fiction | Part of the journey is the end

7. What if... Thor were an only child?

In New Mexico, in 2011, Jane Foster and Darcy Lewis were in a van. The computer lit up.

Wanda and Vision smiled widely at seeing Darcy. They had a little soft spot for her now.

Thor's face tightened as he saw Jane. She looked beautiful as always. He missed Jane so much, but she made it very clear in her note that she was breaking up with him.

"The first and only time I met Jane, she slapped me. I was very impressed," Loki said.

Thor snickered. "That was quite funny."

Peter looked at Jane with admiration. Her work on the Convergence and the Foster Theory were so cool. He and Ned poured over them when she first published it, and she won a Nobel Prize!

Jane called SHIELD and said she needed to talk to the Director because if her data was correct, an alien invasion was imminent.

Thor frowned. Why would Jane call SHIELD? She hated SHIELD.

"How does Jane know about alien invasions?" Carol asked. "No one except a few people at SHIELD knew about aliens existing before 2012."

"I guess that's the branch in this one," said Wanda.

"It's not an alien invasion at the moment, it's just Thor unless Loki decided to make an appearance earlier," said Natasha.

"Two years ago, the same anomaly struck Star Alpha Icarus and the entire star dimmed and then, poof, disintegrated," said Jane.

"Uh, what? Jane wasn't studying anything like that the day we met," Thor said. "I remember that day very clearly because it was the best and worst day of my life." It was the best day because he met Jane and it was the worst day because he had gotten banished.

"Well, banishment turned out to be good for you," Loki said.

"It did."

"You could've turned out like Hela."

Thor made a face. "Don't insult me like that."

"Talking about the end of the world, my dude," Darcy said.

"It's not the end of the world yet. Try again in 2012, 2018, or even 2023," Clint said.

The Bifrost flew over their heads. "We're too late. The invasion has begun," said Jane.

"Ah, there's Thor," said Tony.

"And Jane's going to run me over with her car," Thor said soppily.

Loki shot him a strange look.

The Bifrost landed in the middle of the street in Las Vegas. Party Thor addressed the citizens of Midgard and said their dull lives would come to an end as the party prince was there.

The Avengers and the Guardians looked at Thor with disbelief.

Thor was taken aback. He made a sound of realization. "Oh, this is my partying variant! That's why I have so many dreams about parties. They're quite nice, actually."

Tony found it unfair that Thor got comforting dreams about parties while he got dreams about dying. Stephen still didn't understand why he had frequent dreams about falling, and there was also the occasional dream about a white-haired woman dressed in purple. She was very beautiful.

"This is a very different invasion than the one I was expecting," said Bucky.

"Did Thor not get banished?" Loki asked, confused. He didn't understand why Thor would come to Midgard if he wanted to party, but he was getting the feeling that Party Thor was different from the one he knew.