1. AN APARTMENT IN WASHINGTON, D.C. - AFTERNOON

CLOSE ON someone's lower arm, hanging off the side of a bed. The hand is slack; its small fingers are dangling. On the side of the hand closest to the thumb is a large, fading yellow bruise. Around the wrist is a wide, plain band made of a beautiful gray metal.

In the distance there is the sound of dishes clanking and light, folky music. Bright daylight glints off of the band around the wrist. Then, slowly, the sounds change - to the sounds of glasses clinking, jangly music, and low, murmuring conversation. The light shifts, too - from the bright, cool tones of afternoon to the warm, vivid colors of an evening party. The music shifts again - to a thumping dance mashup of two popular songs. Still the hand dangles there, its owner apparently unconscious. Red and yellow lights pulse across the bangle's reflective surface until, after a moment, they fade. For an instant there is only the distant sound of cars driving down the street below. Then the room becomes brighter - the warm gold of sunlight. It's morning.

2. AN APARTMENT IN WASHINGTON, D.C. - MORNING

DARCY
(O.S.)
Hey.

CUT TO the foot of the bed, where DARCY LEWIS, dressed in a faded Led Zeppelin t-shirt and giant blue sweatpants, is holding a plate of Pop Tarts and scrambled eggs in one hand, and a Stark Industries mug, full of coffee, in the other. Darcy moves to the top of the bed and sits on the edge.

DARCY
C'mon. Wake up.

For the first time we see the bed's resident: JANE FOSTER. Buried under a mountain of blankets, only her face and fan of brown hair are visible. Darcy pulls the blankets away; Jane is still dressed in her Aesir sparring gear, and her feet are still bare. She is covered in dirt and bruises and cuts, including a long red scratch down one cheek. Jane groans irritably, turns, and buries her face in the pillow.

JANE
Go away.

Darcy shrugs amiably.

DARCY
Suit yourself. I mean, I guess I'll just eat all these Pop Tarts by myself.
(sighing wistfully)
Even those abysmal s'mores-flavored ones. God, what a chore.

Jane sharply turns:

JANE
Gimme that.

She grabs the plate from Darcy and begins stuffing food into her mouth. Around a mouth full of eggs, she asks:

JANE
How long have I been out?

Darcy sips gingerly from the mug of coffee.

DARCY
Pretty much since you got here. About two days.

Jane boggles at the thought.

JANE
Two d-
(hesitating)
Your birthday party.

DARCY
(reassuring)
Went off without a hitch.

Jane has a panicked look on her face.

DARCY
(continuing)
Don't worry, noone saw you. You Rip Van Winkeled your way through the whole thing. You missed some really great pigs in blankets, though, if I may say so myself.

JANE
(worried)
You're sure.

DARCY
Of course I'm sure. I made them.

JANE
Darcy.

DARCY
(laughs)
Yes, I'm sure no-one saw you.

Darcy sits back a little, her expression now more serious.

DARCY
You ready to tell me what's going on? You've been holed up here like a refugee. No e-mails, no calls. When you got here, you wouldn't even let me open the blinds. And never mind this -

She gestures at Jane's clothes.

DARCY
(continuing)
- this 'Mad Max' situation you've got going on with your clothes.

Jane finishes the plate, and picks up the last few bits of egg with her fingers.

JANE
I went to Asgard.

DARCY
(rolling her eyes)
Well, yeah, obviously. But then you didn't come back.

Jane sighs.

JANE
Thor and I made it to Valhalla - but when we got there, it was gone.

DARCY
What do you mean, "gone"?

JANE
Gone, gone. The buildings, the people - everything. Only Loki was there. He had...hidden the entire city from Surtur.

DARCY
Sur-

JANE
Giant red demon with a giant red demon army, determined to destroy Asgard.
(beat)
Anyway, Loki defeated him - but he and Thor died in the process. Sort of.

DARCY
(squinting)
Can a god die?

JANE
(firmly)
They're aliens, Darcy - not gods. They can die.
(beat)
The stone I used for the gate device was gone by then. So I stayed with the Aesir and traveled with them - on the run from all the other demons.

Jane slowly gets up as she talks, and finds a pile of questionably clean clothes at the foot of the bed. She starts picking through it.

JANE
Anyway, turns out Loki and Thor weren't dead -

DARCY
(interrupting)
Ha!

