Author's Note- This was a tumblr request by lifelover1989. I hope you enjoy it.
I own nothing from Marvel or Wallander.
That Call at Three in the Morning
Magnus was awoken at 3 a.m. by the buzz of his cell phone. He fumbled for it, irritated at being woken. "Martinsson," he answered blearily.
"Call came in. You need to check it out," the Ystad police dispatcher said.
Magnus groaned. He had no idea how he had managed to piss off Wallander yet again, but this week he had pulled an overnight on-call shift. In the last few nights, he had redirected a herd of sheep that was blocking a major roadway, arrested at least six inebriated men for public urination (one man he had to arrest twice) and, his favorite, took down a report of a home that was covered in toilet paper from a teenage prank. For the last one, he suspected that someone had been renting one too many American comedies from the 80s. He was beyond weary and he very nearly punched Wallander yesterday morning when he asked Magnus how he'd slept.
"Fine. Give me a moment. Let me grab some pen and paper."
Magnus should have had something right by the bedside, but it took him ages to find both pen and paper and he could hear the dispatcher's irritated sighing on the line.
"Okay. Go ahead," Magnus said and wrote down the address that the dispatcher relayed. "And what is this regarding?" Magnus asked, recognizing the rural location. Please don't let it be sheep. Please don't let it be sheep, he thought.
"Some sort of strange object fell from the sky and landed in the farmer's field," the dispatcher said, stifling giggles. "Maybe you'll find baby Superman."
Great, Magnus thought. Everyone's a comedian. "Fine. I'll be right on it," Magnus said sharply. I am going to thrash Wallander tomorrow morning. It'll be worth the suspension.
00000
Thirty minutes later, Magnus arrived at the small farm. He walked up to the front door and knocked. He shifted uncomfortably, waiting for an answer when an older man finally opened the door. He looked as though he had dressed in a hurry with the buttons on his shirt being mismatched and his pants unzipped.
"Hello," Magnus began. "I'm Detective Martinsson. You called the police?"
"Yes. Yes. My wife and I were asleep. We heard a loud explosion and it woke us up. I got dressed and went out to the back field to check on it. Then, I called the station."
"And what exactly did you see?" Magnus asked, not really looking forward to the answer.
"I'll take you 'round back and you can see for yourself," the man replied, shrugging on a coat and brushing past Magnus.
Magnus followed him, glad he had brought a flashlight, although the full moon illuminated the fields enough to make it somewhat unnecessary. "Over there," the man stopped and pointed ahead of him.
Magnus didn't see anything at first through the thick crops until he crept closer and saw a huge crater, at least fifteen meters across and just as deep. The sides of it were still smoking and the heat of the impact had scorched the earth. In the middle of the crater was a large blue-green circular glowing object, about a meter in diameter.
Magnus instinctively drew back. Something felt incredibly wrong about the whole scenario and he heartily wished he had just ignored the call.
"Aren't you going to look closer? Investigate, you know?" the farmer asked earnestly.
Magnus smiled wanly. "Best not. It might be radioactive."
The farmer backed away slowly from the crater in fear. Magnus didn't know whether or not the object was radioactive, but what he did know was that he didn't get paid nearly enough to find out.
He pulled out his phone. "Wallander, you'd better come down here."
00000
After Wallander came to the site and declared it beyond his pay grade also, a flurry of calls were made, each one to a more senior law enforcement official. Wallander put Magnus in charge of cordoning off the site and creating a perimeter. There were a few junior officers there to guard the object, but the Ystad police force was understaffed as it was and they really couldn't pull anyone else from active duty.
Around three in the afternoon, a fleet of black SUVs drove up, all bearing an eagle emblem on them. Wallander groaned loudly next to Magnus.
"Who are they?" Magnus asked, surprised by Wallander's strong reaction.
"S.H.I.E.L.D. Great. That's just great. Make sure you hide your phone," Wallander said bitterly.
"My phone?" Magnus asked.
"They swoop in and confiscate everything. Last time I had a run-in with them, they took my phone and Linda's IPOD that I had borrowed."
"What kind of jurisdiction do they have?" Magnus asked as he watched dozens of agents stream out of the vehicles.
"They started out as a secret American organization, but they've branched out. Remember that whole business in New York last year? That was them. Well, sort of," Wallander said, scratching his chin.
"If they're a secret organization, why is their emblem emblazoned on their cars?"
"You're trying to find logical consistency in a large bureaucratic organization? Has being a police officer taught you nothing?" Wallander asked with a smile.
