Chapter Text
"Anyone can pick it up, then? You're saying it's anyone at all?"
"That is what the my father said when he enchanted it."
"So long as they're- what's it- worthy. Whatever that's supposed to mean- they can lift it, then? That's the only requirement? Just like that?"
"Just like that."
Tony held still, slouched back against the opposing wall, scrutinizing the solid weight of the hammer propped up against his worryingly fragile coffee table. Thor's feet, kicked up casually just next to it as if, rather than a priceless artifact of Norse legend, it was nothing more than a plastic paperweight.
"Is there a problem?" Thor pressed. Mjolnir was nudged tauntingly by nothing more than his foot.
Tony frowned again.
"I don't actually buy it, though."
"There's nothing to purchase, my friend. Mjolnir is only for those who are worthy: you are not worthy."
"What? No, I don't care about that!" Tony pushed off the wall to crouch down by the hammer, sweeping around the table on his knees to peer at it from every angle. "It's this nonsense about worthy. This wishy-washy-" He glowered, giving the inscrutable weapon a whack that didn't even budge it. Not even a damn millimeter. "What the hell does that mean, worthy. Is that a quantifiable variable, over on Asgard? Do you measure it all in worthiness-units of worthy? You must be at least one full Thor in order to ride?" He nudged uselessly at the hammer again, left to just shake his head in wonder because no matter how hard he pushed, he knew it would never, ever budge. As it it had been superglued in place as a prank, superglued with a space-magic superglue that only Thor could move.
Said crazy Norse god of legend merely grinned blithely again. Though it was just a little too self-assured and smug for Tony to buy that, either.
It really wasn't that Tony couldn't budge it. Tony was quite fine with not being judged as Worthy to be the king of the magic space viking elf gods, actually, contrary to popular belief. He had enough to worry about with Earth, thank you very much. No, his obsessive need to quantify just what it was that made one able to lift Mjolnir wasn't about that.
It was about science!
Worthy. Worthy. What kind of hogwash was that, worthy. Sure, space magic and all of that, hammer of legend aside- he was supposed to believe there was some sort of magical worthiness test. How was it quantified? How did the spell know? How could such a thing be measured at all-?
It couldn't be. That was his conclusion. There was no scientific scale that existed on Earth that could remotely come close to measuring such a thing. And Asgard might not have been Earth, but even Asgard couldn't flout in the face of science.
Okay, maybe they could. With their supernatural lightning-strikes, picky-choosiness, and magical flying.
But telling him there was an objective scale and way of measuring worthy, whatever the hell that actually meant, was a step too far.
(Or extremely intriguing, so as to keep people like Rhodey from nabbing his suits. Judged unworthy, Rhodey, how about that.)
"I bet it's got a genetic analyzer," he prodded, squinting at the hammer again, then back to smug, smug Thor. "That's it, isn't it? The handle runs a topical analysis for Asgardian DNA, or whatever it is you guys have got, and without a positive result it switches off whatever makes the lightning work and keeps the- the Superglue Protocol on. The magic, super-est of superglue. That's it, isn't it?"
Thor smiled again, beaming in that way of his, like an overeager puppy dog. Tony's every attempt at glaring the hammer into budging continued to fail. "I think you would love Asgard, my friend," was all he said at first, and Tony continued to glower Mjolnir into submission. Tried to. "And I'm afraid that you are still incorrect- myself and Odin are the only ones on Asgard who are able to wield her."
"Prove it."
"Prove it?" Thor started, laughing. "Prove our magic to you? Is your inability to lift her not enough? And barring a trip to Asgard, of course-"
As if on cue, Thor's eyes brightened, a sudden smile spreading across his face, beaming like a sun cutting through storm clouds. It was the light of an idea, a brilliant, unshakable, perfect idea, a scientist's eureka moment... or, perhaps, just a big brother's height of pranksterism.
"I've got an idea," he announced, and was up on his feet, Mjolnir swung up in his grip as light as a feather, before Tony had even started to follow.
Before:
Loki. Spread out on his back over the couch cushions, long legs propped up and head still fighting for space, his hands interlaced over a book on his chest, a thick book of something not-Earth and magic-y and complicated. His eyes slipped shut, and one hand just starting to slip sideways to dangle in unquestionable sleep.
Now:
Tony and Thor, tiptoeing their way through an advance as careful and silent as if Loki were an easily spooked deer. Reindeer. Tony, for his part, kept himself very firmly behind Thor: if someone was going to get disintegrated, cursed, blown up, or stabbed all the way through because of this, it was going to be him.
After:
Reindeer Games, flat on his stomach, with what was possibly the sulkiest pout in the entire world on his face, eating a mouthful of carpet, and pinioned there with nothing more than Mjolnir sitting on his back like one very big paperweight.