Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

When Jane heard Loki had ‘reverted’ to villainy she didn't really know what to expect. 

The last time she’d interacted with him involved him flinging her towards Malekith, shielding her with his body moments later, before saving Thor’s life (again) and sacrificing himself in the process. 

Connecting the dots between that Loki and the one she’d heard had attacked New York hadn’t really worked out, and she’d decided to put any opinions she could’ve had on him to rest since he had died doing the right thing and helping to save the world anyway. 

But when Thor reached earth in a space ship containing all that was left of Asgard Jane was devastated— all those lives and the advanced technology lost —but Thor’s descriptions of Loki saving Asgard before burning it down had also revived her questions and left her stance on Loki even more befuddled. 

Was he a villain or a hero? 

From what she’d heard his actions tended to end badly for everyone involved, and he had also tried to take over the planet a few years ago, but from what she’d actually seen first-hand he fit more along the lines of someone heroic who just tended to have rotten luck. The evidence was all very contradictory. 

As time passed the footage of Loki and The Avengers fighting on the news every few days did a decent job of arguing for the ‘evil’ side of things, but Jane wasn’t still wholly convinced. You can never tell what is actually going on from news footage anyway, and as a scientist Jane can happily vouch for the media presenting a huge pile of cow dung whenever it feels like it. 

She settled on not needing to come to a decision on where on the goodness scale he ranked, despite his position on basically every international wanted list as a 'Supervillain'.

After all, whichever way he swung wouldn’t really affect her. 

It isn’t until she is a street away from the SHIELD lab she’s been helping out at part-time and the person she bumps into on the street ends up being Loki that she considers how she would react in a situation where she would ever have to confront him. 

“Loki,” she says, a bit breathless, because this is Loki , internationally wanted war criminal terrorist, and she is on her way to her job, and he is right here, and she’d met him before but they didn’t really talk or anything. In fact, the image of having slapped him vividly comes to mind. “Hi.”

“Morning Doctor Foster,” he answers cheerily, guiding a shoulder to turn her around and walk the opposite direction, “Would you have a minute?” 

Is he wearing a black on black suit? 

“Um,” Jane says, and winces. She didn’t obtain a PhD in astrophysics or have the Foster theory named after her all to be defeated by a casual conversation. 

“Yes, sure, of course, what can I do for you?” She amends in her professional voice™ while checking her watch. She had had plans to reach SHIELD early and calibrate the new remote multispectral sensor prototype, but clearly that’ll have to wait.

“There’s a cafe just by the corner, if you wouldn’t mind?”

Yes, let’s just go along with him instead of argue and risk him becoming volatile. He hasn’t done anything strange yet, he hasn’t targeted me before now and she’s still alive so, we’ll just… have coffee? 

What is the normal procedure in this kind of situation?? 

“I don’t mind,” she laughs too lightly, not that Loki would notice, “I have casual morning mugs of caffeine with all the supervillains that are— is this about Thor?”

Loki scrunches his face in distaste. “No, as impossible as it may seem, not everything revolves around Thor.”

Jane parts her lips in a soft “Oh,” as a light touch to her shoulder tells her to turn into The Daily Grind. She takes a seat and Loki asks for her order, then stands in line and orders at the counter before taking the seat opposite her. 

This is not what she expects of a civilian kidnapping. Which is what this technically is, isn’t it? Loki is not a nice guy, he fights the superheroes regularly and even though she and Thor broke up years ago SHIELD still has her on their potential target watchlist (which is why she’d taken their job offering in the first place— if she was going to spend her time being spied on she was going to take advantage of the company’s high-tech resources in the progress, thank you very much) which is really funny because she’s only on the list because of Loki and she had been outside the SHIELD building when Loki had shown. 

“Sorry for the late notice, I’ve intended to speak with you for some time now but it took me a while to get the energy to do so.”

“Right,” Jane says, taking the formal situation into account and straightening up, “What about, exactly?”

She won’t give away anything about her ongoing unpublished research, obviously.

Loki reaches under the desk and pulls out a piece of paper, unfolding it. Jane can’t make out the scribbles on it from where she is but he presumably reads it aloud: “I owe you an apology for using you against Thor in a fight, I have to congratulate you on your breaking-up with Thor, and I also have a question about your latest online article, the one analysing the extricated low-level gamma radiation readings off the active Bifrost sites.”

She’s about to ask him to elaborate on that first point when the man behind the counter calls out “Foster and Tesseract!” and Loki smoothly gets up to collect their drinks. 

Tesseract?? Of course he didn’t give his own name, that might cause a scene.

He hands her her coffee and retakes his seat and Jane looks at him expectantly, waiting for him to begin. 

“I—” he clears his throat, “I want you to know that it doesn’t excuse my actions at the time but I was not in a good state of mind when this occurred, so bear with me.”

Certainly not how she expected this to start out. But admitting you have a problem is always a good place to start. 

“I called Thor soft,” he says, looking her in the eyes, very clearly attempting to hide shame behind the imploring voice. She did retain some things from that psych unit she’d taken in her first year of uni, and the inanity of thinking he needs to apologize for calling Thor soft… she tries not to laugh. She’s seen him do Thor far worse on TV. 

Her lack of response breaks his indifference. “I called Thor soft , and said it was because of you, and threatened to visit you myself with implications of harm, ” he clarifies, voice cracking.

She… doesn’t know how to react; this whole situation is rather unique to her. 

“You are for some reason not acting offended but I sincerely am sorry for using that to make him fight me.”

Okay, she’s clearly missing some context here, but, hey, he hasn’t started blasting magic fireballs around or started laughing maniacally so Jane thinks she’s doing good. 

“I also said he’d never see you again if he broke the Bifrost while trying to thwart my attempt to destroy a realm, because I did not want him to thwart my plan.”

Jane is trying to keep a straight face here. She really is. Alien space vikings. Always so much… violence. She’s definitely lacking in context.

“I’m so, so sorry, I shouldn’t have been using your name like that and will do whatever you reasonably wish for to make it up to you.”

She hasn’t tried for her phone yet, but feels it’d be of no use. Loki has telekinetic powers anyway. The real question is how no one has noticed that Loki is sitting right here in a cafe opposite her looking desperate for... forgiveness? 

What even is her life. Super spies who aren’t good at spying and Norse gods that should be malicious honestly apologizing for something from apparent years ago.

He takes a sip of his drink and leaves his hands around the mug which she finds very endearing. He taps his right index against the plastic; a nervous tic (?)

“I also wished to congratulate you on the break-up from Thor. He didn’t give me the full or true story but from what I understand you decided it wouldn’t work and acted on it and for that at the very least you must be commended. I know Thor can be a bit imposing, and I just wanted to make sure he didn’t do anything specific to prompt the split or act rashly after.” 

“Thank you,” she says after a pause to take a sip of her coffee; If it’s poisoned and she dies then she dies, she’s not going to risk turning down the drink he got her, that would definitely end badly. 

Her immediate instinct is to be angry of the accusation of course. Until it filters through that he isn’t assuming, but asking . At which point her astrophysicist brain completely shuts off because… is Thor’s younger evil brother asking her if Thor hurt her? Because that’s… sweet. That’s actually… really nice of him to do. 

“No, no, he was fine, he was disbelieving at first that I didn’t think we worked, and then he became angry and yelled a bit, but he didn’t touch me! We still talk when he’s not upstate or saving the world.”

Loki narrows his eyes in suspicion despite her assurances, but only for a brief moment. 

His eyes flit back to the paper and then she swears he brightens up even though she doesn’t pick up what causes the change. “Well then, Doctor, if you don’t mind, a question on your paper.”

She hums before questioning if aliens have non-verbal signs of agreement and adding, “Go ahead.”

Jane wonders what question he could have, and what exactly Loki was doing looking at her work regarding the Bifrost. Because it’s awfully suspicious for him to be having questions about this considering Asgard and the Bifrost were destroyed. 

“Your work notes anomalies in the electromagnetic radiation spiking at regular intervals during the activation of Bifrost sites after the initial four recorded ones, yes?”

Jane thinks back to her work, but it’s difficult through realizing that yes, Loki is discussing her work at a cafe . And he’s doing it in semi-formal attire and no one is recognizing him. Is it the casual way he’s holding himself? He certainly isn’t working to make himself seem larger than life as he usually does on TV.

She nods, and he continues. “I believe ambient radiation or something or other similar was interfering with the remote devices gathering data of later Bifrost sites. My question was regarding whether that is a possibility you have accounted for in both the original trials and in hypothetical programmed reproductions.”

Jane is careful to be wary in answering when such sensitive nature is at hand, even though there is no practical use of this theory as of yet. “No, we haven’t.”

Loki stares at her, not even blinking, eyes wide and curious (?) and he’s clearly awaiting a longer answer that Jane refuses to give. Even information about the devices used to measure the EMR are classified SHIELD R&D things. 

Loki’s small smile falters. “Wh— why not?!”

“We have no reason to suspect that, although it would be a sound theory you could make an appeal for, were you specialised in the field .”

The man lets out a heavy breath in frustration, his face crumpling (luckily she doesn’t see any tears, that would be... awkward...) “But you won’t be able to get any new first hand data! And I’m quite sure the readings you’re going off are incorrect!”

She makes a show of looking him over unimpressed. “Why would we suspect anything off about the readings? We removed the ambient radiation and singled out the gamma wavelengths alone.”

“Gamma radiation is harmful to quite a few species across the Nine, it just doesn’t make sense to emit that everywhere traveled, for starters! Isn’t that enough to go off?”

She’s the one who has spent over a decade of her life specializing in the field and she deals with so many older men who think they know things, but, in this case snapping would be of no use. And Loki isn’t wrong in saying all their obtained data would be thrown off, it’s just that they don’t know the amount or how much extra their readings were picking up. No, you know what? Loki hasn’t done anything to harm her, and he doesn’t look like he’s getting violent, so why not snap?? They’re in a cafe and the worst he could do without drawing attention to himself is take her coffee away. 

“It’s not!”

“But if you could just reduce the wavelengths to 10-10.2  and then—”

“—Do you know how much it costs to keep anyone interested in investigating these things?!” Jane looks around the cafe and notices some turning heads. She’ll be embarrassed about this a whole lot later but she isn’t really bothered by it right now sitting opposite the guy who set half the state parliament building on fire a few days ago. “The only reason I have a team to work with at all is because the government has to throw this kind of thing a standard salary for their astrophysics quota and I’m allowed to borrow SHIELD’s space-travel scientists on half-pay for a few hours on weekends because they try to leech off everything I do to begin with!! I can’t just magic up the money to get every possibility investigated!! And certainly not because you think it needs to be done for literally no reason!!!” 

Loki looks unaffected by her outburst, which is infuriating . 

“Ah,” he says, standing up, smoothening the front of his clothes and straightening his tie, “I see the issue.”

Is that a velvet green tie?

“Is that a velvet green tie?”

“Yes.”

This is absurd .

“How come no one recognizes you?”

“Eh,” he half-shrugs, ”I think it’s the lack of the bulky helmet?” 

Loki’s clothes start glowing from his neck down, and suddenly he’s in his armour and someone screams, setting off panic in the entire room, with people rushing to get out and diving behind counters. 

“You don’t mind being a little late to work I presume?”

Jane opens her mouth and finds her mouth dry as it dawns on her that this is a kidnapping.

He’s standing there in full leather getup and horny helmet and… she’s going to be late. 

She made out with a space alien a few times, and her life’s just been a rollercoaster since, and now she’s going to be late and have to delay calibrating the damn machine till she does it in her own time. 

“Does it make a difference,” she laughs, slightly hysterical. 

“Well, yes, that’s why I asked?” Loki brings his cup still in hand to his mouth and takes a sip. As if people aren’t still scrambling out the door and cowering under tables. “That’s fine, wasn’t really in a fighting mood anyway, but if you think of anything I could do in apology I’ll just” —he leans on the table, materialising a glittery green gel pen in his non-coffee hand and starts writing on a napkin— “leave my number with you.”

Loki has a phone? Jane thinks, recalling that Thor very much does not as he kept losing his (his pant pockets are terrible, really, can’t fit anything with his juicy muscular thighs there mmmm) and Tony got tired of buying replacements. 

He finishes writing and slides the number over, and she warily picks it up and stuffs it in her pocket. Loki’s magic doesn’t need numbers to work, does it? He’s not going to mind control her via phone call, right?

“Shall I escort you to your place of work? If you are already late I’m sure it’ll be seen as adequate proof of—“

“No I’ll be fine,” She kindly declines, feeling numb. 

Loki just gave her his mobile number and asked to take her to work. Which is really kind . But also he’s in his armour and the panic has spread in the streets ; she can hear people screaming and see them rushing around outside through the blurred window.

“Very well,” he dips his head slightly, “Carry on.” 

He then starts glowing that same shade of green, except instead of replacing the armour Loki is gone. 

People start to calm down but all Jane thinks about is how the frick that works. 

Her traitorous mind keeps pestering her on the walk back to base so she delays the sensor machine work in favour of re-noting the Einstein-Rosen Bridge data (Solely because she’s curious! Not because she’s falling into the villainous clutches of a villain!). She’s in the process of wondering if it could be a constant or fluctuating ambient force being emitted when she sees the Avengers have rocked up and are standing outside the SHIELD facility entrance. Fury is also here. This is just great .

“You had a run-in with Loki,” The man states, raising a single eyebrow.

“Thank you for reaching in time to do something about that,” she answers, raising her arms as the Black Widow steps forward to do the protocol pat-down.

“Careful Miss Foster, wouldn’t do to have you off of work for a week running mind-meddling scans for that attitude.”

“He didn’t do anything, just bought me coffee and— hey!! ” Romanoff takes the foam cup, the check now complete. Jane glares at her. She was enjoying the drink, it may have been villain-bought coffee but it was still good coffee.

“Get that in the lab, I want all the nooks and crannies covered on its composition including the EM external tests; if any magic is detected on that thing I want to know.” 

Natasha and Barton leave together with her coffee. 

Fury turns his attention back to her, expectantly. 

“He, uh, also had a question about a research article, but it wasn’t a question about the science more like the method—” Fury puts a hand to his comm and cuts her off with something about having trace analysers look through her reports to see if anything compromising could be learnt. 

“Anything else Miss Foster?”

“It’s Doctor, actually,” a familiar voice says, and Jane feels Darcy drape her arms over her from behind in a hug. “What’s the fuss about this time?”

“Doctor Foster got caught in a Loki incident in a cafe that had less tech security measures than SHIELD,” Tony pipes up, Iron Man faceplate lifting to give Darcy a flirtatious look-over and a winning smile, “And now he’s sad because we flew over after the entire shebang was over.”

“Jane! You didn’t call me!” 

Jane lets out a tired laugh; getting kidnapped is exhausting and she just wants to go tamper with the wavelengths. “Was a bit busy to call.”

“Why didn’t the situation escalate?” Steve asks in an interrogation voice, taking them back to relevantly on-topic like the wise leader he is. (He wants to get back to the compound. He promised Bucky they would spar.) “Loki’s unpredictable, it’s part of what makes him dangerous, so why did he take you to a coffee place down the road instead of trying to hurt you?”

“Anything you’re forgetting to mention, Foster?” Fury adds on. 

She’s not going to tell them about the apologies, obviously . She might be able to call in a favour as of yet, and she’s quite sure that kind of personal information will either already be with SHIELD or is too private for even Thor to have volunteered for the record. Thor doesn’t tend to talk much about Loki before his fall to villainy which she thinks is a shame. Could help her decide if Loki’s a nice person or an evil villain or both. 

“He congratulated me.” 

“Congratulated?”

“On breaking up with Thor,” she clarifies.

Tony spends half a second trying to stifle a bark of laughter which Darcy doesn’t try to stop to begin with. Jane smiles. In hindsight it is pretty funny.

“That is old news and we have made our peace,” Thor’s voice is loud and deep and goes over the laughs, and Jane makes sure her eyes stay trained on the spot where his cape latches onto his armour. Not because there are too many other parts of him that are distracting, but she’d rather not be thinking about his stormy grey eyes or the way they brighten up to match the clear morning sky or the way his neck hums when he speaks or the tightness of his pants on his thighs or the briskness of his beard or any other hypothetical things she doesn’t hypothetically want to be thinking about.

Fury gives her a brisk nod and turns, signalling for the remaining Avengers to file out. “We’ll have SHIELD on the scene to monitor for suspicious activity at the site and there’ll be compensation funds wired to your account shortly.”

Iron Man and Thor take to the air and the rest head in what Jane assumes is the direction of a quinjet and not a public bus. 

“So,” Darcy says, unlatching her thickly sweatered arms from around her, “You’re not in shock or something?”

“I don’t think so?”

“And you two actually talked about... science stuff?” 

“And had coffee,” Jane smiles.

“Duuuude that is so cool,” Darcy says. She then proceeds to practically bouncing the entire way down the SHIELD building stairs to the lab complaining about how that is actually possibly the most boring thing to have spent time with Loki doing but being happy Jane is alive to tell the tale nonetheless.

“So, we still using that shiny new fridge-sized metal box or the newer shinier fridge-sized metal box today? Despite you getting taken hostage by the guy who turned multiple blocks of New York into a junkyard for fun that one time?” 

She ignores the comment on New York, Darcy is overdramatizing the entire thing, there weren’t many deaths and a majority of them had been SHIELD personnel. What she did with Loki was essentially more of a... coffee date, than a kidnapping, and Jane’s still bitter about missing the whole invasion debacle because she was sent off to Tromsø of all places. The place had paid so much for a one-off assignment and she should’ve— would’ve —found it suspicious if she hadn’t, as usual , been running low on funding. “Actually I’m going to go back to the primary data and try some manipulation there.”