JANE
(continuing)
And so we got caught in the middle of a battle between Loki and a woman named Skadi.
(hesitating)
Loki killed her fiance, say, a thousand years ago. So she came back with dragons and basically decimated what was left of Asgard and Vanaheim.

DARCY
(drily)
Dragons.
(beat)
I gotta say, this all sounds very - soap-opera.

JANE
(sighs)
You don't know the half of it.

Jane continues rifling through the pile of clothes. She produces a University of Connecticut t-shirt and a pair of University of Virginia sweatpants.

JANE
(chuckling)
Geez, Darcy, you've got half the ACC in here.

DARCY
Well technically, Connecticut -

Jane shoots Darcy a look.

DARCY
- never mind.
(beat)
So, you were saying, soap-opera?

Jane screws up her face into a grimace, and ducks behind the open door of Darcy's closet to change clothes. From behind the door:

JANE
(mumbling)
I kissed Loki.

DARCY
(sputtering)
Wha- wha- what did you just say?

JANE
(miserably)
You heard me.

DARCY
You cannot be serious. Loki, "you were made to be ruled" Loki? Loki, "kneel before Zod" Loki? Loki, "I just incinerated half of New York", Loki?

Jane groans.

JANE
It's...a long story.

DARCY
(befuddled)
I'll bet.
(beat)
You can't just drop something like that and not explain -

Jane emerges from behind the closet door, her old clothes over one arm.

JANE
Later. I promise. I can't even think about it right now.
(shaking her head)
Tell me how you've been. What's been going on here?

Jane plucks the mug of coffee out of Darcy's hands and drinks from it.

DARCY
Well, after you two left, we waited almost two months before we really started getting worried. That's when we started trying to recreate your device.

JANE
Wait - two months? But I was barely gone that long.

Darcy gives her a solemn look.

DARCY
(quieter)
It's been more than two years, Jane.

JANE
(perplexed)
Two years? Then if I had stayed...

She trails off, deep in thought. Darcy waits a moment, then presses on.

DARCY
(continuing)
Erik and I tried to rebuild what you had made - but we just couldn't. So Erik called an old friend of his - someone he had taught with at Culver. Bruce Banner.

Jane raises both eyebrows, but says nothing.

DARCY
(continuing)
For a while, Bruce and Erik made good progress on the device. But then...SHIELD showed up.

JANE
Oh no.

Jane crosses the room to the bed, and sits down across from Darcy.

DARCY
They told us the project needed to be classified - that they were going to take over the whole thing. They insisted that the device was too dangerous to be "out there" in the world.
(shrugs)
But Bruce had his doubts about SHIELD - he didn't trust them. Or at least he didn't trust all of them. So the night before SHIELD officially took over the Tromsø lab, Bruce and Erik created a fake set of schematics - for a gate that could never be built. Erik smuggled the real designs out - and I came back here.

JANE
Holy cow.

DARCY
(nodding)
Now, I work part-time on the staff of the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology. And the rest of the time, I teach at Culver. Erik and I have lunch most weeks. I see Bruce sometimes, too.
(laughs)
I tell ya, it's one hell of a commute.

JANE
And the designs?

DARCY
Still hidden. But Jane, we gave up on building them. We couldn't do it without you.
(looks down, her voice grave)
We really thought you were gone forever.

JANE
(smiling)
I missed you, Darcy.

DARCY
Right back at ya, weirdo.

Darcy inhales sharply, and smiles.

DARCY
(continuing, dismissively)
Anyway. Enough of this maudlin crap.
Now that you're up, I'm thinking we should go out tonight.

JANE
(reluctantly)
Darcy - I really can't. If SHIELD finds me...

She trails off.

DARCY
Yeah, yeah, SHIELD, I know. You keep saying that, and you won't say why. But as you can you see, I'm not really looking to run into SHIELD either.

Darcy stands up, and takes Jane's plate with her.

DARCY
(continuing)
Look, we won't be walking down the middle of the National Mall or anything. We'll hit a club, have a few drinks, dance a little. It'll be good for you. Who knows - maybe you'll make out with a dude who isn't a genocidal monster.

Jane throws her bundle of Aesir clothes at Darcy, who ducks.

JANE
Oh, shut up.

Darcy grins.

DARCY
I have to go to Culver - I'm teaching a seminar after lunch. See you tonight?

Jane looks distracted, but she nods.

JANE
Yeah, sure. Tonight.