Unexpected

Time Off and Assumptions

That night, when I returned home I took four slices of pie down a level to give them to the neighbor family. Zita greeted me at the door with a smile and seconds later Ana and Lillian were hugging my waist and questioning me about what I'd brought for them. The pair of little girls was thrilled with the prospect of their special surprise dessert while their mother, Zita, was excited to see me for another reason entirely.

"Date night?"

"Yeah, I meant to ask you about it sooner, but I just never caught you. It's been a while for my husband and I to just have some alone time, so I was wondering if you would babysit the girls again? They absolutely love you."

"Aw, I like them too." I smiled, feeling a little blush grow on my cheeks as I looked over at the girls who were now trailing after their dad as he moved to their kitchen with the paper plates of pie, their eyes shining brightly as they tried to coax him into letting them have their slices now, "They're good kids."

"Well, I think so." She smiled before reaching out to touch my hand softly, "Penny... I know that you've recently gone through a period of loss, so if asking this is too mu-"

"No, it's fine!" I assured her, patting her hand in an attempt to try to rid her face of that solemn, sad look, "I can take them tomorrow night no problem! Now, if you had asked me to take them on Thursday night I'd have to say no since I'm heading out of the country again the next day, but I can totally watch them tomorrow."

That assurance led me to standing at my stove on Wednesday night, flipping quesadillas for Ana, Lillian, and I for dinner as I held my cellphone pinched between my ear and shoulder, talking to Agent Rumlow about taking my long weekend to visit Selvig. I had meant to hunt Rumlow down during my lunch hour in the cafeteria and talk to him about my prospective, last minute trip then, but I had gotten caught up in a little research on this 'Jane' person that Selvig had mentioned. If she was a friend of Selvig's and she was in England, maybe I could get her to help me with Eric. Anyways, she apparently is Thor's... girlfriend? Lover? In any case, she knew Thor and fell in love with him much as I had fallen for my trickster god.

It had taken my entire lunch hour to try to locate Jane's contact information in S.H.I.E.L.D.'s files, since I figured that anyone who came in contact with and Asgardian would be reported. I'd managed to find a file on her composited mostly by an Agent named Phillip Coulson that contained information about Thor's first appearance on earth down in New Mexico. Other documents in the file showed that Jane had been hired by S.H.I.E.L.D. shortly afterwards along with Selvig, though it seemed uncertain to me if she knew she was being hired by S.H.I.E.L.D. or not. Apparently, upon Thor's request, Coulson had set it up for Jane to be offered a position in Norway to keep her away from the damage that Loki inflicted in New York. The file also said that Jane had since left that position, though I couldn't quite tell if she was still working under S.H.I.E.L.D.

There was tons of information to be found it seemed, just not the info I desired. I couldn't seem to find a phone number or something to contact her with and see if she knew of Selvig's dubious mental state. Selvig said he'd already called her, but I wasn't sure if Jane had a grasp on what seemed to me to be Selvig's sliding sanity. In the end, I ran out of time during my lunch break and had to resign myself to waiting until I was in London to figure that whole mess out. It had caused me to need to call Rumlow now, though, after work while I was babysitting the little girls who were now scribbling out their homework while sitting cross-legged at my coffee table with cartoons playing on my TV.

"This is very last minute, Copper."

I sighed, "I know, but the situation came up suddenly. Anyways, you said that I could use my extra days when I came back from my leave."