For Fandom Stocking 2013.

Spoilers through Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s The Well and for Thor: The Dark World.

Part serious and part fluff, in that way that Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. so often is. Set somewhere between The Well and The Bridge.

"I can't believe we're in London again and we're still not going to go see or do any of the incredible things this city has to offer."

May and Ward exchanged glances that Skye couldn't decipher. They did that a lot lately, and it was irritating, so she returned her attention to her phone. The sheer amount of footage available from the Greenwich Apocalypse (as everyone online had taken to calling it) could have kept her busy for weeks, and Coulson wanted a full report from her by tomorrow night, after their current assignment.

Ward said, "Maybe if there's time after the debriefing."

"How long do you think it's going to take?"

"Depends on how willing they are to talk to us. If they're not, shouldn't be more than the time it takes us to walk back to the car. If they are, maybe a couple of hours."

That got Skye's attention. She frowned and looked up. "I thought we didn't take no for an answer."

"We do with this kind of asset."

She raised her eyebrows. "Are you saying we're going to see someone who's dangerous?" Neither of them replied. "Are we talking 'superspy' dangerous or 'superhero' dangerous?"

May met her eyes in the rear-view mirror, and Skye swallowed at her expression. "Great. Because the last one went so well..."

Ward shook his head, saying, "That was Eval and Intake. This is just a debriefing of some people who already know what's up. Question and answer."

"'Some' people?"

May clarified, "There's one asset and then their extended network, who aren't, strictly speaking, assets."

"This job just gets better and better," Skye muttered to herself. "So do we know what the asset can do?"

"More or less," May said.

"More or less? What happens if we know 'less' and they say no?"

Ward said, "Then we leave."

"By which you mean 'run for our lives'."

"As long as we behave ourselves," Ward's tone suggested 'we' was a euphemism for 'you', "there shouldn't be any running."

"Hey, I was the only one behaving myself and acting usefully when it came to Hannah."

"Which is why you're with us right now," Ward reminded her. They stopped at a light, and he took the opportunity to half-turn in his seat so he was facing her. "It's not just us asking the questions. We need you to talk to some of them, especially the ones who won't talk to May and Me."

Skye couldn't keep the annoyance out of her voice. "Is that going to be all of them?"

"Probably most of them," May admitted.

Skye sighed.

The man who answered the door was older, maybe in his sixties, and rocking the 'mad scientist' look in spades, from his sallow complexion and thin, frizzy, dark blond hair to his rumpled khakis and wrinkled, plaid shirt.

He frowned at Skye, then looked at May and Ward, and his confusion morphed into understanding. "We were wondering how long it'd take you to show up." He had an accent, something Scandinavian, and he sounded borderline disgusted.

May said, "We just want to have a few quick words with him," and the man raised his eyebrows.

"Oh? Not planning on stealing any of Jane's equipment or sending me off on some clandestine mission where I'm taken hostage?"

"Hostages? Steal equipment?" Skye echoed. The man barked a laugh.

"They didn't tell you that sort of thing is part of the job description?"

"Ward, is this for real?"

His voice tight, Ward said, "We'll discuss it later."

A pale young woman with shoulder-length, auburn hair appeared next to the older man's shoulder. Her eyes landed on Ward and she said, "Yes. I'm gettin' paid," and nudged the man. "Come on. Let's have it." Her accent was as American as could be.

"For goodness sake, Darcy," the man muttered, and pulled out his wallet. He handed her a ten pound note, and she beamed at all of them and vanished back into the house yelling, "I won the pool! Hand it over people!"

"You had a betting pool on when we'd show up?" May asked, deadpan. Skye was proud of herself for being able to hear the morbid amusement in May's voice.

"I picked last. Only week left was three weeks from now." He gave them all an unfriendly smile. "I knew you wouldn't be that long."

Skye was pretty sure she saw May's mouth twitch. "May we come in, Dr. Selvig?"

Selvig. Why did that sound familiar?

Dr. Selvig rubbed at his eyes. "Alright, alright," he said, and waved them all through the door. "But if you antagonize him we're not responsible for what happens."

The house was cozy and well-kept, with a mixture of art from various time periods and influences on the walls, classic furniture throughout, and shining wood floors. In short, it was the kind people would lie, cheat, and steal to get this close to London, and Skye wondered what dark magic the owner had worked to obtain it. There were voices coming from down the hall ahead of them; they rounded a corner and saw two men and two women standing in a modest kitchen.

One of the women was Darcy. The other woman was more petite, with lighter hair, and was wearing an apron. Of the two men, one was skinny and young, maybe only mid-to-early twenties, and had short, curly, light brown hair. He was offering Darcy a handful of bills from his wallet, and she was counting them out loud. The second man was working at the counter, with his back to them, and he dwarfed everyone else present.

