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Day 169
Mojave Desert: Joint Dark Energy Mission Facility
Jane yanked the door open.
"Darcy!" she said. "Get in here."
The younger woman set the tray down and turned to face Jane, arms akimbo. "Jane Q. Foster, you've been holding out on me."
Jane rubbed her face. She wasn't awake enough to keep up with Darcy yet. "Q?"
"I don't remember your middle name. Do you even have one? Anyway? Agent Malone? Total. Hottie. Whew!" Darcy fanned herself. "That man can do a body cavity search on me anyday."
"Eww. I already threw up today. Don't make me do it again."
Darcy rolled her eyes. "Hi, Jane! I'm going to hug you, so pretend it's not awkward."
"Are you sure you want to hug the sickie?"
Darcy waved her off. "Forget about it. I have the immune system of...of someone who has a really, really strong immune system."
"I'd actually love a hug." Jane embraced her former intern, grateful for the human contact.
Darcy stepped back, holding Jane at arm's length. "Let me look at you, woman. You've got a little more meat on your bones. Good for you!"
"Thanks. Isabel helped fatten me up." She pulled the office chair to the table. "Here, sit. I'm thrilled that you're here, but I hadn't heard anything since I asked Erik to get you for my assistant. What happened?"
Darcy swung the chair from side to side. "A few days ago, Nick Fury called the dean of students and explained that Planet Earth needed my help."
"Director Fury?"
"Yep. Impressive, huh? One of us is more important than we realized." Darcy lowered her voice conspiratorially. "Personally, I think it's me." She grinned.
"When did you get here?"
"A couple of hours ago."
"Did you get the full SHIELD welcome?"
"You mean the bait-and-switch thing they do? They told me I was going to a debriefing, but Malone didn't take his briefs off once. And trust me, I was watching."
"Are you for real with the 'Agent Malone' stuff?"
"Mm-hm. Blond hair, deep brown eyes? You hadn't noticed? What's wrong with you, woman? Someone deep freeze your lady parts?"
Jane chuckled. She had originally hired Darcy out of desperation. But the vivacious, slightly outrageous young woman had quickly grown on her. Darcy's political science education and her ability to read people came in handy surprisingly often. She encouraged Jane to do silly things like eat, sleep, and have fun once in a while. Certainly, she had gone above and beyond the call of duty while Jane was at her lowest point this summer.
Darcy crossed her arms. "Okay, boss lady, 'fess up. I came because Fury said you asked for me, and because I was dying to see what was inside Castle Greyskull here. But I'm one hundred percent unqualified to be here. You don't need me to be your lab assistant. What do you really want?"
Jane sobered. "Let me get dressed and make some coffee first. We'll need fortification."
Darcy raised her eyebrows. "Is coffee strong enough? And wait—you drink coffee even when you're sick?"
"Um, first, no drinking alcohol while working on the Tesseract project, and second, I feel fine now. Must have been been something I ate."
Darcy stood up. "You go make yourself presentable. I'll make some joe."
A few minutes later, the two women settled back at the tiny table. Darcy pushed a scrap of paper toward Jane. On it was written Is it safe to talk here? Sure your room isn't bugged?
Jane nodded. "This guy I know installed a secret app on my laptop to detect bugs and stuff like that. SHIELD missed it when they scanned my laptop, 'cause he's that good."
"Sweet," said Darcy. "So...shoot."
Keeping her eyes on her coffee, Jane began. "We met less than a year ago, but we've been through a lot together. I think I can trust you, but I need to know for sure."
Uncharacteristically solemnly, Darcy replied, "I'm loyal to you, Jane, not to Erik or Thor, and definitely not to SHIELD. I've got your back, no matter what."
"Thank you. Some deeply weird stuff has been happening to me. I can't tell anyone else, or I'll be turned into SHIELD's next experiment. I need you to cover for me."
"I can do that."
"I also need you to watch me and intervene if this is some kind of Invasion of the Body Snatchers scenario."
"Wow. You do trust me."
Jane drew a deep breath. "Where to begin?"
oooOOOooo
"Can I see it?" Darcy leaned forward expectantly, unfazed by Jane's story.
The astrophysicist hesitated, then slowly pushed up her flannel sleeve and laid her arm on the table.
