Life is made of many partings welded together.

-Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

It had been almost a year since the world had been almost taken over by alien invaders and the formation of The Avengers.

For Darcy Lewis, she was freshly out of college with nowhere to go.

After finishing up her internship with Jane, she ruefully went back to her boring dorm life in the University of New Mexico finishing her degree in poly-sci. When she left Jane (a couple weeks after the Thor incident and her first near death experience), Jane left her business card in a heartfelt thank you gift, saying that if she ever needed a job she should to give her a call.

Darcy flopped onto her back. With the poor economy, finding a well-paying job was increasingly difficult. Right now, she was reduced to a barista at Starbucks still living in her parents' house. Not that they complained—they loved having their "little girl" back and under their wing, but for Darcy, it gave her a painful reminder that her future was in the pits. Why did she choose to major in political science again? She wasn't exactly a people's person; she'd been an oddball all her life, making a few close friends that she kept in touch with. As much as sucked at physics, she enjoyed working with Jane and Erik. The feeling of a new discovery in the making was enough to make her (almost) enjoy preparing coffee and transcribing notes for hours on end.

After the Thor incident, reality wasn't good enough for her. She was still, after a year, trying to wrap her head around words like Asgard, Thor, Warriors Three, All-father, etc. Jane tried to explain Thor's theory on Yggdrasil, on how everything is connected because of some mystical tree. Or at least that's how Darcy saw it. She grew up with nine planets, not nine realms. However, her near death experience with a giant robot that could shoot deathly lasers out of its mouth was enough for her to believe. As the Keebler elf said, "Seeing is believing!"

So when she saw Thor on TV a couple months ago, her eyes bugged out of her head and she dropped her coffee. Everyone knew who Iron Man, Captain America, and the Hulk, but Thor was a mystery to everyone but her. Tempted to tell her school mates that she personally had pancakes with the God of Thunder, she had a feeling SHIELD wanted to keep him on the DL for now. Earth wasn't quite ready for a lesson in aliens, but the so-called Chitauri were under heavy scrutiny from experts so the border between magic and science were becoming blurrier and blurrier by the day.

And then there was Loki. Thor's little brother. The guy who sent a robot to destroy her town. When she first saw him, she laughed. The horns. He looked like some reindeer in a sci-fi-renaissance costume. That was her first impression, but it was quickly overturned as the media showed him on a hover-board with an army of aliens. He was evil with a capital E, but the Avengers were able to take him down and he went on his way to some Asgardian form of prison or punishment. The world died down after that, since people were concentrating on rebuilding the alien destroyed parts in New York City. It was all quickly swept under the rug and from Darcy's mind as she concentrated on finishing up her last semester.

Eyeing a red gift bag on the opposite side of her room, she wondered if Jane would even remember her. Who knows, maybe she already discovered her Einstein-Rosen Bridge thing and didn't need any help. Or maybe she was with Thor. Or maybe…

Darcy rolled off her bed with a soft thud and grabbed the bag in a swift motion. Pushing her insecure thoughts aside, she scrounged for the card Jane had given to her. Pulling it out with an "Aha!" she whipped out her cell and punched in the numbers.

"Hello?"

"Hey, Jane! It's Darcy!"

"DARCY!" Jane screamed excitedly from the other end, making Darcy pull the phone from her ear an inch.

"What's up? How did your last semester of college go? Did you find a job? And did you see Thor on TV?" Darcy grinned. Same old Jane.

"I'm cutting to your third question. See, I'm actually having a bit of trouble finding a job…"

A/N: This fic is loosely based upon One Day by David Nicholls, which showcases the lives of two people for twenty years. You don't need to read the book to understand the story; I'll just be using the structure and I'm using this as a disclaimer since I did not come up with the idea :) Publishing this is a big step for me, so any comments/reviews/constructive criticism is greatly appreciated.