When Danny Fenton got into MIT, he thought the biggest challenge would be balancing ghost hunting with college coursework. What he didn’t expect was to impress Dr. Jane Freaking Foster—renowned astrophysicist, literal genius, the mind behind the Foster Theory, and, unbeknownst to her, his idol since age thirteen—during a campus science expo when he presented his thesis on interdimensional ectoplasmic lattice fluctuations as a potential fuel source for wormhole stabilization. He thought she’d walk by his booth with a polite smile. Instead, she paused, squinted at his equations, asked three rapid-fire questions, then turned to the MIT faculty and said, “Is this kid legally allowed to work in a government lab yet?”
That’s how he became her apprentice.
Danny thought it would be, you know, an internship. Fetch coffee, carry papers, maybe input data if he got lucky. What he didn’t expect was to be living in New Mexico three months later, standing on a roof beside Jane Foster while she casually pointed at the sky and said, “If this gravitational anomaly maintains its trajectory, we’ll have a Yggdrasil branch brush up against the heliopause by Tuesday. That’s new.”
Danny nodded, mostly pretending he understood.
What neither of them anticipated was Thor crashing into their lives again like a golden retriever with a god complex and a hammer. He landed dramatically during a research presentation, lightning still fizzing off his cape, and made such eye contact with Jane that the projector screen behind them shorted out.
And then he saw Danny.
“Young one!” Thor bellowed, eyes wide, blond hair tousled by divine winds, “You must be her son.”
Danny blinked. “I—what?”
“Of course!” Thor clasped his shoulder. “You have her radiant intellect and tenacity. Truly, you are worthy of Midgard’s finest mother.”
“I—she’s not—” Danny tried.
Thor turned to Jane, face alight. “You did not tell me you had borne a child! And one so strong in spirit! A scholar of the stars!”
Jane rubbed her temples. “Thor. He’s nineteen. I met him last month. He’s my apprentice. He is not my son.”
Thor shook his head gravely. “Say no more, Jane. I understand. You wished to protect him from the dangers of our past. But I vow upon Mjolnir’s handle, I shall be a father to him.”
“What the hell,” Danny muttered.
Over the next few days, things escalated fast.
Danny woke up one morning to find a goat outside the lab. A live goat. Wearing a ribbon. The tag read: For my brave son, may his mornings be strong of milk and noble of beard. Jane nearly choked on her cereal. Darcy screamed and immediately named the goat “Spacey.”
Thor showed up during Danny’s lecture on cosmic radiation and brought a sack of Asgardian textbooks written in glowing runes, which promptly caused two lab interns to faint and one professor to file a complaint.
Danny begged Jane to tell him this would stop.
“No,” Jane said, sipping her coffee without looking up. “You’re his emotional support stepson now.”
“I don’t want to be anyone’s emotional support anything!” Danny cried. “I have ectoplasmic trauma and insomnia!”
But Thor persisted.
He invited Danny to spar in the desert, claiming it would “toughen his warrior instincts.” Danny blasted a crater in the sand when a ghost startled him mid-match, and Thor wept with pride. “Such fire! Truly, a son worthy of thunder.”
Jane sighed. “You’re going to give him a complex.”
“I already have a complex!” Danny yelled from where he was half-buried in sand.
Then came the night Thor pulled Danny aside with intense solemnity.
“Daniel,” he said, kneeling, “I seek your blessing.”
Danny froze, halfway through a sandwich. “I—what—blessing for what?”
“To court your mother.”
“She’s NOT my—!”
Thor raised a hand. “Please. I know you wish to protect her. But my heart is true. I have spent long hours learning Midgardian courtship. Observe.”
He pulled out a guitar. A guitar. From nowhere. And began strumming aggressively while singing off-key.
“Oh Jane, fairest in the stars, your eyes burn like a neutron quasaaaaaar—”
Danny screamed into his sandwich.
Jane screamed into her coffee.
