Max sighed loudly, and then locked her cash register. For some ridiculous reason, there were six people working at the bookstore that night, she and Loki included, and they had maybe seen ten students stroll through over the course of her whole shift.

She wasn't really sure what her manager was doing lately, but she was definitely overbooking people on nights where two or three would have done it. Whatever. It wasn't her issue. However, that did mean she was fairly bored for a few hours at night, and she spent the majority of her time wishing she was back home on the couch. Instead, she and another woman named Greta were stuck behind cash registers near the front of the store, glaring at all the people that passed. St. Judith's usually hosted a Thanksgiving dinner the Thursday before the real Thanksgiving as a way for all the students to celebrate with their friends before flocking home for real food. They hosted it in the food court with tables pushed together and genuine stuffing; Max could hear the commotion two floors above, and if she couldn't be at home on the couch, she would have rather been up there with a good portion of the student body.

It was nearly time to go home, and Max had just come to the point of acceptance today in regards to Loki coming with her. She was fairly sure her parents were going to embarrass her at some point, Loki was going to see stupid childhood pictures scattered around the house, and they were all going to eat some really good food. It was kind of her mom to invite her roommate home for the weekend, but it put Max on edge. With all those pesky feelings floating around, she knew she was going to spend the weekend feeling defensive of herself and her stuff, and she would essentially have to babysit Loki until they returned on Monday. After all, where was he going to go at her house when she needed to cool down and let her feelings dissipate? Would he sit with her Dad and watch football in the afternoon? The whole thing seemed kind of off-putting, but she tried really hard this week to think positive thoughts about the impending doom.

It was going to be fun. Loki and Max usually had fun together, so this weekend shouldn't be any different. Yup. That had to be her story, or she was going to spend way too much time being nervous about everything.

At this point, the week had essentially wound down. Yes, there was still another day left, technically speaking, that everyone had classes, but from experience Max knew the majority of the students wrote Friday off as a day of travel to get back home. She planned to go to the class where she had to be a TA, as it was more of a job than anything, and then come home to pack a bag. She wasn't even sure if Loki would go to class tomorrow, as a number of students had already told him it wasn't worth it since no one else would be there. At this point, Max stopped caring if he went to class or not. He had been so much better lately with his attendance that if he wanted to skip a few here and there so that they could start their drive tomorrow afternoon, Max wasn't about to stop him.

She shot Greta a small smile as she popped around her cash station, and then told her she was just going back to speak with Melissa for a bit. The woman nodded in response, but quickly resumed texting as soon as she thought Max had left. Rolling her eyes, Max drifted back through the familiar store, and caught sight of Loki reading in the astronomy shelves of his section, forehead creased in concentration. His hair no longer looked quite so short after it had a week to sort itself out, but he professed to get a bit more unwanted attention from the undergraduate girls in his class now that he was without his ponytail.

Max carried on to the Information Desk near the rear of the store, the place where Melissa usually spent the majority of her time when they were open doing whatever it is she did during the day. The older woman glanced up as she approached, and then lifted her glasses up to rest atop her head.

"Hey, is everything okay?" she asked, genuinely concerned to see Max approach.

"Oh, yeah, yeah, totally fine," Max insisted as she leaned against the oval desk. She fidgeted a little with her nametag as she spoke, and then proceeded to playing with the pen in her hair, "So, I just wanted to make sure we were still good for this weekend… Loki and I will be back Monday night, and then we're back to work Tuesday."

"I wanted to talk to him about that, actually," Melissa sighed, clicking on something on her computer, eyes scanning whatever it was as the screen brightened. "I think I'd like him to stay back and help out around the store. I think we're going to need him…"

Max frowned, and then resisted the urge to gesture back dramatically to the completely empty store behind her. However, she knew she couldn't take that kind of approach with her manager. Even though she had been working with the woman for a few years, there were always times when she had to tread carefully: booking vacation time off was one of them.

"Are you sure you can't find someone else who isn't going somewhere for Thanksgiving?" Max asked carefully, trying her best to appear polite and concerned at the same time. "I mean, it's just that it's his first American Thanksgiving, and my mom really wants to pull out all the stops. He's been really excited for it."

