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Midgard
It all seemed so innocuous at the time. The Avengers kicked alien butt in the public eye, fended off impending doom and held an impromptu press conference, all in the space of about four hours. Darcy didn’t do anything. She might have been in more combat situations than the rest of her PoliSci class, but in emergency situations Darcy had three fallback plans, SHIELD-and-Thor approved. She gawks, she runs, or she hides.
Sometimes all three.
She just happened to be hiding under a SHIELD conference table when that screeching noise knocked everyone unconscious. She had woken up to flashing lights and murmured voices, not the screams and explosions she remembered. She stumbled out clutching her nail file like a lifesaver, staring wildeyed for anyone who looked remotely grey and scaly. It wasn’t her fault her intel was a little out of date and she ended up stumbling face first into a hundred bemused journalists.
After a quick glance down to make sure everything was buttoned where it should be buttoned, she held what she hoped was a pouty, sophisticated pose that would look good on page six of US weekly. Then she tried to make a quick exit.
‘Hey, you! Who are you? You work with the Avengers?’
‘Oh, um, oh,’ Darcy stuttered, partly because she was becoming blinded by the increasing number of flashes, partly because she realised she was jammed between the biceps of Thor and Captain America, and there was only so much beefcake a girl’s heart could take.
‘This is Darcy,’ Thor declared, sweeping her closer with one arm around her waist and making her stab herself in the stomach with her nailfile. Captain America was frowning at them, and Darcy hoped that was because he was concerned for her safety and not that she was interrupting some delicate public relations bullshit. ‘She is learned in all the arts of politics and her ready use of lightning in combat perhaps rivals mine.’
It was a Thor-style joke, and like all his humour, it seemed to leave a large number of people confused. She could see Captain America’s brow creasing as he leaned over to whisper something in Black Widow’s ear, and could hear a hundred pens scribbling furiously.
‘Thor, bro, appreciate the props but you’re crushing my ribcage-‘
‘Bro,’ mused Thor, looking amused and distant. It was his dreamy totally-crushing-on-Jane face, hidden beneath a layer of grime and blood. It was, in Thor-speak, an image that definitely trembled the loins of this young maiden. Curse Jane for getting to him first. ‘Yes, the bosom companion of Jane Foster must be nothing less than my little sister. My Lady Darcy, go peacefully to whatever tiny foe needs vanquishing.’ He released his hold, lowering her gently to the floor.
She giggled nervously, only aware that he had said ‘bosom’ for some reason while she was pressed against his muscles, and she quickly hid the nail file behind her back. She tried to think up something witty to say so she didn’t come across as a total airhead.
Then Captain America coughed politely and Tony Stark lifted his mask to raise his eyebrows at her. ‘Oh right! Right, I’ll leave you guys to it.’
Maybe airhead wasn’t such a bad label, she thought, exiting into the corridor where normal SHIELD employees were doing all the actual work of an invasion clean up. She just hoped they didn’t actually think her and Thor were dating because of that hug. If she started appearing in the gossip rags as Thor’s new girlfriend Jane would kill her. After she recovered from the laughter-induced coughing fit.
Vanaheim
The day her midterms ended, Darcy had two goals: lots of booze and lots of hot guys. And really, Tony’s lab was the only place to go when you needed a combination of the two. She was, technically, Jane’s lab assistant from six floors down, who had a right to go into whatever SHIELD area she wanted. So long, Director Fury had enunciated slowly, as she didn’t touch anything. She could pay Tony back by letting him stare at her boobs whenever he wanted. That was the nature of give-and-take. She swore she’d written something like that in her paper.
Her quest for hot guys was not a failure. Not only was Tony, sweaty, delicious Tony, exactly where she hoped he’d be, he was squaring off at another dude who was exactly what Darcy imagined a sunset would look like, if a sunset was a really buff guy.
The first thing she noticed was his cloak. Not because it was full of shimmering colours she’d only seen in dreams, but because it was the only thing he was wearing, and it was magically hovering right over his junk.
Tony frowned at her when she strolled in, which was totally unfair. He thought she was a useless distraction to real science just because she wasn’t a ruthless genius physicist and because she was more likely found wearing her laundry day sweaters than strutting around in a bikini or something, but dude. He had his left arm encased in metal, there was a naked glowing guy right next to him, and Darcy was still the most distracting person out of the three of them?
