Chapter 5: It's Raining Men

Shawn quickly learned that ballroom dancing was not his thing, despite his amazing skill with the Chocolate Dance. One minute into waltzing to "Blue David Bowie" or whatever the name of that song was, he managed to step on Gus exactly eleven times.

"Let me lead, Shawn!" Gus hissed on the twelfth misstep, drawing even more attention from the couples around them. "You're going to dance us into the food table."

"But the chocolate fountain is just calling our names, Gus!" Shawn proclaimed, nearly stomping on Gus's foot again. "Can't you hear her?"

"Yes, I can hear the chocolate fountain, but Nadia said-"

"Hey Julie. Look what they're doin' to me. Tryin' to trip me up. Tryin' to wear me down-"

Shawn stopped dancing and pulled out his phone hastily as it continued to play the ringtone. "Oh shit! It's Juliet! I have to answer this!"

"You've had your phone on this entire time we've been in Germany?" Gus asked sternly as they both edged off the dancefloor and towards the side buffet. "You know that is going to be crap ton of money out of my pocket."

"I know, I know." Shawn waved him off and picked up the phone nervously. "Hey, Jules. What's up?"

"Shawn where have you been?" Juliet sounded worried. "I've been trying to get you to answer all day! Are you okay?"

"Gus and I are…" He looked around at the ballroom, the huge orchestra, the fancy people (that longhaired guy walking down the stairs holding a freaking gem-in-laid walking-stick for crying out loud). "At an art festival." It was technically true. They were at a party in a museum hence "art festival."

"An art festival?" Juliet sounded skeptical. "I didn't really peg you or Gus as artistic types." She paused for a moment, clearly listening to the background of Shawn's call: "Is that classical music?"

"Oh yes." Shawn smirked. "It helps enhance the emotions of the artwork. Gus enjoys psychedelic abstract works, but I myself am more of a fan of mitochondrial style paintings."

"The mitochondria is a part of a cell," Gus corrected as Juliet laughed through the phone.

"I'm guessing this is for another one of your private clients," Juliet said with a sigh. "Stay safe, Shawn. If you need me to kick some ass, just call."

"Got it Detective O'Hara," Shawn smiled at his girlfriend's badassery, "but I think Gus and I have got this one completely under control."

The moment those words flew out of his mouth was the moment when things got completely out of control…

oooOOOooo

It happened so fast, that Shawn highly doubted that Gus processed what was going down. Hell, he didn't even know if he knew what was going down. When he ran everything through his brain (later on), he sectioned everything like this:

Shawn realized who the staff-guy was. He was Lucky (Loki, whatever). He didn't recognize him at first because his face was turned to the side, but now that he saw him… He was looking better. His limp was gone. His veins were no longer prominent, and the dark circles under his eyes were almost non-existent. So, no more evidence of torture, hmm…

Loki bitch-slapped a security guard with his walking-stick. Everyone started screaming. Gus may or may not have wet himself.

Loki body slammed some bald dude (Wilhelm Jaeger, curator of the museum, if the SHIELD files were correct) into the table, and pulled out a weird metal device that looked like a cross between a butt probe and a arcade game claw.

Shawn took a pineapple from the buffet table and threw it into the device, breaking it, before Loki could hurt Wallace (Wilhelm, whatever).

Loki glared in their general direction.

They screamed for their lives.

"Shawn, what's happening?" Juliet was still on the line. "Shawn-"

"It's fine Jules. We're all just freaking out because David Bowie just arrived."

"What?"

He hung up the phone, and pulled Gus down just in time when Loki used his walking stick to send a giant blue energy blast towards them.

"HOLY SHIT!" Shawn yelled as it disintegrated the statue behind them.

They scrambled to their feet and joined the running crowd.

oooOOOooo

Nadia let out a yell as she kicked Barton off her. Her high heels slammed into his stomach, but he regained his balance and slammed her down on the floor again. She took off a heel, chucked it. It gashed his cheek. She took another one, threw it. He caught it, and threw it aside. She managed to get to her feet this time, and they traded a few punches, with her landing quite a few to his jaw. Finally, when she felt that the fight was nearing its end, she got cocky and aimed a roundhouse kick to his sternum. The angle was off because of her ballgown, however, and he caught her leg twisting it, and letting a foul cracking noise fill the air.

Nadia screamed, and he dropped her.

"Agent Potente," Agent Sitwell's voice crackled through her earpiece. "Can you hear me?"

"Mmm," she grunted out; she couldn't answer without Barton knowing. It's definitely dislocated. She assessed her injury. Damn this dress.

Barton looked down at her, expression disconcertingly indifferent. For the few years she'd known the man, she'd known him to be opposite of dispassionate. Every fight he would get into he was serious but emotional. But the man in front of her held no attitude at all.

'Aren't you going to finish me?" she taunted. "Or are you too scared to kill a girl?"

"You weren't part of his plan," Barton shrugged. "He said to take out the guards, take out the security system, but he said nothing about taking out any SHIELD agents."

"You were never a person who takes things so literally." Nadia pointed out, her expression pleading. "I know you're in there, Barton. I know you're fighting him."

"I'm not fighting anything," Barton shrugged. "I'm just doing my job."

He walked past her where her gun lay on the floor. He leaned over. Nadia tensed, but his hand picked up the odd metal device he had been holding earlier. He pressed it into the door; it lit up for a moment, then flickered and died.