Sort of true; Loki was actually quite excited to get away from Masonville for a weekend, even if that meant going just a couple towns over. She guessed that he, like almost everyone, was feeling a bit burnt out at this point, and having a couple of days to not think about school, work, or anything in-between was a blessing.

"I know, and I feel really bad about that," Melissa continued, though Max could tell by the tone of her voice that she did not feel bad one bit. "But I was thinking I might show him how to work a cash register this weekend…"

"Right, well…" Max trailed off, floundering for an excuse. Melissa had already given him the time off, but it wasn't a law that she couldn't retract what she promised and book them in for shifts anyway. Or… well, Max assumed it wasn't, or there would be a lot of former employers getting an earful. A thought suddenly came to her, and while she knew Loki would absolutely hate her for it, she figured this might get him some time off.

"Maybe I'll go find him-"

"Look, Melissa," Max said quickly, catching the woman before she drifted back into the store to find Loki… not doing his job. "Don't tell him I told you, but he's got a bit of a crush on you."

The woman blinked at her, and Max saw the slightest of tints appear on her cheeks, "Really?"

"He's kind of embarrassed about it, and can get super shy around you," Max carried on, not all that sure where she was going as the words flew out of her mouth, "and he really wanted to go away this weekend, but he's been too nervous to talk to you directly about it."

"Oh, I…"

"So, if you make him stay, I think he'll be a bit upset, but he won't have the nerve to say anything," she continued, hoping to come to some sort of roundabout way that this would all make sense. "I think he'd really appreciate it if you gave him the time away. He was talking about bringing back some pumpkin pie to eat at work, and I'm pretty sure he meant to bring it in for you."

"Wow, I had no idea," Melissa breathed, leaning forward on the counter so that they could speak in softer tones. "He always seems so annoyed whenever he's here."

"Yeah, well," Max chuckled as she shrugged her shoulders, "that's what he's like when he's nervous."

"Huh."

"Yeah."

"You know, I always thought he had a thing for you," Melissa muttered as she fixed her ponytail. Max bit the insides of her cheeks to keep from commenting on it, and decided it would be best to ignore the comment for now.

"So, do you… still want him to stay?" she asked nonchalantly, "Because I can go tell him-"

"No, no, he can have his Thanksgiving," Melissa insisted, grinning shamelessly as she resumed typing something into her computer, "but make sure he brings me a good piece of pie back."

"Oh, yeah, totally," Max managed, resisting the urge to give her manager a thumbs-up as she backed away from the Information Desk. Once she was in the clear, she hurried across the store and found Loki in the same spot he had been before: seated on a stool, back against one bookshelf, and long legs stretched up across on the other bookshelf, an astronomy textbook in his hands. He straightened up a little when he heard her coming, and then settled back down when he saw who it was.

"I thought you were an actual customer," he droned as she approached. "They are sometimes known to venture into these parts, though it's fairly rare."

"The accent is actually terrible," Max told him, quirking an eyebrow when he tried to flip the Australian on. They been watching way too much of Natural Geographic lately, and Loki had this ridiculous habit of trying to mimic accents whenever he found one that made him laugh.

"Greta liked it."

"Greta will like anything if it means people will leave her alone so she can play on her phone," she insisted as she leaned against the shelf across from him, shoving his feet off in the process. "So, I did something."

His eyes flickered up to her, and he slowly closed the book when she made a face. Setting the tome aside, Loki raised an eyebrow at her, "What?"

"I may or may not have told Melissa you have a crush on her so she wouldn't keep you here this weekend."

The sentence came out in a whirl, and Loki blinked up at her a few times, as though digesting what she had just said, and then glared.

"You what?"

"It seemed logical at the time," she whispered as he stood up and dragged her down to the end of the aisle. "She was going to make you stay, and probably you alone, to learn how to use the cash register."

"Are you trying to ruin my life?" he demanded heatedly. "That woman does not need encouragement."

Fuck, he was so good looking when he was irritated. Not a good thing.

"Whatever, it worked," Max told him quickly. "You don't have to stay… You just need to bring her a piece of pie back from the weekend."

"I really do hate you sometimes."

