Feel Something

Chapter 2: If You Think You Can Save Me

The more Darcy assured herself she was good with weird, the more it felt like an outright lie. There was a big difference between the kind of weird that got you picked last in gym class and the kind of weird that involved strange men dressed like gladiators falling out of the sky.

Because that's exactly the kind of weird that was staring back at her from the photos she just printed out from last night's escapade. A cloud of orange and red, swirling and storming around a solitary figure that was definitely human—or human-ish. What gave the specter a truly sinister effect was the eyes—those haunted green eyes that she couldn't seem to shake from her thoughts, blown wide with shock, rage, and absolute terror. They were undeniably the eyes of the man they had left at the hospital several hours earlier. The eyes of Loki Odinson.

"Hey, uh, Jane? I think you're gonna want to see this," Darcy called over her shoulder to her boss. Jane and Erik stepped up beside her, and it only took a moment for Jane to come alive with renewed purpose.

"I think I left something at the hospital," Jane mumbled, already making a beeline for the door with Erik Selvig close on her heels. With one last glance at the incriminating photograph, Darcy snatched up the car keys from the hook by the door and hurried after her colleagues.

~~~

"He did what?!" Jane stammered in shock.

"Mr. Odinson checked himself out..." the nurse replied, flipping through her clipboard with apparent disinterest, "Over an hour ago. He didn't seem to be expecting anyone to pick him up and just wandered down the street. Are you his next of kin?"

"N-no..." Jane replied weakly, "I'm his...well...nevermind. Thanks anyway." She turned dejectedly back to the hospital entrance and dragged herself slowly out the sliding doors—the very picture of utter defeat.

Jane was always too hard on herself. Despite being only five years her senior, Jane had accomplished more in her post-graduate life than Darcy expected to over her entire career. She had a pristine academic record, countless awards, and probably job offers from every physics lab in the country, astro or otherwise. Yet she was devoted to this work, even when others called her crazy. Even when it meant being treated as a pariah in the academic sphere—an eccentric with strange ideas.

Jane's lack of support for her research also added up to a notable lack of funding, which was why the lab doubled as their residence for the duration of their time in Puente Antiguo. A sane person would get a house and convert the garage into a lab, mulled Darcy when she first beheld the bare-bones observatory-turned-research facility that would be her home throughout the internship, Not convert laboratory storage closets into bedrooms.

Erik—not being a starving college student on an internship like Darcy—had the financial stability to stay in a nearby hotel for his visit. Some people had all the luck.

Despite her initial shortcomings about Jane's housing choices, Darcy admired her immensely. She also knew how much it crushed Jane to fail with a potential breakthrough so near at hand.

"Hey, it's just a set-back," Darcy reassured her boss-slash-bestie, "We're in Puente Antiguo, not San Francisco. I'm sure someone will have noticed a guy walking around in dirty larping gear."

Jane gave her an unamused look, but Darcy caught a spark of rekindled hope in her eyes.

"How about this? It's been a long day. And night. I barely slept, and I know for a fact that you were crunching numbers until your eyes popped out of their sockets and you had to ease them back in with a gallon of coffee. Why don't I drop you and Erik back at the lab to wrap things up and maybe sleep a little, and I'll go pick up some groceries for dinner. Latkes sound good?"