‘How did you know she’d turn up? She’s not even supposed to be in today. How the hell did you know?’
‘I am Kvasir, cleverest amongst the Vanir. I know all that is the future, and the answer to all questions.’
‘And people say I have an ego.’
Princess Darcy.’ Kaviars-whatever-he-said ignored Tony, performing a sweeping bow that involved flourishing the side of his cloak that was keeping Tony’s lab PG-13 friendly.
‘Oh,’ Darcy said, trying not to stare at his package too hard. She was a political science major, after all, and if there was one thing she knew, it was that gawking at a diplomat’s junk was never going to end without a major international incident.
Tony apparently didn’t have a degree in political science, and obviously didn’t know this fact. ‘They not have pants in Vanir? You’d think all these advanced alien societies, someone would invent pants, but no.’
‘Tony! Please don’t make me explain to Director Fury why the nice space Viking decided to murder you and declare war on New York.’
‘Princess Darcy, please have no fear from me. I desire no war but to unite our worlds by your hand in marriage.’
‘You’re kidding. You want to marry me?’
‘That’s why you broke into my lab?’
‘Not I, comely though you are.’ Darcy could feel herself blushing. She glanced at Tony who gave a shrug at this assessment, as if to say well, it takes all types. ‘King Njord of the Vanir wishes you for his van-bride.’
‘Van-bride? That’s seriously what we’re going with? Hey, why does no one want to unite with me? I’m a handsome billionaire. There must be a beautiful goddess in need an heir or two.’
‘Tony Stark, shut up. What, why the hell is the king of another dimension asking to marry me? I mean, you know Natasha Romanov is walking around this base, right? Have you seen her? Hotness incarnate.’
‘We know little of whom you speak, but know that you are Odinsdóttir, Princess Darcy of Midgard-‘
‘Whoa, wait, no, what? Sorry, but I think we have some major cultural mixup going on here.’
Kasanova’s ethereal glow dimmed slightly, and his cape drooped. ‘It cannot be so, your highness. The scryers and wise women heard it true from the crown Prince of Asgard, through arcane images revealed to them in visions.’
‘You guys are watching us through your, like, mystic pools and stuff? That’s kind of stalkerish.’
‘Nay, Lady. Your wisdom texts.’
He reached into the folds of his cape and extracted the shiny cover of People magazine from god-knew-where, adorned primarily with a picture of Tony Stark smiling and pointing, and in the bottom corner, a small image of Thor hugging Darcy. “Thor’s sister makes shock appearance!” was the headline splattered underneath.
‘Wow. Hey, Kanvas Shoes, maybe you could apply your all-knowingness to the real issues and finally clear up just what’s hot and what’s not?’
‘I admit to not comprehending the game of temperature assessment, popular among your people though it is. We procured these tablets of knowledge after realising the significance of the activities of personages contained therein.’
‘Would you look at that. Even the magical wood people need to keep updated on the latest Stark adventure.’
‘Look, this is, like, flattering and all. But I don’t think it’d make much of a difference. I mean, I haven’t even graduated yet, I only work here because Jane wanted someone to make her coffee. Like, my dad had a heart attack because I moved to New York, I don’t think he can take me running off to another dimension.’
‘King Njord is the greatest of all Vanir,’ Kvasir said a little desperately. ‘It is he who taught his daughter Frigga all the secrets of magic, and she in turn revealed those mysteries to her husband, Odin-‘
‘Wait, this Njord guy is Thor’s granddad? You’re asking me to marry the dude who thinks he’s my granddad?’
‘It would be the most beneficial match, your highness…’
‘Wow. So they really are European royalty.’
‘No!’ All the theory of political science she’d binged on during exams vanished from her head. ‘Ew, no! And Thor’s like, a million years old, so his granddad must be, like, super gnarly. No!’
‘As a Van-lady we would give you great fertility-‘
‘Ew!’
‘Sorry, Kosovo. It seems Princess Darcy has spoken.’
Jotunheim
In New York it was not completely odd for a ten foot tall man dressed like a mental patient to go stalking through the streets. Same went for green, blue, and orange people going about their daily lives, just trying to blend into the spectrum of skin colours that flourished in New York before mutants started being more open about their differences.
It was a bit weird for someone to be both. And for them to pull the door off Darcy’s lecture hall and block the exit with a wall of ice.