Magnus straightened when he say one of the agents walking towards him. She was about average height for a woman, maybe 20 centimeters shorter than himself, wearing black jeans that looked liked they were painted on, a low cut white buttoned down shirt with a black denim jacket over it. Her hair was a cascade of dark, tousled curls. Smokey eyeliner highlighted her intense blue eyes.
She smiled as she approached and Magnus noticed that the rest of the agents fanned out behind her in V formation. It was clear that she was the commanding officer of their operation.
"Hi, Agent Darcy Lewis of S.H.I.E.L.D." she said, "Who's in charge here?"
"That'd be me," Kurt said, holding out his hand. "I'm Detective Kurt Wallander."
She shook his hand. "Now, Detective Wallander, given the unusual nature of this situation, I think it's best if S.H.I.E.L.D. takes over from here, don't you?" Although phrased as a request, Magnus could tell that she wasn't going to take no for an answer.
Wallander looked as though he was going to object, but then slowly nodded. Magnus agreed with him. Let someone else deal with this mess and the resulting paperwork that would surely follow.
"Wonderful. Now, who was your responding officer?" Agent Lewis asked.
"That would be me. I'm Detective Magnus Martinsson," Magnus said as he stepped forward to shake the woman's hand.
Her eyes narrowed as she shook his hand. "Do I know you from somewhere? You look really, really familiar," she said.
Magnus looked at her intently. To be honest, he hadn't seen anyone who even faintly resembled her outside of the airbrushed photographs of a men's magazine. "No," he said, shaking his head, "I'm sure I'd remember you." Magnus noticed that she was still holding onto his hand.
She looked down and abruptly let go of him. "Sorry, you just look so familiar."
"Uh," Wallander started, interrupting their conversation, "if it's alright with you, I'll pull my men from the site and let you secure it. Our department can't really afford to expend this kind of resources."
"Oh, fine, fine," Agent Lewis said airily, staring intently at Magnus. "But I'm going to keep this tall drink of water here. He can give me a rundown on how he found the scene."
Wallander looked over at Magnus and Magnus nodded enthusiastically. After a week of horrible night duty, maybe something good would come of it.
Wallander collected the rest of the local police officers and handed the scene over to the S.H.I.E.L.D agents who began to unpack various technological devices. Agent Lewis smiled over at him and began talking rapidly, "I'm so glad you speak English. My Swedish is limited to Ikea. I know some Spanish though. Lived out in New Mexico for a while. It came in handy. Do you know that Puente Antiguo means Ancient Bridge? It's actually really funny because . . ." her voice trailed off. "I guess you had to be there. Are you sure you've never been to New Mexico?"
"No, never been to the States," Magnus said. Although if you're a representative of the women there, more's the pity, Magnus thought as he discreetly checked her out.
"So, tell me what happened when you got here," she asked as they neared the crater.
"Well, the farmer that owned these fields directed me to the crater in back. I saw the impact that it made and the object inside and called it in."
She leaned over and peered at the object in the crater. "Yep, it appears to be extraterrestrial in origin."
"How can you tell?" Magnus asked.
"Well, it's so shiny," she replied. She waited a beat and giggled. "I take it you're not a Buffy fan."
"Buffy?" Magnus asked, feeling confused.
"Give me a second. I've got to call this in," she said as she whipped out her phone and dialed a number. "Hey, Coulson, looks like we've got a 084. Yep, it's all glowy. I'll have the tech guys dig it out and run analysis on it. I know, I know. I wish they'd keep their crap in their own realm."
She turned back to Magnus. "I'll have my guys haul it out of the crater and then we'll be out of your hair."
Magnus felt a bit crestfallen at that. He really didn't want her to go.
"Okay, guys, Coulson wants us to dig it up, box it up and take it back to the lab for analysis. Let's get going. We're burning daylight," she said to her fellow agents.
A few of the operatives in dark suits advanced on the object. All of a sudden, it was as if they had hit an invisible wall and one agent was thrown back several feet.
Magnus and Agent Lewis both ran to the fallen operative who lay blinking, but alert on the ground.
"Are you okay, Agent Johnson?" Agent Lewis asked breathlessly, hovering over him.
"I'm fine . . . I'm fine. Just got the wind knocked out of me," as he struggled to sit up and then gave up, lying back down.
"Agent Rodriguez," she said to a nearby agent, "Please drive Agent Johnson to the nearest hospital to get checked out."
"No. No hospitals," Agent Johnson said harshly as he lied on the ground.
"Yes, . . . . yes hospitals," Agent Lewis replied firmly. "Do you know the amount of paperwork that I have to fill out if you end up dying on me? Swedish hospitals are nice, right, Detective Martinsson?" she said, giving Magnus a pointed look.