"Wow. Cool design. It reminds me of an infinity knot." She reached toward the mark.
"Don't touch it," Jane said, tight-lipped. "Ever. I might have to punch you."
Darcy's eyes widened. "Good to know. So, what else?"
Jane thought for a bit. "I occasionally have these déjà vu-type moments. I'm not sure how to explain them. They're like fully-developed memories which can't possibly be real."
The younger woman took a long pull of her coffee. "Some people might say that you are remembering a past life, or sensing an alternate reality."
"That sounds crazy."
"Um, hello, kettle? This is the pot. Yeah, you're black. Aren't you the woman who believed in an absolutely sci-fi theory about travel through wormholes?"
Jane just shook her head at Darcy. "Yes, my theories have been beyond common human ideas and experiences. But they are based on the physical world, on real stuff we just haven't found yet. There has to be an explanation for this mark, for these false memories I'm having."
Darcy shrugged. "O—kay, boss lady."
"And, one more thing you need to know. The real reason Thor is back is that Loki showed up here, in this building, and made threats about wreaking havoc."
Jane wondered if Darcy's eyebrows would ever come down.
oooOOOooo
Day 172
Mojave Desert: Joint Dark Energy Mission Facility
"Twenty-one November, two thousand eleven. Variation seventeen: perforated adamantium shield. Test one: electrical charge using Mjolnir." Erik looked up from the handheld voice recorder. "Is everyone in position?"
Four voices answered affirmatively. Barton and Thor perched high above the lab floor, Darcy and Jane stood beside Erik in front of the workstations.
The Tesseract was positioned in the middle of the room, covered by what looked like a six-foot-tall metal colander. This was Erik's "perforated shield."
Darcy whispered to Jane, "It looks like we're getting ready to drain the water off the world's largest batch of pasta."
"Yeah, it kind of does."
"Are we okay back here?"
"Nothing has gotten through that glass yet, has it?"
A safety shield of reinforced glass had been positioned in front of them.
"Thor," Eric called out, "are you ready?"
"I am," resounded the deep voice.
"On the count of three. One, two, three—"
Time abruptly slowed to a crawl. Jane's vision and hearing sharpened as though the world came into focus for the first time ever. Her heart thudded only once every few seconds. She felt the pulse in her left wrist, where the skin had become painfully sensitive.
A bolt of lightning shot from Mjolnir toward the Tesseract. Jane easily tracked its progress. In the heartbeat before the charge found its target, the Tesseract released a pale blue wave. Jane turned her head to watch it expand until it formed a translucent wall a few feet in front of her. Instinctively, she pulled Erik and Darcy down. The bolt hit the artifact, which responded with a darker wave of radiation. The radiation shot upward and outward, the adamantium dome doing nothing to inhibit it. Jane opened her mouth to warn Thor, but before she could produce any sound, Thor snatched Hawkeye and dove toward the others.
A dull boom reverberated throughout the space. Sparks flew everywhere. Thor and Barton hit the ground and rolled, while Erik and Darcy covered their heads. Alarms wailed slowly. Jane sat up and stared wide-eyed at the scene. Barton groaned, and even Thor was slow to get up.
The first SHIELD foot soldiers streamed into the room, heads bobbing back and forth as they assessed the situation.
"What was that?" Darcy yelled. "What just happened?"
The sound of Darcy's voice broke Jane's trance. A rush of dizziness swept over her. When it passed, she stood and turned in a circle, taking in the aftermath. Barton held his side with one hand and wiped blood off his face with the other, but no one appeared to be seriously injured. The glass shield and the bank of workstations were not damaged. The other side of the cavernous space, however, looked like a bomb had gone off. The walls and floor were scorched and parts of the catwalk were twisted and dangling.
Heedless of the commotion around her, Jane made a beeline for the artifact. It seemed to be untouched, but she needed to make sure. Just as she reached the metal dome over the glowing cube, Thor laid a hand on her shoulder to stop her.
In a low voice, Thor said, "Are you in pain, Jane Foster?"
Jane looked up sharply to find deep concern written on the Asgardian's face. He pointed. Her right hand was squeezing her left wrist. Immediately she released her grip and pushed his hand off her shoulder.
"Yes, I'm fine. I wasn't hurt."
"Then tell me, what did you see?"
