Psych the Avengers Out

Fostering Understanding

She's tired and groggy when Thor re-enters the room later the same day. She's lying on her back and her head turns slowly to looks at him. She looks absolutely exhausted but the dark circles under her eyes aren't anywhere as deep as they were when they first met. She gives him a small smile as he pulls the wheeled stool next to the bed and sits down.

"Hey, big man," she says, her voice soft and relaxed. It's so different from how he's used to hearing her. She looks pretty tranquil on the bed. Her fingers pick at the wires and tubes running out of her elbow. Creamy white blankets cover her legs to her waist and there is a white t-shirt covering the rest of her. Her hair is still up though, twisted into the mess of curls she usually wears.

"Hey, little one," he says. She cocks an eyebrow. He shrugs as if to say "it's true". She smiles and doesn't say anything. "You feel okay?"

She nods. They lapse into silence.

"You gonna read me the riot act or do the questioning, dude?" she asks after a while. He scratches the back of his head bashfully.

"Well since the Widow and the Captain already read you the riot act in tandem and I know Stark will be playfully interrogating you soon, can we say I'm here to just ask you if you're alright?" She cocks the other eyebrow at him, as if to say, it's never that simple. "I thought, maybe, you would want someone to talk to," Thor trails off. "About what, I'm not really sure," he mutters into the silence that she's been letting hang.

"No worries," she says with a grin. "We can talk about... well.... I guess that's not so easy now is it when our relationship so far has been about suspicions, hostility, rescues and bad jokes by Stark, now is it?" He admits she has a point but it makes him laugh nonetheless. He misses this kind of wit. It's the kind of wit his... well, yes, his brother was known for. The sarcastic and sometimes caustic wit that makes you snort in spite of yourself. It's like having a mini version of his brother that has a little more sass and a little less dark and brooding gloom and doom look all the time.

"I actually..," Thor starts hesitantly, "Thought you might like to meet some of the people I first met when I came to Earth." Jay gives him a questioning look. "Come on in," Thor calls to the doorway.

The door swings inward to reveal three people standing close to each other, huddled in a protective group like she has the plague or something. There are two women and an older gentleman. Jay decides that the older fellow looks Eastern European to her eyes, maybe Norwegian but she doesn't have enough experience to really know. He's balding slightly and there are furrows of age around his mouth but he looks friendly enough. Of the two women, both are brunettes but one has a slightly darker shade which is covered by a knit cap at the moment. The one with the cap has dark rimmed glasses and looks like an academic, maybe a college student. The other one looks more like a professional like Pepper did with her slim fitting and tailored clothes although Jay can tell by the ink stains on her fingers that this woman is probably an academic as well. Maybe a young professor or a small scale business owner.

As they approach, Thor introduces them to Jay, the man as Erik Selvig, the darker haired girl as Darcy. Jay can tell immediately by the fondness in his voice as he introduces the last woman that this is Jane Foster, the woman he fell in love with on his first sojourn to Earth. It's obvious by the way he looks at her and she catches Darcy rolling her eyes.

"And this, my friends, is Miss Jaycee Strong, recently added to the Avengers," Thor says by way of introduction. Jay feels her face flush hot in embarrassment as he lauds her.

"It's just Jay," she mumbles. Her fingers wind into the coils of tubing around her elbow in shyness. She doesn't really understand why she's so shy to meet new people after everything she's been through but she defaults to it since it seems safer than being boisterously loud at the first meeting. She supposes she should be polite and holds out a hand timidly, which all three of her visitors shake in turn.