“You’re doing what?! But that’s old news!! We were done with the numbers!!“

“Loki made a suggestion and I—”

“Jaaaaa aaaaane!!” Darcy groans, “You don’t fall for the edgy bad boy, you don’t fall for the sympathetic half-villains, and you never, under any circumstances go for the pale-skinned dark-haired coloured-eye ones!! Unless they’re a gymnast but Loki is not a— oh shit that’s— that’s in my head now— shit —” 

“Darcy, he made a good suggestion! Plus, he thinks he owes me for something, so I doubt he’d try and give faulty advice,” Jane explains, ignoring the Darcy Talk parts of that. She’d say she’s not falling for him but Darcy would twist that somehow so she’s not even going to bother.

“He owes you something? Thor’s baby brother, the dark edgy emo BDSM one who regularly commits arson and dangles hostages off the empire state, owes you something?!” 

“Jane,” Darcy says, putting a hand to either side of Jane’s face and looking her straight in the eyes, more serious than Jane has ever seen her be, “Tell me you didn’t fuck the rampant trickster god.”

If Jane still had her wonderful coffee with her this is where she would’ve spit it out.

“I did not happen to have sex with Loki in the cafe where we stopped for like five minutes, Darce,” Jane says, rolling her eyes. 

“Hey,” Darcy lets go of her face at least, “A lot can happen in five minutes.”

“Darcy!!” Jane exclaims scandalized.

“What? You jumped on the last sexy alien that showed up within, like, twenty minutes of discovering he exists. I have valid concerns!”

Jane feels a blush heating her cheeks and directs her attention to turning her desktop on. Darcy inconveniently continues speaking. “And Loki’s been terrorizing the planet for months, not counting the rambunctious debut years ago, and that time you met him a year after that and— oh my god you were still with Thor at that time please tell me you weren’t doubling up.”

Jane is ignoring her. She has to start running the numbers on the gamma wavelengths but first her login needs to load faster.

“Jane? Jane!! Are you ignoring me?!” 

“Darcy, please, I need to run these numbers again.”

“The numbers?! Jane!! We don’t have the budget! Weren’t you the one who said today was going to be for the shiny doohickey in the corner? We’ll have to wait another week to have enough people to run it!! I can’t wait that long!!”

“You don’t even know what it does, do you?”

“Uh, actually, I read the entire manual out loud to you yesterday so—”

“How much did you retain?” 

“I know where the on button is and that’s what matters.”

Jane looks at her unimpressed and Darcy gives an awkward smile and does jazz hands in response.

At least she’s dropped the other topic?

“You’re right, you’re right,” Jane sighs and pushes her chair out. Darcy is right. They don’t have the funding so she’s going to have to use the hours she can pay the personnel today to test the remote sensor. She’ll just try and slot ‘writing up an appropriate algorithm to modify the data’ and ‘re-plot patterns visually’ and ‘remake simulator according to the new results’ and ‘trial run simulator into some other weekend. It’ll be incredibly tough to get to it and the nearest weekend she hasn’t got fully planned out is… in four weeks. 

She doesn’t want to have to wait that long but if all the previous data turns out false then none of what she investigates now matters unless she corrects the mistakes… 

Her phone lets out a loud ding! and she pulls it out of her phone pocket to check what it is. 

(1) New Message : ‘Supervillain Compensation Funds’ has been transferred into account 367 275…   

She slides the notification to the side to see what scrap money she’s been given for her ten minutes of inconvenience and… oh… oh my...

This works.

Chapter Text

The next few days pass in a blur.

Jane got enough dough to spend an entire day reworking numbers and then keep the SHIELD personnel on-site the entire Monday to make up for it. Which is wild, because Darcy had no clue a booty call could pay so well. 

And okay, yeah, maybe she’s doubting Jane and Loki actually have anything going on since Jane’s a terrible liar and keeps denying it… but if she was Jane, she wouldn’t admit to it either!! Loki doesn’t exactly have a squeaky-clean reputation but he isn’t hard on the eyes so Darcy is very happy if Jane is getting it on with him. 

Good for her, honestly! She doesn’t get time to get out much and is a bit obsessive about her science so being obsessive about a sexy alien is much better and at least this time the sexy alien is on Earth! (which is definitely an improvement from the last time!)

And whether or not there were any coffee date sexy times... Jane got money in the thousands for spending ten odd minutes in the presence of the local Top Tier Supervillain.

And Loki’s kill count may not be ‘up there’, but let it never be said that he isn’t on SHIELD’s most wanted list, because he’s consistently been their most foremost villainous customer since he turned to the dark side. 

He’s an actual real magical super-villain who can show up one day and turn all the traffic lights red or blow up a city block on a whim depending on his mood!! He’s also self-motivated which would be great in maybe any other profession. But he has got the work ethic to be persistently a hero-ing annoyance so credit where it’s due, Darcy can give him that. 

They got the money, and even if there was no steamy cafe sex Darcy is happy Jane got money out of the ‘kidnapping’ because Jane hasn’t been this giddy in weeks! 

Monday passes and the new thingamajig shiny electro-something-or-other works fine, and now they’re back home and Darcy is watching a David Attenborough documentary about desert herd animals while Jane is cooking (and probably thinking about Loki? If Darcy were her, she’d be thinking about Loki for sure).

Erik sleeps on his regular mattress pushed up against the couch and Darcy is doing her best to keep the volume higher than his snores. 

Eventually Jane shows up, bringing two bowls of extra-cheesy mac and cheese with her and Darcy digs in, closing her eyes to savour the gooeyness. It’s the cheesiest most delicious mac and cheese ever— she swears Jane sold her soul to be able to make mac and cheese this good because she’s never tasted it this good anywhere else. Oh, hey!

“Di’ you cash in zat stripper favour to have goo’ mac n chee magic?” she asks, through a half open mouth of steaming cheesy goodness. 

Jane’s cheeks immediately heat up, which is the cutest thing. Prime blackmail material if Darcy weren’t such an angelic honourable kind-hearted soul.

“I didn’t have sex with Loki!” she exclaims, evidently exasperated about the topic. “We just sat at a table and talked and had drinks,” she says, waving her hands around for emphasis.

Maybe Darcy is prodding a little too much. Then again, this is Jane and she actually did frick frackle with the Thunder Dunder semi-publicly enough...

“It’s okay,” She nods gravely, in understanding. “I would give an alien warlord a handjob under the table in a coffee shop too if it meant science money and magic cheese.”

“Darcy!!” Jane says, but she’s laughing and waving her fork around, so Darcy gives her a smile back. 

“Fine, fine, whatever,” she holds the bowl closer, protectively, sticking her cheese-covered tongue out. “Keep your better-than-sex cheese-y secrets to yourself then.”

Jane rolls her eyes and gestures to the TV. “Could you see if anything space-y is on.” 

“Already checked, it was either animals grazing or some weird cheesy sitcom.”

“Hmm, I thought you liked cheese?”

“A sitcom, Jane,” she complains, “A sitcom.”

Jane lets out a light laugh and continues eating.

They watch in silence for a while, Darcy making the occasional noise of pleasure because— let’s face it —Jane’s cooking really is better than sex. Jane gives her a few weird looks, but she doesn’t mean them; they’ve been working together for years now, Janie knows the cheese drill.

David Attenborough is saying something about grazing less in the drier seasons when Jane pipes up again.

“We’re out of funds.”

Darcy blinks at her, slowly. Surely, she isn’t hearing right. “Could you just… say that again?” 

“I’m going to spend the rest of the funds to pay for the next Sunday and use the money I would have used originally to purchase some parts to make something to better calibrate the new sensor.” 

“We’re— How!”

“I know, I know,” Jane sighs, but goes for a smile, “But it was nice while it lasted?”

“Jane, that was thousands of dollars, how can it be gone?!”

“I just told you where it went, you know how much it costs to pay an entire team on-site…”

Darcy groans, dragging a sweatered hand across her face she sinks further into her corner of the couch. She sobs. Loudly.

“We’re poor again,” she cries, to no one in particular. To the universe, maybe.

“Don’t be so dramatic, we’re not poor, just back to the regularly scheduled program.”

Darcy continues being dramatic, but Janie ignores her. Which, rude??

She slides down flat so her foot is against Jane’s leg and kicks her a bit. 

“What?” Jane says, swallowing a mouthful of mac and cheese. Darcy nobly does not ask if she can have the rest of it. She knows Jane eats slow but that doesn’t mean she eats less.

“Why aren’t you watching the herds? They’re mating now, I thought you’d be extra invested,” Jane attempts to snark.

“Speaking of which…” Darcy says, the most brilliant of bad ideas coming to her, improving her mood instantly: “Why not call up your sugar daddy.” 

Jane coughs, choking for a second and bringing a hand to her mouth. “Darcy.”

“No really, you said he dropped you his number, just ring him up!” Darcy says, “It’ll be great, you guys can ‘talk’ and have ‘coffee’ for, like, more than ten minutes this time, and then SHIELD will just dump the funds with you, and then we can pay the sci dudes to come over more often, maybe even get out of this crappy two-room apartment.”

“I am not calling up Loki, he could be out there trying to destroy the world or something, and if he actually decides to kidnap me this time then what?!”

“Then what?” Darcy repeats, sitting up. “Then the Avengers swoop in and save the day and you get paid even more? It’s not like your boyfriend would actually kill you, Loki has more class than that and plus there’s Thor to think about.”

“Loki isn’t afraid of Thor,” Jane says, remembering Loki’s behaviour when she’d brought his adopted brother up the other day. “Maybe doesn’t like him much, but he wouldn’t not kill me because of him. Remember the fish?”

“Right across the face,” Darcy nods.

“In the middle of a UN meeting too,” Jane reminds her. 

Darcy smiles, “It was pretty funny though.” 

Jane rolls her eyes, pretending she hadn’t brought it up every moment for that entire week. That kind of display helps much in getting over a breakup. “Yeah, it was funny.”

“I can respect a good fish to the face,” Darcy nods.

Jane hums.

“I’d have to open the safe.”

“The sa— Jane.” Darcy worries that Jane isn’t thinking it’s funny anymore, “I was kidding. You’re not calling a megalomaniac to kidnap you because we need money.”

“I— oh.” 

Oh that’s wonderful. A sparkling ray of hope for the limits of what Jane’ll do for science. 

Darcy mocks, unbelieving Jane thinks she’d tell her to go to extremes like this, “Enamoured, wooed, held so hostage by her feelings for the Dark and Brooding Bad Boy Supreme that even her own safety and the basest logics escape her...”

“I’m swooning,” Jane drily replies. 

Darcy gives her a smile as she pulls herself up and grabs her and Jane’s empty bowls as she goes to the kitchen to wash up. 

Darcy turns the sink tap on and grabs the sponge and starts scrubbing. She… sure hopes Jane knew she wasn’t serious about calling Loki. She’d been the one to suggest locking his mobile number in the safe to begin with because there was no way she was going to let some voodoo hocus pocus get them via tissue paper; An inch of lead on each side had to be able to stop mind control magic, right? Well, she thinks she saw something like that in a movie once, and it’s the best hope she has.

Jane won’t actually call the guy, Darcy assures herself, but at the same time she sees how happy Jane had been the past few days, and she looks around and sees how musty this second-rate apartment is, and thinks of what better place they could have with a few thousand more dollars a week… 

And, well, if Darcy is tempted to call up the wack-job for a hand-job if it means less mould on the kitchen ceiling… then Jane is definitely thinking it, because if there’s one thing Jane is, it’s ambitious. 

It’s 3am and Jane has slipped out of bed and snuck to the bathroom, carefully closing the door behind her as not to wake Darcy. 

Earlier, Darcy had reminded her that “Supervillains are Not Plan A” before they’d gone to bed, and Jane had felt her heart stop at the thought that Darce had caught on to her plan… until her friend had followed up with “Supervillains are Plan B, B for Bad and A Choice Other Act I Will Not Mention” and given her a huge, exaggerated wink. 

She loves Darcy, but the girl can’t keep making such bad jokes. (Jane will work on not finding them outrageously funny after Darcy stops.)

She flicks the light switch on, wincing as it makes an audible click and the LED flickers to light, tinting everything a fluorescent yellow. 

The bathroom feels timeless.

She uncrumples the napkin and stares at Loki’s number, the scribbled digits not neat exactly, but eloquent for sure.

How the frick doth one write eloquently?

Jane shakes her head and pulls her phone out of her pant pocket, having concealed it there rather than put it on charging for the night. (Darcy hadn’t noticed.)

She takes a deep breath in and dials up the number, bringing it to her ear. 

You’re only phoning a supervillain, she tells herself sarcastically, why are your hands shaking?

The phone rings once, twice— he might not even pick up. This might not even be his real number. It could’ve been a joke —three times, no answer.

She releases the breath she’d been holding. He didn’t picked up. Of course it was too good to be true. But… Loki has never seemed bad to her. He kills people on the news and terrorizes them on the news but… he’s only ever been… nice, decent, even, to her. 

She presses on his number again. 

He picks up before it rings once. 

“Hello?” he asks warily, not a trace of sleepiness in his voice. Jane is startled by that, considering how unreal the bathroom is feeling to her right now. 

She leans against the sink. “Do you still owe me a favour?”

“I— Doctor Jane Foster,” Loki concludes, voice sharpening into the more arrogant drawl that is to be expected, “That was rather fast, please tell me you haven’t decided on something unimaginatively dull involving handing myself over to SHIELD in chains or the like.”

Ha! She hadn’t even considered that. The few times he’s been taken into custody never end well for the keepers involved and he always got out anyway.

“I need you to kidnap me again.” 

“Beg my pardon but you want me to what?”

“I’m cashing in that favour.”

“But... why?” Loki asks, sounding genuinely baffled. Jane chews on a nail but figures it’d be better not to tell him the reason. What if he gets angry he’s being exploited for money? Oh god, of all the times to start seeing Darcy’s prostitute comparison...

She makes a low frustrated noise, well shiz, she’d feel bad if she didn’t tell now and he’d just keep asking or figure it out himself eventually; it wasn’t as if SHIELD general policies weren’t available online...

“Supervillain Compensation Funds. I’ll get paid for it and you’ll no longer owe me a favour. We both win and we can schedule a time that works for both of us.”

“Everyone wins,” Loki sighs, “I get that, but why would you need the money? You’re a lead scientist, there is no other work going on in this field at all, how could you be lacking in any form of resource regardless?”

“That’s personal,” she says, not willing to bare the sob-story that is women in the theoretical science field being underpaid and overworked and her own motivation driving her to keep working towards solving the mysteries of the universe at the cost of any expenses she can save on. 

“You’re doing revolutionary work and have a government-paid job, shouldn’t you have benefit packages or something? It’d be ridiculously foolish of them to not provide you with what is needed.”

She grinds her teeth. SHIELD had in fact offered her an apartment she would be entitled to both for her work and having been associated with Thor and being a possible target for Avengers villains (oh the irony) but she refuses to accept their hospitality at the cost of having to stay in a section of a heavily-monitored building. She doesn’t think they would be above bugging her apartment or having cameras around to steal her independent work. 

“No one is willing to pay a female in the field of astrophysics enough, okay!!” She confesses, remembering to lower her voice towards the end. The sun rises in a few hours and she hasn’t slept so she keeps hissing despite any semblance of her better judgement. “I’m only able to hire the laboratories with equipment I filled in the starting loan for two days a week and a majority of my work involves machinery I put together myself and I need to upgrade something the coming week but can’t compromise on getting the apartment bills paid which is why I thought—” she cuts herself off, gasping for breath. Why is she getting so emotional over this? WHy did she call Loki of all people. Is this really how desperate she is? Having to wait a few months before upgrading a geothermal subnuclear scanner and she’s reduced to a pleading mess. She’s going to regret this entire conversation in the morning, she just knows.

“I’ll do it.”

She blinks, realizing she’s been staring at a patch of the fluorescent-tinted shower wall where the wallpaper is peeling off to reveal the dark brown mould growing underneath. She shakes her head, not sure she heard right. A pause, before he repeats: “I’ll do it.”

He doesn’t exactly sound enthusiastic to Jane, but he’s agreeing to do it! “And you can keep the favour.”

She’ll try not to read into that. Damn maybe Darcy was onto something, if it’s this easy to get more money for her work...

“I presume you’re free tomorrow?”

“Most of the morning, yes.”

“I’ll be there by 10.”

Jane contains a joyous giggle. She will not be so happy about a kidnapping. Loki is still a villain, he’s dangerous, she needs to be careful and not give away more about herself than she has to. He also just implied he’ll find her in the morning which… adds slight concern to her hysterical joy. 

“You can use the address—”

“Don’t need it,” Loki says distractedly, leaving her with serious questions. She assumed he’d found her place of work and knew she regularly worked there but even if he knew which building how would he know the apartment number… “What?!”

“Don’t need it,” he says, the sound of cloth rustling in the background. Is he seriously getting up and dressed at this unholy hour? “Goodbye.”

Goodbye?! GOODBYE?! 

Loki hangs up the call, leaving Jane with an unwanted image of Loki sleeping shirtless. Does he wear pants to bed? She gets the feeling he's one of those people who throws on nothing but luxurious satin boxers or something equally pretentious. No wait, she doesn’t care, it’s too early/late for this and this is clearly Darcy Dream Osmosis infiltrating her mind. She doesn’t even like Loki. Or, well, he’s nice, but she’s not really interested. Besides, she already knows how Thor sleeps and mmmmhhhhhhh…

The shock of being hanged up on and Loki possibly having her address doesn’t cloud over her happiness at knowing she’ll have more excess money this week. She’s so happy she could cry! Instead she lets out a cheer... and then realising it was probably too loud she inconspicuously flushes the toilet and washes her hands. 

She’ll sneak out the bathroom and back into bed after saving Loki’s number. That could be important. Especially since she still has that favour. 

