Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Here’s the thing that Darcy’s probably going to have the hardest time getting used to: that Asgard is weird. 

And it’s not even the whole overt culture shock thing, where almost everyone likes to smash things with their fists and drink lots of mead and generally act like they’re Leif Eriksson. No, it’s more the part where everything’s all shiny and glowing and, y’know, magical, and all the Asgardians walk around like it’s no big deal.

So really, when Loki knocked on her door this morning and told her that they were going for a walk because he wanted to show her something, Darcy prepared herself for just about anything.

But she never would’ve expected…this.

“Jane and Erik are never, ever going to believe me.” Darcy stares down at the herd of tiny unicorns they’re standing in the middle of. 

The creatures barely come to her knees, their horns aren’t any thicker than a few fingers stuck together, and overall they remind her way more of goats than they do horses, but still: totally unicorns. 

“I so knew I should’ve brought my camera.”

“Couldn’t risk it,” Loki says mildly. He gives one of the unicorns a rub behind the ears with his knuckles, and it “meh”s pleasantly, before going right back to cheerfully head-butting him in the leg. “You know you would never be allowed to take any pictures of these back home. What if you tried to show someone?”

“What,” says Darcy, all affronted, “you don’t trust me?”

Loki only gives her a look, which shows he’s gotten to know her well. 

He’s also a woman, at present, and the fact that Darcy’s seen this enough times to not think twice on it might mean she’s had too much of the Kool-Aid. She goes back to focusing on the unicorns and thinking how it’s too bad she’ll never see how many hits they could’ve gotten her on Facebook.

They’re in a meadow and there have to be at least thirty unicorns pressing their way around them. Like, literally pressing; they’re all soft fur and toothpick legs and big, dopey eyes, and every last one of them is frantically nudging and shoving the others in their attempts to nuzzle against either Darcy or Loki.

It’s almost kind of a letdown, really. Not that Darcy doesn’t think it’s still crazy-awesome, but with how they are in the fairytales she’d have figured unicorns would act more elusive…not like animals at a petting zoo conditioned through seasons of pellet handouts to launch themselves at any human body that enters their enclosure.

Darcy’s fingers are getting tired. There are too many unicorns that want to be petted and she doesn’t have enough hands. “I kinda thought they’d be bigger.” Ugh, she sounds like such a tourist.

“Oh, well, these ones are young yet,” Loki explains. “Give them another summer or so. But no; they don’t get nearly as big as they’re portrayed in some of your stories.”

“No kidding.”

Darcy eyes the baby unicorns. Most of them are either silver or white, but a few are golden, and she spots a few more that are black or brown. There’s even one that’s got a brown and white dappled hide, like an Appaloosa pony, which is determinedly gnawing on the edge of Loki’s cape.

“So, I guess that whole virgin thing is bunk too, huh?” she guesses, pulling her hand away from one that keeps trying to lick her fingers. Even spit from a baby unicorn is still gross. “I mean, I know I’m so not, and even though you’re kinda on the antisocial side, I was still giving you the benefit of the doubt-”

“No,” Loki cuts her off, coolly. “I’m not.” He has a narrow call with one of the unicorns wanting to get a mouthful of his female form’s longer hair, and he snatches it out of the way just in time. “But yes, as you’ve correctly deduced, that bit about them being attracted to ‘purity’ is complete fabrication.”

“Is there anything they’re not attracted to?” Darcy muses. “They seem kind of…easy.”

Loki’s eyebrows rise slightly, though she can’t tell if it’s in amusement or something else. “They like girls. If a man goes after them they’ll run the other way, but all you need is one female and the opposite effect occurs.”

“Oh. So that must be why you’re…” She gestures at Loki. 

He avoids direct eye contact.

“Actually, it’s been found they have a tendency to follow me around regardless.” 

He sounds kind of embarrassed. Darcy figures she probably shouldn’t ask. 

After a beat he continues: “Really, all they need is to be lured in. After that, they’re fair indifferent to whoever wants to be around them.”

As if drawn by some cosmic force that wants to prove him right, that very moment Volstagg wanders up. A few of the unicorns shy back, but the rest either sniff him and then carry on, or completely ignore his presence.

“Good day to you, Lady Darcy!” Volstagg greets her brightly, his axe resting on one shoulder. “I wasn’t expecting to see you out this far.” He half bows. “And to your fair companion as well. Wherever did you find such a lovely-?”

“Volstagg,” Loki interrupts him, irate, before Darcy can even get out a “Wow, awkward”. 

It must be something about the voice because the red-haired Asgardian quickly does a double-take.

“Oh.” He takes a step back, sheepish recognition on his face. “Sorry, friend.” He clears his throat and aims for a more conversational tone. “You know, I keep forgetting you can do that.”

“Selective amnesia?” Loki offers, dryly. 

One of the unicorns trips over its own wobbly legs, bleats loudly, and then crawls back up and sprints off again. Whether they’re anything like what she expected or not, Darcy has to admit they’re totally adorable. Maybe she can’t take pictures, but she wonders if she’d be allowed to keep one. What if she promised to be extra careful and keep it out of any Muggle’s sight?

“We Warriors Three and Sif are sparring not too far from here,” Volstagg informs them. “Perhaps you’d care to join us for lunch?” 

He pats his armored belly with a smile as if for emphasis.

“First lunch of the day for you, Volstagg, or second?” Loki asks. Volstagg gamely ignores him, instead giving Darcy an earnestly hopeful look.

“Yeah, sure.” Darcy nods. “That’d be cool.”

“You should probably change back, Loki,” Volstagg remarks as they begin walking. “You know how…confused it makes Fandral, when you’re in that form.”

“That’s what she said,” Darcy mutters. It earns her a perplexed look from Volstagg and about half an eye-roll from Loki, who has a swift learning curve and has spent enough time on Earth by now to get at least some of the jokes.

They lose most of their unicorn escort, between them moving and Loki becoming a guy again, but about a dozen keep following, still frolicking by their ankles and begging for affection. A gold one keeps limping, either because of a hurt foot or a gimpy leg, and after it stumbles enough times Volstagg scoops it up with his free hand and carries it effortlessly in his arm.

“They aren’t all that bright, poor things,” he says, as the unicorn wriggles in his grasp, bleating. “It’s bad enough here, where we’ve learned to respect and leave them alone. Small wonder they got hunted to extinction on Midgard.”

“Yeah, that’s us humans for you,” Darcy replies. “Destroyers of all that is innocent, earthy, and too dim to fend for itself. Really, you’d think we’d have gotten that whole paint with all the colors of the wind thing down, by now, but then what would Al Gore make documentaries about?”

Volstagg clearly has no idea what she’s saying, but offers an agreeable, “Indeed!”

When they reach the others they find Hogun and Sif in the middle of a practice bout, while Fandral leans jauntily against a nearby tree watching them.

At least, he watches until he notices the group approaching, at which point his eyes light up and he bounds eagerly toward them. 

In fact he ends up plowing right through the fighters’ space, and Hogun shoots an aggravated look at Fandral’s back as he has to rein himself in before he accidentally smashes the other warrior in the head.

Fandral doesn’t appear to notice. “Ah! Lady Darcy! How wonderful it is, for you to be joining us!” Stopping in front of her, he puffs his chest and draws in a breath. “Why, the beauty of a fine day just such as this, can only be improved by-”

“Hey Fandral,” Darcy returns before he can really get going, since about half the time his waxing ‘poetic’ makes as much sense to her as she was making to Volstagg a moment ago. “What’s up?”

Fandral appears a bit let down, but rebounds quickly. “Up? Why, nothing much is ‘up’ with me, my good lady. What is ‘up’ with you?”

He grins so proudly at his successful use of Earth terminology Darcy feels like she should pat him on the head and feed him a cookie or something.

“If I had but known you intended to venture forth this morning,” Fandral continues, enthusiasm unabated, “I would have only been too pleased to join you.” He delicately grasps her hand and bows his forehead to it, which is something Darcy’s noticed he tends to do to her a lot. “Indeed, my day would have become so more agreeable to me in the pleasure of your company.”

“Nah, that’s okay. I’m sure you had important warrior-type stuff to do.” Darcy gestures vaguely to her left. “Besides, I had Loki to show me around.”

Fandral not only lets go of her hand but the smile drops right off his face, as he gives Loki – standing far enough back, mostly attending to the mini-herd - a narrow-eyed gaze.

“Oh. Loki,” he says, sounding weirdly peeved. “I hadn’t noticed you standing there.”

Volstagg remarks, glibly, “You would have if you’d been with us five minutes ago.”

Darcy snorts, and Loki gives the sound of an unsuccessfully repressed laugh as he smirks, while Fandral just looks flummoxed.

“What? What do you mean by…?”

“Mehhh!” one of the unicorns interrupts. 

It sounds excited. Its stumpy little tail wisp even begins to wag. It bounces forward and half the others follow its example.

It isn’t hard to see where they’re heading: right toward Sif.

“Oh dear,” Fandral notes, wincing.

“Confound it to Hela!” Sif gives an aggravated cry. She grits her teeth and attempts to shoo the unicorns away with her staff. “Get away from me, you blasted beasts!”

Completely undeterred the unicorns assault her ankles, nuzzling and bleating. Sif looks incredibly tempted to start kicking them. She settles for walking away and then, when that proves unsuccessful, breaking into a run. The unicorns wobble after her happily.

Hogun watches from a safe distance with a stoic expression on his face that Darcy just knows means he’s laughing on the inside.

“Loki!” Sif shrieks from halfway across the field, furious.

“I’m sorry, Sif!” he calls after her, apologetic-sounding enough that Darcy figures he might actually be telling the truth. “I completely forgot!”

Noticing her confused frown, Volstagg gives Darcy a shrug.

“They have this unerring tendency to run to those that want them least,” he explains. The unicorn in his arm has given up on escaping and instead placidly chews on his beard. “Bit like cats, really.”

It looks like Sif might go down in history as the first Asgardian warrior to be treed by unicorns.

The brown and white unicorn’s finally grown tired of licking the embroidery off Loki’s cape and wanders by Darcy’s feet. She picks it up carefully, cuddling it in her arms.

She doesn’t care what anyone says; unless there’s an Asgardian version of Customs that’s going to stop her, she’s deciding she’s keeping this one. 

Darcy thinks she’ll name him ‘Spot’.

Chapter Text

The convenience store worker was flipping through a magazine, bored, when Darcy walked in, waved, and promptly headed past the counter toward the aisles.

He didn’t really pay much attention to her at first, outside of thinking to himself that it was funny he hadn’t heard a car pull up.

Then about five minutes later she came up to the register and plunked down: a box of Fudgesicles, a bag of black licorice, a pack of purple Sno Balls and a large bag of nacho flavored Doritos.

At that point the clerk really had no choice but to give her the raised eyebrows.

“Pregnancy cravings,” Darcy explained sweetly.

The clerk brightened. “Oh! Congratulations.”

“Thanks,” she returned, cheerful. “We’re really excited.”

“I’ll just bet.” He rang her up. “So, when are you due, anyhow?”

She handed him the money. “About five months.”

He frowned, confused, taking in the state of Darcy’s torso. Sure, she was wearing a slightly baggy sweatshirt, but…

“If you don’t mind me saying, you look awfully little for being so far along,” he commented.

His confusion wasn’t lightened any in the least when she broke into a grin, as if laughing at a private joke. Darcy patted her stomach. “Oh…just lucky, I guess. Have a nice day!”

And then she took her bag and left.

Outside Darcy found the Bifrost ruin still carved into the dirt and stood on top of it.

“Yo, Heimdall. Ready whenever you are, big guy.”

She disappeared in a rainbow-colored flash. 

Inside the convenience store everything shook for a moment, and the poor clerk was left with no idea what’d just happened.

*

Darcy stepped down off the gate, bag tucked underneath her arm.

Heimdall bowed his head in greeting. “Princess Sigyn,” he said, addressing her formally by her Asgardian name.

Darcy usually responded to this sort of thing by saying that actually she preferred her other (real) name, thanks, but she knew better than to try correcting the gatekeeper. In this case she merely settled for a sigh.

She adjusted her grip on the paper bag. “Any idea where my husband is?”

Heimdall nodded. “The Prince is in his chambers.”

Heimdall did not add the word ‘hiding’. It really went without saying.

“Of course he is. Thanks!”

Sure enough, she found Loki in his room. Sprawled on a pile of cushions on the floor, arms folded across his swollen belly, a look on his face that indicated he was currently doing what he would call ‘brooding’ and Darcy, in her humble opinion, would more correctly describe as ‘sulking’.

Darcy’s favorite handmaiden, reassigned to ‘babysitting the incubator’ duty, was rubbing his ankles with her usual patient peaceable smile on her face.

There was a reason, after all, that she was the favorite.

Darcy set the bag down with a ‘plunk’. “Hey there, handsome.”

“Oh don’t you even,” Loki snapped back in reply, moodily. “You know, I’m beginning to think that you’re enjoying this whole thing just a bit too much.”

“Well, I kinda have the won the post-feminist jackpot,” Darcy had to say, honestly. Indeed, there were some times she thought about it and had the uncontrollable urge to start laughing manically.

She never gave in to that urge, though…at least not anymore, after Thor and Jane had caught her doing it. They’d been very alarmed, not least because they thought it might mean the second prince of Asgard was sneaking around disguised as his wife. Again.

Darcy shook her head, though. “Hey. I’m doing my part over here. I’m being supportive, aren’t I?”

She unwrapped a Fudgesicle and handed it over. Loki didn’t say ‘thank you’, because apparently hormones made you forget your manners, but he did look less grumpy as he started nibbling.

Darcy dropped to her knees and scooted next to him, planting a kiss on his cheek. She ignored the way he ‘hmmph’ed at her.

“How about we make a deal,” she offered. “Next time, we’ll do it the slightly more regular way. It’ll be my turn.” 

“Next time?” Loki remarked archly, sounding much more like his usual self. “I seem to recall everyone was horrified enough by the idea of us creating miniature versions of ourselves in the first place.”

He had a point, considering when the announcement had gone out, Hogun had choked on his mead, Volstagg had fainted, and Fandral had run screaming from the room in terror.

Darcy shrugged, putting on her best not-really-all-that-innocent smile.

“We wouldn’t want to disappoint your mom, though, would we? She’s the one who commissioned a pack of grandkids.”

And nobody, who knew what was good for them, ever went against the wishes of Frigga.

Chapter Text

first: the snake encircling the world in its coils

Wyclef is born on a balmy but chill winter’s day. 

Loki will never forget that, not only the date of his first child’s birth but every detail, every particular, for it marks not only the beginning of something but an end as well; namely the period of enduring misery and discomfort greater than any he’s ever before known.

For both he and his wife came around to the idea of having children after about a year of marriage, but Darcy still balked somewhat at the idea of actually being pregnant. Loki rarely spoke without thinking, but he had when he’d suggested, rather carelessly, he could be the one to do that part instead.