This wasn't to say he was inhumanly large (though he was taller than Ward by a good couple of inches, and if Skye had to put a number on it she imagined his back could support a minimum of three couches fully laden down with drunken frat boys). He wasn't dressed out of the ordinary either (pale jeans and a slate blue t-shirt and his long, blond hair pulled back into a queue), nor was he doing anything stranger than cutting up carrots with a chef's knife. And just the same, Skye had a sense that he took up half the house by simply being in it.

"Our friends from S.H.I.E.L.D. are here," Dr. Selvig announced, and the big man spared them a brief glance over his shoulder, but nothing more; Skye caught sight of a dark, close cut beard.

"Later than I expected." His voice was deep and resonant. Skye felt like he didn't sound American, yet he didn't sound like any other accent she knew either. Certainly not British.

"Director Fury thought it would be prudent to give you some time to yourselves." May included the woman in the apron with a glance, who rolled her eyes.

"A whole two weeks? Wow, that was generous of him." Another American. Her reply was sharp with sarcasm, and since she could count on one hand the number of people who she'd seen talk to May like that Skye decided she liked her immediately.

The big man swept the contents of the cutting board-in addition to the carrots there were potatoes, onions, and mushrooms-into a large bowl, washed off his hands, and turned to face them while drying his hands on a dishtowel.

Skye was sure her face had to be a comical study in shock. Fortunately spy training wasn't totally useless; it helped her stay quiet and notice things despite her reaction, like how Thor was sizing them up, one by one. She suspected all three of them got a big ol' stamp of 'NO THREAT', and that any decision to talk to them was made right then. He paid the most attention to May, and when he spoke it was her he addressed. "And what may I do for Nick Fury's people?"

"We'd like to ask you some questions about last month."

"I imagine you would." Thor moved to stand next to Jane, who was by Skye's estimation a ball of nervous energy and roughly twenty seconds from kicking them all out. Thor raised his eyebrows at her in a silent question, and she glared at him, then blew out a breath.

"Fine, just until dinner's done."

May asked, "How long is that?"

Darcy, who was reading from a cookbook, said, "One hour and forty-five minutes," and tapped at some buttons on the stainless steel oven.

"Very well." Thor set the dishtowel aside and nodded his head at the kitchen window, where an uncovered deck was visible. "We will speak outside."

It didn't occur to Skye that speaking outside was Thor's version of 'on my home turf, where messing with me will be an even worse idea' (as if messing with Thor was anything but a bad idea all around) until they were standing under the busy London clouds. May and Ward seemed unperturbed and didn't refuse him, or maybe they'd just been expecting it, and that made it easier for Skye to tell herself everything was going to be fine.

Skye pulled her scarf and sweater tight around her. The wind was biting cold, and even Thor slid on a well-used leather jacket before they stepped out.

He gazed overhead, half turned away from them. "What is it you would like to know."

May glanced and Ward, and he took the lead. "Is it safe for us to assume the situation from last month is dealt with?"

Thor radiated exhaustion for a moment, then he was back to being his awe-inspiring self, and Skye wondered if she'd imagined it. "Yes."

"And can you tell us what it was about?"

He faced May and Ward. "There was an alignment of what my people would call the Nine Realms. It is an infrequent occurrence. An old enemy of Asgard sought to use the alignment to return the universe to a time before there was light."

Skye couldn't help her quiet murmur of 'Woah', and May and Ward must have been similarly surprised because neither of them glared at her.

Ward shifted with unease. "And you stopped him?"

"We did, yes."

"You and Dr. Foster?"

"And Erik Selvig, Darcy, Ian, as well as my friends and family from Asgard."

"How exactly was he going to do it?"

"He had an ancient weapon that could convert all matter to dark matter. The alignment would have allowed him to use it across all of the Realms at the same time."

"But this guy is dead?"

"Yes. And the weapon was destroyed with him." Thor paused, seeming to consider something, then said, "Phil Coulson may wish to know that Loki is dead."

Woops, Skye thought.

Ward blinked. May narrowed her eyes. "How did you know?"

Thor raised his eyebrows. "Heimdall is no more a myth than I am."

"The eternal guardian?" Skye asked. Thor nodded at her, and she ran a hand through her hair. "Right, okay. Sees everyone and everywhere."

"Almost everywhere," Thor corrected.

"Uh, right, almost everywhere. Hey, while we're on the subject of myths that are real-"

Ward's voice was sharp as he cut her off. "Skye."

"Sorry, just, it's not every day you're in an actual conversation with actual Thor."

