Chapter III:

"By the way, Percy, can't believe I forgot to mention this until now, but we have a dress code in our lab." Jane pointed to her legs. "Jeans."

"Oh, did you forget not to wear jeans?" Percy looked down at his khakis. "Shouldn't be a problem, I didn't bring any with me anyways."

"No Percy, we only wear jeans." Jane corrected, chuckling as she led them out of the lab.

His cheeks colored as he went on the defensive, trying to convince her that he had understood the first time. It was all in vain though. The damage was done.

Turning the street corner in the direction of Erik's apartment, she allowed him to move half a pace ahead.

Together, they had spent the last three days in the lab squabbling over physics, theories and whatnots. Though, it was extremely lopsided to begin with. Inherently at a disadvantage from his limited knowledge of the subject, Percy was stuck asking for answers and explanations. However, to her surprise, he was a good learner, at his best when dealing with the practical stuff; the concepts and applications. The calculations and jargon, not so much, at least right now. But that was okay, she could more than manage in the interim.

"Stop walking so fast." She chided, her tone that of a mother's.

Percy frowned as he looked back. "You're walking too slow."

That was another thing she learned: he was very competitive. She could tell that he hated not knowing things. It was obvious in the way his face sat, always impatient when she was explaining.

With mock anger, she pulled up beside him. "You don't even know where you're going."

"We're going to Dr. Selvig's apartment." He answered, hands waving a mess in front of them.

"Right, you know where that is, city boy?"

"I'd reckon it's somewhere in England."

Jane rolled her eyes, steering him left when they reached the next intersection. "Congratulations, that's the first thing you've gotten right today."

Stubbornness was another thing about him, along with his obsession with only using his ballpoint pen. The oddities were not limited to his actions though. There was also the necklace around his neck and the SPQR tattoo on his forearm, always catching her eye whenever they showed themselves.

Like her impulsiveness, her curiosity got the best of her. "What's with the necklace?"

"Oh, this?" Percy's chin tilted to look at it. "I don't know why I still wear it. Got it from a summer camp I went to when I was young. Never took it off since."

Jane wished she was that attached to things from her childhood.

"What about your tattoo?" She asked. "Percy Jackson, the middle school history geek?"

His smile widened. "Would you believe it if I said yes?"

"With you? Absolutely not."

Percy laughed, now a regular occurrence.

Their budding chemistry notwithstanding, Jane's sense of caution was still present, if only in an admittedly underdeveloped state. She was yet to divulge the meat and potatoes of their experiments, hence the reasoning for them visiting Erik's, the shady apartment building now in view. It was all part of the 'feeling-out-process,' as Erik liked to put it, before they committed to giving Percy the information necessary to help out in a meaningful capacity. Their research being at an impasse anyway, Jane enjoyed going back to the start. The stuff she was working on before Norsemen started raining from the sky.

She did feel confident enough to show Percy some of the early data. The pictures she took and the calculations she crunched from the first stellar events she had observed. It was hard though, skirting around parts that were necessary for full comprehension. It was like giving him the build-up and no punchline. Despite that though, his overall understanding was much deeper than she could have anticipated from a fluid dynamicist.

"Is that it over there?" Percy asked, his finger on the worst of the buildings.

"Yes, unfortunately." Jane grimaced, the stench of Erik's cave already assaulting her nostrils.

They had yet to reach that point in the day, but like a cat that always finds its way home, their discussions always ended around the Einstein-Rosen bridge. Percy did not even try to hide his interest in it, bringing it up at every available opportunity. A little strange, she had to admit, keeping the door propped open to the possibility that he was a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent. Suffice to say he was like a worm, niggling at the back of her head with his weirdness.

Knocking once, Jane took one last breath of fresh air before Erik opened the door.

"Why are you breathing like that?" Percy asked.

Jane's eyes stared back at him apologetically. "You'll see."

Never failing to serve kooky first impressions, Erik answered wearing a white tank stained with unidentifiable markings. Straight away, the smell of dying pickles hit them like a garbage truck, leaking out the room like a virus.

"Erik, this is Percy. Percy, this is Erik." She introduced, wiping her nose while stepping over to the side.

"Dr. Erik Selvig," Percy said, leaning forwards to shake hands, and this time managing not to mess up. "I've heard a lot about you."

"Really?" Erik's face turned to Jane's in a not-so-subtle 'I'm suspicious' manner. "You know of my work?"

Percy, oblivious to it, smiled. "Of course I did, Dr. Selvig. I had to learn about the man that taught the one and only Dr. Jane Foster."

"Oh really." Again Erik gave Jane that look. "That interested, were you?"

"Can't blame me for it." Percy shrugged. "She's the only one I've known to come up with something as complex and genius as the Einstein-Rosen bridge."

There it was.

The bastardized remains of Erik's eyebrows rose.

"Alrightyyy." Jane stepped between them, begging the red on her face to go away. "Percy would like to talk to you about some of the stuff we've been working on. And I personally would love to hear your thoughts on some of his ideas, unless the two of you want to keep on embarrassing me for the rest of the night."

Erik grunted, rubbing his belly without shame. "Very well, come in then, we're letting all the cold air out."

Jane breathed a sigh of relief. "Wonderful."

Stepping inside the apartment, it reminded her of the carnage that Thor had wrought on their lab in New Mexico. She would have believed it if somebody said a tornado had come through. There were more things upside down than right side up. Probably more things dead than alive too.

Upon entering the living space, Erik gave Percy another hard look.

"Jane, did you not tell him about our dress code?"

Author's Note:

Short and sweet, with a little set up action :)