Around the fifth month, when he was alternating rapidly between appetite to rival Thor’s and nausea, as well as dealing with fatigue, aches and unreasonable mood-swings he was nonetheless powerless against, Loki had locked himself in his chambers and wouldn’t open the door at first to anyone but Darcy or his mother. Though eventually coming around to other visitors, he’d spent the remaining time in his room either in bed or reading, marking the days on piece of paper.

After the birth, he sleeps again. It’s really all he can do. Besides, they’ve already agreed on a name and he trusts Darcy to see to the rest – later will be a different story but right now he feels only relief that it’s over and that his body will finally go back to normal.

When he wakes again the curtains are drawn but he can tell it’s morning – the labor started in the afternoon so he’s slept through the evening and on into the next day.

His wife’s back is to him, bent over the nearby cradle, but at the sound of his stirring she comes over with a smile.

“How are you feeling?” Her hair is uncombed and she’s wearing jeans and a loose sweatshirt instead of her Asgardian finery. Sitting on the edge of the bed she brushes fingers against his forehead.

“Realms better already,” Loki tells her, brief but honest. He pushes himself to a sitting position. His mouth is dry and he winces a bit – though it won’t scar, his side still hurts from where they had to cut into him. “How is…?”

“A sound sleeper, just like his daddy,” Darcy remarks wryly, “though something tells me it’d be too much to hope that habit will last.”

Without his asking she gets to her feet and, bending, carefully gathers up a bundle wrapped in the white and pale gold of a newborn prince, bringing it over to him.

“Here.” Her voice is soft, wary of disturbing the sleeping infant. “Watch his head, okay?”

“Yes, I know, I know,” he responds, but his chiding is distracted at best as he opens his arms, eyes only on the tiny baby.

Pulling the blankets aside he beholds his son for the first time.

He knows everything will change from this moment on, and nothing has ever excited him more.

Wyclef’s thin little eyebrows are black, and the hair that grows in swiftly after is as well. The newborn blue fades from his eyes as they turn to bright emeralds. Darcy jokes more than a few times of her suspicions Loki reproduced asexually behind her back.

Truthfully, if there’s any chance of her actually believing that, there’d be little he could do to dissuade her: Wyclef does indeed take strongly after his father in looks to the point of being almost identical, and Loki dotes on him as the most precious thing that he’s ever possessed.

Unsurprisingly the boy shows natural aptitude for magic, and Loki is only too happy to instruct him in this regard. He shows him the basics and is proud beyond measure as he excels at one thing, then the next, then the next.

In no time at all it seems Wyclef is as proficient as he was at that age, masters all the same spells that Loki in his youth mastered.

And then he begins to surpass that point.

It takes Loki perhaps too long to realize – too pleased in his pupil for it fully sink in it may be too much, far too soon. Or maybe, more superficially, he merely has a hard time considering that his son may be smarter than him.

Wyclef isn’t smarter though. He’s exactly as clever as Loki – which, according to many, is far too clever by half. 

But the problem is Wyclef has someone to instruct him, to pave the way, to show him the ropes.

The only person Loki ever had to learn from, when he was a boy, was himself. He spent months teaching himself from books what can be explained and demonstrated to Wyclef in weeks. Sometimes days.

And whether he learns it by example or it really is in the blood, there’s something else that Wyclef also excels at.

The art of finding and causing trouble.

Loki finds it much less charming when he’s the one on the receiving end of unpredictable magical pranks; when it’s his role to worry, and try to clean things up.

Odin doesn’t always bother waiting until he’s out of the room to start laughing at him.

second: the dwarf, the deal, the needle and thread

Loki is incredibly annoyed Darcy seems to take being pregnant with far less complaining and moaning than he did. He was perhaps waiting for his chance to watch her take her turn at torment with too much glee and anticipation – it’s very disappointing when she suffers it gracefully instead.

Not to say she doesn’t complain at all. She most certainly does.

It’s just that Loki had hoped by comparison she wouldn’t make him look like such a whiner.

There’s one thing he won’t gripe with her for though, and that’s the actual delivery. Loki kneels by her bedside and silently lets her crush his fingers in her fist as, screaming and struggling, Darcy has to force their second child into the world. It takes hours and there’s no small amount of sweat, tears, and inevitably blood.

And so that’s how they have their next son, Austen.

He has the same green eyes and pale skin as his father, his brother, but his mother’s dark brown hair. He seems to take after her in size as well: while Wyclef shoots up like a weed, even in chubby boyhood form still obviously leaning towards slight and tall, Austen grows more slowly, always on the shorter side for children his age.

Wyclef is as much of a ‘passable’ Asgardian as the young version of his father was, but around Austen the more rigid and prudish mutter things like “half-mortal” and “mongrel”.

First, if they’re foolish enough to say it within earshot of Loki, they’re quick to see his wrath. (And if anyone thought typical Loki was bad enough, they haven’t seen what he’s like when bolstered by righteous fury.)

Second, Loki goes out of his way to assure his children’s generation will not see a repeat of knowing what it is to bear the curse of the second son.

Austen is quieter than Wyclef, more reserved. Shyer, to be quite frank. He’s a playful side to him as well and makes a good cohort in his brother’s mischief, but around crowds Austen tends to hang back, eyes fixed on his own toes. He speaks clearly enough when bidden but with strangers chooses politeness over wit.

After careful examination, it appears to be simply his nature, and not a product of feeling overlooked or neglected. Still, Loki does everything he can to draw the boy out, to make certain he feels encouraged and knows he is loved.

A single moment of doubt can linger as a ghost for years’ worth of pain. This Loki knows too well.

Austen’s just as gifted in magic as his brother, though he’s inclined to fixate more on spells of disguise; quieter forms of sorcery more subtle, though no less potent in the hands of a skilled user.

Loki instructs Austen with as much pride as he did Wyclef – though by now he’s learned to be far more careful about pacing. He teaches Austen new spells slowly, with patience, emphasizing he master his basics before he learns anything new. 

He knows Wyclef occasionally sneaks lessons to his younger sibling, when they both grow frustrated with their father’s attempts at checking Austen’s progress, but there’s only so much they can do. Austen’s talents lie with magics Wyclef is not as far along with yet; Loki holds the only keys to the kingdom, and he grasps now what troubles can come from unlocking all the doors at once. 

If one thing can be said about Loki’s mistakes, it’s that he never repeats them.

What he does is find new ones to make instead.

For Austen’s birthday he gives him a cloak enchanted with the power to make its wearer invisible to all forms of detection. It’s a masterful piece of sorcery that took Loki weeks – it’ll be a long time before either of his sons, even with inherent aptitude, can come anywhere close to something similar on their own.

The magic he put into it, however, has a limited life. Even with careful use it will fade, lasting no more than a year at most. He makes a point of announcing this when his gift is presented – not only so no one who dwells in the palace will bash his brains out at his providing one of his brood the power to find further trouble, but also so that hopefully his son will understand what he’s aiming for.

The thought of an Austen who can turn completely invisible is something even Loki isn’t ready for. But by showing him such things are possible, he’ll be encouraged to keep trying, until one day he reaches that point for himself.

A few months later Austen is nowhere to be found, and while it’s become commonplace enough since the cloak Loki still feels uneasy. He keeps asking questions until he discovers his son went along with his uncle and uncle’s friends on a visit to the dwarves’ marketplace.

Loki has a certain history with dwarves, not at all pleasant. He has serious misgivings about what might happen to timid, sweet Austen if they find out who his father is. 

While he tells himself Thor would never let anything happen to his nephew it’s still a monumental relief when Austen reappears from the Bifrost with the others, smiling happily and perfectly intact.

“There you are.” Loki restrains himself to merely ruffling Austen’s hair, knowing he’d look ridiculous embracing him like he’d been missing for weeks. “I should know better than to expect it really, but I’d prefer if you let me know next time you choose to wander off to another world like that.”

“Sorry, Father,” Austen chirps, and only bothers with looking half-repentant. From over his head Thor is smirking at Loki, for how often at his age did they pull similar vanishing acts?

Loki smiles back thinly – Thor can find out what it’s like when he gets around to having children himself.

His smile fades as he gets a look at Austen’s cloak, in visible mode where it’s pinned around his shoulders. The magic…it would be hard to explain to a non-sorcerer, but somehow Loki can tell at once it’s been altered.

There is no longer anything transitory about the enchantment, he realizes. It’s been reinforced so the power it holds will be permanent.

A slight wave of hysteria clutches Loki at the implications. “What has happened to your cloak?”

He shoots Thor another look but his brother only blinks in surprise and confusion. Whatever Austen did, it was apparently right under his nose.

Austen shrugs out of his father’s grasp, offering a look of eerily perfect innocence.

“I found a smith skilled enough to strengthen the threads of magic for me,” he explains.

“A smith?” Loki echoes, dumbly. Even among the dwarves, who could be so talented as to…?

“Yes.” Austen gazes up at him a moment, frowning as he carefully recalls something: “And I am to tell you that…that Brokk of the Ore-Fire Brethren ‘sends his regards, his congratulations on my birth, and his wishes that I will cause you as much joy with my clever words as you did your father before’.”

Austen walks off, leaving Loki staring in slack-jawed realization after him.

And to think he’d wondered after all these centuries if Brokk could possibly still hold a grudge.

third: the fearsome wolf that will swallow the sky

Their third child is what Frigga calls a ‘blessed accident’. 

Loki called it something entirely different, after the handmaiden attending on his expectant wife watched him throw up the fifth morning in a row and mildly suggested there might be something not at all ‘sympathetic’ about his case of ‘sympathetic pregnancy’.

A quick mental calculation of how poorly he’d been keeping track of his own hormones, the fact that Darcy’s hormones had made her not any less interested in bed sport but in fact more, and then one trip to the healers for good measure confirmed it.

The announcement was broken somewhat sheepishly to the rest of his family. Thor, who clearly didn’t take in the full connotations of both his brother and sister-in-law being huge and cranky at the same time, was frozen for about thirty seconds before he started laughing so hard tears rolled from his eyes.

Skadi is their first girl, fair and raven-haired with bright green eyes. Everyone calls her and Austen ‘the twins’, as they’re born not even five months apart.

“No more, for awhile,” Darcy says. She rocks a fussing Austen in her arms, eyes red with lack of sleep. “Please, please.”

Loki groans and rubs his belly, waiting for his unborn daughter to stop kicking. “By the nine skies and the nine hells, yes,” he’s swift to agree. 

Wyclef hides behind the settee, watching his parents with confused trepidation.

“Mom, Father said a bad word. I think.”

“Not now, Wyclef.” Darcy massages her forehead with her free hand, wincing. “Go find your aunt and uncle, or…something.”

Jane might not be ready to be a mother in her own right yet, but she’s certainly a very helpful auntie during that brief but incredibly turbulent time.

Luckily if there’s one thing all three children have in common it’s a strong propensity towards self-reliance. Once out of the crawling, drooling phase of dependency, Skadi follows in her brothers’ footsteps of being able to mostly take care of herself, at least as much is reasonable to be expected of a small child.

She also continues their pattern of getting in trouble as soon as she’s capable of walking. No one expects anything different, really, but a few bitterly express the opinion that they thought it not too much to hope.

Skadi has what the All-Father refers to as ‘noble features’, and what good Fandral the Dashing much more glibly calls “all of her father’s beauty”. Even in youth it’s clear she’s quite the comely one. Everything about her is thin and delicate, but well-formed and backed by surprising strength and very impressive speed.

She has no gift at all for magic. When several early attempts prove incapable of producing even the smallest sparks, Skadi grows bored with the idea completely.

She wanders off and announces she has no intention of spending any more time locked up with dusty old books. Not when she could be outside playing in the grass and the sun.

Loki is disappointed. Darcy pats him on the shoulder and suggests she’ll come around later, though both of them can already tell that won’t be the case. 

The rest of Asgard actually throws a feast, though they come up with some other flimsy reason as to what they’re truly celebrating.

With no lessons in spells to fill her time it’s expected Skadi will spend more hours being taught the typical pastimes of a princess. Embroidery, courtly dancing, and so forth.

These lessons get as much in the way of Skadi’s desire to spend her every afternoon climbing into trees and rolling in the dirt as the proposed magic instruction did. Really, the girl has a mania for being outdoors. It’s genetics alone that sustain her milk-white complexion – any normal child would be tanned brown as a nut by now.

“Many little girls are wild in their youth,” her grandmother says, calmly. “She’ll probably grow out of it.”

Her grandfather only strokes his beard and offhandedly suggests they could find a compromise between royal expectations and Skadi’s interests and start teaching her how to ride.

When it’s pointed out Skadi is still too small to go on horseback, he says nothing. But only days later a lovely pony appears in the stables and Odin has an oddly difficult time maintaining eye contact when he feigns ignorance about where it came from.

The unspoken hint, Loki shrewdly gathers, is they kept him waiting too long in his apparent deep-seated desire to be a doting grandfather. With nothing else to occupy him since he passed the throne to his eldest, Odin clearly intends to make up for lost time.

Though Skadi, strangely, seems to be swiftly becoming something of a favorite.

Loki decides not to think too much on it, and caught up as he is teaching his boys how to perform new tricks one day and running around fixing whatever mayhem they cause with said tricks the next, he really has no time to pay much attention to anything save the general being that is his daughter.

Skadi doesn’t seem to suffer for it, so he doesn’t worry. She knows she has her father’s love, and plenty more besides.

A mild summer’s day finds the family outside, Frigga working on her needlepoint while Darcy plays Angry Birds, and Loki splits his attentions between conversing with them and reassuring himself that Wyclef and Austen haven’t used the balefire he gave them to amuse themselves with to actually set the picnic blanket on fire.

Skadi is halfway up an apple tree, and Loki realizes after a short while she’s not climbing it any more, but rather using it as a perch to watch Sif drilling a group of boys about Wyclef’s age in combat techniques nearby.

“Skadi, can you give me an apple?” Austen calls to her. Without looking his sister yanks a shiny red fruit off her branch and hurls it straight at his face – with a calm wave of his hand Austen slows it down before it touches him, plucking it from the air and taking a crisp bite.

Wyclef nudges him, today apparently being one of the days he lords his role as big brother. “What do you say?” he admonishes Austen, grave.

“Thank you,” Austen tells Skadi, mouth half-full.

“Augh!” Loki shudders. Picking up a napkin he wipes the apple bits from his son’s face. “Don’t do that. You remind me of your uncle.”

Austen is certain to chew and swallow completely before responding, “Sorry, Father,” with a look of genuine contrition.

Sif has set her would-be warriors to sparring, which has quickly disintegrated into a full-on brawl. A dozen youths beating each other with practice swords and staves, and Sif looks far too amused to be doing what she should, which is breaking the lot of them up.

There’s a violent rustle from the apple tree – Loki whips his head around, startled, just in time to see Skadi practically slide down the bark, she shimmies her way to the ground so fast.

She bounds over to the sidelines of the brawl, quick as lightning snatching up the wooden axe one of the recruits earlier abandoned.

With a shrill cry of “For Asgard!”, Skadi launches herself into the heart of the fray. She decks two of the much older, far larger boys and sends a third stumbling back dizzily before they even realize what’s happening.

Within two minutes Sif is forced to intervene, because if she doesn’t every last one of her students is going to be beaten black and blue by the princess.