As her classmates started screaming and her professor ran headfirst into the white board, smearing INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATION AND AGREEMENT down his tweed jacket, Darcy grabbed her phone and with slippery fingers and called the first person she could think of: Jane.
‘Darcy? Aren’t you supposed to be in school right now, young lady?’ Jane was giggling and breathless, and Darcy guessed that Thor had stopped by to offer to help her with some of the science going on in her pants.
‘Has someone been mixing gamma radiation and Pym particles again? Guys, remember what happened the last time? Because, uh, there’s a freaky ice guy on my campus and he does not look happy- hey!’
‘Cease your prattle, girl,’ the giant blue man ordered with a voice like cracked ice, taking her phone and crushing it between his fingers. Darcy yelped and sucked on her numb fingers. It had been 70 degrees this morning, when she’d stuck on her most skin-bearing t-shirt and shorts, and now it was really, really cold.
‘There has been bloodshed between the Aesir and the Jotun, the Jotun and the humans. A union of our three people through an Odinsdóttir of Midgard will resolve much sorrow. King Helblindi intends to amend traitorous actions.’
‘No, sorry,’ said Darcy, trying not to droop her head as her bodily functions started the slow grind into uselessness. ‘I’m sure your king has a great personality, but…’
‘You would be mistaken, little princess. He does, however, need a token of peace from Asgard, and to provide an example of his generosity to the human realm. To be his bride will fulfil both pacts.’
‘Well, that’s nice,’ Darcy murmured, her teeth clattering. Everything was just cold and heavy. She stared at her inky notes on the Bonn summit of 1978. Where all the countries had privately wanted the same agreement, but had to pretend to their populace that they were reluctantly accepting things out of necessity. As the ice settled in her chest, she had a clear vision of her marriage to Hell-bindi. Having to wear a duffel coat over her wedding dress while President Obama walked her down the aisle, telling her he was really sorry it had to work out this way but at least ‘queen of the man-eating giants’ sounded like a cool title…
She closed her eyes as thunder cracked against the windows of the lecture hall, and her last thought before the frostbite set in was that she sure was glad Asgard had decided to hand out hammers to their politicians instead of political science degrees.
Alfheim
Once Darcy had gotten over the shock of being proposed to by mythical creatures, she actually started to come around to the idea of her interdimensional fame. If Jane could screw a god of Thunder six ways to Sunday, what was to stop her getting some fun with a mythical being of her own? Besides, she had student loans to pay off and in this market an offer to be an otherworldly princess was nothing to be sneered at.
The third suitor to turn up was an honest to god elf, with flowing blond locks and beautiful eyes, and a bow. Darcy, who had seen Return of the King way more times than any impressionable young girl should, didn’t need much more convincing than that. Sure the ears were weird on an actual person, and the skin colour was a off in a way she couldn’t put her finger on, but Yllr was courteous, gentle and fun. It was like seeing the world through new eyes and all that shit. He even texted her dad for her, and he had a unicorn. It was like six year old Darcy’s perfect man, except with the seriously fit bod desired by twenty year old Darcy.
‘Lady Darcy,’ he whispered to her, after taking her to a frozen lake to skate under the stars. ‘If you would return with me to my home, I would treasure you. I would shower you with gifts beyond mortal ken. I will let you ride my unicorn.’
‘And after we ride your unicorn, we can ride your unicorn. If you get me. I know that’s totally lame, I can’t believe I said that.'
Yllr laughed, and it was the sound of a thousand chiming bells. ‘If you admire the unicorn that much, you may ride her to your heart's content.’
Darcy smiled and kissed him, sliding her hands over his thigh. ‘No, but what I mean is that you and me should have some serious bone time.’
‘Bone time..? I do not know of this, you wish me to bring you bones?’
‘No! Dude, no, I mean, like, you and me… sex. Copulation? Insert tab A into slot B.’
‘You mean to deflower you?’ Yllr actually cried out like a dude in an old romance novel and jumped to his feet, leaving Darcy sprawled on the actually kind of wet grass. ‘No, sweet Darcy, upon my oath, should I take your maidenhead let me be struck down for my dishonour!’
‘You… you guys don’t have sex in Elfheim?’
‘Not for one such as you! Princess Darcy, upon my oath to your brother, I shall keep your purity in tact until my dying breath, ‘til all the skies burn. I shall sever the manhood of all who would prey on you with their lustful intentions.’
