Steel Hearts

- 11 -

The closer the time got to midnight, the more the crowd had thinned itself out. Sam had left earlier, having an early morning at work and all. Around eleven the only ones left were the Avengers, every drunken person had left; shouting and waving on their way out the door as the rest of us had been sitting around lounging on the couches.

I was caught up in a conversation of my own, oblivious to the words coming out of everyone else's mouths. My heels had long been ditched at the end of the couch as I sat on the ground, legs stretched out underneath the coffee table with crossed ankles, arguing with Clint Barton and Maria Hill about pop culture.

"No way! If Harry didn't have Hermione he would've died within the first three chapters!" I argued, picking up a piece of chicken with my chopsticks and biting into it semi-aggressively.

"Are you kidding me?" Clint was spinning a pair of drumsticks in his fingers, visibly cringing and disagreeing with me, "He had Ron, the two of them could've ruled the world together."

"Maria, back me up here. Hermione has been called the brightest witch of her age, several times might I add!" I toss a discarded straw wrapper at him, "You just can't admit you're wrong, old man."

"Old man?" Barton stopped flipping the drumstick, using it to point at the space between and who I can only assume was Steve behind me, "Whatever, you're the one dating an old man, kid."

I rolled my eyes and with the flick of my wrist, the drumstick went flying out of his hands and onto the floor behind him, clattering as it landed. Placing my empty takeout box onto the table, my hand bumped Thor's hammer. Unsurprisingly it didn't budge.

Moving onto another conversation, ignoring my tossing of the drumsticks in his hand, Barton states, "It's a trick."

"No, no, it's much more than that," Thor says, clinking glasses with Steve. The two of them on either side of me, actually sitting on the couch rather than the ground. My gaze fell on the hammer in question. Undoubtedly, it wasn't a party trick. Thor was Asgardian. The god of thunder. The hammer was impressive.

"'Ah, whosoever be he worthy shall haveth the power,' whatever, man! It's a trick!" Barton's awful impression of Thor's voice caught everyone's attention, all conversations ceased to focus on ours, I couldn't help but let a giggle loose. The few glasses of alcohol I had finally taken effect.

"Please, be my guest," Thor held his hand out in the hammer's direction, inviting him to try picking it up.

"Oh come on," I laugh, adjusting myself to lean against the couch more comfortably and taking a sip of my glass of wine on the coffee table.

Tony earned a round of laughs commenting, "Clint, you've had a tough week, we won't hold it against you if you can't get it up."

I roll my eyes at the innuendo, not surprised at all as Barton gripped the handle with one hand.

"You know I've seen this before, right?" he tells us. Pulling, straining against the unmoving hammer. "But I still don't know how you do it!"

"Smell the silent judgment?" Tony asks. I press my lips into a thin line, avoiding laugher and crossing my arms.

"Please, Stark, by all means," Barton says, motioning to him irritatedly before sitting back down.

"This is gonna be good," I state as he stands up. Raising his eyebrow cockily, releasing a button on his dress jacket.

"Never one to shrink from an honest challenge. It's physics," he wraps the band around his hand before asking, "Right, so, if I lift it, I then rule Asgard?"

"Yes, of course," Thor answers.

"If he lifts it, you owe me five bucks," I point to Maria jokingly, wine glass in hand.