The following day was extraordinarily long, and made longer still by an intense unease Jane had been unable to shake since watching the news coverage the previous night. It took her a few hours to identify what lay at the core of her anxiety: it felt so much like New York, and Thor had left without seeing her after New York.

She was done with hand-wringing, though, and would be damned if that was happening again. When she told him about it, he assured her no such thing would occur, and helped her focus on specific tasks, like packing the basics, working out what Darcy would need to handle in London, and concocting a story for her mom. The activity bled off some of the stress, so that by the time they were in the air on Stark's private jet she was able to doze on and off. Stark sent the company's head of personal security—a friendly, stocky man who introduced himself as Happy—to escort them, and once Thor warmed up to him they traded stories throughout the flight. Thor's tireless vigilance was comforting, even if it also meant he was subjecting anyone who came within fifty feet of her to an intense scrutiny that often turned them away.

They landed in the late afternoon, and a helicopter flew them from LaGuardia to the Tower. Stark was there to greet them on the helipad; he shook hands with Jane first. "Dr. Foster. So good to finally meet you in person. A shame the circumstances can't be less catastrophic."

Despite how matter-of-fact and light-hearted he sounded, the word catastrophic made her stomach clench. "How bad is it?"

"Very. But we'll get to that." He moved on to Erik. "Dr. Selvig."

Jane couldn't miss the resignation in Erik's expression as he shook hands with Stark. "Mr. Stark."

Tony smiled and turned to Thor. "Thor."

"Stark." Thor's greeting had a distinct undertone of caution, which Tony probably decided to ignore. They shook hands, and Stark leaned in and peered at Thor's arm. "Did you get bigger?" Thor seemed unsure how to answer, but before he could, Stark released him and gave his outfit a once-over. "Congratulations on looking almost normal."

"That is Jane and Erik and Darcy's work."

"Well they did a spectacular job. I almost can't tell you're a weather-controlling alien."

"Thank you," Thor said in a way which implied he wasn't actually sure he was thankful at all, but knew it was the expected response.

Tony turned and lead them into the Tower penthouse, saying, "Of course you already know Banner." Banner, who was sitting at a breakfast bar reading from a tablet, glanced up, waved a hello, and pulled off his glasses. He and Thor exchanged nods.

A tall woman in a smart, dark gray business suit with a crisp white shirt came around from the other side of the bar. "And I'm Pepper." She offered her hand first to Jane—her handshake was firm and friendly—next Erik, and then Thor, who did that courtly half-bow thing he seemed to reserve for special occasions. Jane saw Stark's jaw set as Pepper laughed.

"I am honored by your invitation, Virginia Potts," Thor said.

Pepper cast Jane an amused look and told Thor, "Please, it's just Pepper. And I'm glad you accepted, even here at Stark Industries we don't get a lot of visitors from other worlds."

Thor withdrew his hand. "The pleasure is mine," he said. "I hope my presence will not be an inconvenience to you."

Jane suspected they were witnessing some sort of Asgardian social code, and wondered what the reason was; she'd never seen Thor behave quite this formally with anyone.

Regardless, Pepper took it in stride. "I sincerely doubt that," she assured him. Thor nodded and seemed about to say more, but Tony sidled up next to Pepper.

"Okay, okay, enough of the whole court rituals thing you two," he said, and squinted at Thor, which Thor met with a small, almost devious smile. Pepper rolled her eyes and made her way over to the bar, gesturing towards the kitchen as she went.

"We keep the kitchen stocked, but of course you're welcome to bring in anything you want, just make sure to label it. The coffee shop across the street gets their pastries from a very good bakery, I recommend them if that's your thing. I've got your IDs right here." She offered them keycards with the photos Jane had sent; they were encased in thick, hard, plastic shells and attached to lanyards. "I'll have one for Ms. Lewis when she arrives."

"Thank you so much Ms. P—ah, Pepper," Jane said.

"I'm the one who should be thanking you. We'll be sending up much better equipment than we would have without you."

Jane shook herself out. "Speaking of which. Can we get a tour of the labs?"

Tony held a hand towards the elevator. "Certainly."

Happy showed them to their apartments after Tony had whisked them around on their grand tour. Jane was itching to get to work in the lab, but schooled herself to patience. It could wait until tomorrow morning, and anyways, she was starving, Erik was exhausted, and it was already five o'clock.