Darcy had been up reading unsolicited works of fiction on her phone when Jane had slipped out. The apartment is near-silent and the bathroom door muffles most of the sound… but with the hurried secretive conversation and the way Jane whoops with success at the end she has no doubts Janie had rung up Loki.

Darcy tucks her phone under the pillow and turns to face the wall just as the water pipes start creaking. She will do her best to fall asleep and not look like she knows Jane stayed up half the night to sneakily talk to Loki in the bathroom, which is something she will also coincidentally be trying to forget forever thank you. Hopefully when Jane returns she won’t pay much mind to her, and will be too busy gushing over whatever sappy love stuff they talked about.

She is, unfortunately, not asleep by the time Jane returns humming happily to herself. 

And she trusts Jane’s word on the matter. 

But. 

Darcy isn’t entirely sure they aren’t sexing it up in their down time.

Chapter Text

Jane flings her shirt to the bed, turning to rip a dark red one off it’s hanger. She throws it over her head, putting her arms through the blouse and walking to the mirror. Yes, this one looks better with the pants.

“HHhhhhRRRRRHHhhhhh, JaaaaAAAAAaannneeeeee,” Darcy makes a few other groaning noises of choice before speaking again. “Why is the bed littered with clothes?”

“You’re up early,” Jane laughs nervously; She had been relying on Darcy sleeping in and missing when Loki eventually showed up. 

“The lights are burning my eyelids and you’ve got a mountain of cloth over my legs.” 

Darcy rolls over, stuffing her face into the pillow in a clear attempt to drown out the brightness but throwing much of the pile onto the ground in the process. 

That’s a problem for later, she decides.

Jane looks at herself in the mirror and hums in approval. But… the scarf is a bit much. She tosses it to the bed.

“Argh! Stop attacking me!”

“It was just a scarf!”

“A scarf?! You woke me up for A SCARF?!"  Darcy screams into the pillow. “Why the fuck are you trying on scarves right now?!”

“I’m just going out for a bit, you can keep sleeping.”

Darcy grunts as she pushes herself to sit up. “Now I know you’re up to something.”

“I’m not up to something,” Jane argues, weakly.

“What’s the time?”

“It’s almost ten.”

“You’re never up by ten unless it’s a lab day,” Darcy looks at her unimpressed. “The evidence is conclusive.”

Jane crosses her arms. “I can wake up early if I want to.”

“And how come you didn’t wake me? You’re just going out when just yesterday— holy shiz balls, this is about Loki isn’t it.”

Jane winces. “No?” she tries. 

Darcy stares at her slack-jawed. 

“You totally are dating the genocidal warlord.”

Jane is coming up with an argument she hasn’t already tried when there’s a knock at the door. 

Shit. He’s actually on time. 

“You“ —Jane glares at Darcy who has her smug ‘I told you so’ face on— “stay right here. I’m serious, we need that money, I'm not having you blow this for us.”

Jane rushes out, calling “coming!!” and missing whatever lewd comments Darcy has to say.

She stops at the door to calm her breath down— it’s just Loki, she’s met him a few times before, just a casual outing with him, a supervillain, and when she’s done she’ll be able to science to her heart’s content— and unlocks it. 

“Hi,” she says, taking in that he’s in full armour sans the helmet, which is under his arm. 

“Hello.”

A beat of silence.

“Well, you’re on time, and you managed to find my house which is strange but fascinating.” Loki somehow manages to hum disdainfully. “So... how do we do this?” 

“However you wish,” he answers. “Consider me at your service.”

“Oh wow, you’re... really doing this as a favour?” she eyes his armour. Is that actual gold??

“Shouldn’t be too hard to imagine,” Loki smiles, “I live to inconvenience, and this will most certainly trouble the Avengers at the very least.”

“Wow,” Darcy says from behind her, clearly having not followed Jane’s instructions to stay put. “You sure know how to get all dressed up for a lady.”

“Hello Ms Lewis, nice to formally meet you,” Loki nods to her, shifting the helmet under his arm. 

“I can’t believe it,” Jane turns to find Darcy gaping. “He actually is the dark brooding prince type, complete opposite to Thor’s sunshine-retriever face.”

“We can head over to wherever it is you normally do this stuff,” Jane says, diverting the topic and stepping out the door, ready to close it behind her before Darcy gets carried away. 

“You’re ready to leave?” Loki asks, looking down, confused, though Jane isn’t quite sure why. They need to get out of the building before they fake anything, don’t they?

“You’re not wearing any shoes,” Loki notes. “Was that intentional?”

“Hot damn,” Darcy whistles from behind the door. 

Shoes!! Shit! Darcy had distracted her! But this is an easy fix. “Just… give me a minute,” she laughs it off awkwardly, turning to go back inside.

It’s probably for the best not to let a supervillain into the house, but this is normally where she would invite a guest in, and isn’t that a thought. (Darcy would pull a fit though, and Selvig should be waking soon, so she doesn’t ask if he wants to come in, but leaves the door as it was as to not slam it shut in his face. No need to be ungrateful he’s doing her a favour. Even if it means leaving Darcy alone with him. Why does she trust Loki to be the more responsible one of the two?)

“Hot damn,” Darcy says, going to poke his chestplate, and the last thing Jane thinks when turning the corner into their room is that she better rush. Things could escalate or deescalate and she’s not sure which would be worse. She rummages the drawer for a matching pair of socks like her life depends on it.

“And you really can’t feel that?” 

“It wouldn’t be very unsuccessful armour if I could.”

“Oh, burn.” 

Loki gives her a smile. Not very many people appreciate wordplay, but Darcy seems... nice. He’s heard of her of course, but people always fail to mention the wit characteristic of her, or the charisma that suits, along with everything else. Every place is, typically, truly, the same in that regard. 

“Whether you believe it or not, Thor gets injured in battle far more than me.”

“Easy to believe, less easy is that you guys actually legitimately are doing hanky panky on the side, I mean, how long has that been going on for? I need details.”

Loki narrows his eyes at her. 

“Thor and I are not dating.”

“Huh?” it is quite easy to see the gears moving in her head through her face, and when what she said clicks in place, she shrieks. It almost makes him actually smile, and then he realizes he can use this opportunity and does— what an interesting turn of events today is turning out to be.  

“I didn’t mean—”

“We broke up some years ago,” he says morosely. He’s never played the role of a sad lover of all things, but to mess with Thor’s friends? He is prepared. 

Her jaw falls comically, and she doesn’t make anything but choking sounds for about half a minute. (How did people fail to mention that this is a woman of quality class humour?)

“But you— aliens!!— I— brothers???”

“Adopted, I assure you,” Loki smiles wide as Jane reappears at the door. 

“Jane and you?” Darcy whispers conspiratorially. 

He shakes his head. “Not dating.”

Darcy nods. “Were you? Before, I mean, when Jane visited Asgard?”

What in the Nine Realms do humans think of Asgard?

“Not with her, no. Unlike Thor, my heart when shattered takes longer to heal than a fickle bifrost.”

“Gotcha,” Darcy nervously gives him finger guns as she walks towards inside now that Jane is back. “Have fun you two platonic, not-dating, heartbroken-by-Thor besties.”

She slams the door shut but Loki doesn’t mind.

Jane, however, winces, though for the most part she seems to be distracted messing with a handheld device without labels and a needle.

“Wonderful choice in shoe-wear,” he tries.

“Thanks,” she says, absentmindedly shaking the box in her hand. “We can go to your evil lair now, I’ve got my shoes.” 

“I see why Thor became fond of you easily.”

With a twist of a hand they’re transported to the top of a tower, wind pushing loudly against them. It sends Jane’s box flying out of her hands.

“NO!!” she yells, holding onto the railing and reaching out towards the falling box, though she knows there is nothing she can do now.

“Was that important?” Loki asks, and Jane notes he has the helmet on and wow that really adds to the height. 

She can really see why this supervillain thing works for him. 

“It was,” she sulks. “I was going to ask you if I could try and record magical readings…”

“Well,” Loki says, and he sounds offended, “it wouldn’t have worked, so nothing lost.”

“Hey! I made that equipment myself!”

Loki nods. “And I’m sure it would work for some measures of energy, but magic from an individual has too many variables, constantly changes, and can involve multiple dimensions. Any readings you get would never be reliable and Earth science isn’t quite there with other dimensions yet.”

Jane really wants to argue, she really does, she even has half a mind to throw something at his head —not that she has anything on her that would be good for throwing, sans shoes — but she sees helicopters making their way over and knows this is where the acting should start. Guess that means she can't ask interview him on what he meant by 'other dimensions' or try and get how to access them out of him.

“I apologize in advance for any manhandling, if I go overboard feel free to tell me.”

No manhandling would grant her the disappointment that knowing she won't get any science out of this does. Although, now that she thinks about it, throwing a shoe at the warlord alien would be perfectly in-character for a damsel in distress. Or she guesses observing Loki's magic up close could provide some leads. 

“They took long enough,” Loki mutters, looking over, bored. Or is he? Has he started getting into character already or is his supervillain streak showing? He can’t possibly be bored by the nearing authority.

“We’ve hardly been here a minute,” she points out. 

“That they take a whole minute despite someone or other being held hostage here every few days is shameful,” he spits.

And that vehemence sure doesn’t sound like acting to Jane. 

This is going to be an interesting performance.

“And we are at...”

“Eiffel Tower.” 

“Oh.” 

Loki cackles like a madman, clutching Jane with one arm and firing bolts of magic with the other. 

“Loki, put her down,” Thor orders from the ground, sparks crackling around his arm. 

Jane shrieks as Loki pushes her over the railing, free-falling until he makes her disappear in a green burst and suddenly she’s next to him on the tower again, no sign of having fallen at all. 

The Avengers stand around, none daring to go too close even as he pushes her behind him. 

“Why can’t you be a good villain and leave her alone,” Tony asks. “We’ll give you a lollipop.”

Jane hasn’t been worried for the most part… Loki took them all on in close and far combat over the past few hours between threats (scary ones that she doesn’t doubt he would carry through that make her glad the Avengers are also present, just in case) and it is clear that they tire, from the deteriorating quality of quips alone. When Jane could come up with better dialogue, she knows Tony has had enough here. 

“Don’t think you can bribe me with your useless Midgardian foods,” Loki spits angrily, lobbing a burst of magic at him that turns off one of his boots, destabilizing his thrusters and sending him falling, as he had done earlier too. “Thor’s mortal surely doesn’t deserve such a fuss.”

“Hey, birdbrain!” Clint calls out, “We told you, they’re not even together anymore!”

“And yet, are you not all here, are you not all fighting for her honour?”

Loki gets distracted with another deranged cackle, and Jane slips off her remaining sneaker, throwing it at the back of his head. It lands, and though it doesn’t do anything before falling to the ground she hears Thor cheer.

Loki lets out a real laugh, then, and it’s clear that it is one, which is more comforting than it should be since he hadn’t broken character at all before now and he was a supposed villain. He covers it by turning around and walking closer, forcing her to step back as he continues to grin madly. She knows it’s an act, but her skin crawls. 

Damn, he should consider a career in theatre. 

He leans in, and she feels his breath on her ear as he speaks. “I look forward to your next work, Doctor Foster.”

She holds back a response that isn’t fearful, which is made easier when he twirls a strand of her hair menacingly. 

Years in the scientific field, numerous accredited published papers, and here she is playing the victim to a guy who levels buildings for fun for money, and this was seriously her best option. What even is her life.

Her legs are tired from being pushed around and tied up and then untied and pushed around more, and her face numb from the cold winds. Her hand hurts from earlier when she’d slapped him. Speaking of which, she brings her left hand up and hits him across the face. 

His face turns with the blow, and when he looks back he is betrayed— heartbroken, even— and yep, if she gets the chance later she is going to force him to sign up in a local theatre or something because evil or not this level of acting deserves credit. 

He draws his hand sharply as if hurt, when there’s no way he is after thrashing Thor around only a while back, and then disappears in a green fizzle. 

It’s another twenty minutes until the area is sweeped to make sure Loki really is gone, and another ten until anyone comes up to move her to safety. 

“Full debriefing on the flight back,” Fury announces, even as she’s given a shock blanket. 

She grimaces. 

This’ll be fun. 

SHIELD doesn’t harass her for too many details, since Loki’s motive of getting to Thor was made pretty clear the entire time. Natasha questions why he’s suddenly gone after Jane twice but no else does, shrugging it off as Loki being jealous and unpredictable. Other than that most of the debriefing involves rewatching footage of the fights and seeing if they pick up anything new, any patterns in his fighting or blows he took which could be exploited in the future.

At one point Captain America’s shield hits Loki straight to the forehead and she winces for him. Thor notices this and reassures her that Steve had not been hurt upon recatching the vibranium disk, but Jane can't even concentrate on the warmth that blooms in her chest at him being protective because she is distracted by how the hit didn’t even phase Loki, didn't even get a reaction. He really was an Avengers-level threat, wasn’t he? 

But his behaviour here is so… different… to what she’s seen when he’s not posturing. She smiles, remembering how Loki had stood at her doorway this morning, fidgeting with his helmet. 

“You recovered quick,” Tony notes. She doesn’t know how to answer that, but lucky for her she doesn’t need to because he opens his mouth again. “Not that it’s surprising, I mean, you dated Shocker over here...”

Steve groans. “That was so bad.”

She laughs a little at that. It was pretty bad. Or maybe she’s just used to Darcy’s comments, which are better. 

Darcy.

Oh shit, she was probably watching the news. Debriefing doesn’t end here, then.

She makes it home. Eventually.

“Jane,” Darcy says, seriously, opening the door to let her into the apartment. “We have to talk about Loki.”

Jane sighs. Between being kidnapped and then watching clips of the event where she had to pretend she was rooting for the Avengers… she is exhausted. “Go on.”

“There is no way he isn’t actively using you,” she states, walking through to the living room space. “I’m not sure what for, but there’s no other way it makes sense.”

“Well, I’m using him too, for money, and he knows and was okay with that,” Jane points out. “Plus he did it for free so I still have a favour I can call in —h e’s apparently in support of women in STEM.”

“Oh, great!” Darce exclaims, “the supervillain is a feminist, give him a gold star and a badge for not being as bad as he could’ve been.”

“That’s not a fair analysis...”

“And you invited him into our home!” Darcy snaps, hands all over the place. It’s clear she’s thought on this a lot. “This is our living space, Jane!! We LIVE here!! Together!! Fuck! Think of Erik!!”

“I didn’t ‘invite him over,’” she clarifies, “he already knew where we are—”

“Is that supposed to be better?!?”

Admittedly, no, but, “—which means he’s known and hasn’t done anything yet.”

“What if he tracked the phone number? Or spiked your coffee?? Or wiggles his fingers and has you under his control??? What if he’s going to?!”

“He won’t,” Jane reasons weakly. “He won’t even come inside the apartment. I called him last night and I asked him to stage a kidnapping.”

“He gave you his number knowing you’d be tempted to call! Manipulation is his whole thing! That’s how they reel people in, tell you you’re different and important and then they blindside you when they turn.”

“I think you’re making a big deal out of thi--”

I spoke to him this morning and there’s no way he’s any better than Thor, he was acting too clean, and the whole ‘favour’ act, showing up at your doorstep looking like a lost puppy, textbook classic, if you hadn’t seen him on the news and in person and literally heard what Thor has had to say on him,” Darcy continues as she walks into their bedroom and collapses on the bed. “Jane, think!!”

When she doesn’t respond Darcy yells. 

“The first thing on live coverage was him caressing your fucking face!” 

Jane had honestly forgotten that. The Avengers had finally shown up, and he’d been monologuing about how preciously fragile mortals were or some crap. It’d made sense at the time and she hadn’t minded, considering it was a set-up.

“Didn’t you think we were dating?”

“I watched him throw you off the fucking Eiffel Tower, Jane. Multiple times.”

“That’s an Asgardian courting ritual...?” she tries.

“Don’t evade the topic,” Darcy squeezes her eyes shut. “What if he’d tried something with you? What if he’d hurt you or r—raped you or killed you— he’s killed on TV before, and I wouldn’t’ve been able to do anything but watch—”

“He didn’t,” she pulls Darcy down to the bed with her, hushing her and wrapping her arms around as she shakes. “I’m fine, really, and it’s over now.”

Her phone vibrates in her pocket. It’s probably the funds, but she doesn’t check. 

“Just, god,” Darcy sniffles, “give me a heads-up next time?”

She holds back from arguing, but Darcy thinks she’d do that again after stressing her out this much?! 

She did this for the money, and the money she now has. She'll just moderate her spending better to make it last longer.

No, it won’t happen again. 

Chapter Text

“I was so worried, I was a stressfest for hours,” Darcy laughs emptily, wiping around dry eyes. 

She’d gotten up and washed her face, having embarrassed herself enough today, and then gone to make them both coffee. 

“Won’t happen again,” Jane assures, and Darcy sighs. 

“No, no, it’s okay, I just… overreacted. You're doing your whole science thing for science and you know what you’re doing and I shouldn’t assume and we live in a dump so of course money helps.”

“Darcy,” Jane speaks softly. “It’s fine, I shouldn’t need to do anything risky outside of a lab again anytime soon, thank you for worrying.”

Darcy stirs the coffee in the pot and takes a whiff of the steam. Mmmm. You can really smell the cocoa. She pours the brown liquid straight into their designated mugs, stirs sugar into hers, and takes them to the living room. 

“Thanks,” Jane smiles when she places hers on the table. 

The door of the other bedroom opens with a slight creak and Erik walks out in a vest and pajama pants, beelining to the bathroom. 

“Morning, Dr Selvig!” Darcy shouts.

“It’s still morning?” Selvig’s voice comes from the bathroom, sounding confused. 

“Yeah,” Darcy tells him, turning back to Jane who shakes her head. 

“It’s not,” she calls out, hoping to not disorientate him further, unlike Darcy who finds it hilarious . 

