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Willowdale, Part One
Darcy didn’t really belong here, but Charday had actually managed to get some of her photos into the gallery and Darcy bucked up and went to the opening. She put on her bright red lipstick, smiled at people, and sipped at the glass of sparkling water in her hand. Everyone important ignored her; she was just a friend of an artist. Not the artist. And considering just how much homework she had piled up that she really needed to get home to, Darcy didn’t much care.
Having the military (and the Hulk) destroy half your college campus while you were out in New Mexico chasing down wormholes pretty much meant that everyone was at least one semester behind. Especially if they decided not to temporarily transfer to another local college until the campus was rebuilt. Ugh. She’d be graduating a year later than planned. May of 2012 couldn’t come fast enough.
“Hey, Darce.”
Darcy didn’t have to force a smile. “Hey, Charday. Anyone like your stuff?”
Charday grinned. Her amber dress glowed against her dark skin. “Oh, yeah. I sold four of the five here.”
”Only four?” Darcy frowned. “That’s kinda sucky.”
”The fifth’s not for sale.” Charday grabbed her hand with a sigh. “You haven’t seen it yet. Darcy, have you even left this room?”
”It has the food.”
“Not an excuse,” Charday said as she pulled Darcy into another room. “You missed all of Antonio’s comments on everyone’s clothes.”
Darcy pulled at the hem of her dress. Great. She really wasn’t in the mood for that. Even if it was all true and rather funny. Antonio always talked about getting to Paris Fashion Week with his own line. He’d also promised to design every single one of his girlfriends’ wedding dresses. And the tux of whatever guy he ended up marrying.
Antonio and Karissa welcomed her with smiles. The chatter among the group relaxed her a bit as they drifted from photo to photo. Darcy glanced around. The first room had mostly landscapes. These were all portraits. Two old men playing chess in a park. A girl in a green dress chasing after a dog carrying a ball. A woman kneeling in a flower bed, a spade in her hand. Loki gazing at Darcy with that same small, brilliant smile he’d only given her as she remained completely absorbed in a book as they sat on a couch together, his legs draped over hers as he sat sideways with his back against the armrest-
Darcy gasped as if someone had hit her in the stomach. She barely noticed someone taking the glass of water from her as she clutched at Charday’s arm. “When?” she asked. “When did you- why- how?”
“April of last year,” Charday said.
They hadn’t started dating until November. Darcy stepped closer to the photo and stared. She wasn’t imagining it. That was the look he gave her, the one that he rarely showed in public. Except around Jane. Jane had been safe. She wouldn’t have cared.
“Luke loved you, Darcy,” Charday said.
“How do you know?”
Everyone shot her a Look. Darcy shrugged. What? Loki might look at her like that, but he was a prince. An alien prince. He’d killed to protect those he cared for. (And Darcy still had issues, for accepting it so well. At night, it was easier to admit to herself she just might do the same.)
Karissa sighed. “He followed you to New Mexico.”
”So?” Darcy asked. “He’d graduated without a job. It’s not like he had anywhere else to go.”
“Darcy,” Karissa said and placed a hand on her shoulder. “He followed his girlfriend to another state and stayed there with her.”
Oh. Well. When put that way. Shit. The ring caught the light illuminating the photo. Her stomach flipped. Now she would wonder more than ever. What would have happened had Loki not fallen?
She clenched her jaw against the tears pricking at her eyes. Jane had remained in New Mexico, signing on with SHIELD instead of returning to Culver. Every week without fail she would call. There was never anything new from either her end or from Asgard.
But Darcy could not give up hope yet. She just couldn’t.
Elsewhere, Part One
Loki opened his eyes and stared up at the rock ceiling. He didn’t recognize the sharp edges nor the way purples and blues wavered through the blackness. A soft blue light filtered from somewhere. He pushed himself up to sit, disgusted at the way his muscles trembled with the effort. A sheet fell off him and Loki was thoroughly unsurprised to find himself naked.
He touched the silver scar on his side that slashed towards his stomach. It should not have scarred. He did not know how his rescuers had healed him, how long it had taken, or even who they were. He remembered something swimming through darkness, hands with too many fingers grabbing him, then nothing. Loki pushed his hair back and stilled as his fingers brushed against something hard on his neck.
His vision swam with the effort of summoning a double; it was almost painful to corporealize, much less maintain. It finally solidified and Loki sent it behind him to examine what was on his neck. It was a small black thing embedded just below his hairline at the start of his spine. The double brushed it with a finger, ghosting over a symbol of some kind etched on the surface. The double leaned in to examine it closer. Black lines lanced out beneath his skin. Loki curled his lips and used his double to try and pull it off.
