Daisy set the hammer down gently on the floor and gestured an invitation with one hand.
Thor looked at his old companion the way a man looks at the woman of his dreams. He rubbed his hands together, nodded at the Asgardians' encouragement, and reached out to close his grip around the handle.
"Rise!" Knowing full well he was a mortal now, Thor had braced himself thoroughly for it. Both hands on the handle, feet planted apart, he threw the strength of his entire body into it, drew several deep breaths, and finally heaved with a great roar—
The hammer didn't so much as quiver.
"Don't rush it. Take your time. Adjust your state of mind and feel it out with your heart. The hammer isn't a tool—it's your partner." Ever since she'd sweet-talked Danny Rand, Daisy had developed a real fondness for ladling out feel-good pep talks. Paying no mind to Thor's mood, she settled off to one side to watch the show.
Pep talks do count for something. Thor didn't sink into despair right away; he made two more attempts. But the hammer that had once felt like a part of his own body gave him no answer at all.
"How can this be..." Thor sensed the hammer's rejection. Mjolnir had judged that he no longer qualified as the god of thunder, and he found it impossible to believe.
Exiled by his father, played for a fool by his brother, and now abandoned by his own weapon—and the worst of it was that Thor still had no idea what he'd done wrong. He pounded the floor with both fists in his frustration, to no effect whatsoever.
Sif hurried to hold him back. "We're not in Asgard now—we're on someone else's turf, so you'd best settle down."
"Your emotions are all wrong. Mjolnir calls for the spirit of boundless love, the courage to overcome anything—and here you are, still drowning in the moment your father stripped your power away. How is a state like that ever going to earn its approval..." Daisy folded her arms and reeled off a great heap of nonsense, all the while wondering whether she'd have to beat Thor half to death herself before he had his awakening.
Given that Odin's ravens were still loitering somewhere close by, that method seemed a touch dangerous!
She'd stick to working on Thor through his emotions.
She turned her head toward the windowsill, where Black Widow sat smoking, utterly indifferent to everyone around her.
"Natasha, come on—give our friends from Asgard a little demonstration. Let them see what we Earthlings are made of!" It was all shameless drivel.
Black Widow shot her a withering look. "I'm in a mood. I don't want to touch that damn hammer. Don't push me."
Daisy let it slide. She and Black Widow were part mentor and part friend, and the two of them had always gotten on well; knowing the woman had something weighing on her, she decided to let her off the hook for now.
She turned to the other side instead, to Jane Foster—frightened into playing the invisible bystander by this crowd of black-clad agents.
"Miss Foster, why don't you give it a try." At Daisy's words, every eye in the room swung onto Jane Foster.
The somewhat frail beauty was the very picture of astonishment. She pointed a finger at her own nose, and only once she'd confirmed Daisy hadn't mistaken her for someone else did she drift forward in a slow daze, as though walking on air.
Thor felt his brain short out a little. He looked at Black Widow, then at Jane Foster.
The whole thing struck him as absurd. Could you really pull any random woman off the streets of Midgard and have her lift the god of thunder's hammer?
I must have drunk far too much!
Black Widow's earlier indifference had narrowed to a fixed point on Jane Foster now; she wanted to see what she could possibly have in common with this delicate woman.
Creak. Jane Foster, brimming over with boundless love, didn't let Daisy down. Her thin arm settled onto Mjolnir, and almost as if it were a joke, she made the hammer rock—once. Just once.
The motion was faint in the extreme, but every one of them saw it with perfect clarity. The hammer had moved...
No one understood what that meant better than Thor. His vision swam, and he could just make out that this was the woman he'd heroically rescued the night before. Was there some connection there?
"Did I do something wrong?" Jane Foster bolted off to one side like a startled rabbit; she found the look in Thor's eyes more than a little frightening.
"Let me try." Her competitive streak roused, Black Widow made a second attempt—and still couldn't raise it. The hammer still judged her unworthy, gave a small wobble, and turned her down.
But Black Widow had made up her mind at last. She could see the road ahead of her clearly now.
Two women in a row had made Mjolnir sway, and Thor's resolve crumbled completely. His Asgardian companions looked equally grim; not one of them knew what to say.
"Come here, Lorna—you try!" Daisy delivered the third blow, shoving forward the very Lorna who'd only wandered over to gawk at the spectacle.
Having walked her through the trick of nudging Mjolnir with magnetism several times over in the spirit world, Daisy knew the girl would never turn down a chance to show off in front of a crowd.
"Aaah—! Aaah!" Lorna made a far bigger scene. The girl screamed fit to split her lungs and spent a solid ten minutes mustering her magnetism. The hammer, perhaps feeling rather put-upon at being ganged up on by their little tag team, gave in at the end and rocked obligingly, just a touch.
"Impossible! I won't believe it!" One blow after another finally broke Thor's spirit outright—he half-began to think every woman on Earth could lift Mjolnir. In the grip of it all, he toppled stiff as a board to the floor and lost consciousness.
"This is all it takes to break him?..." Daisy was a little lost for words. She'd already sent word for Storm to come and try her hand next; she hadn't expected Thor to fold this fast.
"I'll take the hammer with me for now. If he sorts himself out, he can come find me anytime." Daisy sighed, disappointment all over her face. She picked up the hammer, called Lorna to her side, and ambled out of the hospital.
Back in her own office, she set about thinking through the matter of Fear Itself.
For reasons she couldn't fathom, the big event still hadn't kicked off. Or maybe it had, and the Serpent had simply chosen to keep a low profile this time around? She couldn't be certain.
At the very least, the part where eight hammers came raining down out of the sky hadn't happened, which left her to conclude that the Serpent had yet to break free of its bonds. As to why it hadn't broken loose—that was beyond her to guess.
The eight hammers would seek out the eight strongest, brawniest, most violent people on Earth and possess them to take control.
Daisy was entirely at ease about it. Raw strength wasn't her strong suit, so the hammers wouldn't choose her; and even if one came to bewitch her, she could shatter it with the Phoenix Force.
She wasn't worried about herself—and as it happened, she wasn't worried about the eight who got possessed either.
For all the fearsome hype around the eight hammers, every last one of them was middling at best.
Take the Hulk, who'd once fought Thor to a standstill. Possessed by a hammer, he'd be knocked flying the moment he picked it up—he'd honestly have been better off never touching it...
The Thing and the Juggernaut had the same problem. The hammers actually dragged their fighting power down, which was exactly why these hammers didn't worry Daisy in the least.
What did worry her was that the Serpent could convert humanity's formless fear into divine power: the more people feared, the stronger it grew.
In ancient times a village or town held only a few hundred souls, and travel was slow going. By the time word had spread anywhere, Asgard's punitive army would already be bearing down on the threat—back in that age, the Serpent hadn't been all that formidable.
Modern society was another matter entirely. News traveled far too fast, and with every kind of media and network at hand, sowing a little fear was all too easy! She had to prepare her countermeasures well in advance.