Disclaimer: I don't own Marvel or Thor. If I did, this shit would so be canon.

The London city was covered in dew when Othel woke, the first glow of a sunrise not yet blushing on the horizon. She stayed shivering under her thick quilt for a long while, watching the sun climb into a sky heavy with the bloated clouds. It would be cloudy outside…just like almost every other London morning. She had never grown quite accustomed to the cold dreary London air and sky, not even after living there for three years. She was homesick for her warm Tennessee cabin home and her family that resided there without her.

When she looked at the clock she nearly choked. She was up two hours early again. Lately she had begun waking early, though she couldn't say why. Nothing changed in her life recently; even the extremity of her taxing work had begun to feel routine to her. She just felt this foreboding presence. She felt like she needed to be awake…be up and moving. It was the strangest feeling. It was like someone was looking over her shoulder all the time.

The sun was a muted pale yellow on the dew drops a on her window Othel noted as she slowly dragged herself from bed at last. It would be better to start her day early, so she could actually get a little work done. The wood floor was cold beneath her bare feet, and it seemed to send a chill up her entire body like an electric jolt. She hurriedly dashed to her space heater and turned it on low. Screw the heating bill, she was freezing.

The walls of her mediocre bedroom were empty and bland. The only things on the walls now were her shadows as she rushed around to get dressed. Most of the shelves of her in-room bookshelf were stocked full of both fiction and her collection of medical texts. All of her five bookshelves were that way except her last one. It only had two shelves left.

There used to be some life in her kitchen, but that too was now dead and gone. She was never able to remember to water the plants her friend Jane bought her for the new place, and when they died, she donated the pots to the lab for the new meditation garden. Jane didn't seem to mind it too much, so then she bought her a plastic cactus as a joke. Even that was looking dead in the dark of her home as Othel rushed to get a coffee popsicle she made the night previous.

She ate on the way to her lab in the middle of the bustling London city. It was a massive building with twenty floors. Luckily Othel's lab was on the first floor. Othel's lab assistant, Iggy, was already seated at their shared desk when she walked into her ECPDC office, flipping through the glossy pages of a magazine while smacking on gum.

"You're early," he said, not looking up.

Othel rolled her eyes and smirked as she sat down. "Not any earlier than usual. Not any earlier than you. How was that date with that guy?"

"When you get here early, you mean? It was a bust. The guy's married. I don't do that to married women. It's bad karma. So…you have a late night or something?"

"I was trying to solve that virus DNA strand for hours," Othel sighed, shoving a new filter into the coffee pot and jabbing the on switch. "Why do you ask?"

"Because," Iggy said with a snort. "When you're overworking, you get distracted and turn into a lousy biochemist. Then I have to do extra work to compensate. I can't keep up my laziness if you're like that, y'know?"

"Oh, piss off," she snorted with a laugh, sitting heavily with her coffee and pulling up the 3D of the virus strain on the computer before blowing it up with the Stark 3D simulator in the center of the desk.

Iggy laughed and grabbed a file of his own to look through. He started typing away at the desktop to begin what looked like a new bacteria profile. As the pair silently worked, Othel decided to pop off a statement. It was stupid really, but it was something she thought would lighten the somber mood. It was also a dream of hers ever since she was little and heard of Captain America.

"We're going to be superheroes one day, y'know?"

"Superheroes?" he scoffed skeptically. "What's our super power? Saving the world from evil disease?"

"Stopping a pandemic," she said smiling, pausing dramatically to let the words land with a desired effect. "Faster than a speeding bullet!"

"Okay, whatever you say, Oth-Sloth," he snickered. "But there is no pandemic right now. Can't stop something that hasn't started. Unless you've gone crazy and set something lose from the lockdown chambers."

"Maybe not now...but someday we'll be famous."

"Keep dreaming."

"Henipavirus!"

"Henipavirus?" he asked, looking away from his screen.

"Well, it's genetically enhanced henipavirus anyway," Othel said smiling as she paced around the 3D diagram.

"Which kind?"

"Nipha I think," she said, enlarging a single chain to confirm her suspicions.

"Uh...hold on. Nipah virus was identified in April 1999, when it caused an outbreak of neurological and respiratory disease on pig farms in Malaysia, resulting in 257 human cases, including 105 human deaths and the culling of one million pigs. The Nipah virus has been classified by the CDC as a Category C-"

"Quit quoting the Wiki page, I went to college…so did you if I'm not mistaken. Now start sending the doctors who reported it our findings."

"Stupid Yank."

"Cocky Brit."

"Conservative."

"Labourer."

As she was sitting back down, there was a loud sound of shattering glass. Othel tensed before alarms blared overhead. Those were the sirens for an automatic full shutdown. There was an intruder judging by the flashing black lights overhead. The power went out, and everything was shut down and savedon every computer. Othel and Iggy automatically went to hide in their floor's panic room.

Othel noted a loud, dull hum as they continued to walk briskly. Something caught her full in the stomach, carrying her back to window and out into the streets until it continued past her, leaving her on the ground. As it happened, Othel was in a quiet sort of fear and shock. She spat blood on the pavement as she lay face down amongst the debris. She tried to get up, and that's when she saw Iggy running to her looking paler than a sheet.

"Oh, fuck. Othel, are you okay?"

"Iggy get…go."

The building groaned as it started falling. Iggy went to grab her, but then he stopped as debris fell around them. Othel looked up and screamed at what she saw. Iggy had a beam through his skull and was pinned up above her. Othel tried to move to him, but she realized she couldn't feel her legs. She couldn't feel anything below her crushed hips. She couldn't move her lower body at all. Something was wrong with her spine.

A scream ripped from Othel's throat in terror and despair. Was there...was there anyone who was out there that could hear her? She started to cry out for help, but her voice as like a ripple in a raging sea storm. She felt her vision going, and Othel began to lose consciousness there amongst the rubble. She didn't dream…she just hurt as the world screeched and wailed around her.

Othel stirred slowly from her state when she felt a wet tongue on her cheek. Groaning, she looked up and saw a golden retriever with a bright orange vest. Search and rescue. It started barking and yelping, not leaving her and waiting for her until a woman came up. She knelt down and used a wet cloth to dab water into Othel's mouth. She choked the water down her burning throat.

"H-How…long?"

"Two days. Ma'am, stay with me. Tell me your name."

"Survivors?"

"We've only found you and three others."

"What…what happened?"

"Thor saved the world from certain destruction. His weapon, that big hammer," she added. "It had to go through a few buildings to get to him in time. Ma'am? Ma'am! I need some help over here! We're losing her!"