"I saw the same thing we all saw. An experiment gone wrong."
Thor shook his head, pinning her into place with his cerulean eyes. "No, Jane, you saw what I saw. The Tesseract released some kind of protective force field. You tried to warn me."
She forced herself to hold his gaze. "A force field? What are you talking about? I just had a feeling that the perforated shield wouldn't contain the radiation. I should have insisted on smaller-scale tests first."
"You pulled Erik and Darcy to the ground before even I reacted."
Jane countered, "Why didn't you use Mjolnir to defend yourself?"
"I told you, that would be too dangerous. The whole building would likely have been destroyed. It was wiser to take shelter behind the protective field."
Jane took a step toward the Tesseract, but Thor again blocked her path. "I want to know why you could see something none of the other Midgardians saw."
This was dangerous territory. Jane shrugged. "And I told you, I was already anticipating problems. This isn't my first round of experiments. Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to make sure the Tesseract didn't sustain any damage."
oooOOOooo
"How bad is it?" Jane faced Erik across a conference table. Their small group, along with Malone, had assembled to debrief the incident. Someone had brought a tray of sandwiches—Thor was already on his third round—and a medical team hovered, insisting on checking each of them. Erik had refused their services, which relieved Jane and allowed her to say no as well. Darcy, on the other hand, had happily submitted to an assessment by the cute medic, while Barton held an icepack to his bruised ribs, a bandage on one eyebrow.
Erik sighed. "We should know in a couple of hours. SHIELD has engineers in there assessing the structural integrity of the walls and ceiling."
Arriving at the table, Darcy repeated her question from earlier. "What the—what happened in there? The other experiments were totally fine."
Erik shook his head. "Adamantium is more accessible than vibranium, but is still expensive and time-consuming to produce. Our earlier experiments led us to believe that perhaps the shield surrounding the Tesseract did not have to be solid adamantium, that we could use less of the metal to create a sort of colander, as Dr. Foster calls it, and still contain the radiation. We were wrong."
Clearing his throat, Malone drew their attention. "I get that. Not every experiment can be a success. You learn from your mistakes and move on. What I want to address is the unequal distribution of damage."
Erik frowned. "I don't follow, Agent Malone."
Malone continued, "You may not have been in a frame of mind to notice, but there is a clear line of demarcation between the damaged and undamaged parts of the lab. The area where you three"—here he motioned to Erik, Jane, and Darcy—were standing has no damage. The scorch marks on the floor, walls, and ceiling end a few feet in front of your location. The safety shield is untouched. Does anyone have an explanation for this?"
Jane glanced up to catch Thor watching her. She pointedly looked away, but she did speak. "Isn't the safety shield supposed to protect the people behind it?"
"It isn't rated to withstand a blast of that strength, Dr. Foster."
"Well, can we see the footage from the experiment?"
Malone shook his head. "We can't. Those cameras were destroyed in the incident."
Jane did her best to look disappointed.
Erik rubbed his forehead and grimaced. "I have no solid ideas. Perhaps...perhaps the combined electrical fields from the bank of workstations somehow kept the radiation at bay."
Malone snorted. "Yeah, I don't know if I buy that."
Thor cleared his throat. "We have evidence that the Tesseract is at least semi-sentient. Isn't it possible it was protecting someone?"
Shut up, Thor, Jane telegraphed. Darcy—for once—kept her mouth shut.
But he continued, "You have indicated a desire to explore the defensive capabilities of the Tesseract. I believe it gave us a sample of those today. We should investigate. Who was it protecting? Can we discern why? What makes the Tesseract decide who and what to defend? Can we build on that knowledge to produce a more dependable defense in case of attack?"
Jane saw a glimpse of brilliance in him in that moment, though his suggestions made her nervous. Then it dawned on her: his idea also gave her leverage.
"That is insightful, Thor. I support these suggestions. I would also like to renew my request that we learn as much as possible about the specific threat that motivated Odin to send you to Earth. That could only help us tailor our defensive strategy."
She didn't miss the look that passed between Erik and Thor.
oooOOOooo
Day 173
Mojave Desert: Joint Dark Energy Mission Facility
Jane flushed the toilet, then counted to ten. When she made it to zero without vomiting, she gingerly hobbled to the sink and rinsed her mouth.