Loki is certain his look of complete astonishment is mirrored on his mother and wife’s faces.

“Huh,” Darcy finally manages, after a pause, “I wonder where she gets that from.”

fourth: the queen who rules over the entire underworld

Darcy grew up in a family with three children herself, so to her it’s a perfectly fine amount. 

Loki still has moments where he finds it odd he actually has one child, let alone three, so he’s in no hurry for a big number either.

A few more years pass though; they’ve time to recover from toddlers and fussy infancies, and their ‘babies’ while still quite young are no longer just that. 

They talk about it awhile and decide, why not?

“It’s different than on Earth,” Darcy remarks, looking around at her opulent bedchamber. When Loki first met her she was living in one room not even a third this size. “There, when you have loads of kids you have to worry about things like, you know, money, and time.”

“It’s your turn,” Loki feels he has to remind her.

Darcy rolls her eyes and hits him lightly in the arm. “Yeah, I know.”

It takes less than a season of trying to get her pregnant.

Loki seems to recall having heard once that it’s considered bad form, at best, to name a child after a former love of one of the parents.

But in this case it isn’t so much a ‘former lover’ as a ‘friend that could’ve once been something more but never really was’, and anyway, they seem to have developed a system where whoever carries the child also carries much more weight when they decide on the naming. 

Considering it took two trimesters to settle on ‘Wyclef’ as a compromise with their first (too old-fashioned for it to be her first pick, too Midgard for it to be his), Loki’s mainly glad Darcy’s finally giving in to the concept of giving their children proper Asgardian names.

Besides, the Warriors Three have been somewhat put out by all this royal childrearing business - though Volstagg and Hogun have less room for griping, as each have families of their own. Fandral, however, the self-avowed bachelor, has been most visibly distressed.

He is stunned but undeniably touched, when their second daughter is named Fandra.

If Wyclef is his father’s near doppelganger then Fandra is her mother’s. She’s petite of build with wavy brunette locks, the only one of their children not to be green-eyed.

She’s also very much the princess that her sister and her mother are not. Fandra’s favorite colors are pink and lavender. She doesn’t own a single outfit that hasn’t lace or ribbons or some kind of frills on it somewhere. She names every one of her dolls and Loki knows all of them, because she insists each be addressed by her proper title. Woe it was to be him that time he unfortunately confused Lady Anastasia with Grand Duchess Annabelle.

Fandra isn’t precisely a spoiled brat, because underneath it all she still has a little girl’s genuine charm and kindness. 

But she runs very, very close.

The first birthday where she’s old enough to be an active participant, the cake is taller than Thor. There’s every kind of fresh berry, hand picked, except blackberries because Fandra hates those. She gets a special tiny crown that’s newly made just to match the crystals in her party dress and shoes.

From the esteemed noble guests, enough of them to warrant the use of the grand hall, Fandra receives porcelain dolls and mohair teddies and hand-carved music boxes and countless other toys; so many that some of them are going to have to be given away when she’s not looking, because where could they possibly put them all?

Oh, and Odin gives her a pony – white with a flowing silky mane and tail that’s been braided full of ribbons and flowers. Its bridle is silver studded with pink and cream pearls.

Loki resists the urge to glare at him, but when Fandra wants to bring her pony into her room with her at bedtime he’s sorely tempted to make ‘Grandfather’ be the one to have to explain that horses – yes, even little teary-eyed princesses’ best friends – belong outside.

That’s the real problem with Fandra, Loki figures. She understands the meaning of ‘no’ but not the underlying principle.

When she wants something she honestly doesn’t understand why she can’t just have it.

She comes and finds him one day, a rare afternoon when he’s managed to find a hidden corner of the palace to be alone.

“Father,” she asks without preamble, “you can use magic to make people look different, can’t you?”

“Of course I can,” Loki tells her, looking sadly down at the book he was planning to read. “You know you’ve seen me do it before.”

She nods her little head, firm. “Then I want you to make me pretty.”

Frowning Loki marks his place, swiftly shutting the leather-bound cover. “You’re already pretty,” he says, confused. “Who told you that you weren’t?”

Fandra makes a face. “Nobody told me. I just know. I look in the mirror every day!”

“Do you, now?” Loki pulls her closer and brushes a handful of hair from her face. “I wonder what you could possibly be seeing in it.” 

Fandra’s not even an ugly duckling just waiting to become a swan – she’s a beautiful girl, flat-out. He honestly has no idea what she’s talking about.

His daughter narrows her eyes, like she thinks he’s mocking her. 

“Skadi is pretty, and she doesn’t even care about that. It isn’t fair. I want to look like her.” She points upward at his face. “I want to look like you. Can I? Please?”

Loki gazes at her a moment, letting that sink in. “You look like your mother,” he says slowly, carefully. “Are you saying that your mother isn’t beautiful?”

Fandra folds her arms and says nothing. She’s old enough to know saying ‘yes’ would be the wrong thing to do, but she’s still in that brutally honest phase of childhood where she won’t say ‘no’ if she doesn’t mean it.

Loki grabs her under the arms, picking her up to set her in his lap, the light of the sun from a nearby window streaming into both their faces.

“Fandra, I want you to listen to me,” Loki tells her softly. “Listen well.” He places a finger beneath her chin and tilts it so he’s looking her in the eyes.

Her mother’s eyes. His Darcy’s eyes.

“Your mother is so beautiful that I fell in love with her and brought her to marry me on Asgard. In spite of her being a mortal. In spite of the fact that the last thing I wanted, at that point, was to fall in love.” Loki lets out a small sigh.

“For her hand my family paid no small fortune in silver, grain, cattle and oil.” Or rather, an equivalent exchange rate – what were Darcy’s mother and brothers going to do with cows and barrels of oil? “For my hand, she paid…nothing. Being herself was considered more than sufficient enough dowry.”

Fandra stares up at him, her youthful eyes very wide.

Loki cups his smallest daughter’s face in both his hands.

“So don’t you ever try to tell me that your mother is ugly, Fandra. That you are ugly.” He presses a kiss to her forehead. 

“To me you both have the most perfect of faces in all the nine worlds.”

fifth: the serpent with its tail in its mouth

Wyclef knows enough spells to fill several textbooks, and half a dozen ways each can be used to play tricks at least. Austen’s learned the secret passageways of the palace so well he seems to find ones even Loki doesn’t know of. Skadi is her Aunt Sif’s best and favorite pupil, the other young warriors living in fear of what she can do to them at training with her staff. Fandra has perfected the way she bats her big innocent eyes and gives a dainty curtsy, so that her target will coo with delight and give her whatever she’s wanting.

The four of them don’t seem to consider it a fully utilized day until as a collective group they’ve been chased through the hallways by some enraged servant, guard or courtier.

They’re expecting child number five, and several concerned citizens of Asgard stage what could be considered as an intervention. They flat out beg the crown prince and his wife to stop, lest they be, as one advisor puts it, “overrun with imps”.

Darcy and Loki had already come to the conclusion on their own five was plenty and this would be their last.

Loki however, pretends to have to think about it, just to see the looks on their faces. Darcy plays along, knowing her husband is only too happy for whatever source of distracting amusement he can find when he’s pregnant.

They can’t keep the charade up for very long though. The children they already have while beloved are exhausting, and neither of them, especially Loki, wants to go through the months of gestation and labor ever again.

All of Asgard seems to sigh collectively with relief. Heimdall can most likely hear it from his post.

So it’s in the midst of spring they receive the final addition to their family. Another black-haired, green-eyed fair little boy, bringing everything full circle.

His name is Erik, for a friend and ally from Earth who is, unfortunately, no longer around to meet him.

Jane gets all misty eyed when she hears that part. She smiles and tells her sister-in-law that he would’ve liked that. Darcy can’t quite resist saying she’d have waited to let her use the name, but at this rate they might be waiting forever.

The King of Asgard and his Queen are still far too busy with their respective careers of beating up supervillains with the Avengers and experimental physics to feel ready yet for their own children.

The citizens have become slightly impatient for a royal child that’s actually an heir, but neither Thor nor Jane has ever been the sort to be driven to surrender by pressure.

That night Loki and Darcy sit together by Erik’s cradle, hands held as they quietly watch their tiny prince sleep.

He makes no sound but it’s impossible to imagine his dreams are anything but pleasant. That newborn redness has already faded from his skin though his cheeks are still rosy. His small fingers are curled into little fists.

“He looks like such a little angel,” Darcy sighs, sounding oddly emotional.

Loki shoots her a look. She smiles, and kisses him on the mouth.

“Looks can be so deceiving,” she adds shrewdly. He laughs. 

Sliding an arm around her he pulls the two of them closer together, Darcy shifting so she can rest her head on his shoulder.

The moment is ruined by a cacophonous crash from somewhere out in the palace, and the sound of several voices roaring in anger and dismay.

Darcy cranes her neck toward the door. “What do you think that was?”

Loki considers the sound. “Broken chandelier,” he concludes, speaking with an obvious note of experience.

Darcy raises an eyebrow at him, but of course she can’t be all that surprised. The next thing they hear is the now well-recognized sound of pounding feet, a small herd of troublemaking princes and princesses on the move. Whoever pursues them sounds to be dressed in armor, so they must have really done it this time.

Just like they did last week. And the week before that.

Loki faces the direction of the hallway as he sits up tall, thinking.

“What? You going out there to help?” Darcy asks.

Loki waits for a moment before going, dismissively, “No.” He settles back down in his chair, making himself comfortable. “I’m sure they have it well in hand.”

Darcy leans against him again, nuzzling. She twines her fingers with his, and with her free hand gently rocks their son’s cradle.

“Maybe we should hold off a bit on teaching him to walk. Or talk,” she offers. “Like, maybe until he’s seventeen.”

“Maybe,” Loki returns, perfectly deadpan. “It’s certainly something to think about.”

When they hear the next crash neither of them bothers looking up.

Chapter Text

It was a feasting day in the great hall of the one-eyed king, and all the noble men and brave warriors that served him filled the room with their loud shouts of joyous celebration. The mead and wine flowed as cups were passed back and forth. The long tables were laid with rich food that was nonetheless disappearing before the very eyes of all assembled, only to be swiftly replaced by more.

Laughing and cheering one another, they called for stories to be told and songs to be sung of their great deeds of the past year and before that, boasting of their strength and cunning and dignity as warriors.

Surely nowhere in all the many worlds, on that day of all days, could there be found a more cheerful, more superiorly-arranged group than these.

It was then that the great door to the hall flung open without warning, and in strode a man, a stranger; unabashed by the silence the surprise of his entrance had warranted.

The man was tall, slender but well-formed so as to not at all appear unintimidating. Most noticeable was that everything about him was bright green: from the toes of his boots to the cuffs of his sleeves, from the hem of his cloak to the very gleaming adornment of his armor, and every thread, button or inch of fabric in-between besides, every part of his raiment, all in shades of green.

His skin and hair seemed even to almost take on some of the color beneath the lights of the king’s hall, and greenest of all were his brightly shining eyes.

He bowed low to the king, who had risen with some wariness from his seat at the banquet’s center to address him in greeting.

“You are welcome here, good knight, though you are a stranger to us, on this glad occasion,” the king said, “so long as you come only bearing words of peace, and no ill-intent to our royal self or the assembled company.”

“None at all, your majesty,” the green knight replied, lifting his head to reveal a pleasing smile. “Oh, most worthy and wisest of kings. Oh no. In fact, I have just come to offer you and your warriors some merriment, to add to their already profound enjoyment of this celebration.”

“Oh?” the king asked, intrigued. All around him the men murmured to each other in interest and excitement, agreeably curious as to what this strange green knight had to offer. “What sort of merriment would that be?”

“Why, it is a jest, your majesty. A game,” their guest explained smoothly. “A simple enough one, I think, but one that will provide much amusement. What I propose is an exchanging of blows.”

With a flourishing gesture, the green knight pressed long fingers to the hollow of his own throat, the other arm spread wide with dramatic emphasis.

“All I ask is that one of your noble warriors here does me the honor of paying me a single blow, before the assembled company.”

For the briefest of moments the hall was silent. And then one of the still-seated knights spoke up from behind his full tankard and loaded platter: “A blow.”

He repeated the words in a flat tone of voice, seemingly certain he had misheard.

“Yes,” the green knight affirmed, nodding. “Only one. Surely that can be managed.”

“On your neck,” the same knight emphasized. “You want one of us, good sir, to take our weapons – why, say my axe, for example – and strike you one good, swift blow on the neck.”

“That is my request precisely,” the green knight agreed.

The seated knight who had spoken began to chuckle; and no sooner had the sound escaped him than the others did as well, their guffaws and disbelieving snorts rising as they whispered to one another and elbowed each other in the ribs.

“Well, that’s an easy enough task!” the same knight bellowed. The knight seated next to him nodded, grinning cheerily.

“I’m certain that any of us would be only too happy to fulfill your request,” the second knight said glibly. “Indeed, be fairly ready to fight one another for the privilege. I only inquire, is there anything propriety demands we should do for you in return?”

“I’m glad that you asked,” the green knight answered the dapper nobleman, his smile never wavering. “As I said, the nature of the game is all about an exchange. Whosoever does the task – thehonor, of paying this one blow onto me, should then only find it fair if in one year and a day I be allowed to bestow upon him the same.”

A third knight spoke then, more soberly than his fellows, though perhaps not by much, “So whichever of us cuts off your head, at the end of a certain time he will be expected to receive the same treatment?”

“Oh yes,” the green knight said. “Paid by no other hand but mine, of course. Anything else would be less than sporting of me.”

The knights could not help but look at one another in mirth, and even the king was smiling. For how could any of them be expected to have their head cut off by the green knight in a year and a day, when on this very day one of them would separate his own head from his body?

Before any other voice could speak, another figure rose from the center of the banquet, pushing himself boldly up from the table.

“Enough of this talk, sir knight! I think we all understand your ‘challenge’ well enough,” this last but by no means least of knights declared. “I’ll meet it as I meet all opponents in battle: gladly, and with no hesitation!”

The other warriors nodded in satisfied acceptance, that this knight should be their representative. He stood tallest and strongest among them, with shining armor and fair appearance. Noteworthy and highly admired even amid their remarkable number, they were all too pleased to leave this sport to him.

The green knight met his eyes, accepting it as well, and stepping back he presented his neck.

The young knight paused only long enough to glance at his king, who nodded, and he strode forward, drawing his weapon to grip it double-handed.

He stood before the green knight, who said nothing but continued to wait patiently, unmoving. The golden-haired knight raised his weapon high and brought it down swiftly with a grunt – easily the yielding flesh was split in two. The green knight’s head dropped to the hall’s carpeted floor.

But there was not a speck of blood to be seen.

Before the fair knight’s triumph could even give fully away to confusion, the green knight’s eyes flew open. The assembly gasped and then fell once more to stony silence.

With great ease, as the knight who had decapitated him watched with mouth agape, the green knight’s body moved forward and bent down to scoop up his head. He did not bother returning it to its proper place on his neck, but rather nestled it snugly in the crook of his arm, from where he smirked at the other knight with lofty superiority.