“Just… warning beforehand. And no going without me,” Darcy resumes

Jane sighs. “It’s not going to happen again—“ 

Darcy opens her mouth to intervene but Jane soldiers on regardless. 

“—but if it did...I would still need to ask Loki.”

“Promise you’ll ask?” Darcy pouts, “I never get to go on the cool spacey coffee shop mind-whammy adventures.”

“Of course,” Jane nods. “Now hand over my laptop.”

The sound of water going through the pipes and then the bathroom door opens, revealing Selvig, hair actually combed. Must be a good day. 

“What was all the yelling about? And don’t deny it, it definitely woke me up like nothing.”

Darcy looks at Jane who simply shrugs and opens her laptop, starting to type. Guess it’s her job to explain their situation! Thanks, Janie! Love you too! 

“Jane has Loki on speed dial,” she says, bringing her mug up for a nice delicious warm sip of cocoa goodness. And redirecting him to Jane, because God, Jane, don’t dump this on me as if I was the one who had a coffee store meet-cute and a second date in Paris. 

“You WHAT!?!?!” Erik instantly pales, and leaps into action running over. It’s very animated, would be entertaining if he didn’t look so alarmed. Maybe they should've broken the news slower.

He’s down by Jane’s side already and she screams when the coffee in her hand almost spills. 

“You interested in hearing about ‘Plan B’ to get rich?” Darcy wriggles her eyebrows, voice explicitly implying all the steamy things Jane and Loki could’ve be doing instead of whatever the fuck she had to watch on TV the last few half-dozen hours with her heart in her throat. 

“Darcy!” Jane looks scandalised. Good. She should! Face stroking and catching her in his arms and whispering into ears live and she hardly looked terrified through it which was... some comfort, she supposed, but then he’d be sprinkling in throwing her off buildings and vanishing Thor’s hammer and… yeah. 

“Are you OKAY?!?!” Selvig asks, frantic. 

“Yes! Yes I am!”

Selvig lets out a breath of relief, backing up. 

Darcy can admit his instant reversion to groggy uncle is impressive. 

And that he also reacted badly is some comfort to her own reaction at least. See? She wasn’t being that unreasonable. The guys already a stranger without the supervillain-ness attached. 

“Oh, okay,” he rubs his eyes, “I’m going back to bed then.”

“Actually…” Jane turns her laptop around, showing an email of something something official jargon too far away for Darcy to read from where she’s sitting comfortably but the banner at the bottom looks official and fancy. 

She nudges Jane’s side. “What does it say?” 

“I booked the lab out for the next few days” —she returns to Selvig— “if you’re feeling up for some data analysis.”

The man grunts. “Sure.”

“Wait, what ,” Darcy questions, “if you’re not going to sleep then don’t you want to know about Jane and Loki’s date earlier? There’s lots of footage, hours of it—“

Selvig waves a hand, “she’s fine, thank God,” and closes his bedroom door behind him, hopefully to change clothes rather than take a nap. 

Darcy and Jane exchange a look. 

“Huh.”

“Ideal outcome, really,” Jane reasons. 

“Still… strange. You’d think he’d react worse.”

Darcy’s grateful Selvig didn’t go off though, so she shrugs to herself. 

“I’ve split the money up into lots to last us the next few months with extra spending money each week in case I start to get too excited,” Jane explains in her method voice. 

Months? Darcy really doubts that. No way Jane would hold up on science if she could help it. Their last grant lasted two days and yeah, sure, Jane got a miniature model of the Bifrost that could function on remnant radiation up and running, but applying for more money hadn’t gotten a great response. They’d narrowly avoided getting black listed from the American Science Association after that and only the machine’s ability to hold and store anti-neutron particles had saved them. 

(People just didn’t seem interested in Baby Bifrost until it was hauled off to the local NASA showrun as a trinket. The little Bifrost energy still captured in it was a constantly swirling rainbow within, and apparently that was what people focused on.) :(

Already there’s the flaw of the budget only being catered to research. They need to eat and pay rent too, but Jane’s clearly gotten her scientific tunnel vision goggles on right now. 

Jane gives her a smile that she returns anyway. 

“How much money exactly did you get this time?” She asks, cautiously. 

“Better get dressed and head out then!” Jane snaps her laptop shut and gets up, putting her mug aside. 

“Na uh,” Darcy shakes her head. “Finish your drink and tell me what’s up with Red first. I won’t have you wasting coffee, that’s blasphemy , and also don’t forget a taser.”

Jane mumbles something and falls back onto the couch. 

Darcy takes another sip of her delicious delicious brown wake-up juice. 

All is well in the world. 

“Light her up!” 

“That doesn’t sound like technical lingo,” Darcy murmurs, but flicks the switch regardless. The inside face of the sheet flashes bright white, and then it slowly fades away. 

Selvig pushes his radiation-proof glasses off his face. “Brilliant work!” 

“Thanks,” she says, sparing a glance back at Jane. 

Jane’d left them with more practical work than any multispectral doohickey could, which Darcy reckons is because she wants to work on the connection the readings could have with Loki’s ‘advice’ on it and possibly also because Darcy doesn’t know shit about Excel. Jane hadn’t asked Darcy to work on the backtracked topic at all, letting Selvig and herself check out what the cool stuff around the lab can do as a fun substitute pastime instead. 

Darcy, always ready to test out machines she has no clue the names of, is happy with this arrangement. 

A copper box with silvery metal stuff on it catches her eye. “Ooo, can we see what’s in that one next?” 

“Darcy, you have an eye for the good ones.” 

“Obviously,” she starts powering down the current radiation device—lab safety matters, kids!— “now what does it do and how do I turn that one on.”

When she's finally processed the pseudo-incest thing and decided hey, it's not so bad, could be worse, at least Jane wasn't doubling up and no one was cheating, the first thing she does is subtly hint at it to Jane. 

By which she means she mentioned it during an experiment with some lazer-gamma-beam thing by asking if Jane thinks the bros did anything less vanilla than when Thor and she were dating.

Jane's head whipping around almost messed up the results from that test since the stabilizers shifted for a moment, but everything worked out fiinneee.

Somehow, Jane had no knowledge of Thor and Loki's prior relationship and was skeptical about it, insisting Thor would have brought it up at some point if that were the case. Darcy is not so easily distracted from the lack of answer to her original question though. 

"I mean, Loki, no way anything they did wasn't kinky."

"Darcy."

"I'm just sayin', Thor does wear leather under-armour too, it makes no sense they're, like, a bazillion years old and weren't into knifeplay at least."

"Darcy please."

"I have a theory about why Thor is reluctant to bring it up!"

"Is it because it never happened and Loki and he are essentially arch-enemies?"

"I read up on some Norse things and the word argr came up as like, some weird woman-homo-like insult, so hear me out on this one: Thor was the bottom."

Jane's silence after that comment speaks volumes, and it's not until days later when Darcy considers that maybe Loki hadn't been telling the truth about the relationship. But that would put Jane and his potential interactions back into questionable territory...

And then there's every incident of theirs on TV ever. 

Arch-enemies behaviour? Maybe.

Exes behaviour? Definitely.

(If Darcy could slap Ian with a fish when it is his turn to take the stage at a UN meeting being broadcasted everywhere live she also would take the opportunity to do so.)

They manage to stick within regular times to hire the lab, so their sleep schedules are going decently. This, of course, excludes Erik, whose cycle never really sets itself after the Mind-Stone Incident (Darcy holds back a wince. Yeah, Loki did that. With all the more recent things he's up to... it's easy to forget that.)

It also excludes Jane since the madwoman 'accidentally' pulls an all-nighter twice a week, so it's really just Darcy getting her beauty sleep hours. 

But Jane's work seems to be going well. Numbers getting crunched, Darcy assists with what she can when asked, she has basically unlimited time on uni hand-ins with only regular internship letters really being 'due' and Jane's name on her work is what really matters with those. 

Not being tight with money means they can get more fresh ingredients, and she's figured out how to make decent stir fry noodle soup. It's healthier than plain ramen or mac and cheese and the apartment smelling luxurious for the whole day after she makes it is a glorious extra benefit.

She gets to take Selvig to pick up his prescription meds whenever they finish or he loses them, so that's also fun. 

Villain attacks still happen, with New York being extra popular for some mysterious reason (it's because the Avengers live around here, isn't it?), and SHIELD are still downright pricks about everything, but that's the usual.

It had started as somewhat of a tradition with Thor when he’d suddenly shown in New York after the gap year that must not be named, but soon it’d become the regular to alert everyone not with eyes on the channel when a hero they knew was on. With Thor being a member of the Avengers, this was still a mostly-Thor occasion for the benefit of Jane. Now though, Loki gets honorary mention too. (Darcy is just... keeping her eye on the alien guy. Never know when a magic alien sibling to Thor might decide to start subjugating, starting with the smart humans he knows of.)

“Loki’s on TV again!” Darcy announces to the rest of the apartment. 

Selvig grunts from the kitchen non-committedly. Jane, though, yells something incoherent from the shower.

Whatever she says, the tap is off moments later, and she’s on the couch before the news anchor has spoken her piece explaining the situation— something about an aquarium and penguins —when the footage starts running. 

Loki, in all his 6ft+ leather-strapped glory, levitates indoors, in front of a glass wall where penguins swim. He says something but the audio has been cut. People run around, terrified. It’s pretty obviously a classic villainous monologue. Soliloquy? Monologue. One of those. 

Then he spreads his arms out and starts laughing, even more villanously, like, straight-out-of-a-cartoon villainously, before the glass wall disappears, the water from the penguin exhibit flooding into the room. 

“Holy moly,” Jane says under her breath about the magic, at the same time Darcy goes “awwww” at the penguins swimming into the room in all their glory. 

The footage jumps to a camera away from this exhibit, showing off the end result of the event in a corridor, with water contained at the stairs and not making it to the rest of the aquarium as the exhibit was a low room (probably designed for scenarios where the glass could break), and to the penguins, having climbed out of the water and let loose running around. 

Loki wasn’t shown again, but the news anchor relayed that he was not caught, though the Avengers had come to check on the site hours later. 

“Fuck they’re cute,” Darcy sighs as close-ups of the penguin are shown, with visitors crouching down to hold them. “Wish I was there.”

“I have no theories on where the glass went,” Jane whines, “or how placing the matter somewhere else would be done so fluidly with energy on-hand.” 

“Do you think if I say please Loki could get me a penguin?”

Jane rolls her eyes and gets up, joining Erik in the kitchen as the next news story rolls: some fire in the Amazon.

They have maybe four different projects running alongside each other, and a schedule they rotate through so they know to work on different days. 

Right now Jane’s reading the transcripts from a ‘chronolorimeter’ as she tries looking into ‘chloro-gamma radiation’. She thinks the theoretical radiation could unlock interplanetary teleportation, but she also thought that of the past few theories she’s come up with. 

Then again, no one else had even managed a working prototype of anything Bifrost-like ever, except for Jane. So maybe she is onto something. Never underestimate that lady, honestly. 

'Women of STEM are not to be messed with' is one of many useful lessons this extra-credit-internship-turned-fulltime-job has taught her. Sure, Jane can't lie to save her life, and Darcy doubts she could land a decent punch in her life, but the determination... whew. (Darcy is unsure how Thor really gave this up. Like damn, Odinson. Get better tastebuds.)

“Find anything interesting?” Darcy asks. 

“Nothing,” Jane answers, frustration clear in her voice (and in her unkempt hair), but the good thing is Jane always picks herself back up from this kind of thing. 

“Coffee?” she suggests. 

“Yes please.” That brings a smile to Jane’s face. 

Darcy’s loving their new coffee machine. 

It’s heaven-ous . 

Even if the wall behind it is still mouldy at least they have good coffee. 

Two months later, they’re sitting in the lab when Jane whoops, saying she’s sent a report off for publishing approval. 

“That’s great!” Darcy says, “celebration tonight?”

Jane nods, “Jurassic Park marathon?”

“Exquisite choice,” Darcy compliments in her poshest British bitch voice. “I shall text Sir Erik.”

And then Jane sits back down in her seat and softly closes her laptop with the satisfied sigh that always comes with a completed task, while Darcy types out the message. (Erik’s headache had been picking up this morning and he chose to sleep in rather than come with.)

Darcy is about to ask if she wants to get a celebratory snack from the bakery on the walk home when Jane speaks up.

“I never thanked Loki.”

Which is wild because …huh???? Loki????? 

“What for?” 

Janie?????? You feeling okay????????? 

“Well, the money,” Jane looks at her hands in her lap,blatantly avoiding eye contact. “And the advice on the older readings… I only got numbers which aligned and led to this more accurate theory work because of what he’d told about wavelength adjustion.”

Darcy narrows her eyes at Jane. That does seem like common courtesy. But... “Are we running low on cash or something?” 

“Not yet, we have another week the way we’re going.”

“So what, you want to, like, invite him to a cafe or something?” she loads with sarcasm. Yes, the money was useful, but at the most extreme they should just. Stage another kidnapping. There’s no need to get… friendly .

What happened in France wasn't meant to be a regular thing.

“Hey, I just meant as a text or something…”

“How about down the road from SHIELD? ‘Hey Loki, let's meet up sometime, we can call it a date’?” 

“Darcy…”

Jane has these warm brown eyes when she pleads, but they’re no match for Darcy. She’s not letting Jane do anything fucky wucky again when it comes to her life. Because that’s what this is. Just a few days ago Loki made news for killing a group of young adults in some random club in Asia. In the middle of the club. 

She’s not letting Jane just— ah. Shit . It’s been months since her new data turned out. If she’s had this on her mind she must’ve been feeling guilty for it this whole time. Heck, Jane’s so picky about correctly crediting work she probably put Loki’s name in her references. 

Well. She tried. 

Jane hopefully knows what she’s doing, and she guesses they do have his number. 

If not, we’ll just die. 

Hopefully he’ll be merciful and come when we’re asleep, rather than a time when I’m in the bathroom. 

The image of Loki outside the bathroom door knocking and asking if she’s finished up yet is not likely to leave her head anytime soon. 

"Can't you thank him whenever you inevitable call him to hit you up on cash again?"

Jane glares. Darcy tries to hold steady against it... 

Darcy loses.

“One message,” she points her finger at Jane accusingly, “but you’re adding me to the chat. I’m not having you two sending private messages around.” 

Jane rolls her eyes a little but smiles. “Thank you, Mum.”

“I’m serious dude, no sexting , or whatever else other unsecure unsolicited dubious internet thing kids in love are doing these days.”

“Darcy!” Jane throws a pen at her and it lands in Darcy’s lap, but it doesn’t distract her from how she’s blushing. Jane is so easy , she can’t help herself sometimes. 

Plus. Loki's magic. He's dangerous. He could obliterate them for no reason than because it'd be funny. She's not leaving Jane alone in any chat room with him. Yeah, she did her research. Silvertongue isn't a title you get from nowhere. Another opinion will 100% help make sure no sinister manipulation is going on. If Jane gets Stockholm Syndrome Darcy doesn't know what she'll do. If they wake up one morning with mind-control-phone-screen-radiations buzzing through them... Darcy still has no clue what she'd do but at least Jane wouldn't be dealing with it alone.

“Need help putting the message together?” 

“ Please ,” Jane nods, moving closer. 

Finally, Darcy’s poli-sci major can come of use. 

“Okay, so we need to make it formal but in a way that’s casual and doesn’t encourage a larger conversation but gets the message across enough. If it’d be awkward for him to send any message back because we’ve already said everything that needs to be said… that’d be ideal. We’ve also got to consider that this is Loki and we don’t want any evil vibes coming from it so make a note to check it for anything that sounds threatening. It’s important to consider that it’s not just a guy but a... former? Former prince. So we’ll introduce ourselves, try being respectful, but that comes under Evil Vibes too, so...”

Jane hums and picks up a notepad from the table. 

They start to draft their response. It will be the first of eight, maybe nine drafts total, she estimates. 

Jane:

Thank you for all your help.

It took forty-four drafts painstakingly crafted in the most tedious hours and dragging them into the night before they sent the message. Darcy is just glad it is over now. Simple, sleek concise, absolutely does not prompt any further discussion on anything. It's done. The perfect message, because they could afford no less.

Who could’ve known texting a supervillain could be so stressful? 

Jane rubs at an eye and yawns, then places the phone on the bedside. Darcy follows suit with the yawning. Damn, what time is it?

Darcy decides it’s too late for it to matter and pulls the blanket over her, shimmying to settle in. 

It’s about half a minute after sending the message that a light ding! goes through the room. 

“Please tell me that wasn’t your phone,” Darcy says, genuinely horrified at the breaking of blissful, sleepy silence that was the notification. 

Jane doesn’t seem fazed by the turn of events and immediately grabs at the mobile. If Darcy didn’t know better she’d say Janie was too eager. Heck, is it a mystery why she’d assumed something date-y was going on? A smile that never should be associated with an astrophysicist stretches across Jane’s face, then comically turns into a frown after swiping open the message to read. 

“What is it?” Darcy asks, too tired for this. 

“Loki.”

Did Loki seriously answer that fast? Damn. Does the vampire even sleep or…?

“What about him?”

Jane turns the phone over and holds it up in front of Darcy’s face, the bright speech bubble straining her eyes.

Loki:

Whomst?

It takes a few seconds for the word to register, and then another moment for Darcy to realize what’s happened here. 

“Fuck. He didn’t save your number.” 

Jane nods in solidarity. 

We forgot to introduce ourselves. 

Darcy wants to cry.

And now we’re going to have to message the megalodon villain more.

Chapter Text

“Shit, dude.”

Jane nods in solidarity, once again agreeing with Darcy on this. 

How could she have forgotten to mention her name! This would be less of an issue if she had mentioned her paper on the Thermophysical Nuclearity of Einstein-Rosen Bridge Radiation in the initial message, but Darcy had said it would make it clunky and inspire more texting, which was a big no for… some reason. 

