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“Take care of our people,” Thor said to her.
He turned and walked out of the cabin before Darcy could respond. Her breath was already caught in her throat and she hadn’t even dared look at Loki yet. She closed her eyes as she turned, fighting back tears.
“Darcy...” Loki breathed.
She opened her eyes to look at the terrified face of her husband. They clasped hands. Darcy forced herself to breathe as her heart shattered into pieces. This was it. This was the end.
Loki stepped forward and crushed her in his arms. He buried his face in her hair. They stood there for a moment, breaths and heartbeats matching. Loki kissed the top of her head before releasing her.
“Make me proud,” he said.
“I will,” Darcy said through her tears. She would not say come back to me. She would not say return home safely. But she could say this: “Loki, thank you. For everything.” She couldn’t stop the tears. “I love you so much.”
He smiled back, the soft gentle smile he’d always reserved for her. “And I love you.”
Darcy could not speak after that. And she had no time to give in to the tears pouring down her face. Thanos was coming and it was time for her to leave. She wiped the tears away. She had to be strong.
She and Loki left the cabin and went to the observation deck. The room was half-filled with the civilians that had volunteered to stay behind to complete the illusion that Asgard was populated. Hela had never cared that much about the living to notice when the city was no longer full of people. Just enough to maintain that Asgard lived and breathed around her. Those who had kin among the soldiers staying behind were saying their goodbyes.
Darcy stepped up to Heimdall. His golden eyes searched hers. He smiled. “I’ll take care of them.”
She nodded once. It was all she could ask of the guardian with no gate and no home to watch over. She stepped to the side and took her place at the head of the civilian column. One straight line. One final prayer to activate the Bifrost to take them all away to the last safe place they knew.
She refused to look back as the Bifrost swept her and about a hundred others away. To Earth. To Wakanda. And away from Thanos.
He would follow, Darcy knew. He had to retrieve Earth’s Stones. But with their arrival, with the warning they carried, maybe there would be enough to hold him back. Maybe it would just be enough to stop him.
It wasn’t.
Darcy held Shuri as she cried. Okoye... she clung to her spear and did her best to stand upright as she guarded the now-queen of the Wakanda. Darcy rested her head against the gleaming wall, fighting back tears of her own. The way the guards standing at the door had crumbled into black dust... it was like a complete mockery of Frigga’s funeral. Probably an unintentional one, but something she would never, ever forgive Thanos for.
Shuri sniffed, then shoved away from Darcy. They both stood, still leaning on each other. The younger girl looked completely lost for a moment. Then her face hardened and she stepped away from Darcy. “I need to see to what is left of my people,” Shuri said. She turned to Darcy. “If you want-”
Darcy shook her head. “I need to check on my own people.” She swallowed back her rage and fear. She needed to be strong. Thor had been out there, but she had yet to see him, much less speak to him. And the remnants of her people needed her. The ones on Earth, at least. She had no clue how she was going to get in touch with the ones who had settled in the various scattered Asgardian colonies. Earth didn’t have spaceships.
A guard, a very spooked-looking one, led her down the palace corridors to the rooms she’d been given as visiting royalty. She stepped inside, closing the door behind her, then stopped. A man in a cape stood silhouetted in front of the windows.
“Thor?” Darcy’s voice shook.
Thor turned. His long hair had fallen out of its braid. He’d come straight from the battlefield; black blood covered his armor. An axe she’d never seen before rested on the floor beside him.
He didn’t have to say a single word. The devastated expression on his face told Darcy everything she needed to know.
They stumbled into each others’ arms. Tears poured down Darcy’s face as they mourned together. They had lost. Thanos had the Stones. And all that they had worked for had been destroyed.
Loki.
Darcy cried harder. She would never see him again. And she would not ask how he died. Not yet. She was not ready to know.
But tomorrow. Tomorrow would be a new day. They could start planning. If Thanos had done this with the Stones then perhaps... perhaps there would be a chance they could bring everyone home.