Thor laughed and shook his head, and to Skye's relief his humor sounded real. "I suspect I know which tale you wish to ask about." He stopped, considering her in a way that made her want to squirm, then said, "The answer is no. Some friends of mine are to blame for that particular story. They are quite proud of themselves for how long it has persisted here in Midgard."

"Awesome, I now have it from the hor-uh, from Thor."

Ward upgraded his expression from 'you need to shut up now' to 'get out', so Skye smiled at Thor, thanked him, and excused herself before she did anything else embarrassing in front of actual Thor with the horrible bonus of Ward and May bearing witness.

She spent the rest of her time talking to Darcy, the young man ('Ian', apparently Darcy's intern and a mechanical engineering graduate student), Erik, and Jane.

Ian was wary of S.H.I.E.L.D., no doubt due to Erik and Darcy and Jane's stories. Erik was distrustful-something about Thor's brother hijacking him during the entire mess that preceded New York, and S.H.I.E.L.D. not being particularly helpful to him in the aftermath. Darcy regarded them as an annoying younger sibling who was always underfoot and in the way and making more of a mess than necessary (which Skye could relate to quite well).

Jane flat out didn't like them, despite that they'd packed her off to Norway for safe-keeping while Loki was running around trying to take over the world. Skye found herself cynical enough to suspect that had been a play to convince Thor to help them, and not any real concern for Jane Foster herself, so it was reasonable that this hadn't endeared them to her in the slightest. It took some work to tease the whole story of Jane's first run-in with S.H.I.E.L.D. in New Mexico out of them, but it was worth it, because it was a hell of a thing. And even though it had turned out alright in the broader sense (because Thor had bartered his cooperation with S.H.I.E.L.D. for Jane's life's work, and if that didn't get a sigh from every romantic everywhere then they were dead inside as far as Skye was concerned), Jane was suspicious of them, especially since it was clear they were not done asking Thor for help with Thor-sized problems, and she mostly wanted everyone to leave all of them alone.

By the time May, Ward, and Thor came back inside, the five of them were sitting around trading superhero stories. Selvig had them all beat hands down, so really it was all about gunning for second place.

"Supposedly there was a time that Captain Am—oh, hey." Skye sat up and set her soda aside, trying to appear professional under May's scrutiny. "All done?"

Ward and May were already on their way to the door, intent on showing themselves out. Thor moved to join Jane, who'd stood up as soon as the three of them came in.

To Skye, May said, "Yes," then she addressed the rest of them. "Thank you, everyone, for your cooperation."

Ward gave Skye a pointed look and jerked his head at the door. Skye hopped out of her seat on the couch and waved, following close on Ward's heels. "It was nice meeting all of you," she said.

Darcy waved back. "You too, Skye. Stay in touch if they'll let you!"

"I will!"

Ward and May made her exit first.

Once they were on the road, Ward asked, "Get anything useful?"

Skye was hastily making some notes on her phone. She definitely didn't want to forget anything, because Coulson was sure to ask for a report on it. "Well, Dr. Foster still doesn't like any of us. Dr. Selvig's not too happy with how S.H.I.E.L.D. ditched him after the whole Loki thing. Darcy thinks we're pathetic. Ian's not sure what to make of us."

"I meant about Greenwich."

"Oh, that. Dr. Selvig had been working on the conjunction thing for a while, apparently. He made all this equipment to stabilize it for Earth, so it wouldn't mess things up. He and Jane reconfigured it all to use against the elf guy."

"Elf guy?"

"Malakeith. Jane said he was a Dark Elf, which I guess the Norse called the svar...ta...la, uh, Dark Elves, just in Norse. He had a superweapon named the Aether, and something about the conjunction was going to make it so he could destroy the universe."

The silence in the front seat spurred her to look up from her phone. May was half-turned, regarding her with mild surprise, while Ward kept stealing quick glances in the rear-view mirror.

"You got all of that from them?"

"Yeah."

"How?"

"We just sat and talked. You know, traded stories. I bonded with them over how crappy their interactions with S.H.I.E.L.D. always are-oh, I turned down the beer they offered me, just so it's official. I didn't drink on company time." She went back to paging through her search results, and absently asked, "How about you guys?"

"Thor wasn't nearly as forthcoming," May said, her tone dry.

"Well, maybe you should've let me talk to him instead of hogging him to yourselves."

Ward said, "We weren't hogging him," sounding insulted. Skye was sure May's normally blank countenance had a hint of smugness in it, which was all the evidence she needed.

"Sure. Anyways, are you really surprised? Sounds like he had a hell of a few days. I doubt he wants to rehash it all in gory detail a month later with us."

May nodded, and Skye wondered if it wasn't sympathy she saw in her eyes, if only for a second. "We did fine," May said, mostly to Ward, and he sighed.