Jane can’t recall why they are being so precautious with messaging him when he—albeit a little terrifyingly—already knows where they live and holding a conversation on the phone didn’t result in any lingering effects (that she has observed.)

Besides which, the money gained out of Loki’s goodwill is what enabled her to do so much more work in such a small amount of time, pushing her forward at least a year in discovery which… with their money set to dwindle in the next few weeks, she wouldn’t mind another scholarship-worth of government benefits. 

Loki = bad 

Loki = science = good 

Loki = murderer = very bad 

Loki = saved her life = very good 

Her heart is a very confusing place, but Jane is quite sure that Loki is reliable. If he wanted them dead he knows where the apartment is, and if he doesn’t want them dead because he has some plan to use them against Thor then she trusts Thor’s strong, beefy arms to catch her if she falls. 

“Shit. Shit. Shit. Fuck. Shit.”

Darcy continues the stream of swears, a decent internal monologue is she has ever heard one. 

Jane sighs, looking at the message on the screen. A little bubble with just the word “Whomst?” within it. Whilst Darcy walks circles around the couch in worry Jane decides to send another message. Without over-thinking, this time. She does enough of that while on work mode already.

Pressing her index finger to the screen she types. Looks up at Darcy one last time before pressing send. 

Jane

Thank you for all your help.

Loki

Whomst?

This is Dr Jane Foster! :)

The fwooop of the message being sent catches Darcy’s ear. 

“You didn’t,” she says, rushing to lean over her shoulder on the couch and see the screen. “You did.”

Darcy watches in horror as the ellipses icon appears, indicating Loki is writing a reply. 

“Jane this is seriously dangerous and I am not dying for college—Why is he up at this time, anyway?”

“He could be in another country,” Jane points out, also watching the dots as they wriggle from side to side. “And it can’t be more dangerous than half the stuff in the labs.”

Ding! 

Darcy lets out a wordless noise of protest at the back of her throat but anything further is quickly forgotten.

Ding! 

Loki

Hello, Doctor Foster :) 

Do not worry about it, it was a pleasure. 

Jane holds the phone closer to Darcy’s face so she can read it better and smiles. Mission accomplished! No more guilt about using him for information about the Bifrost. Or for the money. Personally thanking him has been on her mind for a few months now, but between researching and finding enough time to sleep she never really got around to it… 

“Okay, great,” Darcy says, “That’s that. We can stop now.”

“Yep!” Jane confirms, clicking her phone off. 

No need to contact him again. 

No need… to contact Loki… until the funds run out…

———

Darcy insisted on making the call this time, claiming that Jane was ‘too emotionally vulnerable’ to the ‘seductive tactics’ of ‘such a morally ambiguous criminal’. Which Jane would’ve argued with if she knew where to start.

“You lay a hand on her again I swear I’ll find a way to get Thor to kick you right in the sweet spot, you got that? No perving or I’ll sicc the Avengers and every chronically online teen on your ass.”

A distant humming as Loki presumably replied. Darcy hadn’t put him on speaker, and if she had Jane is sure threatening the guy wouldn’t sound any more effective. If you stopped to think about it, even if Darcy did complain to the Avengers, or to SHIELD, or even Thor, they obviously weren’t able to keep Loki under control anyway, or he wouldn’t still be running free. Threatening the sorcerer rang hollow because of this—though Thor had mentioned the Avengers were officially getting a wizard consultant, Wanda Maximoff had been on the team for years already, even if she was still learning. 

“Day hours.” Darcy taps her foot on the ground every few seconds. “No way, no. Mhm, that’s… better. You’d last longer there yes—the benefit of less civilians too, not that you’d care.”

Jane winces at that. 

Honestly, it wasn’t as though Asgardians were that different from themselves, they still have morals, and a conscience (and in Thor’s case at least, very human external anatomy, that she could vouch for) and Darcy didn’t have to make it sound as though Loki was going around killing everyone. 

Plus, this was not the kind of tone that would be used to request help of any sort. Having made it through her PhDs and countless, ah, research grant consideration forms, and emails— dreadful informal back and forths—it’s best to be overly polite while demanding, rather than risk insulting someone and getting blacklisted from the organization altogether.  In this case it’s just Loki they’re dealing with, but there is always the chance he will decide to change his number, or decide he doesn't owe anything to them, or decide it is time to hold them hostage for real. 

She can’t really see Loki doing the last one, but then she supposes she has only met him a handful of times. 

Still, he never seems anything but nice in person. 

Despite context, requesting help remains a balancing act, and one that Jane is surprised Darcy is being so uncharacteristically rash with. 

“Like hell I underestimate the lives they take! At least when they’re responsible it’s while trying to save people! ” 

Ouch, Jane thinks, it’d be a miracle if he still shows up after Darcy went off on him.

“Just stick to the script and don’t try to pull any stunts you creeper,” Darcy fumes, abruptly ending the call with a finger jabbed at the screen.

“Did it… go well?” Jane asks, despite what she’s seen.

“He said he’d be delighted to assist Doctor Foster in her quest for knowledge,” Darcy makes a face of disgust, “he talks like that on purpose, I know it.”

She’d thought Thor did it on purpose too, but while he could try to follow more human syntax it didn’t, in accordance to Thor, come naturally. Words always slipped through, and tone more than anything can make it sound weird. 

“Darce…”

Darcy sighs. “He said this weekend works for him if it does for us so I settled on the Saturday. We’re not booked in with the lab that day I’m pretty sure, and of course he didn’t want to do Central Park because it’s ‘too cliche’ or whatever so Flushing Meadows park instead, you know the Stark Expo one? We can meet there and apparently being your intern will give us some extra bucks in that department.”

It’s better than she had hoped for Darcy to be able to get with how she was speaking with him, and this time she’ll discuss the next meeting in person rather than over the phone. It just seems really impersonal when Loki is, by all accounts, doing her a favour, and… 

“Did he say anything about repaying The Favour?”

“Nah, on the house if it’s on behalf of science.” Darcy scoffs. “I don’t buy it—he’s up to something.”

Well, I don’t really care what he’s up to if it gets me closer to a functional Bifrost. 

That kind of advancement… it would be an extraordinary feat for anyone to witness in a single lifetime. 

Even though Asgard’s Bifrost no longer exists, Heimdall and Loki are the closest she can get to its mechanics (Thor’s own words!) and Heimdall has been missing since New Asgard’s arrival on Earth. No one knows where he is, just that he walked off. And Heimdall also doesn’t have an email, or, say, a phone number, let alone one she conveniently has on hand.

She’s not falling for any scheme, it’s all rather scientific reasoning, really. 

All she wants is to pick his brain a little. Metaphorically. 

From that perspective it’s a good thing they ran out of money yesterday. Now they’ll get to talk a bit. 

There aren’t many accomplished women scientists her age that are still active and those that are tend to end up in vastly different fields of work (the detriments of the male-dominated spaces), so it’s refreshing to speak to someone who not only appears of similar age but also hasn’t tried to rub his superior knowledge in her face when he very well is in a position where he could have. She’s almost giddy about tomorrow—unsure if she’ll be able to get much rest with a reliable source of steady income available to her heart (well, Loki’s heart’s) content right around the corner. 

———

The day runs better than the last time—this time, when Darcy and she get off the bus and are walking their way to the park a sense of calm comes over her, knowing what is to be expected. Not that the last ‘kidnapping’ wasn’t exhilarating, but this time there are no world-wonder towers to throw her from, nor, does she suspect, will the event be as lengthy. 

They spend a few minutes walking through the park before they spot Loki—well, Jane does, Darcy doesn’t recognize him and keeps trying to drag her away from embarrassing herself even when Loki waves back. Which is fair, since the guy is dressed for all the world to see as nothing more than an unassuming nerd standing under a tree and sipping from a disposable cup what is likely coffee. A thick dress shirt with a sweatervest checkered in black, grey, and dark green, with a scarf of his trademark shade around his collar, while not what she would expect, suits him surprisingly well; it’s the additions of small things like the gold button on the jeans and duffel bag over a shoulder that makes the disguise convincing, when Jane is sure no one would bat him an eye with his hair already up in an unrecognizable bun. The thickly framed black glasses he pushes up his nose Jane is confident are irrelevant to eyesight. He has a jacket far too thin to be anything other than for design tied around his waist. 

“Is that stolen?” Darcy accuses, when Loki greets them. 

“What part?” Loki teases, voice innocent.

Darcy misses that he isn’t serious, gesturing to the cup in his hand. “And the woven scarf too. Or just all of it.”

When Loki only grins further and looks at Jane, she contributes. “It looks… nice.”

“There’s a vendor down that path,” he says, in a voice that could be telling the truth or not. “The rest is not real.”

Damn, she really wants to know how that works.

“Shit,” Darcy gapes, leaving her side to poke a hand at Loki’s vest. “It feels real.”

Loki looks down at her hand with a strange expression, which Jane thinks is Loki for ‘I am not amused.’

“Yes, well, no need to waste time,” he comments, dryly. In a shimmer of greenish-gold Loki is decked out in his armour, not a sign of ever having worn anything else on him. Thick leather armour with intricate grooves that make her miss Thor. 

He throws a hand in the air, sending out a shimmering line of magic to the sky. At a height similar projectiles crash into it, resulting in a loud boom, as fireworks spread over the park. Instead of fading, however, they stay over the area, resembling a net. 

“That should get their attention,” Jane notes, for the sake of having something to say. She swallows dryly. Is everyone here trapped?

Loki begins to speak, his voice reaching from all around, as if he was talking from multiple directions. “Hear me, people of Midgard, on this day you find yourselves in servitude of none other than Loki,” he pauses for effect, arms wide, manic glint in his eyes, “of Asgard.”

The magic flares brighter. People scream, an ambulance can be heard in the distance already. Or maybe it’s the police. Or Thor. She hopes it’s Thor. She’d forgotten how scary Loki can look up close. 

Jane watches in horror as Darcy pulls out her taser. As if that will help. As if Loki isn’t doing this because they asked him to. Jane closes her jaw (he went from unassuming student to supervillain in a few seconds ) and puts a hand on Darcy’s to move it back down. “It’s fine,” she tells her, “he’s acting.”

Darcy looks at her like she’s the one overreacting. 

“He needs to act for this to work,” Jane reminds her, calmly ignoring the nearing sounds of police vehicles. Her voice sounds hollow even to herself and she gives Darcy a smile. Darcy does not find this comforting, using her other arm to circumvent Jane’s at the same time, but luckily Loki has finished with another few lines of dialogue and has their attention upon them again. 

“Congratulations on your newest report by the way”—he seems to register their tangled arms—”Are you… alright?” 

“Yes.”

“No!”

“Ah,” Loki says, looking awfully lost for someone in full battle armour with a horned helmet. His brows furrow. “Do you want me to…”

“No!" 

“We’re fine.” Jane laughs nervously. “I didn’t realize you would be holding… others… hostage as well.” 

“The barrier only prevents people from entering.”

Darcy stops struggling, the tension releasing Jane’s arms as well. “Why didn’t you start with that!” 

Loki stares at Darcy for a few moments. 

“I can’t tell them that —it would negate the point.”

He is right there, Jane agrees. She doesn’t say anything to oppose Darcy’s stance, in case Loki is taking notes on their relationship. No dividing and conquering will be happening, thank you very much, she doubts anyone else would accept the internship position.

“That… makes sense,” Darcy admits, blowing out an angry breath.

Loki nods, and then takes a sip from his coffee cup. 

Jane wonders what kind he likes. Thor didn’t take to it well, drinking it without cream and sugar for months until she assumes he got used to it enough. How long has Loki been drinking coffee?

Carefully holding the cup above, Loki takes a seat in the grass, crossing his legs. Not a care in the world. Darcy fumes, Jane appreciates the calmness, and they both join him on the ground shortly after. It’s a surprisingly warm day, and equally surprising is that the silence they sit in is comfortable enough. 

It’s another few minutes until the police are lining up at the edge of the glowing magical dome, and SHIELD too, if the black vans are an indication. Decent response time; With all the hassle of their paperwork and procedures, who would have guessed?

They make some announcement on a loudspeaker about having them surrounded, but the quality isn’t so great so she misses what else is being said. She doesn’t think Loki can tell either, but from their position further into the park Loki should be out of sight due to the trees when he throws his cup to the ground. 

“That’s littering,” Darcy grumbles halfheartedly. 

Loki narrows his eyes at her. “And you’re a hostage.”

He snaps his fingers and Jane goes cross-eyed trying to see the magic sparkling right in front of her face—she feels a binding press to her mouth, and looking at Darcy finds her gagged just as well, rope in mouth. 

Jane isn’t as alarmed as she would guess herself to be in this sort of situation. Honestly, she kinda digs it; Loki’s got things to do and places to be and he’s still managing to give them time today. She can’t say the same for Darcy, who tries to claw the gag out before Loki gives her an unimpressed look and ties her hands too. Darce stomps her feet, and Jane is sure that at some point it will kick in how out of their depth they are in this situation. It was—still is—similar to when she’s around Thor, if she’s honest, the feeling that, just for a few moments, you’re truly young, naive, powerless—pointless, against the larger scales of the universe.

Loki clears his throat and stands, plastering a savage, unnatural smile from ear to ear. 

And all Jane can think about is how innocuous he’d looked in a regular shirt and glasses. 

…That’s not true at all. She’s also mentally distributing the money they could get for lab hours, and has the electricity bill due tomorrow in mind. If it’s enough, they all might be able to take a day off to visit the Hayden Planetarium—they were going to be hosting a refractor telescope for a few days, and she’d flagged the email, hoping to get a peek. 

Her heart skips a beat, and it has nothing to do with whatever argument Loki has walked over and gotten into with Nick Fury, on the other side of the barrier. 

———

The next time, Darcy insists on arranging the situation with Loki again. 

———

When the debriefing happens the time after that, they are asked if they know anything that could play part of their specific involvement. Obviously, they know nothing that would help them figure out anything is up. Because they’re law-abiding, SHIELD-protocol-abiding citizens. 

“From your accounts there doesn’t seem to be anything indicating a connection, or that you’re being targeted.” 

“I don’t think so,” Darcy confirms, worrying at her lower lip. She doesn’t trust SHIELD lackeys for a second. 

“Jane Foster has been listed in numerous Level 7 attacks on her person over the course of the past year.”

“Yeah,” Darcy agrees, infusing her voice with all the sass she can muster. “Perks of dating a thunder hunk with a supervillain for a brother.”

“We have no record of Miss Foster re-enacting her relationship with Thor,” the as-of-yet-nameless Mr Agent goads. 

Well, he’s getting no answers out of her. She still hasn’t gotten her iPod back. From years ago. 

“Ooohhhh, look at me, Agent 007 with the intrusive statements about where an Avenger’s dick has been.”

The SHIELD agent pauses, clipboard lowering a fraction, and Darcy has to wonder if she honestly expected her to just spill all the secrets. Do normal people actually answer these kinds of questions? The whole secret-agent shebang must be intimidating from outside, she supposes. 

It takes the agent a brief few seconds to regain what little composure slipped, and by then Darcy doesn’t plan to let her ask anything else.

“Number two on our list will leave you shocked!”

———

Darcy and Jane arrange the next meeting together, and this one doesn’t de-escalate before the Avengers arrive, nor does Loki vanish in a plume of colourful smoke. He sticks around, and after a little hand-to-hand with Steve and Tony, a little mouthing off with Natasha and Clint, and a heart-to-heart with Thor, he storms off, muttering something about reckless behaviour and better things to do on a cloudy afternoon. 

This has the benefit of giving her a chance to speak with The Mighty Thor himself—who is still all beefy beefcake, by the way. He twirls his hammer as she approaches, face lighting up; she thought it was lit up two seconds ago, but she was wrong. God, he’s like a literal ray of sunshine and goodness. 

“Lady Darcy!” 

“Thorrr, heyyy!”

She stands awkwardly as Thor embraces her in what is a hug, more uncomfortable than it should be because of the armour; That stuff really is metal.

“How’s it been, saving Earth and all?” 

“I fare well, Lady Darcy. It is an honour to serve to protect Midgard.” 

“Haha, that’s great dude—quick question: did you and Loki used to… sleep together?”

She lowers her voice so that Captain America, a few steps away, cannot hear the last part. Until she’d noticed him she was about to be loud and proud, as if she wasn’t conspiring about pre-villainous incestuous spanish soap opera level drama, but everyone who knows the Avengers knows the Captain is sensitive to such topics. 

Thor’s expression drops, turning wistful for a moment before it is one of steely conviction. “Aye,” he nods. “In the past, Loki was not overcome by the madness that he is now. Once, before he lost his soul, we did share bed.”

Well, that’s that mystery solved. 

“Loki lost his soul?” 

You could never know, with magic and realms and all.

“His blood sings of the monster he is.”

Darcy is about to go "ha!" and laugh along, but then sees his face and realizes he's serious. Which. Well. That seems a bit extreme.

“HiS bLoOd SiNgS oF tHe MoNsTeR hE iS,” Darcy imitates, trying to keep it lighthearted anyway. Thor needs to know how ridiculous that sounds. “Weren’t you guys raised together? Like, I’m pretty sure Jane told me you two used to get along fine and Loki was only like 30% evil as a kid…”

“It is his own choice the path he takes, Lady Darcy,” Thor says, gravely, looking off into the middle-distance. Damn, is that a smolder? Is that what smoldering is? Unrelatedly, is there some sort of legal requirement on being objectively attractive if you're Asgardian? Loki and Thor look nothing alike but they both pull it off regardless. Or maybe they just have really good water in space, and Earth was left with sad, regular water. “If he chooses to follow the call of his dirty blood, there is nothing to be done for him.”