“Remember what you promised, when you accepted the terms of my game,” the green knight reminded him. “One year and a day, and you’ll allow me to deal you a matching blow.”

His opponent was white behind his beard, but then the green knight added, “If you place any value upon your honor.”

The other knight scowled, his face turning storm-like at the barb. “If honor demands it, then so shall it be!” he roared.

The green knight opened his mouth again, and he said-

“What in Valhalla’s name are you telling them?”

*

Darcy looked up from the hardcover book she had perched in her lap with a surprised jerk.

She found her husband standing in the doorway, watching her with genuine and complete puzzlement.

Loki blinked at her, frowning.

“What sort of a story is that?” he continued his line of questioning.

Darcy fought the urge to fidget. She glanced down at the copy of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight in her hands.

Hey, it wasn’t her fault she’d run out of Earth fairytales to tell their kids, and had to go digging for new material.

She figured she couldn’t go wrong with a tale of knights and sorcery, anyway. So what if she might’ve gotten a little…carried away in her ‘adaptation’?

“I, um,” Darcy floundered a moment before she suggested, a tiny bit weaker than she’d have liked, “One about chivalry?”

Loki quirked an eyebrow at her. “Chivalry,” he repeated, blank.

Darcy would’ve said something else but it was then that she noticed something.

Lifting her head from the book she took in the other occupants of the room. There was one person, besides Loki, that hadn’t been there when she’d started reading.

Seated on the floor was her second boy with his baby brother in his lap. Next to them was their sister. Behind them were the tiny tousle-haired forms of her niece and nephew.

And behind them, sitting cross-legged, his large body hunched down in a way that was comical for its oddness, gazing at Darcy with rapt eyes, was her brother-in-law Thor.

“Um, Thor,” Darcy stared at him, not knowing where to start, “when exactly did you get here?”

“Around the beginning,” Thor answered without hesitation. Or shame. “I heard described a great company of mighty warriors and the splendor of their feast, and I wanted to hear what was going to happen next.”

He actually gave her a beseeching look. “You are going to finish the tale, aren’t you?”

“Uh,” said Darcy, shooting Loki a sideways glance that screamed all kinds of ‘help me out here’.

Before Loki could say anything, though, a chorus of little voices chimed in.

“Please, Mom, please!”

“You can’t just stop there! It was just getting really interesting!”

“You aren’t going to let her stop, are you Father?”

Loki shrank back under the weight of six pairs of pleading eyes – one of which belonged to his brother.

And his king, if one wanted to get really technical about this sort of thing.

Loki cleared his throat. “Well I don’t suppose I really have much choice in the matter, now do I? Not if I have any desire to go to bed tonight without making new enemies.”

He coughed delicately into his hand, and then offered up a faint smile. “By all means, read on, Darcy.”

“Why thank you,” she said in response, smugly. Prying the cover open again to where her thumb still rested, she turned a page, pretending to think.

Her husband crept to the back of the room and carefully folded his legs as he knelt beside Thor, jostling his brother slightly for better position.

Darcy smiled over her storybook.

“Now, where was I?”

Chapter Text

Sif is of the opinion that she has far, far too many cousins. Some of them are by half-blood and some of them are by matrimony, but honor and custom dictates that they are all her cousins, nonetheless. And that means there are certain courtesies she is expected to pay all of them.

Sif is of a mind that she only pays courtesies with ease to those she feels have earned it. Anything else she chafes and wriggles and scowls under, like the heavy fabric of formal dresses she was forced into wearing to court as a child.

It would not be so bad, she thinks, if it did not seem every time she turned around another cousin was getting married.

Sif has never enjoyed weddings. This is something about her that time has not improved but in fact made worse.

The latest cousin to announce himself as giving up bachelorhood for a life of wedded bliss is several years her younger, and Sif still remembers clearly when they spat cherry pits at each other across the dinner table one hot summer’s eve, until both their parents finally noticed and he was dragged away by the ear while she was given a firm scolding.

She might have considered him a favorite cousin of hers, if she were forced at the point of a sword to choose one, if not for how in the days leading up to the ceremony he names her as his second.

Any favor he’s ever curried with her vanishes that moment.

Bad enough she has to attend yet another wedding, wait on yet another dull and tedious formality. Now she is expected to play an active role in it as well?

She can tell by the looks on the faces of the Warriors Three they would love to laugh and make merry of her predicament.

But all it takes is one glance at the expression on hers to know better, and they bite their tongues.

“Alright then,” Sif says to them, stiffly as she can manage it. “Tomorrow is the day before the wedding. We all know what that means.”

Three heads nod back at her in agreement.

“Aye,” Fandral agrees. “Any thought yet as to what you’re going to do? For your, ah, ‘gift’?”

“If you need any suggestions…” Volstagg begins, but Sif quickly holds up her hand, stopping him.

“I have an idea. The only help I require of any of you is in retrieving it.”

Fandral brightens. “Oh, splendid! But of course we’d be happy to help you, Sif. Only tell us what we need do.”

Before she can explain however they are all distracted by the sound of feet and voices, as someone appears from around the corner of the corridor.

Darcy Lewis strolls along, not seeming at first to notice the presence of the others. In her hands is a thin golden leash, a brown and white unicorn foal gamboling and tugging at the end of it. Darcy is caught up in conversation and laughter with Loki, who is walking beside her, easily matching her pace.

The second prince spots Sif and the others and instantly he stills, gazing at them.

“Oh. I’m sorry. We didn’t mean to interrupt.” 

Reaching out a hand he clearly intends to take Darcy by the arm and lead her back the way they came. But Darcy doesn’t seem to notice his discomfort.

“Hey guys,” she greets the warriors, cheerily. She looks somewhat out of place in the long shift-like gown she’s been given to wear while she’s visiting. Her unicorn struggles at the end of its lead, bleating, but Darcy ignores it. “What’s going on?”

“Oh, nothing really,” Volstagg answers her, just as bright. “Just helping Sif get ready to serve her role in the upcoming nuptials.”

“Oh, that’s right – there’s that wedding in a few days,” Darcy remembers. Both her and Jane expressed interest in seeing an Asgardian wedding, and so they’ll be attending as Thor’s guests. “You’re in it, Sif? I didn’t know that. That’s cool. What are you, the maid of honor or something?”

Fandral’s forehead crinkles in confusion. “The maid of…what strange terms you have for things on Midgard, Darcy!” He laughs in a boisterous manner meant to get her to laugh along with him.

When Darcy does not, only staring at Fandral with a puzzled frown, he trails off awkwardly.

“It’s how they refer to the second of the bride,” Loki puts in, being the only one there who understands both worlds enough to translate. “And no, Darcy. Sif is the second to the groom.”

Darcy turns to look at Sif, blinking. “You’re the best man? Really? I mean…is that allowed?”

Fandral coughs. “It is usually a role fulfilled by a man, true-”

“It is a position of honor,” Hogun interrupts, his voice stately and somber. “It reflects well on the groom, to have at his side a renowned warrior of Asgard like Sif.”

Were Sif not so aggravated at even being in this situation to begin with and of the thought someone else can gladly have the honor, she’d be giving Hogun a smile.

“Okay. I see.” Darcy nods. “So what does a groom’s second have to do anyway? On Earth they like, keep track of the rings and throw the stag party.”

Sif sighs. “Mostly it is a meaningless position. In theory I am to attend upon the groom, which nominally translates into standing next to him at the ceremony and little else besides.”

“There are other…traditional tasks, though, as well,” Volstagg reminds her with what, for him, serves as a gentle nudge.

“Ah. The ‘morn before’ gifting,” Loki notes, shrewdly, understanding. “I had wondered why you were all standing about looking conspiratorial.”

“Yeahhh, I’m lost again,” Darcy says. She looks back and forth between them. “Somebody want to fill me in?”

“It’s, well, a prank really,” Fandral explains to her – taking the opportunity to step in close. “On the morning of the day before her wedding the bride will open the door to her chambers to find a gift left for her by her intended’s second.”

“It’s supposed to be something impractical,” Volstagg adds.

“And in some way be a reference to her ‘marital duties’,” Hogun finishes. “The last wedding I attended, the gift was many live rabbits.”

“I get it,” Darcy says, thinking. “It’s like Hitchcock without the stalking. So what are you going to do, Sif?”

Sif straightens, mouth set in a firm line. “I was thinking apples.”

“Apples?” Fandral frowns. “That’s a bit…halfhearted, don’t you think?”

“They’re a symbol of fertility, certainly a large pile of them can be thought more inconvenient than useful, and they’re easy enough to gather,” Sif snaps at him in response. Fandral flinches, and the Warriors Three quickly shift back. “Now you said you would help me. Are you men of your word or not?”

“No, no, of course we’ll assist you,” Volstagg says, the other two quickly chiming in with agreement.

“Yeah,” Darcy says far more eagerly. “We’d love to help you, Sif!”

This gets a sideways stare from Loki, who immediately realizes Darcy’s ‘we’ is to include him as well. “Excuse me?”

“Oh come on. The trickster, opting out on a chance to perform a prank? Even a sort of half-assed one?” Darcy rolls her eyes, absently stroking her fussing unicorn’s mane to calm it. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

“But I-” Loki steals a look Sif’s way and then very quickly breaks eye contact. “I don’t think Sif needs my help.”

“No, I do not,” Sif cannot resist saying, tersely. 

Loki bows his head to gaze at the ground and says nothing. But at the surprised look on Darcy’s face, Sif finds herself relenting. 

“But if the two of you would like to come along, it would be…welcome.”

The last word sticks somewhat on her tongue, but even Sif can give in out of mercy, on occasion. Darcy at least she does not mind at all. Loki she can tolerate, as she has on many occasions since his return.

However, Sif shoots an unyielding glower towards the unicorn by Darcy’s feet; currently it’s settled for chewing on a mouthful of her belt.

Sif points. “That thing stays.”

“Okay, yeah, sure.” Darcy tugs at the leash, pulling her belt from its teeth. “Come on, Spot. Let’s go leave you with Jane.”

There’s an orchard not far from the main palace grounds that boasts a wide array of apples, green red and yellow. The walk there is quick enough. Sif throws the woven baskets she brought down on the ground and begins gathering fruits off the lowest branches, tossing them in. Darcy and the men follow her example.

Sif works in swift wordlessness. The others, however, are much less so.

“You have to at least check to make sure they’re ripe, you know,” Fandral chides Hogun. The latter responds with a stony glower.

Volstagg, unsurprisingly, is already eating one of the plucked apples. Its shiny skin is almost as red as his beard. “How many do you think we need?”

Sif shrugs, careless. “Not sure.”

Darcy is frowning at an apple she picked only to discover its side is half brown and rotten. “I’ll bet all the better ones are still at the top.”

“Well spotted, my good lady!” Fandral exclaims. He draws his sword. “And in that case, I know just what to do!”

“Fandral, don’t-” Loki begins warningly.

Not listening, the warrior uses the flat of his blade to strike the nearest tree’s trunk, very hard. There’s a shake, and then a rumble; Fandral grins proudly as apples begin dropping from the tree in a veritable rain.

His grin vanishes as the apples start also landing on the heads of those nearby, himself included.

“Oof!” Volstagg bends forward, attempting to shield his head with armored forearms, only to be struck on his broad shoulders instead. “Oh, good plan, Fandral!”

“It was Darcy’s idea,” Fandral mutters, apparently put out enough to pin blame on a lady.

“Was not!” Darcy throws an apple at him – he ducks and it gets Hogun in the sternum. “Oh, shoot, sorry!”

Hogun’s only response is to darkly begin gathering up apples with both arms.

Fandral scoops up a very rotten fruit and chucks it in Darcy’s direction. She dodges out of the way, diving behind the nearest trunk.

Instead the projectile smacks wetly into the side of Loki’s face, leaving a trail of sticky pulp that smears and trickles slowly from forehead to collar.

Loki whips around to face Fandral, who is stepping back with a hand over his mouth to unsuccessfully conceal his laughter.

“You did that on purpose,” Loki snarls accusingly.

“Not entirely,” is Fandral’s very unconvincing protest. He’s caught in the crossfire as Loki uses magic to levitate an entire branch’s load of apples at him, and Hogun dumps the ammunition he’s gathered onto him all at once.

Volstagg joins the impromptu fruit fight with a broad smile. Within seconds the four of them are lobbing apples at one another from all directions, the Warriors Three going with the more straightforward approach while Loki conceals himself in the shadows and relies on sneak attacks instead.

Sif normally would take part as well, but today she is in no mood for childish antics. Frustrated, short-tempered, and more than ready to get away from foolhardy men, she finds the closest tree with good footholds and climbs her way up it.

From her half-concealed leafy perch she watches the fray below with arms folded, scowling.

“Hey! Wait for me.”

Sif looks down to see Darcy at the bottom of the tree. Kicking her shoes off, the other woman hikes up her skirt to well past her knees.

Behind her, Fandral goes still as he stares at the exposed length of leg, and from his hiding place Sif can see Loki’s throat working as he swallows. 

Sif rolls her eyes, but reaches an arm to assist Darcy’s ascent – there’s only room enough for two in the tree, and if Darcy holds it then it assures one of the others cannot.

The other woman takes a moment to settle herself in the branches, shifting position and brushing off her dress.

“So,” she remarks at length, “can I ask? Is it this one in particular that’s got you all hot and bothered, or is it all weddings? Because I’ve noticed you don’t exactly seem very happy.”

“The latter,” Sif responds, short. She turns her head away, frowning tartly. “I dislike weddings.”

Darcy nods. She glances toward the ground. “I’m not always crazy about them myself. Especially when they’re for people you don’t really know, like distant relatives, or your parents’ work friends? But you have to go anyway and sit through the whole thing and act like you’re happy for the couple, like you really care.” Her feet swing idly.

“It’s gotten better now that I’m older, but when I was a kid I thought it totally sucked. My mom always used to tell me ‘You’ll feel different about it when it’s your turn’.”

“I will probably never be married,” Sif states. Her voice is clear and firm, unhesitant, but still a slight flush creeps up her throat at her having the nerve to pronounce the previously unspoken thing aloud.

Darcy looks at her in questioning surprise. “Why not?” She grimaces, thinking. “Is it because, of…you know?” She mimes the act of holding a sword with both her hands. “The whole warrior maid thing?”

“That is a big part of it,” Sif agrees. “There are those still that would vie for my hand, either because they thought they could control me and still my passions if I were their wife, or simply because I’m of noble birth and would thus be a worthy match…regardless of my ‘unfeminine predilections’.”

Her derision for this manner of thinking is clear in every word she pronounces, and her eyes roll heavy in punctuation. Darcy stares.

“You guys are kind of…way, way behind on that gender equality idea,” she finally says. “Like, as a whole.”

Sif shrugs. She reaches to cup her knees.

“But if I were to marry, it would have to be to a man who understood and accepted me, as I was; in all my ways, unconventional or not,” she murmurs. “Who did not just tolerate or even allow it, but…one who truly saw me for what I am and will always be, as a warrior.”