Darcy recorded the entire thing.
By the time the Avengers got wind of what was happening, it was too late. Tony Stark showed up purely out of pettiness.
“So this is the ‘son,’ huh?” he said, looking Danny up and down like he was a new model of iPhone. “You do look like Jane. Same ‘don’t talk to me before coffee’ vibe. But with a sprinkle of sleep-deprived raccoon.”
Danny glared. “You must be the one Jane threatens to launch into orbit when she’s annoyed.”
“See? Family resemblance,” Tony muttered.
Then Steve Rogers took Thor aside and whispered, “Are you sure he’s her kid? Jane would’ve told us if she had a child.”
Thor nodded gravely. “It is the only explanation. He speaks with passion, has knowledge of the stars, and I saw him summon green fire from his hands!”
“It was a ghost, Thor,” Danny shouted from across the lab. “It was literally a ghost trying to possess a vending machine!”
“Exactly!” Thor beamed.
“Thor. I’m nineteen. Jane is thirty-seven.”
“She is a goddess among mortals. Perhaps she birthed you when she was five.”
“That’s not how—YOU KNOW WHAT, NEVER MIND.”
Soon, even Loki showed up, slinking into the lab with a smirk like a serpent in silk.
“I had to see for myself,” he purred, circling Danny like a shark. “The mortal child who ensnared my brother’s affections.”
Danny just blinked. “I’m not his kid. Or Jane’s. I’m not even sure I’m awake right now.”
Loki chuckled. “You’ll make an excellent prince. Do you have any interest in necromancy?”
“I’m a ghost half the time,” Danny deadpanned. “Define interest.”
Loki grinned wider.
Eventually, S.H.I.E.L.D. got involved. Fury showed up, took one look at the scene—the goat eating research notes, Thor trying to build Danny a golden throne, Jane yelling about radiation levels, and Danny levitating out of sheer stress—and muttered, “Nope,” before turning around and leaving.
But beneath all the chaos, Danny… didn’t hate it.
Jane never treated him like a kid. She taught him everything, from solar flares to Bifrost trajectories. She let him make mistakes, then helped him fix them. She told him he was brilliant, and for once, he kind of believed it. And Thor, for all his thunderous confusion, brought him starfruit from Alfheim and carved him a wooden Mjolnir as a “coming-of-age” gift.
Danny didn’t even mind the goat anymore.
He still insisted, every day, that Jane was not his mom.
But when Thor presented him with a massive, hand-forged broadsword inscribed with: To my noble son, may your ghosts be vanquished and your GPA ever high, he kind of teared up.
A little.
One evening, as they watched the stars from the roof, Jane handed Danny a cup of tea.
“He really does think you’re my kid,” she said.
Danny took a sip. “Yeah. I gave up trying to convince him.”
“Is it weird?”
“Kinda. But… not bad.” He hesitated. “Do you… mind?”
Jane looked at him, surprised. “No. I mean—you’re not. But if you were, I’d be proud.”
Danny stared at the stars until they blurred.
Later, Thor appeared beside them, cape fluttering dramatically despite the lack of wind.
“I have returned with tales of valor,” he declared, “and also cheesecake.”
Danny took the box.
“Son!” Thor beamed.
Danny sighed.
“Fine. You can have my blessing.”
Thor dropped Mjolnir in joy.
Jane looked horrified. “Danny, what the hell?!”
“I didn’t say I wanted it to happen,” Danny muttered. “I just figured he’d stop bringing me swords if I gave in.”
“He won’t,” she said flatly.
He didn’t.
The next morning, Danny woke up to find a full set of Asgardian armor beside his bed and a note that read: For my beloved heir. P.S. I have begun planning the wedding. Do you think your mother would prefer swans or flaming eels as decoration?
1984's Comics Interview N°9 cover by cover artist Walt Simonson. According to the signature, this was drawn in early October 1983, when Simonson was busy with his legendary run on Thor. Source