Honestly, Darcy still thinks Jane is crazy for ~~The Loki Situation~~ but Loki has yet to do anything super weird. Sure his dedication to the bit is extreme and she’s a little jealously impressed by the way he seems to have picked out his disguises most of the time, and she’s not fond, doubts she could ever be fond of a guy that’s a literal criminal, but she’s gotten used to him being around. Even if there's always an oh shit moment when he goes in-character. He talks to Jane and she enjoys it. Selvig was never overly bothered about him at all, even though the scepter had him loopy for years and still messes with his sleep cycle. Fuck it, if she doesn’t want to hear his name get dragged through the mud by the guy’s own brother then that’s her decision to make. ‘Dirty blood,’ what is this, Harry Potter? For all she knows Asgard follows the ideology that everyone is innately evil and working against it is the only way to stave off your sins. God. How does someone reply to that. Without getting zip zapped by the tangible increase of electricity in the air whenever the guy’s in a foul mood. 

“That’s not very nice, you know,” Darcy responds, giving him a goodbye pat on the bicep to show no hard feelings, and then swiftly exiting the conversation like a pro by turning away and speed-walking to where Jane is speaking to Director Fury.

Something about on-site accommodation? A witness protection program? She doesn't really care. The important part is that SHIELD will pay up, like the suckers they are. And they’ll do it the next time too. And the time after that, if all that is any indication. Whorish. And it’s not really a crime on their part if it’s against the government, right? That’s just logic. Even Loki has agreed lack of funding to advance the planet’s fields of research is a crime, and he’s a verified criminal, making him a reliable source of information for this type of thing. 

Thor pouts about it but doesn’t try to pick up the conversation again, seeming to catch the hint. He goes back to what Darcy can now tell is angsty brooding, even though his face looks welcoming. Man, she thought Loki was meant to be the emo one. 

Though Darcy supposes Thor’s mood is probbabllyyyyyyy a consequence of whatever argument Loki and he’d been having before. There had been a lot of yelling, but it had been muffled through the summoned storm and sounds of damage to public infrastructure.

———

"We have to call Loki," Jane says, urgently. 

Darcy processes for half a minute and then reaches over the couch to her mobile. "Why? We're all good on money, aren't we?"

"Cairo's national space navigation division are hosting a series of exhibitions next week, we have to go."

"Aren't those like. Booked out, by now?"

"Nope," Jane sing-songs, "it's open to the public—do you know how far back their star-tracking systems date?"

Darcy sighs, scrolling through her contacts while Jane's busies herself fantasizing about Egypt. What the heck, maybe they can see the pyramids or something. 

She'd never get to see the pyramids on a regular salary.

(People on a regular salary don't tend to be backed up by a teleporting magician that can and will save you 13 hours of flight time.)

Chapter Text

So turns out a supervillain’s schedule must be pretty fucking empty, because Loki totally agreed to making a round trip with them. 

Via text too. Darcy could frame the conversation and hang it on the wall and Jane would find nothing odd with it, because she is busy being thrilled. There is little else she’s focused on since he agreed. Thanks to the happenings of the past year, so much as mentioning Loki knocks him up to being her favourite person in the conversation, with the ways her eyes sparkle when she talks about him making even Darcy, the *real* best friend, thank you very much, a bit jelly. The death grip that science has on both the nerds is concerning.

Oh, he’s so kind, Darcy,

He genuinely reads my work, Darcy, 

For the sake of the science we both love, Darcy,

He looks so much happier when we act along with him, Darcy,

I hope if he’s coming along he’s looking forward to the convention too, Darcy,

The fuckin’ Loki himself was nothing short of politely semi-formal every single time they met of course. No jibes about the sexism in the field, nothing more than bowing out of formality unless pushing them around for a hostage reason. He touched her elbow once and apologised. It screamed trap! but the only thing actually trapping them since she told him no gags were hand bindings and ridiculous sets of over-the-top chains. 

She couldn’t figure out his deal. 

What the fuck did he get out of all this?

Is he lonely? Is that it? The mass murderer has no friends? So he helps them scam the government?

Prince out of a goddamned fairy-tale, he even has magic which no one’s been able to work anything out about. Scanner readings are inconsistent if they even show up.

“I would be delighted to escort you to the event.” 

Fucker. 

No one is that nice. No one. 

Even Thor has flaws—not his chiseled abs and oblivious di-daily semi-public stripteases, but they’re there. 

There’s got to be a catch somewhere. There’s always a catch. And it’s always something petty. Maybe he likes the idea of stealing Thor’s friends. Or has fallen in love with Jane for real. Coffee shops are ideal meet-cutes. A really delayed rebound. Maybe he’s waiting to steal their DNA for some voodoo spell. Perhaps he wants SHIELD bankrupted in small meaningless increments. The ink he wrote his number down for them in could be causing very very slow lead poisoning.

But there is nothing giving him away, and it’s SO FRUSTRATING. 

The worst part of it all being that she, Darcy Fitzwilliam Lewis, has started to like him too. When he’s not off killing innocents, he’s likeable. He seems to have a genuine interest in furthering research and in learning parts of human culture and he has a healthy appreciation for hot chocolate with an immensely specific dislike of the texture of puddle iron and the beeping sound most radiation devices give off that is according to him accompanied by another ripple in waves that human ears cannot typically detect. It’s driving her mad. 

She’s falling for the prince of darkness act, as if it’s not riddled with red flags as a general rule! Of course he’s a loner, he can’t socialise for shit and everyone on the planet knows him as the lunatic who let loose an alien army on New York. And if he wants something from them of course he’s not going to make it obvious, he’s not an idiot! And if he wants something from them of course he’ll take them to Cairo because they asked, that way they owe—

“Oh my god, Loki is our sugar daddy.”

“Huh?” Jane looks up from her laptop. “Uhhhh, no, he’s a friend.”

“No no, I’m serious, think about it. We tell him what we want and hang out with him and he pays us for it.”

“SHIELD pays us for it, actually.” 

Jane looks back to her screen; she’s spent the days reading about what’ll be up at the astronomy convention, then reading up on what papers are up on the things that’ll be up at the astronomy convention. 

“Doctor Cho is going to be there as a guest speaker,” Jane absentmindedly says. 

“Do you think it’d be better or worse if we gave him some actual sugar.”

“Worse. Did you read the article on STEM cells she co-wrote?” 

“I skimmed it,” Darcy admits, though she absolutely did not. Not that the works weren’t interesting or anything but so many words she’ll have to search up just to understand the background information isn’t worth it. The results showed whatever trials there were as successful at random though, so it wasn’t like she didn’t try the link or anything. “He’s easy on the eyes.”

“So was Thor, and you didn’t like him.”

“Hey! I liked Thor, he just left you alone for years and clearly had his own life going on and your obsession over it while inspiring in terms of the progress on the Bifrost you got done was also incredibly unhealthy and you needed to move on.”

Jane hums. “And you think Loki is …unhealthy.”

“I think he’s a pile of issues with a very fine sense of fashion.”

And chiseled glutes under all that leather, she just knows it. 

“And you think we should… cut off from him.”

“I think we can’t pay the rent without him.”

“And that’s… bad.”

“Yes! Yes it’s bad! We’re relying on—you’re not even listening, are you?” 

Jane hasn’t even pretended to look up at her since this new webpage loaded. 

“I’m multitasking.”

Darcy sighs. 

Stupid alien genes and space water. They’re definitely not making morally correct decisions. Maybe she should get Selvig’s opinion on all this. He knows they’ve got a tentative relationship of mutual benefit going on with Loki, but hasn’t been involved, and they avoid the subject around him, obviously. Loki really messed him up in 2012. 

Wait. With the info they’ve given him does Selvig think this is a friends-with-benefits situation?! How is he okay with this —?!

Jane’s words from earlier catch up to her. 

“Hang on—did you call Loki a friend.”

Jane’s expression scrunches. “Well I’m not calling him anything else.”

Darcy narrows her eyes at Jane. What is she thinking?! 

They’re not— 

No way, they would never—

He’s a murderer and—

“You said he’s good-looking,” Jane says, smiling to herself. 

Darcy blanks. She’s never denied that. If Jane had been tapping that she would’ve clapped for her. 

“I HAVE EYES,” she justifies. 

“Sugar makes Loki feel off, and his magic becomes a tad unpredictable.” 

Darcy doesn’t think the image of Loki trying to summon his sceptre after a few blocks of chocolate and ending up with a 15 foot outdoor umbrella in hand will ever leave her. Or the expression that flickered across his face when he corrected the mistake a moment later—almost like embarrassment. 

“Only in large amounts,” Darcy smiles back, against her better judgement. He’d complained about it once, something about a weak body, which Darcy found hysterical coming from an almost invincible Asgardian type. 

But then she remembers what Thor had said about Loki having dirty blood and frowns. There is more to that, surely, but not even Jane knows what. 

Fuck. 

There it is again: that specific pang of sympathy for the guy, even though there’s nothing to be sympathetic about. 

Mmmmmmmm. Fuck that. 

We're the ones using him.

Even if it's only for now. 

Even if he's bound to pull something eventually.

Even if they've made a running gag out of how Loki is somehow their scientific sexy time benefactor.

Even if he's super chill and is constantly helping them get a 6-figure pay-off courtesy of SHIELD and has yet to ask for anything in return.

Loki already said they could get close to the Giza pyramids while there, and no motion sickness from flying, so it’s a win.

It's a win. 

——— 

They’re in Egypt. They’re in Cairo. They’re actually at the CSD’s convention. 

Jane would scream of joy if it wasn’t likely to get them kicked out. Instead she can’t stop smiling as she watches the swarms of people walking around, going from stall to stall. 

Most of them are regular civilians, wearing a variety of plain coloured clothy attire—kaftans, she thinks they’re called? Or bedouins, maybe. Desert clothing. Like long tunics, arms and legs covered. Some have come as families, and there are a few children running around ignoring the stalls altogether. The sun is hot and Jane wonders whether she should have brought a hat or something.

Selvig would’ve brought sun lotion and umbrellas, but Selvig didn’t come along, saying they needed someone at home to hold down the fort. Jane isn’t surprised, she didn’t think he’d have any interest in meeting Loki so personally anyway. 

Speaking of, Loki is in some traditional-looking clothing himself, cream-coloured cotton of fine quality—making Jane want to use the word ‘spun’ even though she isn’t sure what that means in regards to threadwork—with a slightly darker, more golden shade of embroidery going down along it, hidden when looked at from afar. It looks expensive, and the gold (???) lining the collar and sleeves make Jane suspicious of what exactly he’s come along to do. He can’t expect to walk around like this all day. Jane feels woefully underdressed in a purple dress shirt and black pants, and Darcy doesn’t look much better in a jumper. 

It’s also different to the darker colours she’s used to seeing him in, though Loki’s top stops just above his knees; His pants are black and loose, which is at least something she can recognize as local clothing, as there are many walking around here in the same. His efforts to blend in are working, but would work better if he didn’t look so full of energy.

(Jane had thought she was excited until Loki had knocked at the apartment door, practically radiating anticipation. Not that it shows much; he smiles easier, and sounds brighter, and moves around more. That’s… about it. Jane only suspects he’s excited. Which makes no sense! He can come to Egypt any time! There are conventions like this held throughout the year, he could go to any if he wanted!)

No one is startled by their sudden appearance at the venue as usual, and Jane is already eyeing the closest stall—something about pre-3rd millennium BCE observation of stars—when Loki clears his throat behind them.  

“I’ll leave you two to it, then?” 

Darcy furrows her brows, looking at him in suspicion. Jane mirrors the expression. 

“Where are you going?” 

Loki shrugs, which is a dead giveaway that he’s hiding something; he’s never actually that casual. Maybe he’s just… relaxed? What a concept. “Nowhere new. You wished to see science, and I’ve brought you. I’ll find you when I am finished.”

“You’re not going to kill any of the special guests, are you?” Darcy asks.

No one around them picks up on the line of questioning, thankfully. 

Loki scoffs. “I don’t just kill anyone who comes into sight, you know.”

And then he turns, vanishing in a way that looks like he’s stepped behind an invisible wall, except there is only air there. 

“Weird,” Darcy comments. 

“A bit suspicious,” Jane agrees, but she really is too busy to be concerned. He’s an adult, he can take care of himself. She wonders if the university all this is propped up in front of is open to the public to view too. “Maybe he’s going to climb a pyramid or something.”

“Jane,” Darcy guffaws. “Was that a joke? You’re joking now?“

“Come on, I want to see what that ancient stone slab says on it.” Jane waits patiently behind the woman already at the stall, reading the information hanging by peering around her. There are two men behind the table, engaging in conversation with the woman in the full-black flowy Muslim garments, but eventually she says something about sugarcane and luck and they part in good spirits.

“Hi,” Jane steps forward, already with a question about the instruments they once used to calculate dates in relation to the Nile, when Darcy interrupts. 

“Holy shit that’s an old calendar.”

———

The stalls are amazing.

The information is amazing. 

They almost end up going hungry because the wide road has less people who know where the drinks and food are coming from than there are who know directions to specific scholarly presentations, but when they enter the university’s first floor the food is amazing too. 

The part of the university building that is built in the shape of a pyramid turns out not to be open for public venturing, but Jane pushes them back into the sun the moment they’ve eaten enough for the next few hours anyway; she doubts she’ll be able to see everything at this convention in the handful of days it’ll be running for as is. 

A few hours in there an influx of younger people—students of the university—eventually, and many of them assist at stalls, making it far easier for Jane to ask and have questions answered. Yes, the literature everywhere tends to be English, so it’s not such a big issue to soak the information in, but the older people seemed to gawk over Darcy and herself as tourists, Americans, and humoured with answers in partially-purposely broken words. The younger people switched between Arabic and English much more fluently, making it simpler. 

“So this kind of neutrino ray in theory would be able to detect the steeper pits of dark matter and relay the rebound stream back?” 

The woman behind this stall has a vibrant red cloth over the back half of her hair, with gold lacing the edges. The rest of her clothes are similarly bright, but modestly loose with gold earrings and a bracelet, and she smiles crookedly as she answers. 

“The design is sound but the ability to propel the particles has never been consistently recorded,” she confirms, turning to the older man sitting a way back on a sort of straw-made pool lounge chair and saying something that sounds like Arabic. 

After a bit of back and forth with the man she looks back to Jane, still smiling. “NASA attempted to create this kind of engine in one of their projects but they only got it to work the one time, and no one was able to replicate the results so everyone considers it a sham.”

The disregard for prestigious institutions was a commonality that did offend Jane a little. They were the lead contributors to space science! And just because an outcome can’t be achieved again doesn’t mean it didn’t happen! 

Jane lets it go, focusing on the schematic of the machinery on display behind the thin sheet of glass. There’s nothing visibly wrong with it alone, but attempting to get something so large onto a space vessel may be an issue. If the range extends as far as it theoretically could it wouldn’t need to move far but…

“It looks like half an oven,” Darcy has an eyebrow raised, looking over the schematics too; she’s no hard science major but has an eye of appreciation. 

She also seems to be sweating a lot. Maybe we should take a break. 

Jane finishes up by thanking the woman for a delightful conversation on the functionality of neutrino rays, and both the man behind and she waves them goodbye, saying something in Arabic and then ‘bye!’ in English. 

“It’s cooler indoors—are you holding up okay?”

“Oh yeah, I’m great. This city feels like I’m being microwaved alive, but that’s fine.”

Damnit. 

The sun is high in the sky and their own water ran out a while ago. There were cups of water available inside, if she remembers correctly. 

There’s an aggressive build up of voices somewhere to the side, and then there are two loud men yelling in an argument. Jane steers then well away from it, partially because of how violent it sounds. 

In keeping track of where those men are fighting she doesn’t watch where they’re going, hitting her shoulder roughly against some guy. 

Not unusual, the place got more crowded since the early morning and now must be at its peak, and there is room to walk around but not really spread out. 

The pyramid shaped university is easy to locate, and they slip inside, both relieved at the fresh air. There are plenty of places to sit and Jane realizes she has a layer of sweat beneath her clothes making them feel a tinyyyy bit sticky. But being exhausted takes precedence. She hadn’t felt so thirsty while outside, but now that they are in she can locate a tap of some sort. Even knowing it’s a desert she hadn’t thought about dehydration, but now that it’s in mind they'll be drinking a lot to keep cool. 

There are plenty of people walking around indoors, sharing in the food and drinks on display. 

Maybe we can try some of the drinks. 

———

Okay, so Arabic coffee is… strong. Not to either of their tastes, and they spent half of an hour sipping on a miniature cup. And it does not cool them down. Jane isn’t sure why they decided on it, or why they thought it would cool them down at all. 

Darcy keeps trying to convince her that a stone calendar is better than a slightly younger one scratched on parchment, but that the historical stalls are the most interesting of them all (which Jane firmly disagrees with, and amounts to Darcy’s passionate poli-sci heart). Jane dutifully parses through the stuff on most things that don’t stick out immediately as space related, with Darcy catching up whenever she gets around to it. 

At some point Jane joins a line to witness a simulation detailing truth quark formation, and gets a discussion started with the scientist right behind in the queue. Her name is Margaret, and she lectures on theoretical optical astrophysics, as well as the ergonomics of the fast fashion industry in the UK. Science truly does unite the world.

They’re discussing theories on the hypothetical tensor boson when the man behind Margaret joins in, with a comment on ultralight and black holes. He's got two children with him, but they're occupied playing some sort of finger game with each other.

Boson stars, Jane argues, wouldn’t need as much energy as he is assuming.

Which would certainly leave room for a twin, Margaret jokes. 

The topic veers into being able to locate a fine expanse for such a trial, at which point they take turns justifying different spaces and benefits of their choice over the other’s. Gravity and light must be a factor, as well as accessibility, if technology makes it so far in their lifetime. 

If technology makes it so far in their lifetime.