Pain whited Loki’s perception. The double vanished. He leaned forward and panted for breath as the pain faded.
“Do not attempt to remove it.”
Loki’s head jerked up and he scanned the room, just now realizing how open it was. How vulnerable he had been while he healed. He narrowed his eyes. The voice had come from the shadows.
“You belong to us now.”
Two beings stepped into the light. The first wore robes coloured dark grey and hints of blue and a veil covered its face save for its red, red mouth. It was smiling.
Loki drew himself up, refusing to let his nakedness dictate his actions. A hint of pain skittered down his spine, but he ignored it. Father had never mentioned the second creature, but Loki had spent hours beyond count in the library and just as many worldwalking. He’d heard rumours of the species in realms far distant from Asgard, terrible stories told in whispers. Had once seen, many years after it happened, the results of their handiwork.
Chitauri.
Yet Loki was a prince of Asgard and he would not bow down before them. He was no one’s slave. He would not give in easily to whatever fate they had planned for him.
He lifted his chin and bared his teeth. “I will never belong to you.”
The Chitauri merely grinned and lifted his hand. Something black rested in it. The creature pressed a small button. The device imbedded in Loki’s neck activated, sending white-hot bolts of agony through his body.
“You already do,” Loki heard the first alien say through the pain. “You will learn that soon enough.”
Willowdale, Part 2
It snowed briefly at the end of January and it lingered for a day. The blizzard came the first week of February and didn’t melt for a week. Classes were canceled the first two days, then somehow they managed to get the roads clear. Darcy sighed as she trudged to the campus library. She couldn’t wait for Dad to get off work (whatever he did in the campus accounting office all day) so they could go home together.
“Lady Darcy!”
Her head shot up as she turned around, almost slipping on the icy sidewalk. Her jaw dropped. Thor and Jane stood waving outside of a battered black SUV that was decidedly not a SHIELD vehicle. SHIELD would never let their vehicles look so ragged.
“Ohmigod,” Darcy breathed and charged across the sidewalk to them. She threw herself at Jane, almost knocking her over. “I missed you so much,” she said. “And what are you doing here?”
“We came to visit you, of course,” Jane said with a smile. “We miss having you in Puente Antiguo.”
Darcy grinned. “Want me back?”
“I thought you had no intentions of working for SHIELD,” Jane said.
“I’ll need a job after I graduate in May,” Darcy said. “If no one’s hiring, well, what else am I supposed to do? I already have the security clearance necessary.”
“There are internships,” Jane said.
“I know,” Darcy said a bit sharply. Then she gave a shrug. “I’ve applied to a few. Just waiting to hear back.”
Jane took the hint and dropped the subject. They climbed into the SUV, Jane absently reminding Thor to buckle up. She pulled out slowly into the traffic and drove back towards the main part of town. The radio, of course, was off.
“Any good coffee shops here?” Jane asked just when Darcy hit ‘send’ on a quick text to her father telling him not to wait for her.
“Yeah, there’s one downtown,” Darcy said. “Keep going until you reach the KFC, then turn left. It’s just down the block. Called McAllister’s.”
They arrived and ordered their drinks before sitting down at a table near the window. Darcy inhaled the rich scent of her drinking chocolate with a soft moan. This stuff was so good.
“You still wear Loki’s ring.”
Darcy jumped and set her cup down before she splashed it all over herself. She glanced at her right hand and the mentioned ring. “I always wear it.”
“You were devoted to him,” Thor said softly.
She gave him a strange look. “We were friends, good ones. Our romantic relationship didn’t change that.”
Thor nodded, still with that considering expression on his face. Darcy took a big gulp of her chocolate. Seeing Thor and Jane brought back so many of those memories, but time had faded them somewhat. It didn’t hurt as much as it could have. Even sliding the ring on every morning only brought a twinge of sadness instead of a sharp pang of grief. It still hurt to think of Loki, but she smiled at those memories far more often now instead of wanting to cry.
“Loki never gave jewelry to any of his other lovers,” Thor said softly. “Especially pieces that had family history. Our mother gave him that ring after his first successful shapeshift.”
Darcy blinked. What? She slid her finger over the green gem. She knew there’d been other woman. Heck, he was over a thousand. She’d be worried if he hadn’t been in other relationships. And that history- Thor reached over and set his hand down over hers, distracting her.
Jane raised both eyebrows. “Thor-”
”The wooden box it was in had your name engraved in Asgardian runes on the lid,” Thor said. He removed his hand from hers and went to cradle Jane’s hand. Jane squeezed it tight. “Loki wanted you to have it.” He smiled. “You were precious to him.”