"See, when you say that, I know you mean you are really thankful I've got your back," she clarified with a grin, and then poked him sharply in the chest when he rolled his eyes. "I could have left you here with her all weekend, just the two of you and the cash register, but I totally saved your ass."

"All right, all right," he grumbled, rubbing the spot where she had stabbed him with her nail. "Easy."

"So, working hard back here then?" she asked after a moment or so of simply staring at each other in the empty aisle.

"I actually found the most interesting book on space travel," he mused as he plucked a piece of lint from her black sweater. "Do you think there is life beyond this planet?"

"That's a deep question for a Thursday night," Max laughed, turning away when he went for another piece on her that she knew wasn't there. "Uhm, I don't know. I haven't seen much proof that there's life outside of Earth."

"Oh?"

"Wait, no," she said suddenly, recalling a news story from a few years ago that had caught her attention, "I remember there was an alien down in Arizona… Thir? Thor? Thor. They did a big story on him this year after people caught him on video in New York."

She glanced back after a very long moment of silence from her roommate, and saw him staring at the ground, his cheeks sucked in a little.

"Did you watch it?"

"The video? No," she admitted with a shrug. "Ben was really into it at the time, but I think I was more focused on exams than the shit happening in Manhattan."

"So you didn't see any of it?" he inquired.

"Nope."

"None of it?"

"I dunno, maybe I watched a video on Youtube at some point," Max muttered as she flipped through the text that Loki had discarded. "Did you see it?" She looked back again when he didn't answer immediately, and he quickly shook his head. Max shrugged, "So yeah, I don't know what that means for life outside of Earth… I'm sure we aren't the only planet that has the ability to sustain life."

"Such an academic mind," Loki sighed, nudging her out of the way to pick up the book again. "Your insight always astounds me."

"Fuck off, Captain Sarcasm," she chuckled. She then took a seat on the forgotten stool, legs splayed out in front of her, shoulders slumped. "Well, what's your opinion on life beyond Earth?"

"Oh, without question," he remarked. "There are many worlds outside of this one."

"Oh yeah?" Max challenged, raising her eyebrows, "Name them."

"No."

"That means you can't think of any," she snorted, grinning up at him as he shoved the textbook back in its proper place.

"I can think of many, actually."

"Well, go on," Max laughed, nudging his leg with her fist. "Give me one."

"I…"

He trailed off at the sound of heels approaching, and Max was quickly on her feet when Melissa rounded the corner and into their aisle. She came with a mop and bucket in hand, which was never a good sign, and Max suddenly braced herself for the onslaught.

"Someone puked in the bathroom," she informed them, holding out the mop. "Guess the turkey upstairs wasn't sitting well… They just missed the toilet."

"Awesome," Max muttered, wrinkling her nose a little at the thought. Loki seemed to share the sentiment, but he remained silent at her side, his gaze fixated on the mop.

"So, any volunteers?" Melissa offered, raising her eyebrows at both of them.

"Nope," Max said quickly. "I should get back to my till."

"Everybody else is on break," she heard Melissa say apologetically, followed shortly by Loki's rather strained response as she strolled out of the aisle.

She hurried back to her cash register to make her excuse seem a little more legitimate, and she spotted Loki stalking out across the store a few minutes later. She smirked at him as he glared at the offending bathroom door, and then leaned across the counter at her register, "Lookin' good with that mop."

He paused briefly to shoot her a malicious look, and then carried on without another word as she snorted noisily. It seemed Greta was also on break, which meant she had the run of the front of the store for the next half hour. They had another hour or so to go until they could close the doors to the bookstore, and Max predicted not a single soul strolling during that timeframe.

Loki resurfaced almost violently from the bathroom a minute or so later with his shirt pulled up over his nose, and he leaned back against the wall nearby, eyes closed. Max smirked as she watched, and could only imagine just how horrible their single bathroom smelled now that vomit had been festering for… well, who knows how long. She wanted to feel bad for Loki, but seeing as she had worked just about every crummy job available to her during her teen years, she had already had her fair share of disgusting bathrooms and vomit to clean; it was Loki's time to shine.

