Stalling telling people about myself was almost an art by now. For years I've done my best not to actually lie to people, instead getting away with half truths and dodging questions. Normal people didn't want to know if I was a mutant and that I could take care of myself. All they wanted to know was there was nothing special about me unless they can use it. It's what usually makes the world turn. With that knowledge it's easy to notice that generally when I lie, people jump into the lie as if it was just a pool on a hot summer day.

So telling people who you are, after landing a blow on them that has literally taken all of their life away, was new for me. Falling back on telling half-truth's and dodging was easy and comforting. So that's what I did. When they began to ask questions, demand them, I gave them half truths.

And by them, I mean Jane, Darcy, and Eric.

Yes, I do work for S.H.I.E.L.D.

No, I didn't want them to steal your stuff. I'm trying to get it back.

It's all very tedious, and I can only thank the heavens that I had managed to get Thor into the bathroom before they started asking questions. I'd told him that I couldn't tell the exact truth to them, that I didn't have that kind of trust. He hadn't understood, I could see it in his eyes but I also knew that he wouldn't argue on this topic. As much as I had done for Thor, I'd like to think that he really didn't have a right.

Even if I felt extremely bad for lying to these people, it didn't matter. They were human and completely without power, they wouldn't understand what it was like to be a mutant, and to be cast out despite how much you had done for them. So simply telling them that yes I had mutant powers, and that I was trying my hardest right now to get them their things back was enough to appease them. Of course, as an apology I'd offered up the journal, telling them that Thor had grabbed it.

Which had led me to have to tell them about why we were there, and why I had to go in after Thor. I was glad to not have to lie about something. The fact that it seemed to lead to a fight over whether Thor was telling the truth about being well, Thor. It was all so complicated that I just sat back for a moment and let them fight it out with each other. Even I was surprised when Darcy decided to interject with her intelligence for once instead of a quip.

After that they kind of just stood in silence, and that was my moment to slip away from the crazies. My hammock was gone, along with my computer, when I returned to what had once been my room. All of my things were missing, including what had been in the dresser. I assumed it was still waiting for me at the S.H.I.E.L.D. base. I didn't look forward to trying out my next assignment, but I still didn't know what to do about Thor. They wouldn't let him hang around me while I was working, but I had promised the man that I would show him how to function in this realm.

Instead of settling somewhere in the lab, like on the sofa, I pushed the panel in my room down and headed up to the roof via a once hidden set of steps. The steps were the whole reason that I'd chosen this room at all. It seemed like a much better place to hang out then taking long nights with Jane when she went through one of her all-night research moods. Now I used it to escaped everyone else, and get a bit of peace.

Up on the roof there wasn't much of anything, just roofing and off to the side a pit for a fire, logs, and three long sofa chairs that when pushed together could make a bed for someone small enough. It was in these three chairs that I fell, finally letting out a sigh. In a moment I would get up and put some logs down for the fire. For now, I basked in the night.

Now that it was no longer full of clouds, and I could breathe, it was brilliant. The stars were almost from a book with their brightness and the press of darkness in the sky couldn't touch the moon if it tried. I took in a deep breath, and closed my eyes. I was prepared to shut my mind down for the night, ready to just say fuck this and not think for the next few hours. That was until I heard shuffling coming from the stairs. With my front on the chairs, I had to roll over to see Thor as he rose to the roof, staring around him.

"What's up big guy?" I called out, smiling when he turned to look at me with confusion so I clarified. "It means what are you doing?" Wiggling around, I started taking off the jacket that Thor had given me. I'd almost forgotten I had it on. It'd done its job though, and through the heavy down pour, my shirt was still dry. My hair was getting there though I'd not even stopped to notice its sorry state.

"The Lad-" He cut himself off, frowning. "Jane informed me that you had come to rest here." Thor told me, striding over to my bed of chairs and I sat up, all though a little bit reluctantly, to shove one of the last chairs at him so he could sit down. I was short enough at least for the two last chairs to be good enough. As it was, when Thor sat down he almost dwarfed the chair. It made me smile.

