Thor 2 approved! Who else is excited?

It had been stormy all evening. Thunder rolled mercilessly across the late afternoon sky, the clouds punctuated by occasional flashes of lightning. As the squall gathered Jane couldn't help but hope that this time it would be him.

It wasn't. It was never him.

And when one more failure to add to the seemingly endless string of recent disappointments deflated her confidence even further, she had no other option but to plant herself firmly on a local bar stool for the night. Was it possible they were actually going backwards in their search for a route to Thor? It certainly felt that way. Right now there was only one apparent solution left to her problems, and that was alcohol. Lots of it.

"What if he never comes back?" she moaned to Darcy, leaning heavily against her rather more sober colleague.

God, not again. "He will Jane," she assured for what must have been the third time tonight. "He promised."

"Yeah but wha' if he doesn't?" Darcy rolled her eyes. What had been mild irritation a half hour earlier was bordering on full-blown exasperation now. This was getting old, fast. "I mean, am I wasting my time looking? What if he changed his mind? He doesn't want me anymore. Or he's dead. That's it! He got killed in a fight and now he's dead and he's never coming back."

"He can't be dead Jane," Darcy pointed out. "He's immortal."

"Yeah, so how's that gonna work in a relationship?" She screwed one unfocussed eye shut and peered intently into the mystery pink liquid in her glass. "He'll live forever while I'll get old and wrinkly until he's not attracted to me anymore."

"What happened to finding a way to another world for science's sake?" Darcy raised her eyebrows expectantly. "Or are we doing this all for a guy?

"Of course not," Jane mumbled dejectedly. "But he's my carrot, Darce! And if he isn't dangling within reach then what's the point. Let's face it, we're never gonna create an Einstein-Rosenberg-"

"Bridge."

"-Thor's not coming back for me and I'm doomed to be alone for all eternity." She slumped forward onto the bar in a heap.

"Right, 'cause you're fundamentally unlovable to anyone besides otherworldly thunder gods," Darcy snarked. "You've said it yourself Jane, maybe time moves differently there and he's only been home for like ten minutes. That could explain the whole lives forever thing, right?" Maybe. "Or something important came up and he's just busy."

"Yeah some beautiful blonde Asgardian Amazon came up," she spat. "You know, if he ever does bother to show his face here again, I think I'm gonna slap it."

"Ok Jane, enough with the melodrama! And when you start mixing your mythologies, it's time to lay off the booze." Darcy reached over and removed the empty glass from her friend's hand to the other side of the bar and out of her reach. "What happened to your undying love for the guy anyway?"

"Pfffft!" she scoffed. "He doesn't deserve it. Men, the universe over, are all the same."

Jane leaned across and retrieved her tumbler. "This drink," she addressed the bartender, rattling the booze-less rocks at him. "I like it. Another!"

"No she won't," Darcy cut in decisively as Jane snorted at her own little joke. Getting to her feet, she slapped a few bills on the bar and slung her bag over her shoulder. "We're leaving."

oOo

They exited the bar and tottered down the road together, hanging onto each other.

The lab was as good a crash pad for the night as anywhere. There was a perfectly serviceable foldout couch to sleep on, and it was marginally closer and more spacious than Jane's trailer. Darcy had no intention of carrying either of them an inch further than was absolutely necessary.

"Jane, you're gonna need to stand up. You might be a lightweight in the booze department," had she even had more than 3 drinks? "but you're still really heavy."

"I didn't eat lunch." Well that explained half of it. Jane removed her unwelcome weight from her friend's shoulder and tested her equilibrium unsupported. Her legs consented to hold her up.

"See, not drunk at all." She twirled slowly to prove her point, before wobbling precariously and lurching sideways.

"If you say so."

A few yards further up the road Jane stopped abruptly and spun around, a look of wild excitement in her face. "I just thought of something we haven't tried yet!"

"Don't make me taser you," Darcy warned. The last thing she could stomach right now was drunken nonsense science talk.

Instead and without further explanation Jane flung her arms wide, threw back her head and shouted at the top of her lungs up at the night sky.

Darcy ducked involuntarily at the sudden outburst, her hands flying to her head to protect against the surprise attack. Definitely not what she had been expecting.

"Come on," Jane cried, gesticulating wildly. "Help me!"

"Oh I think you're loud enough all by yourself."

The street was otherwise deserted and Darcy only hoped that anyone within earshot had their tv volume turned up enough so as not to be forced to hear. This was embarrassing.

"Heimdall," her friend yelled again, "open the Bifrost!"

Lightning flashed across the heavens and seconds later thunder rumbled tantalisingly in reply. "Oh my god, Darcy! It's working," she grabbed her sleeve, shaking fiercely as she kept her gaze fixed on the skies. "It's working!"

Except it didn't work. No funnel materialised, no golden-haired god emerged from a cloud of dust striding purposefully towards her to sweep her up in his arms. And as that knowledge became certain, Jane, who had been laughing at her own temerity, collapsed down onto the nearest available step and dissolved into tears.

oOo

"This is a bad plan, Jane."

"No it's not. You're coming and we're doing this."

"You're kinda drunk," cautioned Darcy. "And friends don't let friends drink and ink."

"I may not be entirely sober, but I'm enough in control of my faculties to make a rational decision." She stumbled, pitching forward and hand-walked up the last couple of steps.

