From her perch on the glass windows, Park Sooyoung lets out another wistful sigh. The streets beneath her are bustling with people out on a lively night, all of them celebrating the end of another busy week. 

Two post lamps across hers, she sees a couple get off of the nearby bus stop, and her fingers curl around the edges of the thick stack of papers resting on her lap, suddenly hit by a pang of longing that spreads quickly all over her chest. It doesn’t really help that she’s been reciting the same set of lines from that part of the script where her character laments over lost chances in love.

It’s still fourteen days until the start of her scheduled first day of taping, but it never hurts to be prepared, thus her turning into this version of herself for the past two weeks: a complete homebody clad in a loose shirt and sweatpants.

(And it also has been fourteen days since she has last seen this small, blonde, and meek demigod; Joy doesn’t really see the point of candle-lit dinners for one, even though there’s a bottle of wine cooling somewhere in her fridge.)

She finds herself looking out the window again, past the glass and onto the darkening sky. It’s just half past five in the afternoon when she last checked, but the midnight hues are already making their way into the spaces vacated by the waning sunlight.

Her gaze settles on the tall tower at the heart of the city, with a spire that looks like a thin needle from where she’s sitting. She watches each of its floors be slowly flooded with light, and then in a deep, doleful breath because here she is, a very accomplished actress and artist with a long line of achievements and an even longer list of all sorts of invites, and yet, she’s locked in her room, fleeting between people watching and gazing at the view.

(It’s probably a little pathetic, already missing someone this much when they’ve only really been together for a little less than three months. 

And, okay, they’ve been friends for a little while longer, but, still.)

Joy doesn’t really know how long she has been staring at that same spot, just that her mind is not in this room—not even on Earth at all—but out there floating through space and to what she imagines Asgard looks like.

The cloud above the spire flashes on and off, until a crackling bluish light darts from under it, wrapping around the metal extending from the spire’s cone tip like vines. But it’s the ensuing sound of thunder that breaks Joy’s reverie, making her jump out of her skin.

Another flicker of blue, so quick that she almost misses it. But she doesn’t, and when her brain finally catches up to whatever it’s witnessing, she realizes what it exactly is.

Lightning.

Joy feels the spark of a third at the tips of her fingers, feels the tingle of a current that shoots straight to her spine when two more crackle into the open air.

For a moment, Joy honestly wonders if it’s just going to rain—because despite dating the daughter of the God of Thunder, she still finds it hard to tell—until more lightning follows and the thunders growl louder and louder.

Anticipation rises and builds in her bones, right in the parts of her that misses Wendy most. And when a burst of colors pops right out of the sky, forming a luminous, cylinder-like passage that connects the sky and the ground, Joy all but throws everything she has in her hands before racing out of her room and straight to her apartment building’s rooftop.

The portal is a good distance away, but the lights are bright enough that it dances on Joy’s eyes; like in one episode of Space Odyssey she’s once watched: a star burning brightest just before it explodes and it scatters glittering particles all over the vast, empty space when it does.

Fifteen beats and a hundred startled people later, the bright portal vanishes without a trace. If not for the whirring sound that echoes in the cold night, Joy would think she’s merely imagined it.

But there it is, like a propeller engine that’s spinning too fast. Behind it is a small figure, practically a dot in the sky, but Joy would know her from anywhere.

The spinning sound ceases as Wendy drops herself on the rooftop, in the exact same spot she always lands on whenever she travels from Asgard and straight to Joy’s apartment. Wendy can tell where it is, as it’s the only piece of concrete that has indents of her boots—most times, sneakers—in it.

“Oh shoot,” she gasps, her face comically horrified as more chunks of concrete break away from the floor. “Babe, your landlord is going to kill me one of these days!”

Joy can’t help but laugh at that; at how Wendy’s presence is often announced in the loudest and most grandiose of ways, but she’d stand there, all shy and profusely apologizing for the ruckus she hadn’t meant to cause.

“Don’t be silly,” Joy answers, chuckling. As if her forty-seven year old landlord will pick a fight with a demigod. 

She takes a few seconds to admire her girlfriend in her full regalia: long, flowy blonde hair, the red cape that honestly looks heavier than her and Wendy’s weights combined, the royal steel armor (a family heirloom), and the adorable, smaller pair of black boots. 

(She takes the time, rarely seeing Wendy in her Asgardian clothes. Because her girlfriend makes such a great effort to blend in well while she’s on Earth, and efface the glaring reminder that she isn’t quite human while Joy wholly is.)

Though Joy figures that there must be something, with Wendy meeting her in those clothes, and looking like a nervous mess despite how much she tries to hide it.

But whatever it is will just have to wait, she thinks, as she crosses the distance separating them to give Wendy a long, tight hug, and a much longer where-the-hell-have-you-been kiss.

They only pull away when the hammer slips from Wendy’s hold, cracking a brand new crater open on the concrete. It’s a little deep that Wendy can’t help but wince at the sight. “Okay, now, he’s really going to kill me.”