"Yeah, S.H.I.E.L.D. kind of took my hammock; I don't like sleeping on beds regularly." I tried to explain, eyeing the wood before sighing and getting up to start the fire. Just the reminder of S.H.I.E.L.D. made my head ache. What had that place even become in my absence?

"I believe now is later?" Thor asked, and I grimaced at the wood in my hands, before dropping the two pieces of wood into the fire pot. "If I am not mistaken, it is also private." I glanced at him and he was serious. My lips quirked unexpectedly into a half-smile. He really was adorable, even when he tried for serious.

Indeed I had told him to wait for later. It might have been easier or more practical to just have told him when we were in the car. There would have been less of a chance of someone over hearing. This kind of thing, talking about it was distracting though, and I didn't fancy wrecking the car or having to sit in silence if he didn't like what I said.

"Yeah, I'm on it." I puffed out, sitting back down beside him. My eyes glanced around out of instinct. I was just looking for the spies that I'm sure Coulson would have sent. Just because I'm pretending to go along with whatever they are trying here, didn't mean that I wanted to be caught unaware. So far it seemed as if they were going to wait because I'd seen no one. And darkness didn't really matter to my eyesight.

"Okay," I took a deep breath, and grinned over at him. "There is a creature here called a wolverine, and the female counterpart is called an Angeline. Mutants, like I've told you about, are usually given names like this to identify them. There's one academy, that's kept under wraps so that people who hate mutants can't find it, that gives you a name once you graduate. Mine is Angeline." I sat backward, setting my weight on my left hand so I could keep Thor's gaze.

He was staring right at me, and listening attentively. It was kind of…refreshing to have someone pay so much attention about something that wasn't orders. I haven't told anyone about my past since Clint Barton and it was hard to do it then. Surprisingly, I found it easier to do it now.

"My brother and I, we've been alive a lot longer than regular humans. My mutant powers are doubled up. Most people only have one power, but not me. My brother and I were twins, we got the same power. The reason we get called Wolverine, and Angeline are because we have claws." I told him, holding out my hands and he looked at them. I could almost see him searching for the claws. It amused me every time I explained it to someone. Granted, usually, my claws came out before my explanation but that didn't make the situation less amusing when it did happen.

"I do not-" He started but I grinned and interrupted him by sliding my claws out. The small spike of pain was almost nothing to me now. It was almost comical how Thor's eyes widened and he sat forward. Okay, the sitting forward part was new. Usually the reaction would have been to lean back. Or to scramble back, but I didn't expect that of Thor, who had obviously seen things others had not.

"They used to be just bones, but a man tricked my brother and myself into getting them coated with a metal from a meteorite. The metal is indestructible once cooled. The metal currently covers every bone, little or small in my body." I told him, snorting and moving my hands so that the palm would be showing, had my hands not been in fists. "A few years back my brother and I saved a lot of people. There was a mutant group led by a man who had been named Magneto, who could control metal. You can see, how being coated in metal could mean we were a bit out of our league. Anyways, we won and that's it. Everyone was putting us up on pedestals, calling us the X-men or something. I was one of the first agents to join S.H.I. . because back then I was floundering for a purpose again." I chuckled at my old self.

Not much had changed; I was really still searching for some place to go because as of right now I didn't have anywhere that I could really call home. Going back to the mansion was an idea, but no one there could handle me. They thought I didn't notice the looks, but I did. And my brother was better off on his own apparently. He had yet to contact me, so I assume my presence would only make him feel worse about himself.

"It is very admirable on Asgard to come out the victor in battle." Thor told me, looking up from my claws and smiling at me. He was actually smiling at me. I'm sitting here with claws coming out of my hand, that could literally slice through him, and he's just smiling at me. "We take our praises where earned, surely you do as well?"

"Um, I'm not quite sure I like the consequences of my winning." I admitted. "The thing about being a hero, that I've noticed, is that if you live through being a hero, then you'll probably live long enough to be the villain." Shifting again, I turned so that I was facing him and then thought better of it. Instead I stood up, my claws still out and carefully racked them together, so that the sparks caught the wood in front of us on fire. It's useful having these things, and I wanted to keep them out for a while, so they wouldn't hurt so much inside my skin.