"If you say so," muttered Darcy dubiously following her into the brightly lit shop at the top of the metal staircase.

"I want a tattoo," Jane stated to the man sitting behind the counter.

"Well then you've come to the right place." He dog-eared a corner of the comic book he was reading and set it down. "What did you have in mind?"

She dug her phone out of her back pocket, fiddled for a few moments before turning the screen towards the guy. "There. That's what I want."

He leaned forward and peered critically at the image before looking back up at her with raised brows. "Really?"

"Yes really." Asshole.

"You know what they say, right?" Two pairs of eyes stared blankly back. "A tattoo's for life. Not just for Christmas."

"That's a dog."

"Well yeah, but it's appropriate here too." He guffawed a little at his own joke then stopped when he got no response from his patrons. Yeesh, tough crowd. He ran his hand awkwardly through his shock of black hair and changed tack.

"No problem. But might I suggest something a little less stylised? Like maybe," he pulled his keyboard closer and tapped his fingers across it for a few moments before turning the computer screen in their direction, "one of these?

"Ooh, pretty," her friend enthused.

"No." Jane pushed the offensive representation away and shook her phone at him. "This. The Asgardian original. Not some cheap Celtic or Norse imitation. Those look like anchors, not hammers."

"Maybe, but here, look at the intricate scrollwork. It's almost identical to the design running down the sides of the real thing." He seemed genuinely excited as he took the image she'd been waving at him, zoomed it in and held it up to indicate the similarity. "See? What do you think?"

Jane snatched her cell back, defensively clutching it to her chest.

"No touching the phone, Sparky," warned Darcy before poking at a particular drawing. "I like that one."

"I could customise a design for you if you like," he offered as he picked up an aerosol of screen cleaner, spritzed twice and polished away the fingerprints. "Something more hammer-like but maybe a little less… shall we say 'prosaic', than a rectangle with a stick coming out the centre base."

"Listen," Jane grabbed his sweater and pulled him forward to scrutinise his name tag, "Kyle. This is what I want. Not something else. This. Can you do it or not?"

He carefully removed her hand, smoothed down the front of his pullover and cleared his throat. "Yes ma'am."

"Good," she nodded her head decisively. "Thank you."

Kyle pulled his lips into a nervous half-smile that vanished more quickly than it had threatened. He retrieved a sheet of paper from below the counter and began sketching a design. Jane gave direction as it took shape - shorter there, more twirly bits down the sides - until she was satisfied with the result.

Perfect.

"Do you want the valknut?" She stared blankly. "The three interlocking triangles that appeared on the side of the hammer a few times before Thor reclaimed it. Or more accurately, I suppose, before it reclaimed him."

Jane narrowed her eyes. Was this guy privy to classified government information? Before she could grill him further his fingers were clicking across the keys. He turned the screen back to face her, displaying Mjolnir imbedded in rock bearing the aforementioned symbol on its side. Ah, internet. No doubt the mooks at Strategic Homeland Interference and Eavesdropping whatever-they-were-called would be thrilled.

"Ok, technically it's more of an interlaced triquetra than it is a valknut, but presumably the meaning is-" he trailed off and withered beneath her disinterested gaze.

"It's not normally there, so I don't want it." The symbol might mean anything, but given the circumstances Jane figured it was quite possibly the Asgardian equivalent of a Magic 8-Ball's 'ask again later'. That hardly seemed appropriate.

"Fair enough," he conceded.

Kyle added a few finishing touches to the sketch before looking back up at her expectantly. "Right, where d'you want it?"

"Where?" She questioned stupidly. Where? Good point. Jane hadn't even thought that far ahead. Where?

She looked over to Darcy for advice. Her friend was flipping casually through one of the folders lying on the counter, twirling a lock of hair around her finger and humming along tunelessly to the song playing softly in the background.

"Don't look at me," she warned, eyes never leaving the pages she was perusing, and effectively cutting Jane's appeal for help off at the knees. "It's is your decision. I'm not letting you blame this on me in the morning."

She thought as quickly as a mind fogged by peculiar pink drink could manage. This was important. What was a good place for hammer-shaped body art?

Wrist, foot, ankle? Too many bones or tendons there. Jane imagined that might hurt and so ruled it out. Bicep? Too masculine. Shoulder maybe, or was that, like, so last century? Lower back? Nape? Rib cage beside her hammering heart? Corny.

The bright fluorescent lights overhead were starting to make her temples throb.

Butt maybe? Boob? She cast her eyes down at her chest.

"When you're 80 and you're tucking them into your skirt that's not gonna be a good look," Darcy chimed in, as if reading her mind. "Plus," she jerked her chin at the artist and whispered a little too loudly for him not to hear, "he's the one who'll be inking it.

That effectively ruled out anywhere more intimate too. Definitely not with creepy Kyle over there doing the artwork.

"Hey, aren't you the dude from the pet store?" asked Darcy.

Jane closed her eyes, tuning them out, took a deep cleansing breath and made her decision.

"Ok, I'm ready. Let's do this."

TBC...

A/N. Fyi, Tattoos Ink is a real place. You can see the sign for it through one of the windows of their lab if you're not too distracted by a shirtless Hemsworth. Does that mean I've seem this movie too many times, lol? And I kinda liked the idea of weird Kyle having a second job. Let me know what you thought. :)