"Yum," Max called. She then nodded toward the bathroom door when he narrowed his eyes at her from across the way, the distance just far enough that she had to raise her voice. "That seems like a good time."

"I will end you," Loki threatened, grasping the doorknob a little dramatically, tucking his shirt back over his nose, and disappearing back inside.

"Make sure to spray some air freshener when you're done," Max shouted quickly as the door slammed shut behind him. She then snorted and settled back onto a nearby black stool, legs just grazing the floor as she fiddled around with her cash drawer for a while. Seeing as she did not expect to get any more customers for the night, she commenced counting down her float.

However, she may have been a little too hasty, and actually flinched noticeably when someone cleared their throat in front of her counter. Thankfully, it was a familiar face smiling down at her, and she let out a sigh of relief as she shut her register noisily.

"Happy early Thanksgiving," Ben greeted, dressed to the nines in a dress shirt, green tie, and dark fitted slacks. His hair even looked combed. He then produced a small plate from behind his back, which was loaded with her favourite stuffing and gravy, followed shortly by a turkey stuffed animal. "I won the raffle this year."

"Well, aren't you just a gift-giver," Max chuckled as she pulled the plate toward her, eyeing the stuffed animal a little warily. "He's cute. You should make him your house mascot."

"We've already got Harriet," he admitted as he shoved his hands into his pockets. "I think she might get jealous."

"The rat that occasionally lives under your patio does not count as a mascot," she told him playfully as she stabbed at some fat pieces of stuffing with the purple plastic fork. "How did you know I'd be working?"

"You told me, remember?" Ben remarked as she tried some of his gift. She moaned softly as soon as the deliciousness touched the first taste bud, and his smile grew exponentially at her appreciative noises. "I figured you would be a little upset to miss the dinner again, so I saved you a plate of stuffing."

"Thoughtful," Max commended as she chewed. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Loki stagger out of the bathroom again, mop and bucket in hand, and she tried really hard to keep her attention on Ben. "So, are you going home this year?"

"I'm volunteering at the shelter tomorrow and Saturday night, but then my sister is going to pick me up Sunday for dinner," he explained. "You?"

"Yeah, my mom sort of forced me," she sighed, and then scooped another forkful of stuffing in her mouth, "and then invited Loki too. So… I sort of have to go now."

"Oh…" He trailed off suddenly, and then drummed his fingers on the counter, seemingly more fidgety than usual. "Well…"

"Yeah, I'd rather stay," Max rambled on when she felt the awkward start to build in the air, "but you know… when Mom wants something, she tends to get it."

"Yeah, I guess."

She winced when she remembered Ben's parents divorced a few years ago, and he hadn't actually seen or heard from his mom since.

"Do you want some stuffing?" she asked quickly, holding up the plate for him to see that she was offering him some of the best bits with gravy. He shook his head.

"No, I think I'm all stuffing-ed out for tonight," he insisted. "I should… I should get going. I don't want to get you in trouble."

"Yeah, my manager's really in a mood tonight," Max lied, hoping he didn't notice the completely empty store and no manager in sight. "I'll see you tomorrow for class?"

"Sounds good," Ben said, tapping the counter twice before turning away. She watched him hurry out of the store, and then slumped back down on her stool, shoveling the rest of the stuffing into her mouth. She thought they might have gotten over their occasional awkward moments after Halloween, but apparently that was going to take some time.

Still, it was kind of sweet that he brought her something down. Unexpected and sweet. However, she definitely didn't need the turkey stuffed toy, but for some reason or another hid it when Greta returned from break. Time crawled by after Ben left, and now that she was confined to her cash when two random girls decided to peruse the small fiction section nearby, the boredom was pretty overwhelming. Eventually, Melissa shut the doors for the night, and Max drifted to the back room with Greta to count their tills. Over the course of her shift, she sold three things, and somehow was off four dollars. However, it could have been worse, and Melissa didn't mind if they were over or under, so long as it wasn't more than ten dollars. Therefore, she was in the clear. After both she and Greta counted each other's floats, Max hurried back to her register and grabbed the turkey, which was currently hanging out beneath the counter, and then decided to wait for Loki in the change room.