Did Thor realize what a ring in a box meant on Earth? Darcy swallowed. Bright grief and sympathy warred in Thor’s eyes. She had a feeling he just might. She finished her chocolate and sniffled. She was not going to break down in public. She was not.
“Darcy,” Thor said softly. “I would have been honoured to call you my sister.”
She lost the battle. Darcy buried her head in her arms and cried. She heard a chair scrape on the tile floor and arms wrap themselves around her. Jane. It helped, a little.
Elsewhere, Part Two
Loki pressed his back against the single stone wall in his cell. He stared out into the darkness of space. Creatures swam through the darkness. He shuddered and looked away. The edge of the cell was so close. Loki swallowed. He’d attempted to fall once, after a grueling torture session that left him with doubled vision and two broken legs. That was the day he learned that damn thing embedded in his neck acted like nothing else but a shock collar that some Midgardians used on their dogs, preventing him from acting against their wishes and leaving the boundaries they had set. The Chitauri considered him a recalcitrant dog that needed training. He was a prince of Asgard. He was no pet.
His thoughts didn’t matter here. Only his obedience. He would not give it to them.
How long had he been here? He’d attempted counting days, but it was practically meaningless as the base hung in space and everything was artificially lit. Then add in the torture and the questions they asked about Asgard, the Bifrost, and everything he was unwilling to share - Loki sighed and leaned his head back against the rock. Tyr had long ago warned him that everyone breaks under torture, that the best way to answer was with lies sprinkled with truths so that his captors would not know the difference. If he had been anywhere else, it would have been so easy. But they’d put inhibitor cuffs on his wrists not an hour after he’d first woken in the aftermath of his first experience with the shock device. He had been unable to fight them off then and he could not do it now. He had no magic to aid him. No magic to attempt an escape.
Loki clenched his hands. He could not even prevent his mind from babbling. What had they been doing to him? The cocktail of drugs, outright torture sessions, telepathic invasions in which they half-convinced him that everyone he knew was rejecting him: he shuddered at the memories. Half-remembered pain skittered through his body. Phantom or real, he did not know. So many things were lies now.
He wanted to go home. He wanted to see the sunshine gleaming on the golden palace, the rainbow road of the Bifrost, his family. Darcy. He wanted to wrap her in his arms and never let her go.
Darkness covered him both inside and out. He wrapped his arms around his knees and shivered. Loki did not know the last time he saw sunlight. The last time he bathed. The last time he had clothes. The last time he . . . the last time . . . .
Loki shook in his fever-dreams. He could no longer tell the difference between reality and what he saw inside his head. Dark thoughts floated through, spinning minor truths into fabrications that magnified all of Loki’s darkest fears and anxieties about himself.
He heard distant mocking laughter, but he knew that was real. It was everywhere, all the time. And it never stopped. Recordings, he thought in his more lucid hours. But it was effective. Sleep deprivation was so easy and worked so well. It was curious that they’d never attempted it before . . . except perhaps that was the point. They’d dragged his body through hell and now it was time to break his mind.
He shifted against the rock and opened his eyes. He’d managed some sleep, enough to drive the edge of exhaustion away. The sound of footsteps on the stairs drove even the drowsiness away, fear and adrenaline surging in equal measure.
Two people, the veiled creature Loki called the Other and a strange man he’d never seen before. He had deep red-purple skin and striking violet eyes. He held a golden spear in one hand.
“The Tesseract is waking,” the stranger said. “The son of Odin knows its workings.”
The Tesseract? That had been long hidden on Midgard, quiescent. Loki fought the urge to clench his fists. No reactions. He would give them nothing.
“He still resists, my lord,” said the Other.
“That is of no concern,” the man said. “He can be controlled like any other and with no chance of betrayal.” He looked down at Loki and gave a terrible smile. “Kneel.”
“Never,” Loki said.
He barely saw the Other move. It pressed its hand against the side of his face. It did nothing for a brief moment, obviously savoring the fear that sent Loki pressing himself against the rock, as far away as he could get. He’d once whispered during a session that he considered pain sweet. The creature fed on the agony of others.
Pain erupted in Loki’s hands and skittered through his body as the Other pressed harder. He let out a garbled scream and crashed to the floor. He writhed against it, but the fire barely diminished. Sound came through, but little else.
“Can the effects of his time with us be masked?”
“If so commanded,” Loki heard the delight in the Other’s voice. “Those who would stand against us will be unaware of his torments.”
