Chapter Text
There was a time (a blissful, not too long ago time) when Phil had a stretch of four years where the only time he saw the inside of a hospital was when he had to suffer through a yearly physical. That was until he let Nick talk him into leading a team that seemed to put him in the thick of things more often than not. As much as he loved fieldwork he knew his limitations, and they didn’t include rappelling down the side of buildings while snipers tried their best to kill him. His position on the Bus was supposed to be…not less dangerous, but certainly less physically taxing than it was turning out to be.
His doctor agreed.
“You have the literature on what to expect over the next four to six weeks,” Dr. Zepata told him. “You’ll be called in for a follow-up next month. Do not miss it.”
“Yes, Ma’am,” Coulson said, trying to smile around the sour feeling in his stomach.
She gave him a hard look. “Mental Health gave you an all clear, but we both know what that means. Anything happens that we need to know about, tell us. No soldiering on or man-pain.” She grimaced. “And no finding cracks to slip through, agent, or I’ll have you back in here faster than you can imagine.”
He gave her a respectful nod. Years of required psych evaluations gave you a unique insight into defeating them. He’d had more than a few of the agents under his command slip through the cracks; himself more times than he was comfortable admitting, especially in his early years. “Yes, Ma’am.”
She opened her mouth, probably to tell him to stop fucking calling her ma’am, then settled back down. They’d known each other for over ten years; he was allowed to tease her. “I mean it, Phil. Don’t make me worry about you, too. I have enough shit on my plate without that.”
“I know.” Not 'I promise' or 'Don’t worry', because she wouldn’t believe him.
“Then you’re free to go. Try to stay healthy.”
Phil was buttoning his shirt when Nick came into the small room of the medical suite. The list of his injuries was shorter than after some of his more colorful missions (contusions, bruised ribs, inflamed kidney, dehydration, three stitches above his right eye), but they both knew it wasn’t the physical reminders that were the most dangerous. At the moment he could taste his grandmother’s strawberry streusel, something he hadn’t had in nearly twenty years, and another tart crumbly smell he assumed was some kind of fruited bread. They hid the nerve-wracking industrial cleaner smell of the examination room, pulled him somewhere safer than where he was at present. He let those two sensations, phantoms though they were, ground him.
“Director,” he said shortly as he eased into his suit jacket, ribs glowing with pain.
“Agent Coulson.”
Phil stayed quiet, fussing with his clothes. He knew Nick read his debriefing if he hadn’t listened to it live. Another time he might have smiled at the other man; a brief tilting of his lips to let him know that he was fine, that they hadn’t broken him this time.
The order came from Director Fury himself.
“Zapata gave you an all-clear, but Cray’s concerned over some of your scans,” the Director started. There was no concern in his voice.
“Is he?”
Fury’s eye twitched. “The machine they had you hooked into disrupted your brain waves. He’s concerned about long term effects.”
Like smelling and tasting things you know aren’t there. “I’ve been under mandatory forty-eight-hour observation,” Coulson said slowly. “I’d like to get back to my team.”
Fury examined him, and Phil could imagine the other man running his current state against a list of tells. He kept his face neutral, let the skin between his eyes crinkle just enough to display some displeasure that could easily be attributed to being held in medical pending final clearance. Not because the man he thought of as a friend played God despite his clear wishes to the contrary.
“Hand was impressed by your team,” Fury informed him.
The streusel smell intensified. “I imagine Agent Hand is impressed by anyone who doesn’t immediately bow to her demands.”
That got a twitch of amusement from the other man. “She was especially interested in your little hacker.”
Phil clenched his fist at the anger (rage, pain) that went through him at the statement, and the depth of his own emotions startled him. Skye was a member of his team, she’d proven herself useful, resourceful, and most of all loyal to the people and causes she cared for. “If it wasn’t for her I’d still be tripping the life fantastic.” He shrugged. “Or dead.”
“She’s caught the attention of some of our other departments,” Nick leaned against the door, arms folded. He hadn’t missed the change in his demeanor and was fishing now. “CS has been drooling ever since she pulled that little stunt at the Hub. Operations likes the thought of a brain that doesn’t mind getting her hands dirty.”
