Puente Antiguo, New Mexico

Persephone Evans strolled into the diner and was greeted by a friendly waitress. The 25 year old was starved after spending the waking hours unpacking her luggage into her rental apartment and didn't have the heart to cook despite going grocery shopping.

"Table for one, hun?" She nodded her head and was ushered to follow the woman to a nearby table for four, who kindly pulled out the chair for her to sit. She muttered an awkward thank you. "Let me get you some water."

Left to her own devices, she began to flip through the menu with one hand while absentmindedly fiddling with and poking the eyepatch on the right side of her face. It was definitely hot in New Mexico, and the added bit of cloth on her face was more uncomfortable than anticipated. She had gotten a fair bit of strange glances as she had gotten in and out of her car, most people probably didn't ever consider that it was possible to drive with only one eye.

She wanted to rip the damn eyepatch off her face.

"My word, Dr. Evans?" She looked up from her menu to see an elderly plump man in khakis and a button down shirt and a brunette young woman who looked rather bored. The man was smiling at her with admiration and stuck out his right hand, which she hesitantly shook. "Dr. Erik Selvig, and this is one of my students, Darcy. I'm a huge fan of your work with Dr. Warren on the neuron equations of the retina."

"Nice to meet you, Dr. Selvig, Darcy. But actually I never got my doctorate, so I'm just a Miss." Wanting to be polite, she motioned to the empty seats at her table. "Would you like to join me?"

The two sat down and were handed menus by the waitress when she circled back around. Percy was trying to decide between eggs and pancakes while half listening as Selvig gushed to Darcy about who she was, the brunette's eyes widened in recognition and her indifferent expression morphed into a toothy grin.

"Woah, so you're that chick with the robot eye?" She asked with awe, before nodding her head up in down with a small smile. "Awesome."

"Darcy!"

"No, it's fine, I get that a lot." Percy waved her hand as if it were no big deal. Darcy was right, after all.

Her right eye was straight up robotic, through years of hard work and mind grueling research in her college years she was able to work with a brilliant neurobiologist to develop the first functional artificial eye. Sometimes she wanted to forget all about that, all the strange yet awestruck looks that followed her when she walked down the street.

Sometimes she wanted to just be eyepatch girl, she could say from personal experience that no one ever really wanted to talk to eyepatch girl.

"Ready to order?"

"So is your left eye the robot one and you're getting surgery to replace the other one to get full future vision?" Darcy took a long sip of her water, staring intently at Percy.

"No..." She chuckled awkwardly at the innocence of the question. "My bionic eye doesn't look as... natural as my real one and sometimes it freaks people out, especially in small towns like this."

"So what brings a nobel prize winning engineer to New Mexico?" Selvig questioned while Percy was mid-bite into a piece of toast. She quickly swallowed and forced the food down with a sip of coffee.

"I make military radios. Boring, I know, but it pays the bills and then some. The company I work for is short staffed at the moment so I have the honor of implementing the test procedures for some... devices not too far from here."

"Seems like a downgrade from the medical manufacturing realm, in my opinion." She chuckled at that remark, he certainly wasn't wrong. Her work was basically the equivalent of a 9 to 5 desk job with a bit more travel.

"You have me at a disadvantage, Dr. Selvig. What sort of work do you do?"

"I'm an astrophysicist, currently I'm working on the research left behind by a former colleague of mine. He documented seventeen magnificent anomalies in his time, and through his notes I was able to decipher the star charts to determine where the next one will occur."

"What sort of anomalies? Giant holes of darkness?"

"Not quite, I haven't seen them for myself yet but from his notes he always described them as breathtakingly beautiful... like miniature auroras."

"Sounds great..." Just from the simple conversation between the three of them, it all came as a great awakening for Percy.

She was lonely, painfully lonely.

She couldn't even remember the last time she had shared a meal besides someone other than a co-worker that talked about nothing beyond work. Seeing the glimmer in Selvig's eye as he explained the notes left by his colleague woke something within her heart, the curiosity and excitement the older man showed made her envious.

"By any chance, would you need any help recording the anomalies?" Glancing around to see that no one was looking their way, Percy lifted her eyepatch slightly to reveal her mechanical eye, which just so happened to be a wonderful camera and heat sensor.

"Oh, sick! Erik she should totally come help us out!" Darcy slammed her hands down on the table, alerting the other nearby patrons. "She's really smart so she can help you with all the sciency stuff, and I'll finally have someone my own age around! It's a win-win!"

And that's how she ended up in the middle of the desert with two total strangers.

A/N: Hello! This is my first attempt at writing a story, so I hope you like it!

If it wasn't obvious, Jane doesn't appear in this universe so there will definitely be some Thor bonding when he comes into the picture, which will be very soon. I intend to write this as a Loki/OC/Vision because I think both of them are darlings, but obviously there's going to be a lotttt of just Loki for a while, so look forward to that!