“He isn’t!” Joy playfully chides in between soft laughs. “He’s scared of you, you know that, right?”

Wendy snorts, and then rolls her eyes. “He’s six feet and a half tall.”

“Yes, but he isn’t the heir of Thor.”

“Ah well,” she concedes, then leans up to steal another kiss that Joy gladly gives, swallowing whatever she’s going to say next.

.

“Not that I’m not happy to see you but,” Joy starts to say. (Finally, after five one mores and ten this is the last, I swears.) “What’s with the fancy outfit?”

“Huh? What?” Wendy mumbles, because the fingers playing with the baby hairs at the back of her neck are seriously distracting. She hears Joy’s laugh right next to her ear, and it honestly derails her thoughts more than it snaps her back into attention. But she manages to clear some of the haze clouding her brain to speak. “It’s uh...oh, uhm—”

“Babe? Wendy?”

“There’s uhm…” She swallows thickly, feeling her nerves fix themselves at the back of . But Joy is smiling at her like she already understands whatever it is even without saying a word, and Wendy feels her heart pound at the striking realization that there really is no one else she’d rather do this with. So with a steadying breath, bolstered by Joy’s soft smile, she says, “There’s someone I would like you to meet.”

…

Traveling through space in the newly constructed Bifrost is a rather… unique experience. There’s nothing quite like the absence of gravity that drops in her gut as they venture deeper into space, and yet, there’s another unseen force that keeps them from drifting away from the Bifrost’s path. Like a leash tied around her waist, or maybe it’s Wendy’s arm around her that’s keeping her safe.

(Perhaps, a tad bit romantic, too, with her pressed against the smaller woman. For once, she is the one looking up at Wendy, the same way female leads do in those famous movies.

What can she say? You can take the actress out of a romance, but you can’t take the romance out of an actress.)

They reach their destination in what honestly feels like a blink, and the next thing Joy knows, Thor’s booming voice is greeting them just as they float out of the bifrost and into the chute. “Ah, there she is, Heimdall! My pride and joy.”

He is in what Joy suspects is Asgard’s traditional noble clothes—Wendy has told her all about how her father dislikes the flashy silk and the much uncomfortable satin—yet, still looking like every bit of the regal king that he is.

She’s never really seen him this… kingly. The pictures Wendy has shown her all have him in Earth clothes. But he’s sporting the very same huge grin, making him seem less likely to break Joy’s bones (when the night goes on and she inevitably gets the dreaded if you hurt my daughter talk).

Beside her, Wendy lets out a squeak. Joy can only stare at her in amusement—and muted adoration because Heimdall is smiling at her knowingly, as if he knows something she doesn’t. And from Wendy’s stories, he probably does; but she won’t let him spoil her deepest darkest secret. It will be just her and only her who’ll first tell Wendy those three words—as Wendy’s cheeks turn into the kind of red that Joy has always loved seeing on her.

Though, she’s surprisingly able to resist stealing a kiss from her girlfriend. But Joy figures that the six-foot hulking blonde man, together with his broad shoulders and bulky arms, definitely have something to do with that.

“And you must be Joy,” Thor turns to address her. He seems genuinely pleased to meet her, which, thank God. Joy doesn’t really know what she’d do if the God of Thunder—and now King of Asgard—disapproves and forbids her from seeing his daughter.

(She’d ask Wendy to elope to another galaxy, perhaps. Or get both Seulgi and Irene to talk to him and convince him that despite being a mere, humble, mortal, she is good enough for someone as amazing as Wendy.)

“My Astrid’s betrothed!”

“I’m sorry, who?” Joy asks, confused, at the same time an embarrassed Wendy sputters out, “Oh my God, Dad we’re not—”

Thor tilts his head, the same way Wendy does whenever she’s confused, and there really is no denying that she is his flesh and bone.

“Well you are with her, correct?” He asks Wendy. “You two are together?”

“Yes, but—”

“Then there must be a feast!” Thor exclaims, and oh, gosh, this is not what Wendy has planned. Dinner, a quiet, simple dinner is all she wanted, with her grandmother there and the great Odin himself (Joy refuses to believe he’s real and that he’s her grandfather). “Heimdall, let us in!”

Heimdall nods in obedience and gestures a hand. Despite the confusion at the sudden turn of things, Joy can only gape as the metal gates swing open, revealing a city that’s so foreign and alien, and yet, not quite.

Thor leads them further inside the city, arms wide and spread open when he turns around to face Joy and his daughter again, beckoning them to follow.

“My ladies, welcome to Asgard!”

There are flying crafts everywhere, and cars that don’t even touch the ground. But there are little children running around the market’s streets, pavements lined up with all kinds of traders, fruits laid out and dried meat hanging by the small wooden stalls. People milling around the place, in hopes to find the perfect trinket. Just like back home.

Though, what’s most familiar is the fingers that laces with her own, and the warm palm that presses against hers. Wendy’s smile is what she knows of most, and Joy feels her soul settle home.