"That is one theory I have not heard." Thor admitted as I sat back down. Again, he had taken it like it meant nothing. Was this kind of thing regular where he came from? "In Asgard battles are plenty, and a man's first battle is seen as his coming of age." Thor looked almost misty in the eyes as he looked out on the darkened streets. No doubt he was remembering his younger days. "To perish, however, in a battle is seen as the highest way to die, and you should only be sent to Valhalla for it."

"Valhalla?" I questioned, my eyebrows rising of their own accord.

"It is a place of rest for those of the other nine realms. We go there for feasts with our relatives who have pasted on, and-" Thor started to explain but I cut him off before he started going into terms I wasn't going to understand.

"We call that Heaven and Hell here." I told him, amused. It wasn't exactly the same, I'm sure, but it was swell enough for an explanation. "What are all the nine realms?" I quizzed instead.

"There is Midgard, or Earth, Asgard, my home, Muspl-" He went on to tell me them. The names were confusing at best, but I tried to learn them. Most o f them I could compare to somewhere or something that Earth had or made up. I learned that Valhalla was not actually, exactly like heaven, and I learned that not everyone went there. It was actually fascinating to listen to him explain, especially considering I had never been interested in much more then hacking and computer technology.

It was only when Thor began to speak of Johtunheim did it sink in how real it was. There were places like this? There were really dwarves and elves. It made me estatic. Mutants? We were explained away as evolution of the human race, we were part of science. But this? It's wonderful to learn that there was something magical out there, and it can't all be explained. It was frightening to.

As I learned of the realms, somehow Thor also began to explain how his mess came to be. To be banished, must have been horrifying and especially by your own father. The entire story was almost disheartening. I understood why his father did it, and yet I didn't. Thor had just started a war, but surely banishment was too much?

"I understand that it was reckless, to go into battle as you did, and something tells me you realize it now as well." I looked at Thor's dejected and raw, sorrow. "I do not agree with the way that, um, the 'All-father' reacted." Thor looked to me.

"What do you mean?" Thor muttered.

"Well, yes, you did go over to Johtunheim with rage, but I think you had reason to want answers. I'd be angry if someone I knew of as an enemy, who, I'd been brought up to think of as a monster and to hate, suddenly appeared in a place thought to be safe. You said that no one could get into that chamber without guidance from someone who knew it well?" He nodded. "You had good reason to want answers. I'm not defending what you did, because it would have been wiser to wait and let the rage simmer down, but to do nothing? That would be even more reckless. If they snuck in once, what is to stop them from doing it again?"

Thor turned almost pensive and his eyes clashed with my own. Again, I couldn't believe how blue his eyes were. I wasn't very romantic, I couldn't say they were like the sea or a butterflies wings. I knew, simply, that they shined bluer then eyes had any right to shine.

"My brother has always told me I was too reckless." Thor muttered and I blinked.

"Your brother? Tell me about him, you sound fond." I instructed, sitting straight and using a hand to kneed at my back. Incredibly, most of my sleeplessness had gone away, but my back hurt from slumping unconsciously closer to the attentive man before me. I knew no other man that paid attention as well as Thor. Most men were more likely to zone out when a woman spoke to them. It showed how much equality there really was in the world.

"His name is Loki." Thor started, grinning. "He's always been the mischievous of us two. When we were younger we would play pranks. I was never the smartest person, nor did I pretend to be, but Loki was something magnificent with his mind." His wistful smile, no doubt from remembering his brother, turned bitter. "However, most men in Asgard, we are meant for battle. Loki preferred magic. On Asgard it is most common for women to learn it."

"Let me guess, the people didn't take to kindly to him?" I grimaced.

"I never judged him for it." Thor told me, and seemed to be searching for something in the night, not looking at me but only into the darkness. "But yes, the people found it strange. No one seemed to understand him, me included. Soon we no longer had things in common and we were merely brothers of blood, not of bond." He looked down at his hands.

