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ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ ғɪᴠᴇ: ᴡᴀᴋɪɴɢ ᴜᴘ

❝ ʜᴇ ᴄᴀʟʟᴇᴅ ᴍᴇ sᴋᴀᴅɪ. ❞

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THE DISTANT MOUNTAINS GLINTED SNOW in the early morning light as Doctor Selvig surveyed the vast desert, cup of coffee in hand. After taking a moment to marvel over the beautiful sight, he turned back into the lab and saw Jane, busy at her workstation, soldering a piece of equipment.

A printer was churning out blown-up screen-cap photos of the Bifrost footage and Darcy collected them and proceeded to hang them on the wall. To Darcy's right were you and Aaron, tucked away on a bench just out of earshot of the other three, and engaged in hushed conversation.

All of you had been up all night, fuelled by caffeine and adrenaline, albeit for different reasons. Jane, Selvig and Darcy were full of excitement, working tirelessly to try and come up with a scientific explanation for the anomaly you'd all encountered the night before. Technically speaking, Aaron should've been joining in on their excitement, since it was his consultation, but he was far too caught up in your side of the event to even give Jane's star charts a second glance.

"He recognised you," Aaron spoke softly.

"Yeah," you breathed out, nodding once and wiping your palms on your jeans, "And he was about to call me by my Asgardian name."

"That's a good thing, isn't it? That he knows who you are?"

"I don't know," you admitted, creasing your brow, "It could be a good thing or it could be a bad thing. I mean, he literally just crash-landed out of nowhere; we have no idea why or how, and we have no idea what it means."

With a shaky hand, you reached forward to pick up your coffee cup, but the tremor in your hands were so bad that you were unable to keep it still for even a few seconds. Aaron hurriedly collected the cup and gently handed it to you. You thanked him and took a gulp.

"But there is one thing I know," you continued, "and that's that he and I can't come into any kind of contact – or see each other – until we know what's going on."

"Because we don't know whether or not he's hostile," Aaron finished your thought and you nodded in confirmation. He sighed and leaned back a bit. "I sincerely hope he isn't. It'd be wonderful to be able to have a chat with him about, well, everything. And he'd be able to offer you some guidance; lord knows all of us down here haven't been doing too well with that."

"Yeah, I hope so too." You looked down into your coffee, noting the small swirls of milk on the surface. "But in the meantime, you should probably do your job."

You elbowed Aaron lightly and nodded your head at the group in front of you frantically studying the images, and the doctor turned to observe them, squinting his eyes slightly as he mulled over the pictures that Darcy had hung up.

"We might want to perform a spectral analysis," he said eventually.

Jane quickly turned to look at him, a glimmer of elatedness in her eyes. ""We"?"

"I flew all the way out here," Aaron shrugged as he stood up and started making his way forward, "might as well make myself useful."

With a smile, Jane got up and inserted the piece of equipment she'd been working on into a rack-mounted server.

"You know what would be really useful?" She turned to glance over her shoulder at Selvig. "Do you still have that friend at LIGO?"

Selvig chuckled, cheeks burning up. "She was more than a friend."

"Could you call in a favour?"

"You don't think this was just a magnetic storm?" Aaron enquired, stepping closer to get a better look.

Jane shook her head no. "If I'm right, their observatory must have picked up gravitational waves during last night's event."

"Meaning?" Selvig frowned in perplexity.

Jane rushed over to a computer monitor, with the two doctors following closely.

"Meaning these anomalies might signify something bigger."

"How 'big' are we talking about?" Aaron asked, readjusting his glasses.

Jane motioned to footage on the monitor – the video she'd taken the night before. As the last of the Bifrost cloud disappeared into the night sky, there appeared to be a blister in space, bulging out in convex and covered with stars.

"I think the lensing around the edges is characteristic of an Einstein-Rosen Bridge," Jane explained what her view on the situation was.

"A what?" The utterly confused voice of Darcy sounded through the lab.

Selvig frowned at her. "I thought you were a science major."

"Political Science," she clarified.

Selvig shot Jane a confused look. "She was the only applicant," she shrugged, referring to the internship program.

Aaron held out his hands and began explaining; you listened, too, since his science talk always entranced you. "An Einstein-Rosen Bridge – a 'theoretical' connection between two different points of space-time."

Darcy stared blankly.

"A wormhole," Selvig simplified it for her and she finally nodded in understanding.

Meanwhile, Jane had printed out a frame-grab from the monitor, and she now held it out for the two doctors to see.

"Erik, Aaron, look..."

Jane pointed at the print-out showing the constellations seen through the 'bubble' in the clouds.

"What do you see here?" she asked.

"Stars," Selvig answered.

"Yes. But not our stars." She made haste of spreading out a star chart, barely able to contain her excitement. "This is the star alignment for our quadrant, this time of year. So unless Ursa Minor decided to take the day off... those are someone else's constellations."

The doctors looked on, intrigued, as Darcy pulled another frame-grab of the Bifrost footage from the printer and hung it on the wall.

Something in the image caught her eye and she called out to the others. "Hey, check it out."

The other three stepped forward and examined the photo, amazed. Inside the Bifrost funnel cloud was a figure – the vague but unmistakeable shape of a man.

"Is that...?" Selvig muttered, lost for words.

"I think I left something at the hospital," Jane spoke before hurrying off.

Trading wonderstruck glances and shrugs, Darcy and Selvig rushed after her. Aaron was about to do the same, but you reached out to grab his arm before he could move.

"Aaron... I can't go back there."

"I know," he breathed, looking at you worrisomely, "Are you going to be okay staying here by yourself?"