A loud knock sounded at her door. She jumped, then pulled on her dressing gown. A quick glance through the peephole, and Jane opened the door to admit Darcy.
"Hey! SHIELD's given us the all-clear to use—" She halted. "Jane, you look…"
"Just leave it, Darcy. I'll be ready in five minutes."
Jane returned to the bathroom and continued her ablutions. Darcy leaned against the doorframe.
"You've been sick for several days now."
"It's just a virus or some bug. I'll get over it." Jane brushed her hair into a ponytail.
"Then why aren't other people sick?"
"I'm able to do my work just fine during the day. It's fine. Drop it."
Never one to listen particularly well, Darcy moved further into the bathroom and hopped onto the vanity, blocking Jane's view of the mirror. The scientist ignored her former intern and calmly continued to brush her teeth.
"Listen...I've been wondering about something. I don't know about that weird mark on your wrist or those pseudo-memories you keep having. But the exhaustion and the puking every morning? Those can be symptoms of a much more ordinary human condition."
Jane froze, then glared at Darcy. Hastily, she spit and rinsed her mouth.
"That's impossible!"
Unruffled, Darcy persisted. "How long since Aunt Flo came to visit?"
"Aunt Flo? What are you, eighty years old? I'm not pregnant, Jane."
"How long? I know you lose track when you're busy with a project."
Jane rolled her eyes, tossed her toothbrush on the counter, and brushed past the other woman. Darcy waited a couple of minutes, then followed her. She sat in the office chair while Jane finished dressing.
"You don't have to be embarrassed. You and Thor are consenting adults. What's the big deal?"
Jane pulled on a long-sleeved t-shirt. "I'm not embarrassed, Darcy. There's nothing to be embarrassed about. Thor and haven't done anything...at all."
Darcy gave her a sidelong glance, eyebrow cocked. "Well, someone else, then. Whatever. Just don't say it was Malone. You'll break my heart."
"No. It's not possible, Darce."
"Jane..." Darcy cajoled, clearly unconvinced.
"Let me spell it out for you. I'm practically a nun. I haven't slept with any man for close to forever, okay? Not since my—since Donald. Are you happy now?"
A calm, strong voice promised, "There are no men like me."
To cover her sudden disorientation, she snatched her green silk robe off the bed and turned to stuff it into a drawer. The fabric slipped through her fingers
and suddenly she was waltzing around a sumptuously appointed bedchamber in a gorgeous green silk gown, held securely in the arms of a man in a richly decorated military uniform. He was tall, so tall that Jane couldn't see his face clearly...
"Jane?" The office chair creaked as Darcy stood. Jane desperately searched for a distraction. She turned to meet Darcy.
"So where do you go when you disappear after lunch? Don't think I haven't noticed."
Darcy cocked her head at Jane. "I'm working on something. Trust me. Don't try to change the subject."
"All right. But you have to trust me. I'm not pregnant."
"I guess it's a virus, then. But if you don't get better soon, we need to get you checked out. Invasion of the Body Snatchers, remember?"
Jane nodded, still trying to regain her bearings.
Darcy elbowed her gently. "Hey, cheer up. It's not like there haven't been any men since Donald. There was a hot kiss with a certain Asgardian a few months ago."
Once again, Darcy's charm worked, and Jane smiled in spite of herself.
"And let's not forget," the young woman continued, "tall, dark, and handsome dream dude."
Jane frowned. "What are you talking about?"
Darcy grinned. "Feeling a little shy, are we? A few weeks ago, I couldn't get you to shut up about the totally hot guy from your dream."
"You're messing with me, right?"
It was Darcy's turn to frown. "What? No, I'm not messing with you. You don't remember?
"I have no recollection of that conversation."
"Eh, maybe you were still too PTSD-ey to remember. You called me, gushing about this dream you had, about this mysterious man who said he would teach you to stop the Destroyer. And I told you about lucid dreaming and said that maybe your brain was ready to heal."
"I remember the part about lucid dreaming and stopping the Destroyer. But I don't remember anything about a man."
"Too bad. He sounded amazing. Long dark hair, super tall, built, black leather…Jane? Are you okay? Jane!"
The astrophysicist lay unconscious on the floor.
A/N: Props to the sitcom Friends for the pot and kettle line.
