If Darcy had to list her top five worst ways to die, drowning would have been number four. It was ahead of exposure, but behind burning to death, getting eaten alive—yeah that's right; zombies were not a joke—and torture (her number one because damned if it didn't have a lot of creative options that made her skin crawl). Still, number four was a solid on the Oh Shit meter, and just now Darcy considered moving it higher up on the list as she choked on another mouthful of water. She'd lost the anoma-fuck all that-the Jane-device in her efforts to stay alive already, but the more she fought against the tides and waves the faster she could feel her body failing as energy leached out of every pore. I'm gonna die in a thong, she realized with horror, her choice of undergarments reflecting her previous desire to head to a bar after anomaly hunting. What would her mother think? Hell, what would the coroner think?

For some reason, the idea of some strange person eyeing her undies in a sterile, stainless steel environment gave Darcy the push she needed to burst above another wave and scream for help. It came out a garbled mess, somewhere between "help me" and "please, anybody" and was punctuated by ragged coughing as she choked for air; at best it was probably just a noise, but hopefully a loud enough noise to get attention. She wasn't even sure how far from land she was, but it was the last valiant effort she could make, she knew that much, and if somebody didn't bring a tug boat out soon to save her ass soon she was toast. Darcy thought she heard a motor a few flails later and tried to push her hat further up so she could see, but another wave pressed her down and she gave up that effort when the wet cotton blinded her once more.

The sound of a motor, or some sort of mechanical thing, was growing louder with the second and it reinvigorated Darcy with the hope of rescue. "Over here!" she tried to shout above the roaring waves, spitting out another mouthful of water after.

"Ho there!" Somebody, a man, shouted. "Take my hand!" Easier said than done buddy.

Darcy pushed up at her hat again, freeing one eye just long enough to see fingers dangling a foot away from her face. She reached out to them, missing once and going under with another gulp of sea water, then surfaced with a fit of coughing. More than done with playing in the water though, Darcy strained for the appendage and grasped onto it with both hands, her hat falling down again so that she couldn't see anything as she was dragged up and out of the water, but she did feel the sting when she was unceremoniously dropped into a soaking heap on the floor of the vehicle.

"Twas well I heard your cry." Her hero was saying while she just slumped there trying to catch her breath, her lungs shuddering with every attempt to fill. "What is one so small doing at leisure in these rough waters?"

Darcy tried to talk, choked on water, spit it up, and then tried again. "Huh?" Yep, smooth.

She wasn't entirely sure what her body was trying to do, but Darcy managed to slide forward and flop on the bottom of the vessel—Ship? Boat? Raft? Canoe? Whatever the floating container was that was keeping her head above water—her legs and arms numb and full of jelly apparently. She groaned, decided to stay there for now, and worked instead on moving her hat off of her eyes. It was only when she reached up to do so that she realized her glasses were no longer where they should be. Great. Those were the last freaking pair at Wally world! Aw shit…and my phone… When the cloth rose she found herself staring at legs that could have doubled as tree trunks, the muscles bulging beneath fitted leather pants.

There was a sharp intake of breath, "You're not of Asgard. Who are you? How did you come here? What are you doing in the bay? You will answer!"

"Chill out dude," Darcy croaked, her throat sore from yelling and imbibing just a little too much sea water, "Give a girl a break will ya?" With a little concentrated effort to her arms she managed to push herself up into a sitting position, leaning back against something firm. Her eyes followed the fleshy trunks upward to a slender waist, barrel chest and arms that would make Popeye cry with envy. "Holy crap you're a brick house."

The man, no, the super-buff man with grey eyes and blonde hair went down to one knee so that they were more level, which was nice because Darcy was having a helluva time keeping her head up. She was bone-deep exhausted without even having gotten boned; so not right. He was frowning at her though and she blinked, sure she must have missed him talking.

"Huh?"

"I said I do not understand your words. Answer me: who are you?"

"That would be a half-drowned Darcy B. Lewis, assistant extraordinaire. Sup." She coughed again after talking, but wiggled her fingers at him from where her hands laid lifelessly on the floor.