Coulson slowly counted backward from one hundred and willed the tension that bunched his shoulders to ease. “Skye is good at what she does,” he started. “But she’s better suited as a consultant than an agent.”
“Speaking of,” Nick pulled two photos out of his coat pocket. “This is what happened to your original target. Anything look familiar?”
There was a warm, vicious satisfaction in seeing one of his captors dead, left in the dirt beside a ramshackle building like so much trash. Raised veins traced their way across Po’s face, extending from his left ear in a pattern that was vaguely familiar. “We’ve seen this before,” he murmured.
“We have. About six years ago now.”
It clicked. Sand, dust…an abandoned terrorist camp deep in Afghanistan. “Raza.”
“Autopsy confirms that the same method was used to kill Po: high-frequency ultrasound. Short burst, extremely effective. Fried his brain before he could respond.” Fury sighed heavily. “There are about five different weapons vendors who’ve been working on something that uses sound this way. Two guesses who got there first.”
“Stark.”
“Stark’s been sitting on this since 2005. Non-lethal usage only, according to their research. It was discontinued because of a lack of military interest.” He nodded to the pictures. “It popped up on Raza, now on Po.”
Coulson thought back. He could remember seeing Po stiffen after Raina handed him the phone, watched him drop to the floor and be carried out with only vague amusement. The man had thought himself too important to be killed. Apparently, his superiors thought otherwise. “If Stark discontinued it, how did Centipede get their hands on the tech?”
“We’re working on that in connection with someone else Stark’s run up against recently.” Fury left the door and settled into a chair. “What can you tell me about AIM?”
"Okay, try these,” Darcy called as she set a platter of cheese muffins on the tiny kitchen table; an even two-dozen fist-sized lumps of goodness.
It was mid-afternoon, and the sun was (finally) peeking from behind the clouds, bathing the kitchen in champagne-colored light. Mixed with the savory smell of cheese and fresh-baked things it became perfect. She liked London, she really did, but there were times when she missed the near constant sunshine of New Mexico.
Thor left the balcony and sat down at the table. His chair creaked in protest. “Are these for me alone, Lady Darcy?”
She smiled and sat across from him, folding her arms on the table. He always got formal when it came to meals. “Yep, all for you, Big Guy.”
He answered her smile and reached for one of the muffins. She watched as he slowly demolished the tray until only five remained. “Better than Pop Tarts, I take it,” she teased as he chewed.
The amount of Pop Tarts the Asgardian put away his first week on Earth was enough to make her stomach churn in sympathy. He could eat three boxes by himself without blinking, which couldn’t be good for anyone, alien metabolism or not. With that in mind, she started a campaign to introduce Thor to different foods. Aside from the near-fatal Indian food incident (honestly, how was she supposed to know saffron was poisonous to space aliens?), the project was a success.
“Please, Darcy,” he said, gesturing to the remaining pastries. “They are truly wonderful, it is only fitting that you also enjoy your works.”
Darcy rolled her eyes and reached for a muffin.
As they ate she felt a tinge of nostalgia. She could almost be back in Puente Antiguo in Jane’s lab, trying to figure out if Thor was a super cut, crazy hobo or just really dedicated to a role at some local theater. Then she remembered the whole Destroyer thing, and SHIELD, and alien invasions. The past two years of her life at times moved too fast for her to keep up so she settled for going with the current. When Jane officially told SHIELD to suck it and set out on her own Darcy followed, even when she ended up moving to London because no university in the US would touch her boss with a ten-foot pole. Which yeah, okay, she could see how a government organization could do that to a scientist, but it was disturbing to find out said government was only a short step past blacklisting like it was the 1950s.
Jane took it all like a champ. Despite no one wanting to hire her, there were plenty of people on the fringes willing to use her as a consultant. The Foster Theory was making waves in the physics community. Hell, it was making tsunamis. Let everyone try and treat her like shit, she still knew more about the workings of the universe than just about anyone else on the planet and had the math to back it up. She was gearing up for a lecture tour in the spring (India, China, and Japan) when they got a call from Eric about some kind of uber-scary readings he was picking up and wanted a second opinion on, and then aliens happened. Again. Seriously, that was two occasions out of three where Jane and Eric worked together and little green men, (well, hot Norse dudes and space elves) decided to crash the party.