The burning slowly faded. Loki lay at the two creatures’ feet and panted for breath. He didn’t have the strength to stand. His hands shook slightly. The Other hauled him to his knees and grabbed his long, matted hair to keep him upright. It tightened its grip, jerking his head to a sharp angle. Loki whined.
“I am Thanos,” the stranger said with a smile. “In your heart, you will thank me for the freedom I bring you.”
Thanos lifted the scepter and pressed the tip of the blade to Loki’s chest.
For a brief moment, Loki knew who he was, what had been done to him, and what this Thanos was planning on doing. He prepared himself to fight, but the staff roared through any resistance he scrambled to create, leaving behind the conscious knowledge of what Thanos desired, what the best methods were to obey him, and the allowed freedom to calculate the coming invasion as needed. The Chitauri desired to conquer Earth. Thanos desired the Tesseract. Loki would deliver both.
With one motion of Thanos’ hand, the manacles on Loki’s wrists fell away. Unchained magic surged through him, feeding the staff. The raging fire quieted after a moment, held in thrall to a greater power.
Loki screamed from within in his own mind, raging against the scepter’s spell. His fury did nothing, no matter what he attempted. He belonged to Thanos now.
Willowdale, Part Three
“Aunt Louise, what part of ‘I am going to be in New York City’ don’t you understand?” Darcy asked.
“I’m just saying you need to move on and find another man,” Aunt Louise said. “You’ve held onto your dead boyfriend for almost two years now.”
Darcy’s jaw clenched. He wasn’t dead. Thor would have said something. Heimdall would have seen something. Loki had to be alive out there somewhere in the universe. He had to be. God, people thought she was a fool for holding out hope this long, but somehow he’d become such a part of her life she hated the thought of it without him.
“Because I love him,” Darcy said. “I would have married him if he’d asked.”
”You only dated for six months.”
Seven. And she’d known him for two years before that. Argh. Darcy glanced at her mother. She just stood there in the doorway, looking every now and then at the pots simmering on the stove, then back into the den. Sure. Care more about dinner than about your daughter. Okay. That wasn’t fair. Darcy was an adult. She could handle this.
“I’m going to New York to interview for an internship with Stark Industries,” Darcy said calmly. If Aunt Louise wanted to go on about Loki and blind dates, she could. She was just going to ignore every word. “It’s third round and there is no way in hell you will convince me to stay just to go out with some guy on a blind date.”
So Friday morning found Darcy in New York City. That afternoon, she presented herself at the mostly-completed (especially given the arc reactor the news wouldn’t shut up about) Stark Tower. It, literally, towered into the sky, all modern lines and swooping angles. Kind of like Stark. Darcy would be willing to bet good money he had stood next to the architect while they drew up designs. And putting it atop the MetLife building was a stroke of genius. Darcy hated the style of the old building.
She checked in with the receptionist and found herself heading up to the eighth floor, where the man had said Public Relations was based. Darcy smoothed her skirt as the elevator carried her up there. It was just a job interview. No big deal. If this didn’t work, she could always contact Jane. (And considering that Coulson had seemed rather pleased when she’d asked him if he could be a reference for this application, Darcy had her own suspicions. Did he want to keep tabs on her? Or recruit her? Besides the whole her wanting to annoy him thing. Which never happened. He seemed to like her. Or the way she had worked with Jane on the internship. Whatever.)
Darcy found the waiting room easily enough and sat down on a white leather sofa. There were five other people there, all dressed to the nines. Three played on their phones. Darcy wanted to roll her eyes. Even she knew better than that. Great way to not get hired - yeah, Darcy figured they’d all been watched since stepping foot inside the building. Not seeming to care how important this interview was just idiotic. The other two looked perfectly composed with not a hair out of place. Darcy smoothed her skirt again. She rocked her outfit, but she looked like spilled tomato soup on a white carpet against their stylishness.
She went last. And of course it was a panel interview. She’d forgotten that little fact. Darcy took a deep breath and smiled. She shook hands with the three men and sat down in the chair before the table. There were so many ways this could end badly. She had no practical experience in PR except theory in her classes.
Except that Darcy could answer every question with at least something reasonable-sounding, even after the warning that she’d likely have to interact with Stark at some point. The scientist-wrangling totally helped, honestly. It meant she could probably handle the levels of crazy that Stark was bound to produce. Darcy had a sneaking suspicion that it was her clearance level that got her to the second interview. Her own awesomeness got her the rest of the way. But in the end, she was smiled at and told that she would be informed of their decision within the next two weeks.
They called on a Monday morning. She said yes.