With a rueful smile Sif indicates the four that still tussle with one another, now mostly without the apples but with weapons and magic and fists, down below. “There’re few who could unhesitatingly view me that way, and those that do…”

“Permanently in the ‘friend’ zone,” Darcy suggests. Sif gives a brief snort of laughter, nodding.

“We have known each other since we were children – we scrapped and bled together more often than not. They are like brothers to me. I could never see them any other way.”

Sif bites her lip, however, thinking of a brief time when that wasn’t entirely true. 

When her girlish eyes considered one of her battle companions differently, as they lingered on him: a young prince with dark hair, bright eyes and a sharp but clever tongue.

It was a feeling she had at the time suspected - still suspects - was mutual, shared looks and occasional acts saying what words never did. But neither of them ever acted on it, and then …well that’s fully over now.

But Sif does not mention such a thing, not to Darcy. For inexperienced though she may be in matters of the heart, she is no fool. Darcy lingers often in Loki’s presence – she is, without a doubt, the closest friend to a man who would now bitterly swear he has none. 

Nothing may come of it yet. But something very easily could. Until that time, everyone else around the two moves carefully, fearful and wary of upsetting the balance either way.

“There really aren’t any other guys on Asgard who might be able to look past that stuff and get with the times?” Darcy asks, oblivious to Sif’s thoughts, jarring her from them.

“Maybe. It’s not impossible. But.”

Sif pauses.

Darcy pokes her with a fingertip. “But…?” she prompts. Sif draws a breath.

“I don’t wish to have children,” she explains. Darcy begins to frown and so Sif continues, all in a rush, before she can say any of the usual things. “I have nothing against the concept of families, I don’t think that it would ‘get in the way’ of things, I don’t dislike children; I don’t even necessarily fear that I would be a bad parent." 

She catches her breath again before finishing, softly, "I simply have no desire to be a mother.”

“Oh. Okay. Right.” Darcy sounds a little uncertain still, but to Sif’s pleased relief doesn’t at all appear about to start arguing with her. “Guess it’s not for everyone.”

“It isn’t for me,” Sif agrees. “My life will be fulfilled through other means.” He gaze drops briefly to her hands and legs. “But the thought of a married but still childless woman on Asgard is…unheard of.”

“So that’s the deal-breaker,” Darcy guesses. She winces in sympathy.

Sif gives her a thin, weary smile. “Even among the more understanding men of Asgard, having a family is considered a point of honor. Fathering sons to carry their names on. It is our way. So even if I were lucky enough to find one who loved me as both a warrior and a woman, they would never be willing to forgo that. Never. And so it is not meant to be.”

“I’m sorry,” Darcy says. “It’s awful to think that you’re going to be alone forever, just because you would choose to live your life the way you want.”

Sif gives a haughty scoff. She rolls her eyes at such a statement. “I never said I intended to die a maid,” she says bluntly. “Indeed – were I to fall from this tree right now, I would not die one.”

Darcy is sniggering, one fist pressed to her mouth, and Sif leans in, her smile growing gentler.

“Besides. I am not alone.” She nods towards the ground.

There is a distant cry of triumph from Fandral as he avoids one of Loki’s spells, and Volstagg is thrown down with a huff as Hogun tackles him.

“I’ll always have my companions.” Sif can feel herself growing warm with the reminder as she continues to smile. “They are all the family I will ever need.”

“Right.” Darcy smiles back at that, smugly, and moves to give Sif a hug. Sif allows it.

She sits there in the tree, at peace, with her mortal friend’s head resting on her shoulder, as they watch the antics of their other friends from above.

Chapter Text

“You know, if I had to isolate the most trying part of my job?” Coulson finds himself remarking as they make their way down the hall. “It’s that a good eighty-seven percent of it is having to wrangle super-powered or otherwise enhanced beings that I technically outrank but refuse to listen to me. When they’re not actively belittling me or treating me like some combined errand boy and messenger service. It’s a bit more like being a babysitter than it is a federal agent.”

“Really? Huh. That’s funny, because I don’t ever really get that sense.”

“That’s because you’re one of the unruly children in this scenario, Agent Barton. Try to keep up.”

He keeps his eyes straight ahead, never bothering to turn and look at his companion, but he can tell Barton shoots a dirty look at him all the same.

After a beat though, the other man asks, offhandedly curious, “Eighty-seven percent?”

“I’ve done the math.”

“It feels like it should be higher.”

“You’d be surprised. I go through a lot of paperwork.”

The door to Dr. Foster’s research station slides open with the same pristine efficient hiss characteristic of all the SHIELD facilities. Without hesitation Coulson enters, Barton close on his heels.

The interior of the lab could be described as somewhat less than pristine. Astrophysics means no exploded experimental leftovers, and there aren’t any dirty dishes lying about, but Dr. Foster has a somewhat unorthodox approach to paperwork filing.

It makes something in Coulson twitch to see all those documents stacked at haphazard diagonals, probably not even alphabetized. There are things that can be said about Dr. Banner and his anger management issues, but at least the man’s a compulsive neat freak.

“Dr. Foster. Dr. Selvig,” he greets the two individuals near the center of the lab. The former barely looks up from where she’s tinkering with some device he can’t identify but can only assume SHIELD paid for. The latter is standing back, watching, and he at least deigns to give Coulson a nod and a smile before going back to drinking his coffee. “Hard at work I see.”

“Yes, we are.” She circles around the device, checking a reading, eyes still firmly on it rather than aimed at anything or anyone else. There’s a not at all restrained note of annoyance in her tone. “So whatever it is you’ve come to bug me about this time, I hope you’ll get to it quickly.”

“Jane,” Dr. Selvig admonishes her. He gives the two men an awkward grin. “You know how she gets, with her work. I’m sure she doesn’t mean it personally.”

He punctuates this last part with something not unlike a glare in Dr. Foster’s direction.

“I’m sure.” Dr. Selvig always remembers to fill his forms out on time, in triplicate, so Coulson feels obliged to give him a little bit more leniency. “Actually I was merely wondering if either of the two of you had any idea as to Thor’s whereabouts.” He clasps his hands in front of him. “I thought we might find him here but looking around it’s obvious you haven’t stashed him in a corner.”

“We’re up in twenty for a team briefing on a new assignment,” Barton adds helpfully. “And you know how Fury feels about having to repeat himself.”

Dr. Selvig blinks, bemused. “He doesn’t.”

Barton gives an odd-looking smirk. “Exactly.”

“He’s at the Bifrost site.” Dr. Foster finally looks at Coulson, though it’s mostly because she’s stepped back from her tinkering for a moment, wiping her brow. “Greeting his friends. They’re dropping by to visit for a few days.”

Coulson frowns. “Dr. Foster. May I remind you – again – that every planned activation of the Bifrost device is to be reported beforehand and handled accordingly.”

She only rolls her eyes. “Try telling that to Thor. Sometimes it’s all I can do to keep him from wanting to use it like a New York subway. But of course, until the real thing on his home-world is repaired, it’s not nearly stable enough for that.”

“More’s the pity,” Coulson says, deadpan. 

He supposes he’s being unsympathetic – after all, it would probably be a lot nicer for Thor if he could still live on Asgard without compromising his availability as an Avenger. But it isn’t Thor he’s worried about; it’s the three-ring circus he brings to town every time he has guests.

“Now, when you say ‘his friends’,” Barton begins, with the grimace of a man who’s belatedly thought of something, “does that just mean friends? Because I think Sif and the guys are cool. But if Loki’s going to be showing up, I’m gonna-”

“You’ll what, Hawkeye?” 

Loki leans his upper body against a large piece of computer equipment just behind them, as casual as if he’s been there the whole time. 

Barton whirls around, arm moving as if to draw an arrow from the quiver he isn’t wearing at present.

Coulson doesn’t even blink. Really, he was expecting as much to happen.

Loki meets Barton’s eyes unhesitatingly as he continues, cool, “Really, I’m actually more than a little interested to hear this.”

Barton grits his teeth. “Never mind. It’s nothing I can describe in mixed company.”

Loki’s only response is a derisive scoff.

“Welcome back to Earth, Mr. Odinson,” Coulson offers in a tone of neutral politeness.

“How are you even here?” Barton demands, hostile. “The wormhole thing hasn’t gone off yet.”

“Bifrost generator,” Dr. Selvig and Dr. Foster say at once.

“Whatever! That.”

Loki examines his nails briefly. “You forget that I don’t actually need your little toy to get here from Asgard. Or any other realm, for that matter.” He looks up at Barton again from half-lidded eyes. “One of the many benefits of being able to think for myself.”

“Okay. If you’re going to call me ‘stupid’, just say it, all right?” Barton snaps at him, storming closer. “Don’t try to hide it behind your pretty-boy words, you two-faced snake-”

“Barton, don’t make me tase one or both of you,” Coulson says.

Thankfully they’re interrupted at that moment by a faint tremor that lasts about ten seconds, not strong enough to knock anything from the counters in the lab but definitely enough to be felt, and the lights going out for a moment before just as quickly coming back on.

“Ah. There you are,” Loki notes. “That would be the rest of them.”

Coulson’s walkie-talkie crackles to life. “Sir, we have reason to believe there’s been a recent arrival from Asgard.”

He picks it up, staring straight at Loki as he answers as if daring him to say anything. “Thank you, agent,” he responds with no inflection. “But I’m aware of that already.”

Barton is muttering something that sounds like “once a super villain, always a super villain”, while giving the Asgardian a dirty look.

From a distance, they can already hear Thor’s booming, cheery voice as he talks it up with his buddies.

The door on the other side of the lab slides open and Dr. Foster’s assistant sticks her head in.

“Hey, Jane? I can borrow the keys to the van, right?” she asks brightly. “The Asgardians are here and we’re going for ice cream!”

“You don’t say,” Dr. Foster says wryly. 

Loki waves at the young woman, causing her to launch herself at him with a squeal – something that, judging from the look on his face, he wasn’t entirely expecting.

“Loki! You big sneak! I didn’t know you were coming to visit too.” She gives him a hug, while Barton stands off to the side looking very put out. “What an awesome surprise!”

“I’m happy to see you too, Darcy,” Loki manages, looking mildly uncomfortable.

Coulson wonders if ‘bear hugs’ are an acceptable addition to the files under ‘known weaknesses’.

“C’mon,” Darcy tugs at Loki’s wrist, trying to force him to his feet, “ice cream! We’re all going.”

“Thor isn’t going,” Coulson interrupts. “He’s needed in the assembly room in,” he glances at his watch, “sixteen and a half minutes.”

“Fine, but the Warriors Three and Sif are going.” Darcy rolls her eyes. “So, come on!”

“But I don’t even-” Loki begins.

She cuts him off with, “I’ll let you drive.”

“Oh…very well. I’ll go get my brother for you, shall I?”

Loki shuffles out looking, in Coulson’s estimation, more like a man on his way to a dentist appointment or a board meeting than a miniature road trip to get frozen treats.

“What’s his problem?” he asks. “Is he lactose intolerant?”

“Oh, he just gets all weird about being around his old friends from Asgard, sometimes.” Darcy waves a hand. “All of Thor’s stuff about bygones being bygones aside, guess they can still be a little hard on him.”

“Gee I wonder why,” Barton says, snippily. “Seriously, kid – I thought you were pretty cool, but you have got the worst possible taste in friends.”

“Loki’s nice,” Darcy retorts. “Sure he’s got, like, more than a couple problems he should probably be in therapy for, but I’m not going to hear any judging going on from the guy who’s probably slinging arrows to work out his daddy issues or something.” She shrugs. “Besides, he’s the only one I trust to take care of my unicorn.”

Barton raises his eyebrows.

Darcy gives him a withering look. “So not a euphemism.”

“Hey, whatever.” Barton holds up his hands, chuckling bemusedly. “If you say so.”

Dr. Selvig coughs. “Er, Darcy? Do you think you all could bring me back a milkshake or something?”

Seven minutes and forty-five seconds later, five Asgardians plus Miss Lewis have successfully left the compound, and Coulson is escorting Agent Barton and what can only be described as very sulky God of Thunder back to the assembly room.

Oh well, Coulson thinks to himself. 

At least he’ll have a tin roof sundae to look forward to while he’s finishing his paperwork later.

Chapter Text

Darcy has never believed in fate.

Even if she did, it wouldn’t have mattered. She wasn’t given a chance to see this one coming.

It’s all about traditions, see. Everything in Asgard is. A code of conduct, built up over centuries on ideas of nobility, and chivalry, and ‘standards’.

Rules even these so-called gods themselves probably don’t understand the origins behind any more, Darcy secretly suspects, but that they would never, ever think to question.

The trouble all starts when they finally fix the Bifrost. It’s taken about two years, which might seem like a drop in the bucket to them, but still seems like kind of a ridiculously long time to her, especially considering these were the people that built the freaking thing in the first place. And especially when considering Jane basically hurtled through generations of scientific progress in a matter of months to engineer her own makeshift one, from scratch.

In any case though, they have a Bifrost again. A real one. A much more reliable and, probably, safer one, that the Asgardians have been using to zip around for eons.

But Jane’s SHIELD-funded, powered by storms and occasionally held together by a wish and prayer Bifrost didn’t come with any rules.

The real thing does.

Well, one big rule, anyway: no one who isn’t from Asgard is allowed to summon it.

Apparently not being of the right race means the difference between a trip to another world and being a crazy person standing in a field yelling up at the sky, while Heimdall is contractually obligated to pretend he can’t hear you.

Darcy thinks that counts as discriminatory, but considering Asgard still hasn’t come completely around to the idea of women wearing pants, she knows arguing would probably be pointless.

So there it is. If any of the Avengers ever need to get to the other realms for some reason, they can always hitch a ride with Thor. And Jane and Thor are doing what Asgard calls ‘courting’ and most people on Earth call ‘dating’ and what Darcy calls ‘you really need to lock that down already, seriously’ - the point is, Jane gets honorary Bifrost privileges, because of their relationship.

But Darcy is nothing…just a friend to Thor, Sif, Loki, Fandral, Volstagg and Hogun. That’s all. So she doesn’t get any kind of a deal like that. If she wants to visit she’ll have to wait for one of them to come and get her.

That basically makes her the kid in high school who hasn’t gotten his license yet and so is stuck waiting around for one of his friends to give him a ride every time he wants to go somewhere. 

And like hell she’s putting up with that.

So she asks the question, “There has got to be some way around that.”

And after asking it enough times, pestering the right people, she eventually gets the response, “Well, actually…maybe there is.”

This is how she first hears about the Ritual of Names.

It’s a very old tradition, one that hasn’t been used in a while, from back in the days when slumming it on Midgard and befriending the locals was basically what all the cool kids did every weekend. 

Every once in a while they’d met someone really special, like a king, or a hero - or a fine piece of tail she guesses, although no one actually tells her that part - and want to bring them home and maybe even let them come back to visit whenever they wanted. And they’d get around the ‘no mortals allowed to drive the Bifrost’ rule by giving them an Asgardian name.

It’s not as simple as picking something from a book. There’s a special, mystic ritual she’ll have to undergo. A kind of initiation that magically binds her second name to her, so that as far as the forces of the cosmos or whatever are concerned it’s as much her true name as the one she was given at birth.