He eventually strolled in about twenty minutes later, well after everyone had already left, and Max glanced up at him from her bench. She had wasted the time away playing games on her phone, her puffy winter jacket making her sweat a little. He seemed to have recovered from the vomit incident, but there was still a scowl on his lips.

"She made me tell her all about my Thanksgiving plans," he grumbled as he retrieved his jacket from his locker. "I'll never hear the end of it now… You've doomed me."

"Oh, you'll be fine," Max sighed, rolling her eyes a little as she shoved her phone in her pocket. "Let's go… The Hell's Kitchen season finale is on tonight."

"Joy."

"Hey, you know you want to see who wins just as much as I do."

He merely grunted in response, and Max frowned a little; was he actually upset with her for what she did with Melissa? Maybe the events of the night simply took a toll on his sanity, and she followed him out the back exit in silence. They walked next to one another through the cold toward her car, and halfway there Loki glanced down at her.

"What is that?"

"Oh," she held up the plush toy for him to see. "Ben won it and… gave it to me."

She heard him chuckle softly, "How gallant."

"You need to stop teasing him," Max ordered as they approached her car.

He said nothing on the matter, and instead waited for her to unlock the vehicle in silence. Once she did, he threw his bag in the back, and Max set the turkey stuffy in the rear window, just in case Ben was ever in her car. However, just as she was about to get in, she caught sight of Loki's irritated gaze once more, and she offered him something she quickly realized she might regret.

"Hey," she started, forcing him to stop just as he was about to slide. "Do you… Do you want to drive the car home?"

She almost cringed when the words left her lips, because Loki lit up like a bunch of obnoxious Christmas lights. He slammed the door shut and hurried over to her side, slipping a little on a patch of nearby ice.

"Yes, yes I would like that very much," he breathed, tugging at the keys dangling from her hands.

"Because, I mean, I did say I would teach you," she said slowly, a little hesitant to let go of her keychain. It was more like she was justifying the action to herself than to him; he just looked so happy all of a sudden. "You have driven a car before, right?"

"Something like that."

"Okay, well," she sighed as she finally released the keys. "We'll go really slow… There shouldn't be many people on the roads, but if the ice throws you, we'll switch."

"Excellent."

He almost bounced into the front seat once she moved out of the way, and Max hurried around to the other side. Once in, she immediately latched herself in with the seatbelt, and then snapped for Loki to do the same.

"Okay, so the first thing you do is check your mirrors," she told him, only vaguely remembering what she had learned almost ten years ago in her driver's education class. "You need to be able to see through the back and out the sides… You know, maybe we shouldn't do this at night."

"It's fine, Max," Loki stated as he shifted the mirror around in front of him. "You really don't need to panic. I'm sure this is perfectly simple."

Max shot him a look as he turned the key in the ignition, her trusty old car humming to life.

"So, gas on the right, brakes on the left," she instructed. "You don't need to push hard… a light tap will do. We're going to stick to about thirty for you tonight."

Was this a bad idea? After all, he hadn't driven a car before, and there she was getting him to drive at night with icy roads; she was a horrible influence. Max clutched the seatbelt across her chest as the car lurched forward, and Loki gave something of a pleasant laugh at the car's response.

"Gentle taps," she reminded him as she tried to loosen the seatbelt's death grip on her. "There we go… Now, turn the wheel slowly and fully. Make sure you stop at the stop signs-"

"Max, I'm not a complete simpleton," Loki insisted as he brought the car to a smooth stop at the edge of the parking lot, glancing in both directions before heading out into the actual road. "I may not have driven before, but I've been watching you for weeks now. I'm a fast learner."

"And modest at that," Max muttered, wincing a little when they swerved into the other lane. "Just… look far ahead, and try to stay in our lane."

"But there isn't anyone on the road."

"I know, but we have…." She reached over and turned the wheel sharply to keep him from drifting, "We have to obey most rules even if there isn't anyone around. Most of the time. Stay straight."

Max wasn't really all that sure if she should be surprised that Loki was a fairly decent driver. Yes, he drifted, and he wasn't the greatest at keeping his speed at one level, but that could all be worked on. The ride was mercifully short, less than ten minutes, and Loki soon had the car rolling into their familiar parking lot. He managed to get the car in a parking spot without much difficulty, but doing it in an empty lot with no other cars around was bound to make it look easy.