When they made it back to the Bus, they found Fitz working in the lab on some manner of complicated experiment involving an intricate apparatus that he was soldering. Simmons was nowhere in sight, though Skye remembered she'd been knee-deep in reports that she and Fitz had been putting off, and Coulson had cornered them and demanded they be done by the end of the week.

Without taking his eyes off his work, Fitz asked, "So, how was it?"

Skye stopped dead in her tracks and gave him an incredulous look. "How was it?"

He set his soldering gun aside and pulled up his goggles. "Yes, how was it?"

"How was meeting Thor?" He just stared at her, and Skye gestured in what she hoped was the general direction of London. "You're acting like he's just some other random person on the asset list and not Thor. Actual Thor."

"He is just some random person on the asset list. Maybe, you know, near the top of it-"

"At the top of it," May said as she walked by the lab doors on her way to the cockpit.

"-fine, at the top, and it's not like we haven't met an Asgardian before-"

"Thor, Fitz." Skye came around behind the mess of wires and machine parts and took him by the shoulders. She managed through an effort of will to not shake him. "Thor."

"Yes. That's his name. Presumably the same as the-"

Trailing behind May, Simmons said, "Don't bother, Skye, he's not going to understand."

Skye groaned and moved to the bench, where she'd left her laptop. "I can't believe you." Ward walked into the lab and Skye pointed at him. "Even Ward has a huge mancrush on him."

Fitz frowned at Ward. "Really?"

Ward started to try and prevaricate, then shrugged and said, "It was Thor."

"How is it only Coulson and I are immune to whatever it is about him that turns you all into starstruck fans?"

"Coulson's not immune, I promise you. Sure, he's not as head over heals for Thor as he is for Captain America, but trust me-Thor's definitely number two."

"Number two what?"

"Number two crush."

"Crush?"

Skye narrowed her eyes. "Don't try to act like you don't have any."

"I would never have something so childish and foolish as a crush."

Coulson came into the lab and announced, "Wheels up in five, people." Skye shot Fitz a final 'I know you draw hearts around someone's picture in the S.H.I.E.L.D. asset database' look, gathered up her laptop, and headed back out to the sitting area to work on her report.

Ward waited until Skye was gone to say, "By the way. He knows." Fitz had returned to his experiment and was studiously ignoring the two of them.

Coulson tipped his head, expression distant. "Heimdall?"

"Yeah."

Coulson sighed. Ward said, "He said he wouldn't tell anyone. Not even Foster."

"Thor's not exactly the God of Subterfuge."

"Maybe not, but he is apparently the God of Not Answering Questions and Changing Subjects."

Coulson grimaced. "Does that mean he didn't want to talk?"

"He didn't say a lot, but Skye did pretty well with the rest of them." Ward looked askance at Fitz, then added, "He said Loki's dead."

To Fitz's credit he didn't miss a beat in his work; there wasn't any indication he'd heard Ward at all. Coulson became still in that way that unnerved Ward. "Do you think he was telling the truth?"

"He seemed to be. And, like you said—he's not the God of Subterfuge."

"What did May think?"

"She thought he wasn't lying."

Coulson's face went unreadable and stony. "Thanks," he said, and made for his office.

Once he was out of earshot, Ward regarded Fitz. "So. Who is it?"

"Who's what?"

"Your superhero crush."

"I don't have a superhero crush."

"Fine then-your S.H.I.E.L.D. agent crush."

Fitz glanced at Ward over the edge of his equipment. "Really."

Ward smiled. "You're a terrible liar, you know that, right?"

"Not that I'm trying to lie, but coming from a Level Seven Field Agent that's not exactly a damning accusation. Everyone's a terrible liar compared to you." Fitz resumed his work. "And why would I secretly harbor a crush on a coworker?"

Ward narrowed his eyes and leaned against the bench, resting his elbows on it. "Hill."

Fitz kept his eyes on his soldering gun. "What is the point in you trying to—"

"Romanoff."

"Don't be ridicul-"

"Barton."

Fitz hesitated and looked up again. "I-"

Ward slapped the bench. "I knew it. You put in a lot of time on that new set of arrowheads for him, but I had no idea it was-"

Fitz pulled up his goggles. "Don't you dare breathe a word to anyone."

Simmons came back into the lab, frowning. "Don't breathe a word to anyone about what?"

"Nothing," Fitz said, and glared at Ward.

"Nothing," Ward agreed, and it didn't take field training or Level Seven to see he was lying his ass off. Simmons took in Fitz's stricken expression and nodded.

"Right. Nothing," she agreed, the essence of prim. She fetched her tablet and walked back out.

Coda: Number One Fan