The apartment had definitely been designed for visiting personnel rather than long-term living, though it wasn't so small as to be cramped. (She doubted she'd spend much time in it, and if Thor's interest in London was any indication then New York would keep him plenty occupied as well.) The galley kitchen wouldn't really hold more than one person at a time, and it felt odd to live, however temporarily, somewhere that wasn't lined with bookshelves.

She came out from the bathroom to find Thor staring out the large window in the living room that looked over the city. Lights were coming on in fits and starts as twilight fell, and he watched with a pensive expression.

She moved to stand next to him, slipping an arm around his waist and asking, "Think this will be okay?"

He wrapped an arm around her. "I believe so." He raised an eyebrow. "Will it be for you?" She tipped her head and he said, "I know it was not only your science that drew you here."

Jane laid her head against him. "I won't lie and say the part where it'd be crazy of HYDRA to come sniffing around here and all the digits after the dollar sign in my compensation weren't factors." She shrugged. "But we'd have figured something else out even without this. The fact that it was Stark just made it easier."

"Oh?"

"He can't stand SHIELD any more than I can."

Thor huffed a small laugh. Then, "As long as it was a choice you made for yourself."

Jane poked him in the ribs. "Choices I make based on you can still be choices for myself. I just have to be sure my personal needs still get met. That's Relationships 101." He nodded, and she said, "What about you? What would you choose for yourself?"

He glanced aside, like he was thinking about something he wasn't likely to share, and said, "I have already chosen it."

"Yeah?"

He looked down at her and ran a hand over her hair. "Yes."

Jane felt her face grow warm. "Okay." Her stomach twinged, and she said, "Does it involve what's for dinner? Because I'm starving."

He grinned and turned them around towards the door. "It was not that specific of a decision, though it can now be. Is there something you would like to eat?"

"There's a pho place Tony swears by. That's noodles in broth, with meat if you want, and herbs and other things."

"This sounds like something I would like to try."

"Good. And after that, we can start the best part of a move." Thor raised his eyebrows. "Unpacking," she clarified, and he laughed.

Later, when they were full of pho and liberal amounts of Sriracha and basil and had started the process of organizing their new home, Jane asked, "What was that whole thing with Pepper?"

Thor gave her a confused look in between examining book covers. He had taken her insistence they be put on the shelves in the correct order very seriously. "What do you mean?"

"It looked like you were being super formal with her."

Thor's expression cleared. "Is she not the head of this house of business?"

Jane shoved the last of her clothes into the dresser drawer and forced it shut. She could deal with properly folding things tomorrow. She sat down on the edge of the bed. "Yeah, she's the CEO."

"And Stark's offer came to you with her approval."

Jane nodded, watching Thor as he placed the books. The letters had all been under Pepper's signature first and Stark's second, and Thor had wanted to read them, which at the time Jane had put down to simple curiosity.

"But the offer was for you to do work, not for me. I was invited as a courtesy to you. It would have been rude to fail to thank her, and to not acknowledge the gesture."

Jane blinked. "Do you actually think they wouldn't have let me bring you?"

"It certainly would have been their right. It is your skills they sought, not mine, and it is no small effort for them to accommodate me." He sounded not the least bit put out by this.

"Are you kidding? It's a minuscule effort. You might eat a lot but I promise you, this company spends way more money on worse things than it could ever spend on feeding you."

"It is theirs to spend as they wish. And even if it is no great effort, that does not absolve me of the need to thank Pepper for her generosity." Thor sat back on his heels and left off the books. "It is prudent to be respectful to the head of an allied household."

Jane felt like this was a cultural gap she might never really understand, but then again, she hadn't been raised with the political destiny that he had. She moved down off the bed and onto the floor next to him, and he slid an arm round her waist and pulled her close as soon as she was in reach.

"Look, just because you're not inheriting the throne of Asgard anymore doesn't mean you're some piece of luggage I brought with me, okay?"

He smiled, looking far too pleased with himself for his own good. "Indeed, I should hope I am more useful than your luggage. For example, unlike this box, I can place your books back upon their shelves." He leaned in to kiss her, and Jane made him stop by putting a hand on his chest.

"I'm serious. There's a lot of things you could be doing. You don't have to follow me around. Or anything."

Thor sobered and watched her for a long handful of seconds, then took one of her hands and kissed the palm. She squirmed as his beard grazed her wrist. "And what if that is what I wish to do?"

"Follow me around?"

"Be where you are. It is true, there are things I may do—and so long as they allow me to return to you and be near you, then I will do them." He turned her hand and kissed the knuckles. "And while I am a guest in Pepper's house of business, I will behave in a manner which will not embarrass you nor jeopardize your work and presence here."

