends can rest for now. I'll call you when it's your time."
Thor had no idea how their metalworking worked but he knew that they were doing something different compared to when they forged Mjolnir for him.
He lazed around with his friends, chatting with some of the dwarves as they busied themselves in their never-resting forge.
It took a few hours of loud bangs, heavy cussing, manic laughter, as well as multiple flares, before he was finally called to the heart of the forge where the heat of the star shone the brightest and hottest.
Floating in the air were two masses of heated molt that felt dense to even look at.
"Dun just stand 'ere! Push them together, idiot!"
He didn't know who shouted at him but the scolding got him to focus on his job.
He pushed raw lightning out of his body and bombarded the two heated molts. The moment the lightning touched them, the heat in the forge skyrocketed and focused their intensity on him.
It burned.
It felt like he was locked in a room with a petulant sun. He couldn't even hear the loud bangs behind him as the dwarves got to work.
He forced more lightning out of his body with a defiant scream until he felt both ends of his lightning connect. Something clicked inside him at that moment, and with it came more memories.
The memories were larger parts of the glimpses he's had so far. Odin's obsession, Freya's scorn, the horns of Heimdall's death, Modi and Magna's death, Sif's broken heart and Thrud's angry pleas—
Ragnarok. And the visage of the ashen destroyer that brought it to Asgard's walls.
More memories, more context and foreknowledge came, with the biggest of them being the extended spectacle of Thor's brutality and massacres.
When he woke up, he felt his fingers curled tight around something familiarly sturdy. Mjolnir was in his hands in all its reforged glory.
"Looks like you suffered a banquet." He joked to the weapon's more boisterous and threatening form.
"It seems like I did too." When he looked down at himself, he found a series of runic tattoos covering half of his left arm, down his back and across his torso.
He squeezed his hands and drank in their strength. He was healed and clothed, and also in his room in Asgard which meant he must've been asleep for a while. A deep sleep at that.
He walked out of his room to look for his father to know what happened during the forging. While he did that, his mind remained stuck on one particular memory:
'Why was Loki such a tiny kid?'
The thought stuck more to him for such a silly reason, even more so than the curious identity of the pale god who brought down Ragnarok.
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