"I understand." I told him, and shifted, before thinking about it, so that I could rest a comforting hand on his shoulder. My claws on that fist shifted to draw back into my fist so I didn't hurt him. "It isn't your fault, people do drift apart even when they don't mean to."

"I regret having not listened to him more." Thor told me, gritting his teeth. "Had I done so, I fear none of this would have happened."

"So, your brother is King, at least," I offered, squeezing his shoulder. "Maybe he can start changing the way people think? It's hardly better here, we still have quite a few problems, but we are working on changing people prejudice here. Loki sounds wonderful, just misunderstood." I offered my opinion. Not that I really should, I don't know this Loki but Thor sounded so sad that his brother was left alone.

"Loki is wonderful; he has done far more than I ever could." Thor agreed. He stretched his fingers out in front of him and I let my hand drop off, my claws sliding naturally if not painfully back out and I sighed stretching my fists out as well.

"I know, being here on earth, has been trying for you and I can't imagine what you are going through, but at least now you know Asgard is taken care of." I grinned. "And at least you got to meet me, which I'm sure is just the highlight of your banishment." I jested, getting up to get another few logs for the fire. The two I had set down before having dwindled down. I dropped, carefully another three in, just to be sure.

"Truly," Thor said, watching me move. "It has been rather pleasant being in your company. You were the only one to believe me when I stated that I was of anther world." He sincerely told me, sitting back to keep looking at me as I sat back down.

"Hey, don't get all sweet on me," I continued to jest, though my cheeks became active at the compliment. "To be truthful, I thought you were insane for a long time there."

"What changed your mind?" Thor questioned, leaning towards me and I swallowed once before licking my lips to answer through a suddenly dry throat.

"Uh," I stuttered. "I just figured that if mutants can be alive, is it too far of a stretch to believe that you did, as well?" Thor grinned, and to my utter fascination his eyes glanced to watch my lips as I spoke. Oh no, he better not. I don't think I could stand it.

Thankfully, or not so, he stayed still.

"I've seen a few things working for S.H.I.E.L.D. that make me twice as likely to believe that you were real. Normal people haven't seen most of what I have." Muttering I looked to the fire before looking back to Thor who was now looking in my eyes again. He must have really loved eye contact. At the reminder of S.H.I.E.L.D. though I could feel my headache coming back. "You should watch out for them, there is no way they are going to let you slip through their fingers."

"I do not understand." Thor muttered and I couldn't help but laugh.

"You are very skilled; they'll want you as one of their own, an agent like me." I explained farther. "I wouldn't suggest it, by the way."

"You are an agent, do you not enjoy it?" Thor inquired.

"It was better back in the day, but now not so much. It's just not my scene any more, I guess. I'm good at action, I can fight but so far they've decided to use me for my intellect and I don't quite enjoy it as much as I should." I responded. "When I first signed up I made a deal with the Director, that I could walk away from my life at S.H.I.E.L.D. any time I wanted and they couldn't call me back. It's a good deal for me and them. They'll always have to worry though, if I will walk off during a mission or something. It was all I asked of them though, and I am an asset."

"You are appreciated, then?" Thor muttered.

"Yeah, I'm very wanted by agencies, or groups of people who want my help. Only my brother and I have the same powers, others don't have these." I clinked my claws together, but didn't cause any sparks with them, not wanting to catch the bedding, or chairs, on fire.

"I believe that you should not stay, if you do not want." Thor objected and my surprise must have been all over my face because he went on. "You would be a female warrior on Asgard, only the second of such to be, and they are very sought after. My friend, Sif, the only female warrior, turns down many offers of being courted. It is a rarity to find a woman who would require no saving, but would truly stand by someone's side." Thor acknowledged and then he grinned, rather un-innocently. It didn't help that I wasn't prepared for it. "Had we met in Asgard I would have tried to court you immediately upon first laying eyes on you."

"What?" I blurted, my cheeks were now practically as hot as the fire, and my brain might as well have been scattered in the ashes before us. I wasn't quite sure how he jumped from female warrior to courtship, but my brain wouldn't be able to tell the difference between a chicken and a duck right now.