Jane looks around, for some reason expecting to see Loki somewhere amidst the stalls and pavement. But he isn’t, and Jane has gotten used to the different clothing people around here tend to wear, and the asynchronous pieces of languages she can’t understand. Margaret has no issue in a sleeveless shirt and loose pants, and it makes Jane feel better about the sun beating down on her own half sleeves. The man who joined them works in the space engineering sector of the university this is all held on, and recommends the more interactive activities towards the busier parts of the event; with a few days to roam around, she hadn’t been worried about missing out, and had practically memorized the show times and topics for each day, so she knew they weren’t missing anything big till tomorrow afternoon. 

The simulation is the most beautiful thing she’s seen today. It reminds her vaguely of a trip she’d taken to an observatory as a kid—a projector to the ceiling to emulate the stars, to be able to see where they are before using the telescope to try and do it all again. Except this only started with the night sky and then proceeded to go closer. 

The guide spoke in the same lilting-rough Arabic she’d been hearing all day, but the pamphlet in hand let her keep along with the ‘tour’ through the particles breaking smaller and smaller. Simulation of a black hole and its interactions. 

Jane hasn’t felt this alive in years.

She walks out slightly dazed and still seeing the arrangement of stars that had been projected above them at the end, to prepare the room for the next group. 

“There you are!” Darcy almost bumps into her. “Thought I’d lost you.”

“I was just—Darcy you have to try this one.”

And so Jane drags her to line up for the same exhibit again, and tries to give her a quick rundown on types of particles before their turn comes. 

———

“You’re still banned from the council.”

Khonshu turns, finding Loki perched on a roof above the one he stands on. 

“Loki,” he greets, surprised to see him. Not that he usually gets any warning. “Thank you for inquiring. I am well.”

“Oh, come off it,” Loki switches from crouching to sitting on the ledge. “Moon and the night sky seem to be doing well.”

“It’s the middle of the day,” Khonshu dryly points out. 

It’s been some years since Loki visited; he looks older, not because Konshu believes he has matured but because his hair is longer, past his shoulders, and he’s set his jaw. Khonshu doubts someone with such a round face as a child will ever outlive that image in his eyes. 

“I don’t expect them to reinstate my position soon,” Khonshu continues. “They are fuelled by cowardice and remain hypocrites.”

Loki nods along. He has heard it plenty times over how unfair it is to threaten him for interaction too close to humans when they too keep avatars. 

The plain scarf he has around his neck is a dark, dull green, and the clothes he wears light. It is a remake of what he had worn when little, and faithful enough to the origin to deserve Khonshu’s own appreciation. He had, after all, been the one to gift it. 

He looks good. He looks tired.

“I heard you tried to take over these lands. ”

“Well, I—“

“If only you had started with their museums,” Khonshu sighs. 

Loki smiles. “You know they would just demand the block back, Khonshu.”

“They would have to know where it is for that.” Khonshu turns away, back to the view over the city. 

The nights are short, recently. 

Loki’s own enthusiasm belies agitation. 

“You’re annoyed,” Khonshu points out, voice twisting over the particular word. “Something is annoying you.” 

Loki shrugs. 

“What is it,” Khonshu demands. 

When Loki does not answer, he asks again, curiosity peaked. “Is it unjust?”

“No,” Loki grimaces, “nothing big, just a few mortals I was speaking to.”

Oh, he’s calling them mortals, it must be something specially rankling indeed.

“I see.”

Khonshu feels Loki narrow his eyes at his back when the silence begins to stretch. 

“Don’t pry.” 

“I will not.” 

“Good.” 

“Is it of your current stunts?”

Leaving Marc be (he is currently useless) did not leave him out of touch, though it is not a different pantheon’s matter what tricks the trickster does. 

“They’re… fine.” Loki hesitates. “You’re not going to tell me I’m going about my reputation all wrong, are you?” 

“I prefer not to keep faith in reputation.”

“Of course,” Loki scoffs. “My bad.”

He truly is in a foul mood. The poor thing. 

“If you are here to sulk I must ask why you have come here at all.”

Khonshu appears at Loki’s side, on the higher ledge, and looks down at him—so small, Aesir are—and swinging his legs slightly where they hang off the sandstone wall.

“I’m not sulking,” Loki sulks. 

Khonshu hums, the sound deep. 

If he ever cared about reputation he would have stuck to grasping at Kingo’s tunic instead, like his brother. 

“I remember every night.” Khonshu sighs, feeling bad for the younger. “There have been better nights than the last.”

Loki looks up at him sideways. “How’s Marc?”

“Unavailing. Hiding.”

“Oh?"

He may try to avoid Khonshu’s gaze, but Khonshu knows what shall bring this cat back. 

“Do you remember his wife?” 

“Oooo, so he did marry her.” 

He smiles, though it is lackluster. 

Khonshu chuckles. Little doubt. 

“He abandoned her to keep her safe.”

“Oh, come on!” Loki yells, more shocked than put out. Khonshu feels a heavy lack of interactions these past years, between them, even with mere years meaning nothing for their kind. 

Khonshu hums, the sound rattling around. 

“Fools, the lot of us,” Khonshu jokes. 

He hardly recognizes Loki in the downtrodden way he is suddenly behaving. Perhaps they can change that?

———

“Only because the British kept us under their thumb till the 1950s!” the woman argues from the other side of the table, pointing at an annotated map of Egypt and surrounding countries. “And the massacres —”  

Jane has that look she gets when she can’t puzzle something out on her face; her mouth is open and ready to question the speaker without considering any consequences, so Darcy steps in, trying to laugh.

“Haha, what a misunderstanding, we’re sorry, lady—Jane, work with me here.”

“But what she’s saying is—”

“Shhhhh, ssshhhhh.” Darcy places a hand on her upper arm, wordlessly asking her to stop. “These kinds of places have complicated history, leave it alone, Jane.”

“Selvig grew up around there,” Jane defends. “They’re basically our ancestors.” 

Nope nope nope, away we go.

“Their sociopolitical state is a mess, Jane, and okay, bad use of words. Not like Seneca Village didn’t happen at home. I’m going to stop talking now. Let’s just go.”

Plenty of places had issues, and considering who caused them and the corruption that is. Um. Everywhere?! If there's anything you learn by picking biases out of political articles, it's that the corruption is everywhere. People will work against their own countries, and who they work for never paints a pretty picture. Heck, just a few stalls down there was a Canadian mine stall showing off how much of the minerals extracted from the ground belongs to state monopolies. Based in other countries. Practically seething of going via that extra creamy 2%.

Darcy yells an apology to the affronted historical activist and doesn’t stop dragging Jane away. Maybe showing her the non-strictly-science stalls wasn’t the best idea. Or maybe they should read through most of the writing before talking to the people behind counters. 

Jane doesn't seem anything more than slightly confused. Then, suddenly pulling Darcy a different direction.

“Is that a sort of astrarium?!” 

"Janie..." she sighs.

Darcy doesn’t have a clue what an astquarium is, but sure, let's go there next. It certainly looks less volatile.

———

So many returns to the building to get more water.

They will for sure be bringing bigger bottles tomorrow.

———

Astrophotographers are hella cool, Darcy decides, staring at the display of images. Dark space-y pictures which staring into too long makes it feel like the universe watches over you, always. Terrifying stuff. It’s giving her shivers to think about. 

Space colours, like drops of dye in water, except the water is very dark and has no light but does have stars somewhere in the distance. 

mmMMmmmMmmmmmmmmm ,,

Exquisite. 

Darcy turns to her right to appreciate some of the other hella cool snapshots of space hung around here and almost jumps out of her skin at someone standing so close without her even realizing—and then she almost jumps again when he talks.

“Are you both done yet?” 

Bejeebus christ. 

Why would he do that. God. 

Darcy swears she sees Jane hide a smile about it.

“No! Did you steal a pyramid yet?” Darcy asks in revenge.

“What ?”

“Ignore her,” Jane covers, absentmindedly. “Yes, we’re just finishing up.”

“We can stay a few more hours if you want. It won’t be properly dark for a while longer.” 

And why does he know that?

Darcy has major questions. And damn those clothes look nice. Very Ancient Egypt-y. She loves the scarf. 

Why does he know anything about Egypt. 

Jane closes her eyes for a few seconds, to think. “No, people are starting to close up here anyway.”

“Can we go to the pyramids now?” Darcy asks, remembering how he’d agreed. 

“I was thinking another day,” Loki laughs, “there’s really not anything you’d be able to read in there, they’re mostly just… dark rooms. Some have flowing water.”

Flowing WHAT. 

She vaguely remembers something about internal canals, but she doesn’t remember where… wasn’t that Ancient China? Dammit brain, work with me!

“Tomorrow?” Darcy asks, suspicious. 

Did he still plan to take them in? (Notably not unlike a sugar daddy…) How many days would she have to wait? (I mean, this is total sugar daddy behaviour, right?) Could they get some falafel before they did? She’s seen some stalls… (He’ll get you falafel if you ask nicely, because that’s. What sugar daddies do).

Darcy has decided she hates the word ‘sugar daddy’ and never wants to hear it in her head ever again.

Shit, what if he can read minds and she’s weirding him out right now and he decides not to—

“Maybe,” Loki vaguely replies, but then something in one of the pictures strung up must catch his eye because he turns his attention to that. Makes an appreciative high-pitched noise in his throat that he may or may not be aware of.

Oh man, she hopes she didn’t do that. But then, he doesn’t look very grossed out or leery. 

He probably can’t read minds without the sceptre, right? I mean, Thor would’ve told them if he could. Right??

Jane has an almost identical contemplation face on a few feet away. 

She lets out a lowkey (hah) sigh of relief.

They’re like moths to light, staring at images of deep space with identical-looking star patterns—Darcy wants to be disgusted at what a cute image it makes of them, but she must be going soft. She blames the late-night readings. 

Between Jane and Loki, she doesn’t know what she’s meant to be doing here, so she decides to chat up the guy running the rather large stall instead. She took some French in school, and he seems to speak it. 

Maybe from there she can try and sneak a picture of them being such cute science buddies…

Oh god, there it is again. 

No. No, they’re not being sweet together. He’s not a good person. They are not friends, they are in a legitimate dealing… thing —they’re taking advantage of each other. Just because a group of people gets along, and she would totally agree if Jane pitched this as a pretty sweet threesome, means nothing. Nothing. They don’t hang out for fun, it’s just convenient. Loki likes drama and chaos and having aces up sleeves. He’s a freaking sociopathic killer, and feeling a little guilty and looking a little lonely shouldn’t make up for that no matter who you are. She saw him impale the Vision through his entire chest last week, live. Pretentious bastard.

Whew. 

That was close. She was almost getting fond. 

Darcy slides away from the pair. 

Bonjour, Stranger #3

Chapter Text

Egypt goes well for the next few days, the French guy ends up being weird as shit, Darcy relearns the names of a lot of African countries she only vaguely remembered existing, and Jane and she both carry around 2.5 L bottles of water when Loki doesn’t volunteer to magic them out of hand—which is when Darcy insists to keep carrying hers anyway because she’ll be damned to trust the guy with something like that.  

Loki gets a good laugh when he finds out they’ve been using American dollars to make purchases, telling them they’ve been getting swindled. 

Not a word she expected to hear from his mouth ever , since he speaks like an entire shelf of very arrogant gothic literature, but her heart will find a way to go on. 

She doesn’t want to ask if he knows what pirates are. 

Jane gets thoroughly scienced out (hah!) through the week and Darcy proves Loki wrong by in fact spending a good few hours entertained by the inside of a freakin’ actual pyramid and then asking to please go back again the day after. 

“I could kiss you on the mouth right now,” Darcy had said, so thoroughly engrossed in revamping every bit of love she’d harboured for Ancient Egypt since elementary that she forgot who she was talking to. 

“Do not,” Loki had sighed, taking a seat on the sandy, dusty floor to wait till she was done. 

Darcy didn’t really pay attention to what he was doing. (For most of the trip he went between being interested in things and kinda just trailing behind looking bored.)

Jane stayed back at the exhibition the second time around in the pyramid, but Darcy didn’t think murdering someone alone in a tomb was going to happen because he very easily could’ve done it the first time. 

Honestly the fact he’s got literal magic at his fingertips should be more trippy than it is, Darcy thinks. Like yeah Thor has strength and lightning but Thor is mostly nice and was very human when they first met him, so it wasn’t the same chasm of difference, technically. No one even knows what Loki can and can’t do with the hocus pocus. Every now and then Darcy reminds herself of the bad things Loki’s done, but this week, while they’re having fun, she lets it go. A little. 

He’s not doing anything bad because he’s busy entertaining them for whatever personal reasons, and Darcy can even convince herself that it’s not fondness but a sense of duty to the people he could be out killing that’s getting her to kind of like the guy. 

Allspeak is a thing they both already knew about from Thor, and it makes Loki very popular at every socio-eco table he tags along with Darcy for. 

“Dude, why do you even know what was going on in Egypt two millennia ago,” Darcy asked after their first discussion at a history display. 

Loki had looked disconcerted for a moment, but instead asking why she didn’t, when it was her planet—a completely unfair accusation because she did know vaguely that it was when Cleopatra was around, she just doesn’t have all the details. 

At some point Loki got into an argument about inaccurate mythological renditions with a guy in a scarf-turban, claiming that Apophis and Khonshu weren’t ‘the bad ones’. Figures that Loki would try to get nuance out of mythological symbols and stories considering, well, what Darcy knows about the Norse myths. 

Less arguing and more ‘correcting’ the stall-runner eventually branched off into a friendlier discussion, which was a relief to Darcy who wasn’t sure if she’d even be able to drag Loki off like she could with Jane. 

Later, Darcy had asked his opinions on Greek mythological figures, and as was on-brand he started explaining how the dichotomy good and bad system doesn’t have to apply everywhere (but that Cronos was cruel for sure, and that Zeus didn’t deserve to lead a single pantheon let alone a conjugation of them. Whatever that means.)

Jane and she’d basically just shared A Look when he stopped himself at the topic of multiple shades of morality because what the fuck is he, a philosophy major?? Darcy is pretty sure he’d mentioned Dante while admiring an image of space dirt earlier so like. The fuck. You’re not allowed to be an Evil Monarchist in your up time and some sort of literary critic when down. Phallic imagery aside, it’s weird to even imply you’ve read Dante. Darcy wonders if he would’ve read a translation or the original latin (or greek??). 

If Loki wasn’t like, incredibly skewed in the head, she’d be impressed at the understanding of virtue vs sin. Unfortunately, much like their own current understanding of Bifrost astrophysic mechanics, all of it is limited to the realm of theoretics.

Darcy has a favourite falafel stall in Cairo now.

Which sounds super sophisticated and will definitely be going onto her resume.

They actually end up going to the convention for every day it runs for, and while the last is almost ruined by the sudden painful onset of cramps, she manages, and Darcy wakes up the next day, missing the whimsicality of the whole affair. 

All of it feels like a fever dream. 

Sleeping at home and then having Loki at your doorstep to teleport you across the Atlantic when you wake is psychedelic as hell.

Cool, definitely cool, but also crazy. 

Darcy stretches, having intended to laze about the whole day but finding Jane already gone—which means Jane isn’t planning on spending the day lazing about and won’t think it’s a good idea for Darcy to. 

Damnit. 

She groans, getting out of bed. Bathroom first, then she’ll check if anyone’s made coffee yet. 

——— 

Someone did actually put coffee on this morning, but it was Erik, and he apparently put the pot in the microwave while he was feeling a little out of it. Which makes the splatters and half-melted plastic rim of the coffee beaker-thing the second murder-esque scene she’s seen since waking up about 10 minutes ago. 

Jane didn’t clean it up because she’s been trying to get down all her notes from the science fair as a softcopy, and Erik didn’t do it because he’s lecturing the pillows in his bedroom about… rings around planets?

Darcy’s not sure, and she doesn’t really care what the ‘lecture’ is about. They’re only ever semi-coherent, and honestly? It’s too sad to be reminded that their mentor-friend might never stop suffering from mental issues to concentrate on the mix of silliness and science it produces.

She opens today’s slot on his day-of-the-week medicine box, tipping the different tablets into her palm and taking them up to him with a glass of water. 

“What are those for?” Erik asks when she holds both out to him. 

He makes no move to take them, and Darcy lies about it being part of a pharmaceutical experiment they volunteered to participate in. 

There’s no order they need to be taken in and Erik goes for the orange first, today. Then the twin white ones. Dark purple capsule. Then the one Darcy is convinced is regular ibuprofen but comes in custom SHIELD packaging (without an ingredient list). 

Erik thanks her by name, and then returns to teaching the pillows about moons made of ice, rock, and dust particles. 

It’s so sad . 

She doesn’t even want to know what Jane thinks about Erik’s situation, since Jane actually grew up knowing the man. 

Does she blame Loki for it? 

Darcy does. Considering he’s the one who did it. Selvig wouldn’t be like this if Loki hadn’t mind-controlled him for who-knows-how-long. 

The records say it was only a few days, after Loki had already come through the portal, but Erik says he’d felt off before that—that the pull towards Loki during the invasion and the one to the Tesseract before that had been indistinguishable. 

Loki is the reason Erik’s on meds for the rest of his life. 

The same Loki she and Jane are constantly buddying up with to continue the research which all of them rely on for their careers, including Erik. 

Darcy wonders if Erik doesn’t say anything because he doesn’t care or because he feels like they don’t. 

Both are shitty options. 

They’re terrible friends.

When Erik’s feeling better she’ll ask. Maybe.

They probably should’ve asked him how he feels about the whole situation a while ago, but they never really… did. He always seems fine staying out of it, but now they’ve been disappearing for days , spending them touring another country that Loki admittedly could have very easily stranded them in at any time. 

It annoys her that of everyone on the planet, Loki is the one with the magical abilities to do that kind of amazing fuckery at will, but that’s how it is. 