"No," you shook your head and looked around the lab, eyes lingering on the heaps of research all over the place, "I can't stay here, either. Not with them delving into all of this. I can't see that ending well for me."

"Well, then, if you're not going to stay here..." Aaron looked out at the desert with a hopeless gaze, "where are you going to go?"

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S.H.I.E.L.D HQ. Washington, D.C.

"Just when I thought we were done with all this shit," Fury exhaled, wheeling his chair forward and folding his arms on his desk.

"Tell me about it," you grumbled, playing with the hem of your t-shirt as you lounged lazily on the couch.

"And you're positive that it's the real deal?" your godfather questioned with a sceptic raise of his brow; he needed full reassurance that it was necessary for S.H.I.E.L.D to step in. You slowly raised your head to lock eye contact with him.

"He called me Skadi."

The Director straightened up and opened his mouth, about to say something when the sound of Agent Coulson's voice through the speakers stopped him from doing so.

"Sir, we have reports of a possible UFO crash-landing in the New Mexico Desert. Apparently it had a blue, luminous glow and is... really, really heavy."

Fury looked at you and you smiled condescendingly.

"That good enough for ya?"

✧ ✧ ✧

County hospital. New Mexico Desert.

The group of Aaron, Erik, Darcy and Jane entered the hospital, and Jane wasted no time in striding over to the admissions nurse to try and gain entry into Thor's room, while the other three hovered in the waiting area.

An unusually fidgety Aaron glanced around uneasily, his mind churning with possible outcomes of this precarious situation. He fully understood your apprehensive view on the matter, but his gut was telling him that the sudden appearance of the God of Thunder meant that something much bigger was awry, and that distancing yourself from the only source of knowledge on the subject that you had (in other words, Thor) would only bring trouble.

With that being said, the doctor turned to Darcy and Selvig and announced that he would be going to the bathroom and once he rounded the corner, made a beeline for Thor's room.

Dodging the heaps of hospital staff, Aaron barged into the god's room just as he awoke, and took tentative steps forward.

Thor noticed the restraints on his wrists and pulled at them, trying to free himself, but to no avail.

"It's not possible," he muttered, mustering all of his strength and trying again. Then, out of the corner of his eye, he spotted Aaron, and he immediately perked up to attention.

"You!" Thor's voice boomed through the tiny room; Aaron winced at the volume, "You accompanied Skadi, the daughter of Vili! Who are you? And where is she?"

Holding his hands up to show that he came in peace, Aaron took slow yet urgent steps forward until he was next to Thor's hospital bed. "My name is Aaron."

"Aaron," Thor repeated, frowning at the strange name, "Son of whom?"

"Uh," Aaron awkwardly scratched the back of his neck. "Jacob... Ross."

"It is a pleasure to meet you, Aaron Jacobson. Now, if you will, tell me where I can find Skadi. I imagine she is the only one who can help me."

Frowning in puzzlement at the last name Thor had chosen to adorn him with, Aaron opened his mouth to explain that that was not the way things worked down here, but soon decided against it – it was no use to confuse the Asgardian any more than he already was – and shook his head as he moved to untie the restraints.

"Believe me, the pleasure is all mine. But please, you need to listen carefully," Aaron spoke, glancing over his shoulder every couple seconds to make sure that his new colleagues weren't anywhere in sight, "I can't tell you where Skadi is. I promise I will explain everything, but we need to get out of here now."

~

Doing up the final button on the scrubs he had stolen from the hospital, Thor spoke to Aaron as the two of them walked through the parking lot.

"You mean to tell me that she wishes not to see me? I do not understand. I have done her no harm, only looked over her. As has my father, and most of Asgard. We are family."

"Yeah," Aaron sucked on his teeth and stuffed his hands in his suit pockets. "That's kind of a, uh, touchy subject. I'm... sure you heard about what happened to her parents."

"Yes," Thor nodded before looking down at the ground, a solemn expression on his face. When he spoke again, his voice was heavy with sadness. "That was a dark day on Asgard."

There was silence for a moment before Aaron spoke again. "Listen, for what it's worth... I'm sure she wants to meet you. It's just not safe for her to do so just yet."

"She is in danger?" Thor questioned in concern.

"Not currently, no. But very few people are aware that she's... you know, a goddess... and if it suddenly became public knowledge-"

"Everyone would fear her."

"Exactly," Aaron nodded fervently, thrilled that Thor was understanding, "And that's not what she wants. She helps people down here. Saves them. Having them fear her would tear her apart."

"So for her sake, please, if there are other people around," Aaron continued, glancing at Thor imploringly, "Pretend that you don't know her. She's just (Y/N)."

"As challenging as it may be, I shall oblige. For her sake."

Aaron heaved a sigh of relief. "Thank you."

They continued walking as Thor observed his newfound acquaintance, mentally theorising about him.

"You seem to be rather close to her," Thor noted, "Is she your betrothed?"

Aaron almost choked on the air in his throat. "N-no," he spluttered, "No. She's just... we're good friends."

"But you care deeply for her."

"Well, yeah, but- oh shit!"

Aaron quickly ducked out of the way but unfortunately, Thor hadn't been paying close enough attention to do the same. And so, bam! Jane's SUV collided with his sturdy frame, knocking him to the ground.

With gasps, Jane and Selvig emerged from the SUV to help the god to his feet.

"I'm so sorry," Jane apologised, "I swear I'm not doing that on purpose."

Staying true to his word that he would pretend as if he was unaware of everything, Thor gazed up at the sky.

"Blue sky... one sun... This is Earth, isn't it?"

"I think you may have hit him with the car one time too many," Darcy piped up.

Jane shook her head and began leading Thor to the car. "Let's get you some clothes."

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Thank you for reading x