"You are very pleasing to look at, but you have heart and brains that I could not hope to challenge. I have never met a woman so interesting in my years." Thor seriously admitted. "I would very much like to court you, but I do not know how one is courted on Midgard." Thor was facing me and I was completely frozen, staring wide eyed and gaping mouth at him.

"Um, dating? You couldn't possibly mean you want to date me?" It rushed out of my mouth.

"Yes?" Thor's eyebrows moved together and he frowned. He didn't know that dating was what courting meant, but I wasn't stupid no matter how much my brain was not working right now.

"I've, I haven't…" I stopped to clear my throat and I retracted my claws so that I could entangle my hands together. "I haven't dated, or um, been courted by someone in a long time. I don't think…." Swallowing was becoming increasingly harder. "Are you sure?"

"Yes." He nodded. "I have much to learn about this world, but I hope I have not overstepped my welcome." Thor moved closer, trying to look me in the eyes, and I realized I'd let my hair fall into my face. It was an old defense mechanism, from when I was seriously still a child.

"Well, I…" My fingers glued themselves together. I was acting like an idiot, but I didn't know how to respond to that. It made me feel like I was a teenager in school with a crush on the big jock. "I'd be open to it, it's just I have no idea…" I cleared my throat. "I'm not very good at this." I flipped my hand in the air, meaning to gesture this entire situation. "To be honest, I didn't even know you were interested. This is a, uh, surprise." I pressed a hand to my flushed cheek.

"There is no need," Thor promised, and I turned to him when he spook, and met his almost gleaming eyes. "For you to feel nervous, I assure you my intentions are honorable." He assured, and his hand reached out and took one of my fidgeting ones. My fingers were almost locked up. My strength meant that if I didn't want him to, he wouldn't have been able to move my fingers.

I let him take my hand and entangle our fingers together, either in shock or caught up in fascination. "It's not that," I blinked and looked up to his handsome features, his eyes fixed on me with rapt attention again. "I know you're honorable, if I know anything about you. I mean we've only spent, maybe a day together, how can you be sure you want to court me?" I questioned instead, my eyebrow furrowing.

"I know." Thor stated, and my mouth twitched up at his confidence. "You have shown a great deal of yourself to me, and I to you. I would think that I know you a great deal, even in this short time."

He wasn't exactly exaggerating. In the short time that Thor and I had known each other, he'd managed to get me to share my mutant powers with him, and to talk about my brother. I don't know how but he's managed it.

"Okay?" I muttered, and slowly my mouth widened into a smile. "I mean, what better way to show you how to be part of Midgard?" I laughed, and he joined me. "I think I can do this." I rubbed a hand over the side of my face. "We'll just have to be patient with each other."

"That would be for the best." Thor told me. "For once in my life, I have no idea what I am supposed to do."

"Well, you'll just have to do what we Midgardians do, just make it up as you go along." I seriously told him, squeezing his hand lightly. "You'll be surprised, how well that will work out." Looking away from him for a moment, I glanced up at the sky. "When I think about it, to me, there is always something that people are arguing about. People want to argue, that there is free will, or that there is a set path. I like to think of both. I think that we have free will, and with that free will there are many ways that we can go about things. I also think that at the end of it, there is a place we will end up. So I just go with what feels right because what is right, that doesn't feel right?" I blathered, and flushed when I met his eyes again.

"You have a great deal of wisdom." Thor told me. I grinned, and licked my lips.

"Right now, my wisdom, is telling me I need sleep. It really has been a long day." I chuckled , glancing down at the makeshift bed we were on. "We'll both have to sleep up here, I don't think we have any more beds."

"This will suffice." Thor jested, his mouth grinning. His grin, or smile, truly was beautiful. "If you do not mind my sharing with you." I laughed and started moving around, shuffling under the covers.

"It's alright." I looked back up at him. "I don't mind sharing with you."

Um? I'd apologize for how long it took but no one really reviewed. I didn't realize until two days ago that fanfiction didn't seem to send out an e-mail for the last chapter? So go check please to see if you read it. That is assuming that it sends out an e-mail for this chapter.

I hope you at least like this chapter.