Jane set her forehead against his. She worried about this sort of thing all the time; that he would, contrary to everything he'd just said, become bored with her and wander off. Really, considering the scope of his life until now, it was hard for her to believe he could be in any way satisfied with the decidedly mundane nature of his current situation on Earth. And every time it came up he always insisted that he wasn't unhappy, or longing for a more meaningful existence than that of an astrophysicist's alien boyfriend, so maybe it was time to stop second guessing the good things in her life. Or at least him.

"What a relief," she said. "Here I was thinking I might have to lock you in the apartment any time I'm at work so you won't get into trouble."

"There are those who might still advise you to take such precautions." He nibbled at one of her fingers and asked in a low voice, "Are we done unpacking for now?"

"Oh yeah," Jane said. "Definitely."

They barely had reasonable sleep schedules under normal circumstances, and a six hour time delay did nothing to improve that, so rather than trying to sleep Thor went to check out Tony's training facilities and Jane made her way to the roof. She was unsurprised to find Erik already there. A handful of sturdy, metal lawn chairs in some dark color—it was hard to tell what with how the roof lights mixed haphazardly in the glow of the city—were scattered about in what she imagined were prime viewing locations for various sights.

"I figured you'd come out here sooner or later," he said as she approached, and gestured at a chair next to the one he'd taken. Jane settled in and tipped her head back to gaze overhead. Almost nothing was visible, though Jane hadn't expected it to be any improvement over London.

Still, Erik pointed and said, "Ursa Minor would be right about there."

Jane traced a shallow arc from the tip of his finger. "And Cassiopeia here."

Erik made a low sound of agreement. "I'm looking forward to Atacama. All that time in London, and now here—no sky, just a this sort of, ceiling."

"That's not for three months. I'm not waiting that long." He tilted his head at her, and she said, "I figure we can rent a car and drive out of the city somewhere. Shouldn't have to go too far."

"No, I suppose not."

They sat in silence for some time. Jane said, "Is this what our lives are going to be like now?"

Erik looked askance at her. "How do you mean?"

She waved a hand at the building beneath them. "Working with Stark on whatever craziness he manages to get his hands on, trying to dodge SHIELD or HYDRA or whoever they are, helping prevent the world or the galaxy or the universe from being obliterated—is this it? Are we ever going back to normal?"

"Were you expecting normal when you decided to focus on wormholes and singularities?"

Jane made a face. "Well, I wasn't expecting any of this."

"I don't think they did either. Not even Thor—though maybe it was only the total destruction of the universe that was a new thing for him."

"Probably not even that," she muttered, and Erik laughed.

"Perhaps not." He took in a long breath and let it out slowly. "Would you rather none of this, though? Without it, you'd have far less personal evidence for your theories. To say nothing of never meeting Thor."

She fidgeted with the hem of her sweater. She'd asked herself that several times over the last two years: would she rather have never met Thor, and be back more or less where she'd been in New Mexico, but minus all the insanity of SHIELD and the Convergence and the Aether? Yet no matter how she asked it to herself, the answer was always the same.

"I know. And, no, I wouldn't trade any of that or him to go back to what it was like. It's just—" She swallowed, remembering the sight of the burning helicarriers on the TV. "It's a lot to take in."

"So it is."

Erik was giving her a sympathetic look, and she was reminded of what the Tesseract had done to him. Thus far, she'd been mercifully lacking in symptoms or signs of any side-effects from the Aether itself, but he and Thor and Darcy were ever watchful. No, it was this local shake-up that had her nervous, this revelation that the shady organization she'd never trusted was much worse and far more powerful and widespread than she'd ever imagined. In a world already hostile to billions of people for a whole host of other, ugly reasons it seemed unfair that now there was this, too.

She took to watching the planes in the landing pattern. Presently, Erik said, "It could be worse."

"I'm almost afraid to ask how."

"We could be sitting around writing more grant proposals."

It was true that they weren't going to lack for work in the foreseeable future, and work had always helped her deal with the upheavals of her life. Better yet, some of it was work which didn't involve tiptoeing around things like what had really happened in Greenwich and New Mexico, and her alien boyfriend for whom magic and technology were the same thing.

For a moment she thought she saw a star or planet winking through the city's glow and haze. It came and went so fast she had no idea if she'd imagined it, but decided it too was something she shouldn't second guess.

She said, "This is, without a doubt, a lot better than writing grant proposals."