Work Text:
Knock, Knock.
Darcy looked at her watch. He was early! She quickly shoved the bag of trash in her hand into the coat closet...she would have to take it out later. Loki never wore a jacket anyway (something about how he never got cold), so she wouldn't have to worry about him opening the closet and seeing it.
She looked around her apartment and decided it would have to do. She had a tendency to be slightly messy, so she had spent most of the day cleaning; tonight would be the first time Loki came to her place, and she wanted to make a good impression. Only one last detail to take care of...
"Loki!" she called softly, forgetting that Loki had extremely good hearing.
"I'm outside, Darcy. Come let me in," Loki said.
"Just a minute!" she called out.
"Loki!" she hissed.
Her cat, whose name was also Loki, came around the corner. He stopped at a safe distance and narrowed his green eyes as he looked at her, waiting to find out what she wanted. He was still mad at her for bringing out the evil vacuum cleaner earlier; the cat and the vacuum cleaner had gotten into an epic battle, and unfortunately, he had suffered an equally epic loss. He was a sore loser, especially because his pristine black fur had gotten covered in dust after he had just finished grooming it.
Darcy began to inch towards him.
"Gotcha!" she said as she grabbed him, throwing him in the bedroom before he could dig his claws into her. He meowed once, then was silent.
She gave a small prayer that the silence would last, that he would fall asleep and stay asleep for a few hours. She hardly ever locked her cat up, but given his unfortunate name (unfortunate only because he shared a name with a certain Norse god, who was standing in her hallway waiting for her to let him in), she wanted to keep him as far away from his accidental namesake as possible.
Darcy smoothed back her hair and walked over and opened the front door, smiling as she said, "Sorry about that - I had to put something away."
Loki straightened up from the wall and held a box out to her as he said, "I come bearing pizza."
Darcy practically swooned - not only did he look absurdly hot in his jeans and t-shirt, but he had her favorite food, as well.
"Pepperoni?" she asked, reaching for the box as she gestured for him to come into the apartment.
Loki nodded as he said, "Of course."
He looked around, but didn't say much, so Darcy took that to mean that her apartment, as small as it was, met with his approval.
"What movie do you want to watch?" she said as he sat down on her couch and spread his legs, taking up half the damn couch. Darcy had to admit, she didn't really mind - it was a nice view.
"You pick one," Loki said as he leaned forward and opened a bottle of wine (a bottle she could have sworn wasn't there five minutes ago). He was getting ready to pour it into two glasses (again, not there five minutes ago) when a series of angry - and progressively louder - meows began from behind the bedroom door.
"What is that terrible noise?" he asked, pausing mid-pour.
"I don't hear anything," Darcy said as she put the movie - she didn't even know which one she had picked - into the player and pressed Play. She turned up the volume as she sat down next to him on the couch.
"Darcy, that is definitely something," Loki said.
Darcy sighed and turned the volume back down.
"It's my cat," she said, "He doesn't like being locked up."
"You have a cat?" Loki asked as he put the bottle of wine down and shifted in his seat to look towards the bedroom door. "Why don't you let it out?"
"I wasn't sure how you felt about cats," Darcy said.
Loki smiled as he looked at her and said, "I have discovered that I quite like the creatures that you Midgardians call cats."
She was well and truly trapped.
"If you insist. He bites," Darcy cautioned, trying one last time to convince Loki he didn't want to meet her cat.
When he started to stand up as if he was going to go let the cat out, she quickly got up, moved towards the bedroom, and opened the door.
The cat bolted out of the room and jumped onto the couch, landing in Loki's lap. He shoved his head against Loki's hand, and Loki, smiling in delight, began to pet him.
"Wow....he usually doesn't warm up to people that fast," Darcy said as she walked back towards the couch. It was just her luck that the cat seemed to like Loki as much as he liked him.
"What's his name?" Loki asked.
"Loki." she said, inwardly groaning as she waited for the inevitable reaction.
He stopped petting the cat and looked up at her. "Excuse me?" he asked.
"His name is Loki…but he's not named after you!" she protested.
Loki raised a skeptical eyebrow, looking down at the green-eyed black cat and then looking back up at her.
"Your cat is male, with green eyes and black fur...and his name is Loki, yet you didn't name him after me?" he asked.
"I mean...I did name him after you...but not you you. I took a Norse mythology class in college a few years ago...got a kitten, who was mischievous...and named him after the trickster, the Norse god Loki....." Darcy said, aware that she was babbling but unable to stop.
She sat back down on the couch and put her head into her hands as she continued, "...which of course, I guess is you..."
She looked back up at Loki. "He's five years old! You didn't come here until three years ago! I couldn't have named him after you!"
"Perhaps it is a sign that we are meant to be," Loki said dryly.
Darcy was not amused.
Loki, however, obviously was. He started laughing, which disturbed the cat, who had curled up on his lap and started to fall asleep. Loki (the cat) jumped down and glared at Loki (the god) before running back into the bedroom to hide under Darcy's bed.
"Sure, now you want to be in the bedroom," Darcy muttered under her breath, "Stupid cat."
Loki, who had obviously heard her, continued to laugh.
Darcy sighed...she was never going to hear the end of this.