"Okay, so that… That wasn't terrible," Max admitted once he finally turned the car off. There was still a lot of tension in her body as she sat there, and she let out a breath she hadn't realized she had been holding. "We can try some more driving on the country roads tomorrow when it's actually daytime… There are some gravel shoulders I can throw you on."

"Sounds exciting."

"Actually, let me think about it," Max said quickly when she saw his enthusiasm grow. "No promises."

He shot her a bit of a lopsided grin, and she rolled her eyes: men and their machines. Max pushed the passenger door open and clambered out, and then let out a bit of a shout when she stepped into an icy, yet half-melted, puddle. It soaked right through her shoes and ate into her socks, the frigid water chilling her immediately.

"Fan-fucking-tastic," Max grumbled, shaking her feet as she climbed out of the wet mess.

"What did you do?"

"I stepped in a puddle," she whined, glaring at Loki as he strolled around the car. It was his fault for picking such a stupid parking spot.

"Well," he chuckled, glancing down at her feet as he shoved her keys into her hand, "allow me a moment to be gallant then."

She arched an eyebrow when he turned back and crouched down.

"But my feet are already wet," she protested weakly.

"Just get on, will you? I look ridiculous."

She bit back her smirk as she hopped up onto his back, wrapping her legs carefully around his torso and her arms loosely around his neck. Most of the time Max wasn't a fan of letting people carry her, since she always worried about being too heavy. However, he barely made a sound when he readjusted her to his comfort.

"Oh, your bag," she protested, recalling that it was still in the backseat.

"I don't need it," he told her softly. "Nothing in there that I really need tonight."

She nodded, and then swallowed as they carried on toward the apartment building. Against her better judgement, she let herself lean in a little, her chin resting against the side of his head as he walked. When he said nothing of it, Max wrapped her arms a little more snugly around him, and smiled when he slipped his hands beneath her kneecaps, holding her until they reached the front door. They stood there staring at it for a moment, and Max finally shifted enough to wiggle her keys from her pocket. Loki then leaned down just low enough so that she could jam the proper key in the lock, and soon enough for they were inside, where he promptly set her down.

It was difficult to hide the soft smile from her lips as she kicked off her shoes and dragged off her sodden socks. She wanted to see if Loki had the same smile, as she suspected her might, but he faced away from her as he removed his jacket and boots. So, Max opted to let it be for now – why ruin the moment? She hurried back to her room, glancing at the clock over the stove along the way, and quickly changed into her comfortable sweats for her Hell's Kitchen finale that started in less than four minutes.

When she returned to the living room, Loki already had the TV on to the proper station, and she grinned as she threw a bag of popcorn in the microwave.

"It's starting."

"I can watch from the kitchen, you know," Max told him as she leaned against the island. "It's all one room, in case you haven't noticed."

"I can't believe I'm watching this…"

"Shut up, you love it," Max mused, eyes glued to the TV as they recounted what had happened on the last episode. "Want butter on the popcorn?"

He was silent for a moment, "Can you add salt too?"

"I spoil you," she sighed, and he smirked at her from the couch as she readied their post-work meal. It was all perfectly prepared by the time the show got through the opening credits and the catch-up bit from last week, and Max plopped down on the couch next to Loki with a giant bowl of buttery, salty goodness between them.

Neither of them commented on the fact that they sat in the middle of the couch, her folded legs just barely touching his as they rested on the coffee table. Instead, Max focused solely on the TV, absently shoving pieces of popcorn in her mouth as her season finale played out before her.

"Can someone tell me why the Hell I'm standing in some shithole in Bangkok?"

Fury's gaze swept across the team of agents standing in front of him, and Natasha tried her best to keep from smirking. She folded her arms across her chest, her gaze stoic; she too wondered what might have been important enough to drag her out of vacation two months early.

Aruba was nice this time of year.