So maybe it’s not as simple as going to the DMV. But it’s supposed to be painless, and it only takes a day, and Darcy figures it’s a relatively small price to pay for keeping the ability to see her friends.

Especially Loki. Because there are some times when she thinks if it wasn’t for her, he wouldn’t have anyone to talk to at all.

The beginning of the ritual is pretty straightforward. She gets up at dawn. She goes to a building on Asgard she’s never visited before. She takes a ceremonial bath, and there are two attendants to help wash her which is…okay, kind of weird. But they’re not like creepy pervs or anything, just two other women, and they act very professional.

Afterwards she’s given a plain white sheath of a dress. Then she’s led to an empty room with white marble tiled floors, and white marble walls, and nothing else, just a cushion for her to sit on and an empty wooden table which she’s told will “be important later”.

There she’s left alone, told to “meditate and clear her mind of any thoughts”. She figures that means sit quietly and think of nothing, which is easy enough to do, considering she had to get up so early and hasn’t had anything to eat because part of the ritual is fasting. She’s in a state where staring off into space and being a lump is the perfect activity to engage in.

After a few hours she zones out enough that she loses most sense of time passing. She sort of jumps when the door finally opens and in strolls a woman that, from the way she’s dressed, she guesses must be a priestess.

The priestess is carrying a large stone basin in both hands. She sets it down on the wooden table, and Darcy gets up and comes closer for a better look.

It’s filled with water and what at first look like moving bits of light. Darcy leans in and watches closely, until she realizes that they’re shaped like symbols of some kind, shimmering as they shift back and forth in the confines of the basin, swimming like they were fish.

“They’re runes,” the priestess explains. “The symbols used in our formal writing, and also the basis for our spells.”

“What do I have to do?” Darcy asks.

“Reach into the basin and pick out the runes that speak the most to you. Those will be used to form your new name.”

Darcy peers into the water again, rising on her toes. “Does it matter that I can’t actually read any of those?” she has to question, skeptically.

The priestess gives a faint smile. “In a way it might make things easier for you. You won’t be distracted by any values you might ascribe to the symbols, and will instead go by your feelings alone.”

“Um, okay.” Darcy looks down into the basin. “If you say so.” She watches the runes float by.

At first she doesn’t feel anything. None of the little glowing symbols are exactly ‘speaking’ to her. She’s afraid she’s taking too long, but the priestess never says a word, just stands patiently by with her hands folded and a content smile upon her face.

Darcy reaches out and puts her fingers in the water. It’s cooler than she expected, like a stream out in the wild. After a moment she suddenly finds herself reaching towards one of the runes moving past her fingertips, closing her hand around it.

She pulls it out, looking at the little shape, now motionless and its colors more solid as it lies in the center of her wet palm.

She doesn’t love it. She doesn’t hate it. It just feels…okay. She figures she can live with that.

She continues to pull out runes from the water at what she feels is random, but the priestess never stops her or tells her she’s doing it wrong. The symbols lie next to each other where Darcy places them on the table beside the basin, the water quickly drying off of them despite the temperance of the air.

When she feels like she must be done she takes a little step back, fisting both her hands at her sides. She looks at the priestess warily.

“So, is it good? Did I do okay?”

The priestess doesn’t respond with words. Instead she starts sorting through the runes Darcy picked out, moving them around until, Darcy guesses, they form something that actually makes a serviceable first name.

She tries to fight off the nagging fear that she’s screwed this up horribly somehow. That she’s going to end up being called whatever the Asgardian equivalent is to ‘Goober’, or something even worse.

“There.” The priestess stops at last, satisfied. “What do you think?”

Darcy looks at the strand of symbols. She thinks they look good the way they’ve been lined up. Almost pretty, even, like the beginning of a pattern.

“What does it mean?” she has to ask though, cautious.

The priestess makes a thoughtful sound. “Well. This part together, that means ‘victory’. And these…when they’re in that order, it’d be something like ‘female companion’. So I suppose the best way to transliterate it would be, ‘She who is victorious’.”

“It means ‘victorious girlfriend’?” Darcy translates for herself. “Oh yeah, awesome. Sign me up. I’ll gladly go with that.”

The priestess takes on the briefly pained smile that Darcy’s seen before a lot on Asgard; it’s an expression she’s come to think of as “humoring the commoner”. But she nods, and sweeps the runes up in her hand.

“Oh wait – how do you say it? What does it sound like?”

The priestess says it out loud, and Darcy thinks it sounds pretty nice. She asks the other woman to say it again, and then repeats it back carefully to make sure she’s got it, because she doesn’t want to be known as the dunce from Midgard that can’t even pronounce her own name right.

The final step is the only part that hurts. The runes of the name are physically bonded to her body – meaning that they’re basically tattooed, with magic, into her skin. 

It doesn’t feel even a fraction as bad as a real tattoo probably would, but it still stings in a way that makes her teeth clench, as the symbols melt into her back.

A small price to pay, she reminds herself. One that makes no difference to anything else in her life, in the end.

The ritual completed, she’s escorted back to the palace, to the room where she stays whenever she’s a guest, and told that she should probably sleep.

No one has to tell her twice. Darcy folds back the covers and climbs into bed, falling into darkness almost as soon as she lays down her head on the pillow. 

Her dreams are oddly consuming, twisting around like serpents, and she keeps seeing a huge tree with curling roots and spreading branches, and a familiar pair of green eyes.

When she wakes she feels rested if a little out of it. She can tell the sun has gone down, but somebody must’ve come in and lit the lanterns while she was sleeping.

Darcy gets out of bed and pads on bare feet towards the mirror on the wall. Turning around, she looks over her shoulder and pulls the back of her shift aside enough to see her new mark.

It’s kind of big; big enough that she’s not looking forward to explaining it in the future to anyone who sees her naked. But it sits about midway between her shoulder blades and her waist, which means it’ll be easy enough to keep covered as long as she’s not wearing a bikini or a backless gown.

There’s a knock on the door. Darcy quickly pulls her dress back up.

“Um. Come in.”

Her stomach does a sort of uneasy little flip when the door slides open and Frigga strolls in.

The queen smiles at her. “How are we feeling, my dear?”

“Oh. Uh. Much better.” Darcy rubs at her neck absently. “You know, now that I’ve had a nap.”

Frigga is always super nice, but Darcy never knows how to act around her. She feels weird enough around the parents of people she’s friends with anyway, because she’s an adult now but in that way where she sometimes still feels like a kid talking to grownups. And then Frigga is, you know. Royalty.

If Frigga notices her recurrent case of the awkward, though, she takes it in stride. “I was wondering if you were up to coming to the feasting hall to join everyone for dinner.”

Darcy thinks about it, and quickly decides that she’s hungry. “Sure. I would.”

Frigga leaves while she brushes her hair and splashes some water on her face, and comes back shortly with a fancy Asgardian dress for her to wear.

Which is great, except Darcy has a problem getting into some of these fancy Asgardian dresses.

“Oh, um. Uh.” She can’t help it –she’s totally blushing. “Do you think that maybe you could…I mean, please…?”

“Of course,” Frigga responds mildly. “I’d be happy to help you.”

Darcy manages to stammer out “Thank you”, and resists the urge to go find a corner to die in.

And then, as Frigga is fastening up the back of the dress for her, the queen pauses. 

She’s staring at the runes inked into Darcy’s back.

“That’s your Asgardian name?” she asks. There’s an odd, quiet tone in her voice, and when she raises her eyes to meet Darcy’s in the mirror, they look slightly widened.

“Yeah,” Darcy answers, too startled to do anything else. “Yes, that’s it.”

“You picked that out entirely by yourself?” Frigga murmurs. Her gaze rests on the symbols. “No one prompted or led you towards them?”

“No, I…it says something bad, doesn’t it?” Darcy’s heart sinks. “Crap. I knew it. Of all the rotten luck.”

“Oh no, not at all. It’s a perfectly fine name,” Frigga reassures her. “There isn’t a problem. Not really. It’s just…” 

She pauses, tilting her head as she looks at Darcy, considering.

“Darcy, I forget. The stories mortals tell of us, on Midgard…you don’t know very much of them, do you?”

“Nah, not really.” Erik keeps bringing books home and trying to foist them onto them. Jane’s read some, but Darcy never gets around to it.

It’s a waste of time, she figures – if anything were important, Loki or Thor would mention it anyway, right?

“Why?” she asks, and Frigga only shrugs, and smiles.

“No reason. I was reminded of something, just now.” She finishes tying Darcy’s dress. “I’m sure you wouldn’t like to hear about it.”

Before she walks off, she briefly rests a hand on Darcy’s shoulder. She speaks softly, her voice warm, even by her standards.

“But it is very nice to meet you…Sigyn.”

Darcy gives a little smile of her own, oddly proud, at hearing herself addressed by her Asgardian name. “Thanks.”

She’s surprised when she arrives at the table to find a place has been cleared for her right next to Loki, who looks just as puzzled by the arrangement as her. The royalty thing and all means she’s usually stuck squeezing in a lot further down next to the Warriors Three.

But hey, Darcy’s always noticed Frigga looking out for her younger son, and probably she just wants to do something nice for him by putting his friend by him. She’s thoughtful like that.

Darcy slides her way onto the bench, greeting Loki as she does. Their legs bump briefly before she settles herself, and they exchange an amused grin.

At the head of the table Frigga is whispering something in Odin’s ear. But Darcy ignores it, figuring whatever it is it’s none of her business, and starts scooping food onto her plate.

It will only be much, much later, when her and Loki are no longer merely friends, after they’ve kissed, after they’ve done much more than that besides, that anyone will finally tell her.

And briefly Darcy will curse herself, annoyed, that she never bothered to read up on her mythology.

Chapter Text

The first major event of the week arrived in the form of a supervillain attack on greater downtown Los Angeles. The entire team was sent out in response.

Coulson had previously dismissed the Wrecking Crew as second-stringers at best, but afterward he had to mentally upgrade his estimation. Only a truly evil force would choose to stage full-scale city-wide devastation on a Monday morning.

After the altercation was reported as concluded successfully, he waited in front of the elevator leading from the jet’s hanger bay. His timing was almost perfect – the doors opened a mere two minutes later.

Thor and Stark strode out, too busy congratulating each other at first to notice anything else.

“Well, I have to give credit where credit is due, pal,” Stark was saying. “That really was some spectacular aim with the lightning rod effect on your part there.”

Thor smirked, tossing his hammer up and down so that it rotated in the air, yet never failing to catch it by the handle.

“Ah, but it would not have been nearly so successful a gambit if not for your timely distraction, my friend.”

He gave the other a hearty pat on the shoulder. Stark faltered a bit, but didn’t budge from where he had an arm draped companionably around Thor’s neck.

“Probably not.” Stark gestured with the glass tumbler he’d somehow already gotten hold of, ice cubes clinking. “But I had a perfect opening. Nice work with that pick-up, Bruce!”

“You’re welcome.” Dr. Banner followed his teammates out of the elevator with a slightly more subdued expression.

Taking in the fact he was wearing nothing but his shorts, Coulson made a mental note to add a building damages reimbursement form to the paperwork he would be filling out.

“Mr. Stark.” He stepped forward. “I believe it’s already been made clear to you – several times, in fact – what the leadership of the Initiative thinks about you drinking while you’re on the job.”

The three of them stopped mid-step, having been effectively caught by surprise.

“Technically I’m not on the job.” At least Stark had the good graces to throw ‘technically’ in there, considering the only part of the Iron Man armor he’d removed was the faceplate. “We’ve just come from the job. This is me after.”

Thor chortled. “Yes, and he has much to celebrate. Not only did we successfully vanquish our foes, but this good fellow has just won another round of ‘mission bingo’.”

“You can probably let it go over just one drink, Agent,” Dr. Banner added, with a wry observation: “I think Tony here was well-versed in holding his liquor by the time he was eighteen.”

“Please,” Stark objected primly. “Seventeen and a half.”

“‘Mission bingo’?” Coulson asked, backing the conversation up a bit. “I’m afraid I’m not familiar. Explain.”

The doctor coughed. “Well it was Clint’s idea, mostly-”

“Shocking,” Coulson interjected. “Where are Agents Barton and Romanoff, by the way?”

“Stayed behind to help supervise the clean-up,” Stark explained. There was another clink from his glass and, seriously, where did he manage to find both scotch and ice between there and the hanger bay? Coulson was going to have to look into this.

“I see. And Captain Rogers?”

“Oh, okay, see.” Both Stark and Thor were grinning, and even Dr. Banner seemed to be covering a laugh. “That’s getting back to your first question, actually.”

“In order to play this game, we each draw lots from a bag in turns,” Thor added. “Each lot has some different event written upon it.”

“Something that may or may not happen on the mission,” Banner picked up. “There are always four far more likely ones, like ‘Thor hits a thug in the face with Mjolnir’, or ‘Black Widow uses a chokehold’…the idea is whoever has the most things that happen, each time, is the winner.”

“But then we each also get one, much more significantly rarer possibility as well. And if that happens, it’s an instant victory.” Stark slapped Thor on the back, beaming. “And that’s why Steve isn’t here. See for yourself.”

With some difficulty he slid a tiny scrap of paper from one of the suit’s front compartments and handed it over.

Coulson read aloud, “‘Teammate helps deliver a baby’.”

“Can you believe it? What are the odds of there being a pregnant woman within range of the action to conveniently go into labor like that?” Stark shook his head. “Of course it was Steve that happened to cross paths with her – I mean, it would be.”

“He chose to accompany her along to the hospital afterwards, to be sure she was alright,” Thor affirmed, his tone indicating he approved of Captain America’s thoroughness and gallantry.

Coulson’s face remained a complete blank. “Well. Whatever celebratory measures you choose to partake in, I expect you all to have filled out your reports on this by the end of today.”

He got three variations on an affirmative mutter.

“Oh, and gentlemen?” Coulson held up the hand with the paper slip in it, and crumpled it. “No more gambling on the job.”

*

By Tuesday afternoon, Coulson had yet to receive a single report on the mission.

He was far from surprised but it was something of an aggravation. The moment he had time to spare, he walked through the base looking for Avengers.

Barton and Rogers were unreachable, as they had gone out jogging. Dr. Banner was nowhere to be found, but that turned out to not be important as his typed report was sitting in the middle of one of the tables in his lab inside an unlabeled manila folder. Apparently he simply forgot to turn it in, or hadn’t had the chance to.

One down, Coulson thought, three to go.

He found the rest in the area they considered their break room. Thor and Stark were seated in the leather couches surrounding the big screen, the television on mute as they chatted. Agent Romanoff had her back to them where she was writing something at a table on the opposite side of the room, seemingly doing her best to ignore her two teammates.

It wasn’t hard to figure out why, when it only took a few seconds of overheard conversation for Coulson to conclude they were swapping stories of their ‘conquests’.

“You have to be making up that last part.” Stark could barely speak around his sniggers.

“No! Truly! They were this big.” Thor cupped his hands largely, holding them out in front of them. “You should have seen the look on Fandral’s face.”