"Well Lady Darcybeelewis, how have you come to Asgard? Whence do you hail?"

"Whence?" She coughed again, but the last bits of water seemed to have finally come up and her lungs were feeling a little more stable than before. "Who says whence anymore? And Earth buddy, I'm all gooey-earthy goodness."

"Earth?" The muscleman's eyes darted away for a moment and his frown deepened. "I have not heard of this realm."

"Oh yeah—I mean Middle Earth—no wait—Midgard, yeah Midgard's the place."

"A Midgardian!" He rocked back on his heels and eyed her with more than a little suspicion. "How does a Midgardian find herself here, and why the bay?"

Jeeze this guy asked a lot of questions, but he did save her life so Darcy was feeling at least a little amendable in the interrogation department. At least he was answering some of her questions along the way, however inadvertently. Asgard...how in the fresh hell had she ended up here? She was walking in the museum, chatting with Erik one second and then down she goes. Talk about falling down the literal rabbit hole, although since there wasn't any rabbit maybe it was still figurative after all. She'd think about that later.

"Guess I just dropped in for a quick visit," she answered with a lopsided grin because really, she had no other idea how to answer either question, "and felt like a swim. Forgot to bring the floaties though; I'll have to remember that next time."

As a fat drop of water slid into the corner of her eye Darcy reached up and pulled the heavy hat from her head before her arms collapsed again into her lap. Curled, wet hair sat in slick tendrils along her shoulders, and although it was nice to have the water off of her head the chill sinking into her scalp was more immediate than she'd expected. A violent shiver tore through her without permission, but her lumberjack of the sea just watched like she was going to explode at any second, or maybe pop an alien baby out of her chest John Hurt style. That would be a great first impression of Earthy goodness all right.

"Your words make little sense to me Lady Darcybeelewis—"

"Just Darcy, champ." She interrupted, her full name feeling just a tad informal given that she was half-dead on an alien world and certainly not dressed for the occasion.

"Lady Darcy," He gave a curt nod before standing, his eyes still attached her eyes. "We shall make for port and then the nearest guardhouse. Surely your presence here has not gone unnoticed."

Forcing some juice into her arm, Darcy lifted it in the air and gave him a thumb up, "Sounds awesome dude. I'm just gonna—you know—lay here and drip and contemplate life in the meantime." Another shiver ran down her whole body as muscleman nodded again and turned to handle whatever moved this hunk of glorious not water.

By the time they reached the dock Darcy couldn't stop shivering. Her wet clothes were sucking in the cool air and turning her once warm jacket into something closer to a mobile refrigerator. Too bad she wasn't trying to smuggle beers into Asgard, at least they'd stay refreshing and make her plummeting body temperature worth the discomfort. She wondered what time it was anyway—it was tacky to drink before noon—and went to grab her phone then groaned when she remembered it was somewhere at the bottom of lake Thor, along with Jane's homemade anomaly detector…Oh yeah…there would be some wrath rolling in from the astrophysics department when she got home. Hurricane Jane would be a force to reckon with; maybe she could get a diving team together to find the missing electronics before going back? Darcy snickered at the thought of Thor in a wetsuit. Almost died but definitely not dead enough to not appreciate that kind of visual…mmm…muscles.

"Can you stand, Lady Darcy?" Her hero's gruff voice poked through the delicious visualization and she lifted her eyes up to find him staring at her.

Darcy snorted, "Well let's at least give it the old college try."

She made it halfway before gravity reared its ugly head and forced her to falter, the tremors coursing through her making it difficult to do anything with any precision. Luckily, the He-Man who'd pulled her out of the water caught her before she fell. Leaning against his impressive bicep as he steadied her, Darcy could definitely understand how Jane had fallen so head over heels for Thor. There was something more than a little appealing about muscled men with strange accents and leather clothes, and it seemed criminal that even a—was this guy a fisherman or something? Did they eat fish here?—boating dude had chiseled features that could have inspired a second coming of David.

"Thanks Thor-two." She quipped, making it to her feet.