Their small apartment was even smaller with Thor now in residence. It wasn’t that he tried to take up space; it was just that when you were a six foot four-inch tower of space alien built like a brick shithouse you took up space. Thor, because he was first and foremost a prince, insisted on sleeping on the tiny couch for the first week until both Jane and Darcy began getting sympathy pains from the way he had to crunch himself to fit. It wasn’t like they weren’t messing around, so there was no reason in her mind for them to act like they were being all chaste. She’d caught them, well… Grandma Lewis would call it canoodling, more than a few times in the week since the big guy became a permanent resident.
They finally bought a king-sized air mattress, and that became an adventure in itself, trying to find one that could take all 500 pounds of him (and the bruise Jane gave her when she joked about safe-sex was totally worth it). In the end, they had to special order one, but because of space issues, it meant it could only be inflated immediately before he went to sleep and then deflated every morning. Frankly, she was surprised that Jane’s mom didn’t kick them all out already.
Her being in Spain on her own lecture tour probably had something to do with that.
“Jane’s still sulking, by the way,” Darcy reported around a mouthful of muffin.
Thor sighed. “I have told her, several times, that I do not need more space. I have slept in far less comfortable means that those you have provided.”
“Yep. I know that… and you know that… but Jane’s feeling guilty.” About everything, even her wasn’t-really-a-break-up-because-we-only-dated-a-hot-minute breakup with Ian. “And the place SHIELD wants to set us up is like ultra-cool.” And back stateside. She saw the pictures, and you couldn’t argue with a five-bedroom McMansion and double the funding.
“I am happiest when Jane is as well, she knows this.” He swept out an arm. “Whether here, in the barren wastes of Svarltelheim, or the hot fires of Muspelheim, it matters not.”
Considering that he’d actually done the whole Svartleheim thing, she had to agree with him.
Darcy took the rest of the muffins and put them away for Jane and Eric before starting on cleaning the kitchen. She was halfway through the dishes when she turned around and saw Thor staring at her. She looked down. “I got flour on my butt?”
“No.” Thor stood and went to the kitchen, picked up a towel and started drying the dishes in the rack before carefully putting them away. That he did little things like that without needing to be asked was unbearably cute. “I am glad to see you well, Darcy Lewis. It is good to know that your trip to my realm did no undue damage.”
She shrugged. “Just wish I could remember. The pictures I got on my phone were awesome.”
Through the rest of cleaning up Thor kept throwing glances her way, and it was starting to freak her out just a little. “Okay!” She finally said. “What’s the deal?”
“Deal? I do not-“
“Oh, don’t try the adorably confused puppy routine with me. “ She wiggled a soapy finger in his direction. “I see right through it, even if Jane can’t.”
Thor smiled then, and it was full of mischief. “And Jane often says you are unobservant.”
“Yeah, I’m unobservant. Who missed the man-shaped shadow in one of her own pictures?” Darcy rolled her eyes. Seriously, people who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones. “What gives? You’ve been watching me like you expect me to break into song and dance or something.”
Something in his expression shifted, and the look was gone. “It is nothing, friend Darcy. Jane spoke to me about Sir Ian, and-“
She laughed, she couldn’t help it. “Sir Ian? The guy couldn’t even pull out a chair for me, so definitely not a ‘sir’ anything. Anyway, that’s old news.”
Thor was about to say something else when there was a loud knock on the door. “Coming!” she shouted, wiping errant soap from her arms. By the time she got to the door the knocking was back, louder and more insistent.
“Jeez!” she huffed as she pulled open the door. “You better be selling the English equivalent of Girl Scout cookies, or…” She trailed off because there was no way Tony frickin’ Stark was the one on their doorstep.
“Man of Iron!” Thor boomed from behind her, and Darcy stepped back as he engulfed the smaller man in a hug that lifted him off his feet. The expression on Stark’s face was priceless, somewhere between ‘is this really happening’ and ‘holy fuck-balls, how is this my life?’
“Point Break,” he said once Thor set him down.
Thor’s smile was bright as he turned to her. “Darcy, this is Tony Stark, my shield-brother.”
“Yeah, kinda figured.”