They both fell into boisterous laughter. The redheaded woman shook her head, rolling her eyes.

Coulson decided to leave the two for the moment. He strode in the female operative’s direction instead. “Agent Romanoff-”

“Working on it right now, Coulson,” she barked, not bothering to look up.

Stark was wiping his eyes. “Gotta love a big-boned Nordic woman,” he remarked in response to the tale Thor had been telling. The Asgardian made a sound of profound agreement. Stark glanced over at him, thoughtful. “You know, that brunette you’ve always got tagging along with you and your Viking boys, what’s her name, Sif-”

“She would slice you in half,” Thor cut him off, matter-of-fact, reaching for the bowl of pretzels nearby.

“Ah.” Stark frowned, as Thor took a big handful and stuffed them in his mouth at once. “Well. I guess you would know. I mean, you’ve only known her for, what…a couple hundred years…?”

Thor swallowed, craning his neck to look behind them. “What about you, Son of Coul?” he asked inquisitively. “Have you any fine tales of women to tell?”

Coulson leaned against the table the Black Widow was at, arms folded. “My father’s name was William, Thor.”

“That sounds like an evasion if I’ve ever heard one.” Stark glanced at him as well. “Come on, what about it? I’m sure you must have a few stories. Didn’t you use to be a spymaster general, or something?”

“Any activities I undertook of that nature would be classified,” Coulson stated. “As would Agent Romanoff’s for that matter – I’m surprised the two of you haven’t been bothering her with your questions.”

“Yeah, well.” Stark cleared his throat, shifting as he made a dismissive sound. “I don’t think Thor here and I would be nearly as interested in hearing the details about Natasha’s former dance partners.”

“Descriptions of romantic interludes are not as…evocative, when they are all about other men,” Thor chimed in, even more blunt.

Agent Romanoff still didn’t look up from her paperwork as she replied, flat, “Who said I only ever seduced men?”

Thor and Stark exchanged a look. And then in unison they both turned their heads to gaze at her with great interest.

Coulson let out a sigh.

*

On Wednesday, Coulson was still waiting for Iron Man and Thor to turn in their paperwork. He couldn’t even harass the two of them about it personally, the latter having taken the Bifrost back to Asgard and the former having mumbled something about a Victoria’s Secret party in Tokyo before disappearing.

Admittedly, however, the reports really weren’t at the top of Coulson’s lists of concerns just then, considering the nearly-sentient tidal wave that had just deposited a giant squid right at their front door.

The giant squid in turn had stretched out one tentacle, and down from it had stepped a tall, muscular, mostly humanoid-looking man, with arrogantly regal bearing and wearing nothing but fish scales.

The man marched forward, facing those that’d come running to see what all the commotion was.

Hawkeye had his compound bow out and ready to be aimed. Captain Rogers was missing his cowl but he still raised his shield. Loki, never one to miss out on the fun, was probably already planning a spell to cast.

Darcy Lewis, who had followed along after her visiting boyfriend, was just staring.

The merman didn’t even appear to have seen Coulson, who was standing about three feet to his right. Probably his physical appearance wasn’t sufficiently high-ranking enough to have warranted attention.

Instead he gazed haughtily at the four others, and launched immediately into a lengthy and verbose if admittedly quite eloquent speech.

The end sum of it, Coulson gathered from listening attentively, was that he was Namor, the self-proclaimed Prince of the Seas, and more importantly of an undersea kingdom he called, appropriately enough, Atlantis. 

Having heard of the Avengers and their activity, Namor had journeyed to their present location in order to join their “little band” of warriors, so that he might better protect his people from the “dangers of the surface-dwelling world”.

Finished speaking, he drew his chin up, gazing at the targets of his discourse in a way that was unnervingly both fixated and dismissive.

“Any questions?” Namor demanded.

“Uh, yeah.” Barton stared at him with palpable disbelief. “Do they not have pants, where you’re from?”

“Oh, come on, Clint.” Ms. Lewis twirled a lock of hair around her finger, her gaze going somewhere that was definitely not Prince Namor’s face, or anywhere above his belt, for that matter, as she bit at her lower lip. “Don’t you know you should be accepting of other people’s…cultural differences.”

Loki, Barton and Rogers all slowly turned their heads in her direction. She didn’t appear to notice.

Barton’s incredulous expression was intended for Ms. Lewis, but the Captain’s raised eyebrows were aimed more at Loki. As if he was trying to silently say “She’s your girlfriend”.

Loki’s mouth twitched, and after a moment he raised a hand in front of Ms. Lewis’ eyes, blocking her view.

Coulson meanwhile had pulled out his cell phone.

“Get Director Fury,” he ordered into it. “There’s someone down here that I think he’s going to want to meet.”

Stealing a glance upward at the still-looming squid – and he hoped he imagined that it was giving him a dirty look - he couldn’t resist adding, “Immediately.”

*

By Thursday Coulson had in his possession one full mission report from Thor, slightly rumpled, and ink-spotted on the attached page where the Asgardian had found it necessary to sign with his full name in giant script and his royal insignia.

He still had nothing from Tony Stark, the last and final hold-out. By this point, Coulson had decided that he was going to sit on him until he did.

“Seriously, are you planning on following me everywhere?” Stark asked, notably discomfited when he exited to restroom to find Coulson still waiting for him. “All day?”

He started walking, and Coulson didn’t hesitate to fall into step alongside him. 

“Because I can only imagine this is going to get incredibly tedious for us both.”

“I imagine you’re very correct in that assumption, Mr. Stark,” Coulson agreed unhesitatingly.

“Tell you what,” Stark began, gesturing expressively, as was his want. “Why don’t I-”

“No, I’ll tell you what,” Coulson interrupted. “You want me off your back, you know exactly what you have to do to get it. I have no intention of leaving you alone until you do. It’s really very simple.”

“Huh.” Stark gave him a considering look, but was otherwise apparently unmoved. “You know, I have to admire your determination, Coulson. I really do.”

“It has been cited as one of my strong points,” Coulson responded. “That, and my long-running record as a champion at Trivial Pursuit.”

“Wait, really?” Stark blinked at him. He shrugged.

“I was on the Academic Challenge team in high school. We placed first in our division three out of four years.”

“Huh. Fascinating. You know, I never would’ve pegged you for the type.”

Without inflection, Coulson responded, “I’m a deep well.”

Rounding the corner they came across Captain Rogers, Agent Romanoff and Agent Barton standing in a half-circle around a large cardboard box. Rogers was eyeing the box with dubious concern, Black Widow had her arms crossed, and Barton was looking at what appeared to be an unfolded set of instructions.

“Well this looks promising,” Stark observed, heading over to join them. “Hey guys, what’s this all about?”

“Oh, the uh, desk we all chipped in and decided to get for Bruce, since he doesn’t really have a good one in his lab, finally arrived,” Rogers told him.

Stark gave the still unopened package a look. “Desk, huh?”

“Yeah.” Rogers’ look was hovering somewhere between sheepish and mildly amused. “Desk.”

Stark pointed. “Well I’m no carpenter, but I think I can tell you what your problem is.”

“Some assembly required,” Barton deadpanned. He held up the instructions. “Remind me again whose idea it was to order this thing from IKEA?”

“Hey, not mine.” Rogers shook his head, chuckling. “I was all for paying extra for the one that was already made.”

“It’s not too late to change our minds,” Romanoff said offhandedly.

Barton grimaced. “Actually, I think I might’ve voided the return policy when I cut through the plastic covering thingy.”

“You guys are horrible,” Rogers exclaimed. “You know what, Bruce is a genius, why don’t we just give it to him like this as a present and he can put it together himself? I mean, I know that’s rude, but I’d rather keep the general principle of the gift intact than try to build this thing and ruin it.”

“Are you kidding me? Stand aside, boy scout.” Stark nudged him. “I think I can figure out a few written directions. I mean I only graduated summa cum laude from MIT, for crying out loud.”

“MIT doesn’t even have a summa cum laude degree,” Romanoff complained.

Stark froze as both Rogers and Barton gave him surprised looks.

“Wait, seriously?” The Captain’s brow rose in disbelief. “Is that true?” 

“You’ve been lying about a certification that doesn’t even exist, just to impress people?” Hawkeye snorted. “What, because the fact you graduated from MIT wasn’t good enough all on its own.”

“I’m sorry, weren’t we doing something here?” Stark interjected pointedly, aggravated. “Did you want to get this furniture for our occasionally avocado-colored friend assembled or not?”

Rogers held up his hands in surrender. Barton only shook his head. The Black Widow’s face remained perfectly blank.

Stark wasn’t even looking at Coulson anymore.

“Alright then.” He opened the box and started pulling out small wooden pieces. “Steve – hold these. Arrowhead, if, and I realize this is a difficult proposition, but if you could possibly attempt to not be a smartass for a few minutes without exploding, lay some instructions on me.”

Barton smirked tightly, but he did as he was bid anyway. “Okay,” he cleared his throat, reading straight from the paper; “‘For to arrange in this order resolute desk with much ambition gracefully-'”

Stark’s head shot up. “Oh, you have got to be joking.”

Agent Romanoff snatched the instructions from her partner’s hands. 

“Give me that!” Flipping them over she began reading the untranslated side. “‘But before unpacking’…dammit, Clint.”

Coulson made himself comfortable where he had his back pressed against the wall, and he pulled out his smartphone to start returning some important emails. Something told him he was going to be there for a while.

*

Stark had finally given in to the repetitive hounding and finished his paperwork. Coulson suspected it was as much a result of the coming weekend and a desire to keep his social calendar free as it was from anything the agent actually did.

He wondered if it was petty of him to hope Dr. Doom decided sunny Fridays were a perfect time to launch a robot attack on Malibu.

In any case, at least now he had what he needed. He still had parts to look over before he could turn the reports in, along with his own assessment, but he wasn’t waiting on anyone else. That was always something of a comfort.

Friday was typically the day optimistic subordinate agents would approach him about requesting last-minute time off, so Coulson always made it a point to not be in his office. The main conference room would usually do.

Except that when he arrived, the room appeared to be already occupied.

Pepper Potts stood with her back to the door, arms folded as she was explaining something – mostly, it seemed, to Agent Romanoff.

Coulson looked past the women to the pile of objects on the table behind. He blinked, bemused. Comic books?

“So you can see why I thought this might be a cause for concern,” Ms. Potts was concluding.

“I’ll say.” Flipping through one, Captain Rogers shook his head. “This artwork is plain awful. I can’t even tell what this is supposed to be a picture of.”

Ms. Potts glanced at the cover. “Try turning it the other way.”

He did as suggested. And then his expression rapidly went from puzzled, to incredulous, to wide-eyed.

“Is that a…no. It can’t be a…”

“I don’t doubt it,” Agent Romanoff cut him off. She turned to Ms. Potts, hands on her hips. “I understand why you might find the existence of this sort of thing distasteful, considering the whole public image factor-”

“I’m used to finding all sorts of unsavory and outlandish accusations about my significant other in public forums,” the other woman interrupted her crisply. “Believe me, that’s got nothing to do with it. But last I checked the likenesses of Iron Man and the other Avengers in their superhero personas were licensed property owned by Stark Industries and a branch of SHIELD, specifically so it could be ensured that the majority of the profit off their merchandise goes to charity.”

She pointed at the comics which, on closer inspection, Coulson realized seemed to written entirely in Japanese. 

“I certainly know none of these are ‘approved product’. So doesn’t that mean we have cause for a copyright infringement lawsuit?”

“Technically, perhaps,” Romanoff told her. “But you have to understand, doujinshi has been around for a long time. It’s considered something of a cultural institution. And while thanks to the internet it’s been rising in mainstream popularity, most of the original artists create only self-published limited runs, which keep their profits so low it basically falls under Fair Use.”

She shrugged.

“It’s not a battle worth fighting, believe me. But, hey.” She smiled sardonically. “Thanks for bringing them in. I’m sure the guys are thrilled to see what kind of attention they’re getting from their ‘fans’.”

The ‘guys’ she referred to were Rogers, Dr. Banner, Thor, and his brother, who visited the base so damn often nobody batted an eye anymore. 

And Coulson could only assume she was being incredibly sarcastic, because he wouldn’t have used the word ‘thrilled’.

The Captain was holding his book sideways, fingers frozen, growing increasingly red and flustered as he looked at some image. 

“I…that’s…” he stammered. “Tony…I would never…”

Banner adjusted his glasses, mouth twitching grimly as he looked over Rogers’ shoulder. He pointed a finger. “I’d just like to point out, that is completely anatomically impossible.”

Loki’s expression was more composed as he looked at a different copy, if a bit sour. But he was holding the cover too tightly and at an angle guaranteed to crack its spine. And considering what a bibliophile he was, that was fairly noteworthy.

Thor was staring at the same book. Coulson wondered if he should be concerned for the man’s health, as he looked utterly shell-shocked and seemed to have been rendered completely silent. In fact, he appeared catatonic.

“I don’t quite understand this phrase,” Loki murmured. “What does ‘oniisama’ mean?”

“‘Older brother’, I think,” Agent Romanoff told him.

“Oh, so they do know that we’re brothers, then,” Loki remarked, voice going shrill. “I couldn’t help but wonder, considering some of the things that they have us do.”

Thor’s mouth slowly opened, made a dry gasping sound, and then rapidly shut again.

Coulson cleared his throat. Romanoff and Ms. Potts looked up at him.

“Do I even want to know?” he inquired.

“No,” both women and all four men answered him, firmly, at once.

He got the hint. Turning around he left the room without another word.

*

Coulson couldn’t remember the last time he hadn’t had to work on a weekend.

He was hardly the only one. Still, there was something that just felt inherently depressing about walking down the same hallways in the base, wearing his crisp dark suit, while being vaguely aware it was a Saturday.

The mission reports to Fury had been filed and delivered. He didn’t expect to hear anything back on them until the beginning of next week.

If he heard anything at all – and if he’d done his work right and everything was in order, he wouldn’t. That was just how federal employment tended to work.

With one task complete there was simply nothing to do but move on to the next. Getting off the elevator on the level outside Dr. Banner’s lab, Coulson was already speaking as he raised his hand to open the door.

“Dr. Banner, I need to go over a minor discrepancy that’s been noted in your latest expense report-“

His instincts kicked in and he stepped back just in time as the door flung open from the inside and Banner stumbled out into the hallway, doubled over.

Letting out harsh, low growls he tore at the buttons of his shirt, which was already beginning to tear apart from the back as his muscles rippled and swelled, the color of his skin rapidly changing.

One of his assistants appeared in the doorway shaking, eyes fixated widely on the doctor, a walkie-talkie clutched in his hand.

“CODE GREEN, CODE GREEN!” he screamed. “GET THE RESPONSE TEAM DOWN HERE IMMEDIATEDLY! REPEAT, CODE GREEN, THIS IS NOT A DRILL!”

Banner was starting to roar as the elevator opened again and a dozen agents decked out in riot gear piled out armed with tear gas and tranquilizer guns.

Coulson moved out of their way, letting out the briefest sigh as he stepped backward into the now-vacant elevator.

“I’ll come back later.”

*

On Sunday Coulson finally got out of the office. Of course, it was only a business trip.