"We've found something that the agency needs to tackle immediately," Agent 22, a rookie if Natasha had ever seen one, insisted as he forced his team to part. Behind them, atop a table with only three legs, lay a body covered with a dirty sheet. The traffic roared outside, and she quirked a thin eyebrow at the man in the dark room.

"I think a phone call would have been just fine," Fury snapped as he stalked across the room. "Shockingly, 22, I have other cases to deal with. You are not my number one priority."

"Yes, Directory Fury," the man rambled, hurrying along after him, "but this is a serious problem… I thought you would need to see it yourself so we can proceed immediately."

Sighing, Natasha crossed the room at a leisurely rate, and then came to an abrupt halt when the stench of rotting flesh hit her. Normally that scent was enough to clear an entire room; why had she only just detected it now? She glanced at Fury, who, as usual, seemed oblivious to the discomfort, and then watched him rip the sheet off and toss it aside.

As she had predicted, a body lay strewn across the table, but it seemed… off. Natasha hurried forward, standing next to her current employer as she surveyed the dead man. He appeared to be a Thai local, but there was something wrong with the hue of his skin. It was far too brown, yet sickly, and there were bright yellow rims around his eyes.

"Should I be breathing this air right now, 22?" Fury demanded as his one good eye roamed the body. "What am I looking at?"

"At first glance, it seems to be just another dead body," the agent insisted, nudging Natasha slightly to the side to get closer. Her eyes narrowed as he pulled on a pair of rubber gloves, and then dragged open the closed eyelids. Nothing stared out at them. Instead, Natasha saw darkness.

"Sometimes the eyes are removed as a form of torture," she commented absently, unaffected by the sight. "Occasionally it's to send a message."

"Everything inside is missing," the agent continued. She watched him crack open the jaw, bringing forth another foul odor, but clearly revealing no teeth or a hint of a tongue. "Everything."

She watched as the agent produced a knife, and then, without warning, sank it into the body's chest. He then sliced it along as though running a knife through butter, and proceeded to pull the chest cavity apart. Sure enough, it was hollow: no organs, barely a set of ribs – they could see clear to the back.

"It's like it's a… shell," Fury muttered, reaching forward and tentatively touching the skin with a gloved hand.

"We've found a few more in several neighbouring countries," 22 explained. "We think something is living in them… Sources say this man was seen walking about just a day ago."

"Invasion of the Body Snatchers?" Natasha mused, more to herself than anyone, and she frowned when the new agent nodded vigorously.

"That's what we were guessing…"

"Is Thor still… here?" Fury asked her, eyebrows knitting together as he surveyed her. Natasha scoffed.

"Sir, I was in Aruba until this morning," she told him. "I don't know where anyone is."

"Well, maybe we should check," Fury told her quietly. "See if he knows of any species that might inhabit bodies."

"Let's not jump to conclusions," she insisted when she spotted 22's somewhat smug grin. "This could still be local gang work. We should investigate more."

"That's why we rented you a room, Agent Romanov," 22 told her, tossing a key across the body at her. "Welcome to Bangkok…"

Her eyes narrowed again as she caught the key.

AUTHOR'S NOTES:

OMG HAY AGAIN.

So, I know people were pretty excited for the Thanksgiving chapter, but I wanted to get one more in before we start that. And I figured you'd all be a little annoyed if I waited two weeks with THIS update, and then maybe more time when I get busy for Thanksgiving. So. Boom. I do you favours because I love you.

Also. Hellooo those who started following me on tumblr after the last update. It kind of made my day, as I'm still a noob there.

The Avengers aspect of this plot isn't really the main focus of the story, but it's helping me build-up stuff to the sequel… to which I have planned another sequel. I need to stop. This story is my sickness.

Not much to say in the AN tonight. I have cleaned up puke at work before, and many other horrible things in the women's bathroom. LADIES. FLUSH YOUR SHIT. God. Use your foot if you don't want to touch the handle, because I don't fucking want to flush your mess anymore than you do. Anyway. I could go on forever about that kind of stuff. Rage.

Also Ben. What are you doing, goofus?

Much love to all my reviewers and lurkers alike! Thanksgiving is next! … also, Happy Canadian Thanksgiving. Because. That's where I am, and that's what we're doing. Bombdiggity.