"I don't like the idea of all five of us just heading into a lions' den like that," Selvig objected.
"We've both worked with Agent Coulson before, Erik," Thor protested. "Surely you trust him not to put us in a dangerous situation. Surely you trust me not to ask you, my friends, to go into a situation that I believe could be potentially harmful to you."
"He lied to you, Thor! You almost had a heart attack when his voice came over the phone!"
"But even in that he was trying to protect us by keeping us… in the dark... about his still being alive. You can see that, can't you?"
Selvig sighed, nearly willing to concede to the demigod's point when he asked, "Where do we four fit into this plan? Did he tell you that? You were on the phone with him for hours."
"Once we got through talking about his reappearance, he told me that he – as the new director of SHIELD – would have me working as a sort of agent, and you and Jane would be working in the labs, continuing your scientific research, and maybe even expanding upon it. Darcy and Ian would be filling in the gaps wherever they were needed at the moment as assistants for whoever required assistance."
"See, Erik," Jane said, leaning forward to lock eyes with her father figure. "It's not a problem; it's just a change of location. We'll still be doing the same things we would be doing here, we'd just be doing it in Kansas."
"With better equipment," Thor added helpfully. "I want to go, Erik. It sounds like my friends need me, and I want to be there for them… but I want to be with Jane as well."
"And I want to be with him," Jane agreed. "But I don't want to leave you here in order to do that. Do you understand that?"
"Yes, of course," Erik nodded.
Jane asked hesitantly, "Then... could you give it a chance? For us?"
Erik scrubbed at his eyes, turned to Darcy and Ian and asked, "What are you two going to do?"
"I'm going with Jane," Darcy answered instantly.
Ian added, "Then I guess I'm going to follow my boss."
Erik sighed in resignation, declaring, "Fine. If you can't beat them, join them. I'll go."
Jane jumped up from her chair and wrapped her arms around Erik's neck with a gleeful, "Thank you!"
"Don't thank me yet," Erik said, a smile nonetheless teasing at the corners of his mouth as he hugged Jane back.
Untangling herself from Erik's arms, Jane edged over to Thor and whispered to him, "What do you say we get him to those labs as soon as possible once we get to the base, huh? I bet that'd put a real smile on his face."
Thor smiled down at her in agreement. "You're right, and I'll see that it happens exactly as you say."
And so it did. When Thor and his friends flew into the base three days later, Bruce was quick to cart Selvig off to the lab while the others found rooms to occupy. Thor, Jane, Darcy, Ian, and Erik all ended up on the first floor with Tony, Pepper, and Bruce, and five more people slid into the ever-growing group.
As had become a habit, after the arrival of someone new at the base, Coulson called a group meeting for everyone to get things ironed out and further explained where necessary.
"Okay," Coulson said, taking what had become his customary seat in the conference room of the base's office level while everyone else found seats around the table. "Here's the tally. We currently have twenty-one people living here in the base and willing to work for SHIELD. All of you are at this table, and to be entirely frank, I can't think of anyone else who we might add to this group. I really can't tell you who else I can trust enough because I don't know. We're still trying to sort out who was actually HYDRA and who isn't. So if you know of anyone who you believe would be 125% with us here and willing to work for SHIELD, then now is the time to speak up."
Erik, who had taken a seat at the table beside Bruce, leaned over and whispered something in the doctor's ear. Bruce shook his head, but Phil caught the quiet exchange and asked, "Do you gentlemen have a name?"
"No," Bruce said at the same time as Selvig declared, "Yes."
"Can I… hear it?" Phil asked after an expectant pause.
"No," Bruce repeated with an edge of finality while shooting a glare at Selvig.
Selvig looked across Bruce to Tony as he said to Phil, "We'll see if we can't get him to see the light on this particular person."
"Can I ask what sort of a role this person would fill?" Coulson asked, not sure why he was tolerating their secretiveness, nor even if he should.
"Another scientist," Selvig volunteered.
"Okay," Phil nodded, letting them off of the hook as he looked around at the others around the table and asked, "Do we have any other ideas?"
Thor spoke up slowly and carefully, as if he wasn't sure he should bring it up. "There are a handful of Asgardians who would be willing to follow me here to earth if they believed we could use their assistance."
"Do these people have names?"
"The Warriors Three and Sif – who I believe you've met – are the ones I'm nearly certain would come. There are a couple of others that might require a little more negations, but I could look into it."
"So that makes a grand tally of what? Twenty-seven?" Phil glanced at Bruce, hazarding, "Twenty-eight?"
"Yeah," May said.
"And your getting those six people requires you to return to Asgard, right?" Phil double-checked with Thor, who nodded. "Well…" Again Phil thought as he spoke, deciding, "Whenever – preferably as soon as possible – you feel like going to talk to them about it, you're absolutely free to do so."
Thor nodded thoughtfully, declaring, "I shall conceivably be gone for a week, but if you have no objection, I shall return to Asgard on the morrow."
"Wonderful."
Thor nearly flinched, thinking of Selvig's words from earlier in the week. Don't thank me yet.