Turned out the unicorn-riding elves didn’t have sex or beer or even late night parties. It left her heartbroken, but Yllr had to go.
Muspellheim
She made an error in judgement with the fire demons. They weren’t so much interested in marriage as they were in eating her flesh to gain her lightning powers. It was a very awkward situation to explain for everybody involved: for the demon with the skull over his crotch who only wanted to bite her face off, and for Darcy who ended up macing him.
Worst of all, Natasha only set off the fire sprinklers after Darcy had bargained her taser and her last bottle of pepper spray for freedom, and according to Thor, fire demons never accepted take-backs.
Svartalfheim
‘It was not I who said they would woo her, it was you!’
‘Shouldn’t you guys have figured this out before you came here?’
‘No, the terms of the bet were that you could steal the virtue of the sister of the Mighty Thunderer and I would sell it to Iskar of the Eastern Spires to weave it into the frothiest mead, granting all who sips it the power to calm the stormiest seas, whereupon we shall sail to the Western shore to bash in all the heads of thine enemies.’
‘Do they have sex education wherever you guys come from? Because I really don’t think my virginity will do that.’
‘I had misdoubt about this affair before we set out, and now I disdain it entirely. I recall none of these terms.’
‘Dokklar, we came all this way!’
‘Aye, but I don’t want to now,’
‘Wait, so does this mean no one’s going to devirtuise me any more? Because if I close my eyes and you keep that mask on, you’ve got a pretty rockin’ bod…’
Niflheim
Darcy was expecting a shambling corpse to open her door and take her hand, but only because she’d been hiding in a broom closet for the last six minutes, watching it crawl along the corridors of the Avenger’s Tower.
‘AAAAAH,’ she screamed.
‘Ow,’ said the corpse. ‘Temper your voice, you who still lives. I bring a desire you must sate.’
‘Please don’t eat me. There’s a ton of people here with better brains than me. I have to study forever just to get a passing grade, and I still can’t turn my Tivo on properly-‘
The corpse huffed in annoyance and pulled her free from the mop she was clinging to. She was just about to break down crying when Clint exited from the kitchen.
‘Fuck yes,’ he said, throwing his bowl of colourful cereal to the side. ‘I’ve been waiting for the zombies ever since we got the aliens.’
That time really did cause an interdimensional incident with what actually turned out to be zombie aliens, and for six months after Thor defeated Hela, Loki kept sending her death glares and toppling buildings over right where she was standing and it was totally on purpose. She did not get that guy’s deal, for serious.
But then, not getting it was something she was used to by this point.
Asgard
‘I swear to god, dude, if you come near me with a lighter again I am going to kick you in the groin.’
Loki cocks his head and lifts his eyebrow at her, and Darcy feels just the right kind of shiver go down her spine. She presses back into her couch, the furthest she can get from the god who’s just materialised in her tiny New York flat.
‘Not enjoying your new status as Odinsdóttir?’
‘I do not even get why people keep calling me that. It’s awful. Is Odin even okay with this? I keep thinking he’s going to strike me down for blaspheming or something.’
He glides away from her front door, picking things up in her kitchen with idle inspection. She might have tried to run two years ago, but now she recognises the insult for what it is. Trapping her in is a waste of time when she doesn’t have even a chance of getting away from him. Her heart thumps at the possibilities of what could happen, even if Loki hasn’t killed her yet.
‘He probably would,’ Loki agrees genially, and that does not make Darcy feel better at all.
‘Then he’s a total dick. God, Thor needs to learn not to open his stupid mouth. My life? Nothing but trouble since he made everything think I was his sister.’
‘All sentiments I have often considered myself.’
Loki strolls around the room and settles over the back of her worn old couch. She can feel the press of his arms against hers as he leans down behind her. It’s a bit better because she can’t see his eyes, intense and burning with things that Darcy suspects don’t quite fall into the category of “sanity”, but it’s also a thousand times worse because now she can feel him breathing against her neck.
‘Even the “sister” bit?’ she asks, then bites her tongue at the chuckle that vibrates against the base of her skull.
‘Now that would be telling. Drink?’
She shouldn’t. Loki is crazy. Her stomach is twisted in knots. It’s like dating the hobo on the bus who talks to voices in his head, except 100% more likely to end in chaos and a hostage situation.
She takes a deep breath, gathers her wits, and looks for a place to hide.
‘Sure. I think I’m going to need it.’