"You know of Thor?" He seemed surprised by the fact, staring at her like she was the alien or something; although, in retrospect, Darcy supposed to him she was. It was his planet after all. That was a funny feeling, being the alien instead of playing host to one. She hoped nobody around here had the equivalent of her taser ready and waiting.

"Well yeah. He's only hooking up with my boss-lady slash sister from another mister, plus we're like, totally drinking buddies now cause Jane can't hold her liquor and Erik—well Erik doesn't do a lot of things anymore ever since that thing I can't talk about. So yeah, I know Thor a little." She was just a tiny bit proud of the fact; after all, how many earth girls got to say they'd had brunch with a demi-god, or god, or…whatever the hell these people were, and that didn't include all the other trouble she got into with him when Jane wasn't looking.

"We must away to the king then." He said abruptly, stepping off the boat thing—which Darcy just realized wasn't even touching the water, but instead floating above it—pulling her along like she weighed all of five-pounds-nothing.

"Wait, what?" Darcy frowned, stumbling after him as they sped walked down the dock towards towering buildings that definitely seemed to be made from gold. Guess they were wrong about El Dorado being a myth. Man Miguel was cute for a cartoon though.

"The All-father has decreed that any who have information concerning the prince be brought forth. No more was shared."

"Whoa, whoa." Darcy shook her head, trying to pull her wrist out of his meathook of a hand. "I just wanna go home buddy. Just take me to Homer, or Himer, or whatever his name is so he can zap me on out of here."

"Heimdall?" Her guide/hero/dude who was trying to take her to the king asked with a frown. "I could not take you even if I wished to." He explained, and Darcy was starting to get a really bad feeling about this whole trip. Maybe she'd just ask him to help her find the hole she'd fallen through instead then. "None but the royal family may approach him unless expressly permitted."

"Well what about the portal thing I fell through. How about we just go find that and you give me a boost huh? No need to bother old King Cole with crap like humans falling from the sky. 'sides, I've really got to get back; I bet Erik and Jane are having joint aneurisms right about now."

"Portal?" The man shook his head, "No, I really must take you to see the king. He will want to know of this portal you speak of."

Way to go Darce, just keep handing him reasons to take you in! "Look dude, I appreciate you fishing me out and all, but I really don't want to meet Thor's dad if it's all the same to you. I'm so not into the whole meeting the parent's thing and the guy wasn't particularly great to Jane from what I've managed to weasel out of her."

"I do apologize Lady Darcy but I could not, in good conscience, allow you to leave my sight without delivering you safely into the hands of my king, as per his royal command."

Well that didn't leave much room for debate, and although it sounded sweet and charming, the threat wasn't exactly hidden between the lines there. As Darcy saw it she could either go along willingly and save herself a little dignity, or she could try to hightail it into the city and hope to hell that she could find some way back on her own. Odin or the unknown? Tough freaking choice.

What would Jane do? Yeah, I have no freaking clue! So channeling her inner Jane was out. Okay, so worst case scenario, Odin killed her for being human or something if she went along; if she ran, then maybe getting killed by their version of cops after a nice display of Asgardian police brutality. Best case scenario he'd just send her right on home and close the pesky portal, or she hid in the city and found somebody else to take her back out into the bay to find the invisible portal and push her back into it. Right…

Darcy sighed then shoved her wet hat into one of her wet pockets, ending her attempt to pull her own arm off against the iron grip of Thor 2.0. "Lead the way Jack."


Author's Note:

Well this one came faster than I thought it would. Not a lot happens so here so I figured I'd go ahead and put it up, especially since I'm trying to keep each chapter under 3k if possible (although knowing me I'm sure I'll be breaking that soon enough). Hopefully there will be a little more meat in the 3rd chapter. I don't want to say I rushed through this one but I kinda sorta did so there may be a few errors I didn't catch on my review of it, and if so: sorry about that.

Oh, also wanted to mention..I've only seen Thor 2 one time, so please excuse any continuity errors since I'm working from memory here and whatever synopsis's of the film I can find online.