Darcy dumps the remainder of Erik’s water down the sink and opens the medicine drawer to grab the first leaflet of regular not-SHIELD-packaged ibuprofen she sees. 

She bets Asgardians don’t get headaches. 

——— 

It’s a week after their Convention Vacation and Darcy’s sleep schedule isn’t looking so good. Maybe that was Loki’s evil plan all along. She’s sleeping enough hours, but has started waking up around noon, which is not preferred. Means Jane heads out to the labs without her a lot, and that’s bad because then Darcy has nothing else to do in the day but scroll through different apps. 

(And also, if Jane is renting out the rooms it’s a waste to have less hands there. Science needs company!)

She figures Jane’s already out today, since she mentioned wanting to go to the lab last night. 

Darcy grabs her phone, looking through the notifications: a few emails from ao3, something or other Instagram—hang on, why are there messages in the Loki-Jane-Darcy group chat. 

She opens the Scam Squad up, looking at the last few messages. They’re new, and they’re from Jane. Which is both consistent with previous occurrences and still catches her off-guard; maybe she should be grateful Jane's at least sticking to the group chat instead of private.

Scam Squad

Jane: 

Hey Loki, would you be interested in a casual lunch this week? 

I was thinking we could all go out, or do something at our place 

Because seeing Loki scarcely (for the most part) isn’t enough, Jane’s got the bright idea of a “”Casual Lunch””?!??!??!

Darcy groans. Not this again. 

Janie can’t just invite alien would-be conquerors over. If she wants to hit Darcy won’t judge but this isn’t sounding like a hit and run, it’s sounding like a let’s all hold hands with matching friendship bracelets . 

Darcy stares at the messages for a bit, trying to not be weirded out by it. It makes sense—Jane’s grown close to the guy, they science together, she respects him and doesn’t seem to care that he kills people probably because people can change or some crap—and Jane has said that it was impolite of them to only contact Loki when they want something, though Darcy expected better than this . 

Maybe Loki has drugged her. Or done some weird voodoo mind-control magic. Thor’s never mentioned any such ability and general consensus says that he could only do that stuff with the sceptre, but it could be possible. Maybe Loki’d trapped Jane in her own head after their first meeting at that coffee place, and Darcy just never noticed because she was too busy ragging on her falling for his prince of darkness aesthetic. 

She backs out of the group chat and messages Jane. 

Darcy

Did you really invite lucky to dinner ?

*Loki

Damn autocorrect. 

You’d think that Loki would be a big enough public figure to get automatic capitalization by now instead of being mistaken for the word lucky constantly. 

Darcy stretches out a bit, settling into the mattress. She’ll have to wait till Jane replies, so she opens the Instagram app to see what’s up there while she does. 

Darcy never really used her account before college, so she doesn’t follow a lot of people, but the Avengers make the cut. The first thing on her feed is a beach selfie of Steve Rogers (tits in full glorious view) with Natasha sunbathing further back. Definitely an app worth keeping. Darcy has no regrets about it. She even leaves a comment with three fire emojis.

Second thing on her feed is a meme about the expansion of the Roman Empire, the third is an edit of Hawkeye at the OG New York invasion but as a bird. Tony Stark shaking hands at some event. Tower of Babel joke.

This carries on for some time, until Jane does in fact message back. 

Jane

It’s weird only seeing him when he’s doing stuff for us. I thought we could take him out for once…

Darcy sighs. Jane can’t actually be cozying up to him.

Darcy

Jane. Jane he’s a criminal. 

Jane

:/

You know he is

Jane’s unfounded idea that Loki is nice is ridiculous. Honestly, Darcy isn’t sure where she gets it from. Sure he’s nice, but that doesn’t really mean shit. So, he uses manners and then goes out and kills a dozen people—doesn’t sound much better than being rude and doing the same thing. Characters like Doctor Doom don’t have this kind of thing going on, why can’t Loki be like Doctor D?

Darcy supposes if he wasn’t a little polite they wouldn’t have a new coffee pot and walls which no longer peel, but that’s not a headache she wants to deal with. You can totally be an altruistic villain. Probably. Or not. 

Darcy isn’t actually sure what criteria is used to rank SHIELD’s villain list, she just knows Loki is ranked at the top (and for good reason). 

She doesn’t know if anti-heroes and vigilantes have a legal scale up somewhere but Loki wouldn’t qualify by a very long margin.  

She closes the messaging app and goes back to Instagram, but the lustre is gone. 

The anniversary of the Battle of New York is coming up and people treat the thing like it’s 9/11 or something. Too large a focus on the symbolism of the event instead of what actually happened. Seeing thousands of deaths condensed into an image of Stark Tower exploding with Loki looking hot and smiling at the forefront is not the way it should be treated, but here we are. 

The detriments of a thriving fanbase. Darcy sighs, closing her phone and putting it to the side.

Sure, the crackdown on superpowers and inhuman abilities can be traced back to the world’s initial introduction to aliens (ie. Loki being hostile) but… okay, it’s a little funny. But in an ironic way. The hundreds of deaths resulting from ‘testing’ the average population for abnormal strength and powers that everyone knows the government is pretending not to do is just as bad as the invasion. They’re a less manageable target of her ire than Loki who they see every few months though. 

Her phone vibrates, indicating a notification, and Darcy reaches an arm out for it immediately. She frowns when she sees it’s not Jane again, but Loki. 

Scam Squad

Jane: 

Hey Loki, would you be interested in a casual lunch this week? 

I was thinking we could all go out, or do something at our place 

Loki: 

Thank you for the offer. I’m afraid I will have to decline. 

Oh thank god. 

Saves her the trouble of telling Loki that no, we’re not going out to a bar or something together. That would have been such an awkward conversation to have. 

Away from the group chat, another notification goes ding!

Jane 

Are you happy now? :(

For not the first time, Darcy has the distinct feeling in her gut that she’s been tricked into managing children. 

Which is crazy, by the way, because she’s the least magic out of everyone here. 

——— 

The Avengers fought off some big city-wide threat earlier (something about killer moths?) and the OGs are finally all together after a few months of someone or other being away. Since Jane, Darcy and Erik were all down in the SHIELD basement, Thor decides to invite them along to the ‘reunion celebratory feasting’. 

Touching, really, but Darcy’s a bit ambivalent on Thor since he started saying weird things about Loki. It’s worse that he doesn’t seem to realize how weird it is to say a shawarma roll reminds you of your brother, and then basically swallowing the thing whole. 

Like, damn . But can we not do this around the table while everyone is trying to eat? 

She’s trying to listen to Clint’s recount of a mission in Kentucky, and does not need whatever Thor and Loki once had going on in her head right now. 

“Obviously I made the shot,” Clint says, which doesn’t help. “I’d done that kind of thing a few million times—not that anyone would know, considering it’s meant to be a secret. And impossible.”

Darcy does a little mock round of applause for the man; it’s less impressive for Hawkeye to make a trick shot, because he always makes them. 

Clint forks his snackpack, chewing ferociously. “What about you guys?” He asks, “I heard Loki got hold of Jane another time while I was out—everything going okay?”

Darcy swears she almost asked why things wouldn’t be okay, before catching herself.

“Uh, yeah, everyone’s fine—he spent most of the time monologuing.” 

Clint nods in presumed understanding. “If you guys ever want to talk about it, I’m here for you. All the Avengers probably are. We haven’t been able to contain him yet, but Stark’s working on a new magic-binding thing we’re hopeful about.”

Why would they try to bind his—oh right, he’s a bad guy. 

“Thanks.”

Clint leans back in his chair, reaching around Natasha to tap on Erik’s shoulder. “You holding up okay?”

Erik does look better today—he’s had a good few days which is why he joined them in the lab. Darcy is curious about what he’ll answer, but he only gets a “Definitely—” out before Thor’s booming laugh interrupts everyone else at the table. 

Steve looks sheepish in apology at them for making Thor laugh. 

After Thor dies down, Erik continues nonplussed. “Jane can hold her own.” 

“Alright,” Clint chuckles, shaking his head and letting his chair fall to normal. He turns back to Darcy. “I still have freaky nightmares about the guy, but I’m glad you all seem fine.”

“I’m sure Jane dreams about him often,” Darcy jokes, to console him. 

“What?” Clint asks.

“What?” Darcy repeats. “She’s been personally taken hostage too many times to count, it’d be awkward if she didn’t have him show up in them at all.”

“That’s not how you said it.”

Clint narrows his eyes at her and she laughs awkwardly, with no answer. 

“Thank you!” Tony exclaims. Darcy didn’t realize he’d been listening in to their conversation, but it’s a round table, and no one’s whispering. “I’ve been trying to tell them the guy’s hot for ages !”  

He’s saved her from answering Clint but also made things much worse because now everyone is paying attention. 

“Oh my god,” Clint closes his eyes, but he looks more annoyed than anything else which is a good sign. 

“They won’t believe me when I tell them they have bad taste,” Tony complains pointedly at Steve. 

“He’s a criminal,” Steve points out. “The rest doesn’t matter.” 

Darcy sees Jane nod along to that, which is cute but SHE IS CLEARLY JUST DOING IT TO SHOW HOW INNOCENT SHE IS!!!! Like she didn’t try inviting Loki over for dinner a week ago!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

“Have you guys actually looked at his face,” Tony asks, incredulous, “if he asked nicely…”

“I wish to change this topic of discussion,” Thor pouts. 

Clint sighs, pitching in, “The man hardly even has lips.”

Tony gasps, scandalized. “He absolutely does !”

Natasha elbows Clint, smiling serenely and suggesting that maybe Clint is jealous. 

“I have a wife,” Clint frowns. “Why would I be—”

“He’s good at using his hands,” Bruce looks at Thor, “I’m assuming that’s because he studied magic?” 

Thor looks disgruntled, but concedes that Loki has a lot of practice in small skills, like carving. 

He adds that magic requires precise hand motions and movements which do not help in ‘real battle’ which rubs Darcy both the right and the wrong way, but Tony doesn’t seem to process the latter. No, Tony is occupied fanning himself with a laminated menu, eventually telling Thor he can’t believe Asgard ruined his chances with his brother. 

Darcy laughs at that, and the conversation turns to how New Asgard is progressing—though Tony blaming Asgard strikes her as an odd thing to say; she thought Loki didn’t have a solid reason for going bad, other than being bullied as a kid and then pulling a fit about not having a throne. 

Wild. 

———

Jane isn’t currently sure what day of the week it is beyond the fact that it is a weekday because there were two lab assistants in earlier today, but she does note the time is 7:44 pm when she checks it, because that means she’ll be expected to pack and be out in 16 minutes, and that surely can’t be right. She only got back from a quick bathroom break at 4, and that wasn’t over 3 hours ago. 

Was it?

Well, that’s the rest of her day ruined. 

It’s 7:45 and she’s about to squeeze the most she can out of her remaining alone time with the spectrochlorogram, hyperaware that it won’t be enough to start on the next set of trials at all, when she sees that she’s also got a message from Loki. They usually only do that around and about kidnappings, so she wonders what this is about.

She swipes, holding her screen high in the air and face-down while doing her pin, in case Fury is watching (he tends to do that when it’s closing time. He likes to walk through too, peering into each lab room and then asking Jane if she’s ready to ‘accept SHIELDs offer of housing accommodation’). 

She is met with a picture of a suburban street pavement, the focus of the image: a black cat, sitting on a house step. 

She thinks that’s strange but scrolls down and finds the other messages even stranger. 

Loki

This image is not intended for you. Ignore it. 

Odd on its own, but a mistake Jane’s made herself too. Though now she’s wondering who the picture was meant to be for. Loki’s mentioned knowing people, of course, and having ‘friends’ but he also talks about other ‘villains’ with the same attitude so it’s all a little unclear. She hopes he's not lonely, but Jane understands that sometimes a line of work takes precedence. 

There’s another message with a timestamp of an hour later. 

Loki

If you do not, there will be consequences. 

Jane can’t help stifling a laugh at that. 

God, she hopes he didn’t spend the whole hour worrying over that—but the image itself being nothing incriminating makes it all funnier. 

She scrolls back up—it’s a cute cat, fluffy, and its tail is curling down onto the pavement. It’s asleep for the picture, looking comfortable and snug on the concrete step. 

She bites her lip and closes her phone, slipping it back into her pocket. 

The messages were sent long enough ago that it won’t make a difference if she puts off replying for a while longer, but now she really can’t see herself focusing on the chlorogamma readings. 

She’s still trying not to laugh when Fury ends up walking through, but to his surprise she’s actually ready to leave the place on time, lights off and all.  

———

Jane’s been putting off SHIELD harassing her to stay under their protection now for a while, but Darcy’s starting to see sense in it. It’s a bit weird for them to be avoiding SHIELD when SHIELD is the one constantly saving them from Loki—nevermind that they’re in league with Loki and that’s one reason why they don’t want to stay in SHIELD housing (the other reason being that it's SHIELD .)

Logically, the Avengers come and go and there are enough agents they know who live in SHIELD employee housing for the apartments to probably not be that bad, but there’s never a guarantee the rooms won’t be bugged, or have cameras in the basins, or whatever else lack of privacy spy agencies find sexy. 

Darcy doubts they’d be allowed to keep their own wifi router.

Apart from that though there are no real downsides, and it’s probably very suspicious that they’re willing to sacrifice their safety to stay away… 

Not that they need protection. 

If Darcy is scarily honest with herself she can admit that knowing Loki has its… benefits. 

Yeah he’s a lot to look at and that’s always a plus, but having whatever kind of repartee they have makes her feel safer living in the city than she did before. 

She wouldn’t say he’s good—not without a considerable bribe—but their banter and jokes and planning… She genuinely believes that if they needed a favour he’d be willing to help out if he could.  

Which is wrong on so many levels, and she recognizes that. 

She recognizes that. 

She’s just not sure what to do with the information. 

Like ok yeah she’s got a supervillain on her contact list and he’s clearly fond of them or they wouldn’t be alive. 

Is that something to celebrate?

She wondered at the beginning about what the fuck a normal person does in this situation.

But there isn’t a standard reaction because normal people don’t get into these kinds of situations!!

It’s their luck the evil magician man supports women in STEM and doesn’t hold a grudge against his brother’s ex. 

Incest aside—which Darcy still hasn’t fully processed, by the way (people online were crazy about their hypotheticals long before Darcy found out Thor and Loki are like. canon . All the New York edits? Them holding hands in that Steve Rogers musical going viral? Yeah no Darcy has to live knowing that’s facts. Cursed knowledge. She’d ask for a refund, but then she’d lack context on whether Jane and Loki are or will have a secret affair in the future. Darcy’s betting on revenge sex at some point, but she wouldn’t bet on it since Loki seems too busy with world domination instead of the other type. Which. Wack. No wonder he was a weirdo on Asgard?? Have you seen Jane? Thor’s not the brightest tool in the shed but he made a good decision with that)—he’s so nice. He’s nice to Jane , and nice to her , the only thing she can pick on is his attitude when they’re acting, but that’s just that: acting. Like what the fuck, man. He bought them this cold pudding dessert thing the last time they were leaving Cairo, and topped her one with chocolate because she’d said a few hours ago that she wanted some. Like, come on man. She’s gone on worse dates than that. 

The French guy was a worse date than that! 

If they weren’t friends with the Avengers and didn’t keep up with the news Darcy would’ve denied his ability to do a single cruel deed.

Darcy thinks this says a lot about their society today.

If you think about it, they wouldn’t be in this situation at all to begin with if society was better. If they could trust SHIELD, for starters. Or if Asgard hadn’t messed Loki up so bad—because now that Darcy knows Loki, Loki’s sane most of the time. He’s sane so if he hates everything it’s GOT to be because of Asgard? Since he hates Thor so much? There’s got to be some logic there because Loki’s not actually insane. Not as much as everyone seems to think he is. 

“Hey, Jane?” 

“Mm?” 

They’re in bed, Jane working on something with her laptop.

“Do you think Fury installs cameras in the toilets?”

“I don’t think that’s legal.”

That’s not a no. 

“I think we should accept Fury’s offer.”

“What?” Jane lowers her laptop screen, shining it right into Darcy’s eyes, dammnit. “Why? It’d probably make things harder with Loki. And we don’t trust SHIELD—they could confiscate our work.”

“They can do that anytime they want anyway,” Darcy mutters. 

R.i.p. stolen iPod. She’ll never forget, and never forgive for that one. 

At least Loki isn’t an iPod-thief. 

Darcy runs that sentence over in her mind again. 

Yeah, it could be worse. 

But she’s not suggesting any of this because they trust SHIELD. She shopped yesterday without having to worry about how much a fancy pair of pants cost; Darcy is suggesting this because she read up on the T and C’s of SHIELD’s compensation funding.  

“SHIELD will pay us 150% of what we’re getting right now if we're official employees, and almost 250% if we live on-site and still wind up in Loki’s clutches.”

And that’s only for the special hostage situations—it doesn’t include whatever measly regular wage they’ll get slotted with, that’ll still be more than they regularly earn anyway. 

“Oh,” Jane blinks. “I might have to reconsider that, then.”

Darcy hums. Yeah, she’d better reconsider that. 

Her poli-sci degree is what she’d wanted to take when she entered uni, but the job opportunities? Scarce. Barren. She enjoys spending time assisting Jane but the cost of her degree hangs over her head each semester—education doesn’t come cheap. 

But it won’t hang over her for long if she uses Loki to pay off her student loans. >:)

(She doubts Loki would disprove, and stealing from the government is morally okay to do.)

“It’ll be harder to get around SHIELD security,” Darcy says, “And Erik hates SHIELD. But other than that I’m game.”

SHIELD admittedly has better facilities than this apartment does, and they could probably string Fury into giving him a healthcover plan to pay for therapy or something.

Jane hums, and it sounds like an agreeable hum. “I’ll ask Loki what he thinks.”