"Yes, yes, very nice. They'll take excellent care of you," Magnus chimed in for lack of anything else to say.
"Fine, fine," he said and allowed Magnus and Agent Rodriguez to help him to the SUV.
Once they drove off, Agent Lewis turned to him and beamed. "Thank you so much for that. They can be so hard to convince to go to the hospital."
She took a deep breath and pulled out her phone once again. "Hi, Coulson, it's me again. Another forcefield. Yep. The last one took at least 48 hours to dissipate. I'll leave a contingent here to guard it until it comes down of its own accord and then we'll have to dig it out then."
She walked over to the rest of the agents encircling the object, eyeing it warily. "Okay guys, we need to split up into 3 eight hour shifts to guard that thing. Agent Kwon," she said, pointing to a short dark-haired agent with a ponytail, "you coordinate the teams. Make sure they're fair. I don't want the same people pulling the graveyard shift again and again. I'll be back for the eleven p.m. to seven a.m. shift."
Agent Kwon nodded and the rest of the agents surrounded her to divvy up their shifts.
"Okay, Detective Martinsson, you're free to go if you'd like," Agent Lewis said.
"So, you're staying around Ystad for a while?" he asked.
"Well, the object's been here at least twelve hours so far, right?" she asked.
"Yes," he replied.
"Well, in the past, these force fields usually dissipate after two days. So we've got at least another 36 hours, maybe more."
"Force fields?" he asked, hesitantly.
"Yeah, well, I can pretend to understand the science, but it'd be a lie. The best guess is the force field allows the object to travel through the Yggdrasil without burning up."
"The what?" Magnus asked, completely confused.
"I have an idea. You're off-duty, right?" she asked.
"I . . . I guess so." Magnus doubted he needed to return to work today.
"Great. Take me out to coffee and I'll tell you all about it," she said with a grin.
0000
"Thor, the actual Thor?" Magnus asked Darcy, in disbelief. Each story she told him was more outlandish than the last, yet she had the photographic evidence to back it up right there on her phone, a Facebook photo of a man eating breakfast and the same man in another photo fighting the alien invaders in New York.
"I know . . . crazy, isn't it?" she said, beaming. Coffee had progressed to a walk around the center of Ystad and then to dinner.
"And you tased him?"
"Totally . . . . I'm a badass with a taser," she said proudly.
"Were you a part of S.H.I.E.L.D. then?" he asked, a bit confused on the timeline.
"No, that happened later. I was working as an intern for an astrophysicist. She eventually got hired by S.H.I.E.L.D. and I kind of tagged along," she said.
"So, your background is in astrophysics?" Magnus asked.
"No, political science. But, I'm a woman of many talents," she said as she sipped her wine.
"I'm beginning to see," he said as his gaze lingered on her.
"So, what about you? Always wanted to be a cop? Gave parking tickets to your friends in primary school? Handcuffed your little brother to the radiator? Imprisoned all your stuffed animals?" she asked.
Magnus shook his head. "I sort of fell into it, I guess. It's just a bit hard, you know, in a small department."
"How so?" Darcy asked.
"Well, you have to do a bit of everything. There's no specialization. One week, you're running down stolen cars, the next week, it's drug trafficking. No one in the department can work anything more advanced than a Commodore 64, so I get stuck doing all the IT work on top of all the more menial tasks, since I'm the most junior member."
"Wow, I don't know if I've ever met someone quite so . . . . frustrated before. Have you ever considered a career change?" Darcy asked him, leaning in a bit.
"To what? Jobs in law enforcement are scarce here," Magnus sighed, running a hand through his golden curls.
"Have you ever thought of working abroad?" she asked lightly.
"Where?" Magnus asked, bewildered.
"Ugh," she said, rolling her eyes. "S.H.I.E.L.D. I'm asking you to join S.H.I.E.L.D. So much for being subtle."
"Oh . . . oh," Magnus said, eyes wide. He'd never even heard of S.H.I.E.L.D. until today. "I don't know, maybe."
"See, I knew I could poach you. You'll love it. I bet it pays at least double what you get now."
Magnus smiled. Getting paid double would be a welcome change. "What's it like, working for S.H.I.E.L.D.?
"Amazing. You'll see things you'll never believe! And, of course, work with the most amazing people you'll ever meet," she said with a wink.
"Where do I sign up?" Magnus asked eagerly.
"Down, boy," she grinned. "I'll get you set up with the paperwork in the morning."
"Will I . . . would we be working on the same team?" he asked, tentatively.
"Oh, honey, that's the only reason I'm recruiting you."
Magnus smiled. Not all calls at 3 a.m. were a bad thing.