Barton frowned, "Must be an issue with his scanner."

"You keep mentioning 'him,'" Nadia observed. "Is 'he' Loki?"

Barton ignored her, pulling something out of the pocket of his tactical vest -a SHIELD lock bomb- and attached it to the door. "I guess this calls for Plan B."

He backed up, the timer began to count down, and thirty seconds later, a concussive blast shook the door from its hinges. Nadia watched as Barton strode into the vault then exited with the meteor. He paid her no heed as he left the room, but just before he vanished from her line of sight, Nadia reached into a slip in her dress, pulling out a tracking ring. She threw it at Barton's heel- it latched onto his shoe.

"He has the iridium," Nadia reported to Sitwell. "But I put a tracker on him. I'm incapacitated. I need-"

"We're sending a clean-up crew your way."

"Thank you," Nadia winced as she attempted to shift her weight. Her leg hurt like hell. Maybe Fury would let her take a vacation after this was all over.

oooOOOooo

Gus and Shawn ran out of the museum, running across the street, screaming at the top of their lungs. Shawn glanced behind them to see Loki walking steadily behind them like a serial killer from a horror movie. He watched as Loki glittered (he literally glittered), magicking shiny gold armor over his fancy suit. A German cop car zoomed down the road, ready to save the day.

"Thank, God," Gus relaxed.

Loki zapped the cop car with his magic glowstick; it flipped over and fell with a large crash.

"Holy crap," Shawn whispered. "I think I just pissed my pants."

Gus could only nod in agreement.

They backed up, moving along with the crowd. Shawn's earpiece crackled on, and Natasha Romanov's voice spoke through the receiver, "Spencer, we need you to stall so Loki won't hurt any civilians. We have back upcoming, but we need time."

"Got it," Shawn nodded, turning back to watch what was happening. Stalling, that's something I'm great at doing.

"Kneel before me," Loki was saying melodramatically. Oh my gosh he's British.

The crowd shifted and murmured among itself, but no one listened because kneeling was a strange request, and everyone was probably scared shitless by a Shakespearean alien weirdo in reindeer armor.

"I said KNEEL!" Loki yelled, slamming his glowstick onto the ground, and suddenly there were four Lokis, surrounding the crowd and boxing everyone in.

This time pretty much everyone except for Shawn who stood in an odd hunched crouch, trying to decide when to act. He watched Loki straighten up, a smirk growing on his face. "Is not this simpler?" he asked the crowd as if he were running some overly intellectual TED Talk. "Is this not your natural state? It's the unspoken truth of humanity, that you crave subjugation. The bright lure of freedom diminishes your life's joy in a mad scramble for power, for identity. You were made to be ruled. In the end, you will always kneel."

Okay, this guy was an arrogant douchebag, and his speech was over so… Shawn popped up ready to stall: "Wait. Wait. Wait. I can't kneel."

Loki turned to him incredulously, "What?"

"Dude!" Gus hissed, tugging at Shawn's pantleg. "Get down!"

"Gus, I can't," Shawn decided to be stubborn. "This suit is a rental. I can't let a brother down by messing with his suit."

"You spilled milk on it on the way here."

"You know I need more calcium for my bones!"

"Who the hell do you think you are?" Loki asked dangerously, ending Shawn and Gus' argument.

"Well," Shawn said. "My name is Shawn Spencer, consulting psychic detective for SHIELD, and this is my partner Burton Guster." Gus glared as Shawn used his real name in an actually dangerous situation for the second time. "We are part of the Anti-Kneeling Society."

"Shawn," Gus said. "I'm kneeling. I'm not part of the Anti-Kneeling Society."

"I thought you always wanted to be part of a secret society."

"You just told him, Shawn. It's not very secret anymore."

"Just stand up dude."

"No!"

"Stand up."

"Fine." Gus stood up brushing his pants. "There's dirt on my trousers."

"That's why you should be part of the Anti-Kneeling Society," Shawn muttered.

The two best friends fell awkwardly silent, staring at Loki who was studying them with a bemused expression on his face. "Are you done?" Loki asked, smugly.

"Yup," Shawn said popping the p.

Loki sighed dramatically, aiming his now sharp glowstick at the pair, "Look to these men, people. Let them be an example."

"An example?" Shawn asked Gus in a loud whisper. "An example of what?"

It was at that exact moment that Captain America fell out of the sky, pummeling Loki in the face.

"Dude," Shawn said, a grin spreading across his face. "It's Raining Men."

So I'm back with a longerish chapter! I felt bad that I hadn't continued this in a while, so I hope that makes up for it. I love y'all! And also, just a question: I currently have a spin-off idea based on the concept of this crossover. It's a Parks and Rec crossover with Thor: Dark World (not based in the same universe as this fic) tentatively titled "April Ludgate: Intern Extrodinarie" about April becoming the intern's intern instead of Ian Boothby while visiting Andy in London. Tell me what you think about the idea, but don't worry, I'm not starting it until after this fic. I have too much stuff going on to start a new project! Fun fact: Shawn's ringtone for Juliet is an actual song called "Hey Julie" by the Fountains of Wayne. Look it up on YouTube if you want to hear it :)

Please Read and Review!

-GrumpyCat503