His cell rang and he picked it up, answering by the second ring. “What is it?”

“Uh, yeah,” Agent Barton’s voice began, impatient. “There’s something that’s come up with another emergency, and I was wondering-”

“Whatever it is I’m sure the six of you can handle it yourselves, Barton,” Coulson interrupted. “After all, wasn’t that exactly what Stark was saying just last week? ‘I could run this entire operation any day, no sweat’.”

“Well-“

“And I believe there was something else about his eyes closed and one arm restrained.”

“Oh come on, that’s Tony. You can’t actually take anything he says-”

“And before that, it was Captain Rogers.” Though admittedly that had been more of a disgruntled mutter. And at least he had followed it up with a ‘No disrespect, sir’. “And before that…well, I think it was you, Barton. Am I not right?”

“What? Man, I was pissed off that day. You’re gonna bust me over something I said, what, two months ago in a fit of rage, right after I broke my hand punching a wall?”

“I have no intention of ‘busting’ anyone,” Coulson said smoothly. “My point is simply that you’re going to have to be on your own for this one. It can’t be that hard.”

“Hey man, I thought this was your job. You can’t get back here and-”

“Barton.” Coulson sat up straight. His voice took on the firm, cool tone that permitted absolutely no argument. “I am currently in the middle of a crucial diplomatic negotiation on the behalf of SHIELD. Under no circumstances am I leaving until my mission has been successfully completed. Not for anything. That’s the final say.”

“But, Coulson.” There was an odd strained note in the other agent’s voice now. “Steve and Natasha got in an argument so now they’re not speaking to each other, and I don’t know where Thor is and Jane’s still ticked off at me so she won’t tell me where he’s gone, and Bruce-” 

“Whatever it is I’m sure you can figure it out. Goodbye.” Coulson ended the call.

Switching his phone over to silent, he tossed it on top of his jacket where he’d piled it neatly along with his tie and dress socks and shoes. Coulson leaned back in his deck chair with an exhale of relaxation, wiggling his toes a bit in the sand.

Paranoid as he was about protecting the sanctity of Atlantis, of course Namor had refused to let any surface-dwelling agent of SHIELD come visit it. So for the discussion of terms for his admission into the Avengers, he had chosen a small remote tropical island as the location instead.

And being that he was a conceited prince, Namor clearly had every intention of making his ambassador wait awhile before he showed up to actually speak with them. But having formality, he had no intentions of being a poor host, and had left strict instructions that his guest should be treated with utmost hospitality until he arrived.

A distinctly underage-looking Atlantean girl, with flowing golden locks and clad in a tiny green bikini, padded toward him across the pristine white beach.

“Would you like another drink?” She bent forward with a smile as she offered her pitcher.

“As a matter of fact, I would.” Coulson held out his glass for a refill of the hot pink concoction that tasted strongly like a margarita. “Thank you, Namorita.”

She giggled, brushing hair away from her eyes. “You may refer to me as Nita, agent. Most do.”

He took a sip of his drink, and listened to the waves roll gently against the shore and the far-off cry of seabirds.

“Call me Phil.”

Chapter Text

After a lifetime of being known as a trickster, Loki was suddenly having a hard time living up to his own reputation.

How long had it been, since he’d come up with a new prank, a new jest, or even a new riddle? The well of creativity and knack for trouble within him had, without warning or explanation, seemingly run dry. 

The ancient Vikings had called him the God of Mischief, but he couldn't remember the last time he’d caused some.

Maybe I am getting too old for this, Loki thought to himself morosely. And then immediately felt agitated and annoyed he would even think that. 

Clearly, he’d been spending too much time around mortals. He wasn’t more than a few thousand years, for pity’s sake – it would be eons before he had any cause to think of himself as ‘old’.

The blame, he determined, lay with his children. Not that he didn’t love them very much but there were five of them and only one of him, and ever since becoming a father it seemed he never had any time to himself.

Even when he wasn’t dragged into cleaning up messes left by them indulging in their own bits of “fun” - he couldn’t so much as round a corner without a tiny hand finding and reaching for his, couldn’t so much as sit down without a body immediately climbing into his lap.

It was exhausting. And frankly, it was unfair. They’d an entire palace of servants to mind them. Surely it wasn’t expected he pick up all of the slack.

And so Loki decided that he was giving himself a holiday. He’d sneak away for a while in disguise, without telling anyone or leaving a note, the way he used to all the time in days of old. If it worried anyone that was their problem, for forgetting that he could be unpredictable.

And while he was off Loki would indulge himself, do some spying, maybe stir up a bit of trouble, and probably come up with all sorts of ideas for having some real fun.

Brightly looking forward to it, he got up early, kissed his still sleeping wife goodbye on the cheek, and then strolled out of their chambers, shifting his shape the moment he crossed the threshold.

In the form of a sleek black tomcat, he made his way through the corridors, tail swishing.

The smell of breakfast cooking in the kitchens was tempting, but he could always visit there later. Experience had taught him the cooks were always happy to reward a well-behaved stray with scraps and a bit of cream.

Instead he went outside to the gardens.

It was too early for anyone to be at the training grounds, or even for the gardeners – which made it a perfect time for lovers to be about, having secret rendezvous in the bushes. Tail giving an extra flick in anticipation, Loki slunk into the nearest flowerbed, keeping his head down. 

He crept about for a few minutes, ears perked for any sound, eyes sharp for any movement. Ah! Over in that grove of shaded trees – was that two figures he saw, shifting about?

A few leaves rustled as he made his way closer, but he wasn’t worried. Even if he was spotted, no one would suspect a cat.

“Did you just hear something?”

He froze, however, at the sound of the voice asking that question. Curiosity vanished as he recognized it at once. It was his daughter’s.

Out of all the possibilities…

Glancing up only confirmed it – he could make out her profile as she craned her head listening, just enough light to catch one green eye and a few tresses of flowing black hair. That wasdefinitely Skadi. Loki couldn’t see her partner, not enough detail to even determine if it was a man or a woman, but he was already moving away as fast as he could. 

Skadi was old enough that he felt less concern on behalf of her virtue and more mortification over the thought of accidentally seeing something that as her father he was never meant to see.

He beat a path out of the underbrush and back to the rolling green lawns with much haste.

Phew. Close one. Unnerved by the near miss, he stopped by one of the fountains to catch his breath, fastidiously grooming a paw.

His ears pricked at the faint sound of rustling feathers.

Looking up he saw a distinctive magpie land on a garden gate, watching him with unmistakable focus.

The bird cawed, wings flapping.

Know you, Trickster, even wearing cat skin and whiskers, it said impertinently. Tell Master what you are up to, yes I will.

Loki hissed. Fly back to my son’s shoulder and keep your beak shut, he warned. Otherwise I might leap up there and have you for my breakfast.

Wyclef’s familiar eyed him disdainfully, unimpressed. 

Won’t jump. Couldn’t make it. Trickster has gotten old, soft. It considered him a moment before adding, And fat.

Fat?! 

Enraged, Loki did leap, with a sharp growl and fangs bared.

The magpie took off with a violent flutter. It was gone by the time he reached where it had been sitting, and Loki’s claws raked through empty air. And then unfortunately, because all his momentum had been directed forward with nothing to slow him down, he sailed over the gate and tumbled down the muddy incline on the other side, completely ruining a lovely bed of gardenias.

The magpie’s squawking sounded rather like laughter as it flew off.

It took Loki half an hour to groom his fur back to something presentable. By then his tongue was very tired, and his belly was famished. He figured it was time to go back inside.

He made it as far as the row of columns outside the dining hall before he was spotted again.

“Kitty!” Erik’s eyes lit up, delighted. He trundled forward, old enough to be walking reliably on his own, though he hadn’t yet lost that swaying toddler gait.

Loki smiled, or he would have, if he’d been wearing his own face. Even though he’d meant to avoid his family he couldn’t help looking at his little boy with endearment. He moved to rub against Erik and wind around him, purring.

Or that was what he’d meant to do, if he hadn’t found himself suddenly seized by small but strong arms around the belly, hoisted into the air and horrifying held upside down as he was crushed in a hug to his son’s side.

“Kitty!” Erik squealed again, rubbing his face into black fur, causing it to stand on end the wrong direction.

Loki yowled, legs kicking, tail puffing out – Erik was squeezing him at the middle, and whatever he’d had for breakfast was sticky and all over his hands.

No, bad Erik! he scolded, to no avail since his son couldn’t hear him. This is not how you hold a kitty cat!

Erik’s response was to coo, squeeze tighter, and start drooling.

If Loki loved his baby, his youngest, the child he carried and bore himself even the slightest bit less, he would’ve scratched his face off.

The idea became tempting however as Loki found himself carried along down the hallway, head occasionally bumping the carpet as Erik continued to hold him in the same awkward manner, and despite furious wriggling he was unable to free himself.

Why is nobody watching you? Loki demanded grumpily. As if he wasn’t well aware his children were predisposed to wander, and in a palace of a hundred thousand eyes it was common to let them go without fear, for if they looked about to hurt themselves someone would be there to notice and stop them.

Who knew how long Erik would’ve kept carting him like a sack of potatoes and petting him the wrong way, if his sister hadn’t met him coming the opposite direction.

“Erik! You silly baby, what have you got there?” Fandra’s eyes narrowed, and she reached down to gently pry jam-coated fingers off.

Erik gave a babbling diatribe, of which the only discernable word was “kitty”, and possibly “hug”. Fandra ignored him, and Loki all but clung to his savior in relief.

That’s my girl, he sighed, as she stroked his head and gave Erik a frown.

“No,” she said sharply, as Erik made a grab for the cat in her arms. “You’re too little! Now it’s mine.”

Erik dropped to his bottom and stuck his thumb in his mouth, chubby cheeks turning red as he pouted.

Fandra lifted her head in a haughty manner that was clearly practiced, and looked incongruous on a princess as young as she was, turning on her heel to head back towards her room.

“You can join the tea party I’m throwing,” Fandra announced. “I think I’ll call you…Duchess Midnight.”

Oh no, Loki had just enough time to think, before Fandra managed to slip some sort of beaded bracelet around his neck as a collar, and had picked up a frilly pink dress to try and shove him into.

Unlike Erik, he figured she was old enough to know better, and therefore deserve what she got. He swiped her hard across the back of the hand, leaving three thin lines.

She dropped him and he raced out the door, fighting back his urge to stay and try to “kiss it better” when she wailed.

He didn’t stop running until he reached the library, a place he had been conditioned through the years to think of as a sanctuary.

Stalking the dust-coated shelves, Loki curled up in his favorite reading nook, livid. Obviously he should accept the signs that this vacation of his was not meant to be. He willed himself to change back to his true form.

Nothing happened.

Trying not to panic, Loki tried again, and again, with no result. His mind raced frantically when he realized he was trapped. What could’ve gone wrong?

He suddenly realized: the bracelet Fandra had put on him was still around his neck. Turning his head he squinted, managing to get a good look with one eye.

He recognized the design of the pendant immediately. It was a sealing charm, an effective blocker for all magic. And he could sense the mark of his eldest son’s power all over it.

He gave a howl, half enraged, half despair. Fandra must’ve stolen it from Wyclef’s room. 

Why were his children always taking each other’s things, especially when half the time they turned out to be spell ingredients? Hadn’t he reprimanded them enough for this?

Loki tried shaking the collar off, but it was no good. Without thumbs he couldn’t unfasten it. He was stuck.

Tail dragging, ears down, he paced along the floors of the library.

Somebody almost stepped on him.

Loki yelped, jumping. He whirled around, paranoid: he didn’t see anyone standing there, so how…?

The air seemed to ripple, and then suddenly it pulled itself aside, revealing his second child Austen, wrapped up in the guise of his faithful invisibility cloak.

“Sorry, cat,” he said absently. “Though it rather serves you right for almost tripping me.” 

Loki had just enough time to see he was carrying an armload of cookies, no doubt stolen from the kitchens. Austen stuck one in his mouth and then he pulled the cloak around him again, vanishing.

Wait, Loki thought, too late, come back! But he had no sign to tell which way his son had gone.

Loki dragged himself back to the main atrium and sat there in the middle of the floor, meowing pathetically. His fur was bedraggled, his stomach was empty, he’d found nothing but trouble for himself, and as strong as his magic was he couldn’t break through a simple sealing charm.

Everyone who walked by ignored him. At one point Volstagg wandered past, gave a pitying look, and tossed him a scrap.

Loki ignored it, too miserable to eat.

The hall had emptied completely of the late morning traffic and he had settled down into a lump when his wife walked past.

She did an instant double-take.

“Oh my gosh.” Taking in the black fur and green eyes, Darcy bent down and scooped him up in her hands. “Where have you been? I’ve been looking all over!”

She seemed to realize he couldn’t answer, and gave him a more scrutinizing look. “Looks like you’ve had an adventure or two,” she mused. She eyed the enchanted bracelet, and then carefully pulled it off.

Loki remained in her arms, shape unchanged, whiskers drooping. 

She sighed, shaking her head, and carried him back to their room.

Sitting on the bed Darcy settled him in her lap and groomed his fur best she could, silently petting him until he begrudgingly started to purr.

After a minute or two, Loki finally changed back, his head in her lap. Darcy continued petting his hair.

“Do you want to talk about it?” she prompted gently.

“I was just looking for a bit of fun,” he murmured. “Instead I almost caught Skadi in a tryst, Erik nearly pulled my whiskers out, Fandra tried putting a dress on me, Austen kicked me, and Wyclef’s magic has gotten too strong for me to counter.” He shut his eyes. “And Ikol says I’m fat.”

“Ikol is a bird,” Darcy said. She prodded his side beneath his clothing. “And a stupid one, too, apparently. I can count all your ribs with my fingers, which is disgusting when you consider that you’ve been pregnant three times. You don’t even have stretch marks! No one with working eyeballs should be calling you fat.” Loki remained staunchly silent. She stroked his forehead. “What’s really going on?”

“I don’t have an identity anymore,” Loki croaked, despondent. “I’m only a father, nothing else. I’ve lost my edge. I can’t even think of any tricks to play, let alone find the time to carry them out. I’mboring.”

Darcy squinted at him. “That is possibly the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard you say,” she remarked.

Loki shifted so his head rested sideways against her knee, closing his eyes again. “It’s true, though. I don’t know how but it is. Somewhere along the way I’ve stopped being me.” He all but whimpered. “I feel so empty.”

“This is you we’re talking about,” Darcy protested, unimpressed. “Maybe you’ve settled down a little. Or maybe you’re just tired, ‘cus of the kids. But I don’t believe for one second you could ever really…change. Not like that.” 

She shook her head with a rueful smile. “It would make too many people happy. Not to mention piss me off royally. I’d have never agreed to marry you if I thought it’d ruin you.”

“So, what: you think I’m just going through a dry spell?” Loki’s eyes met hers, searchingly. “How long do you think it’ll last?”

“Who cares?” Darcy retorted. “It could last a hundred years, so what? We’ve got time. I’m sure you’ll more than make up for it.”

Loki’s gaze drifted to the bowl of golden apples left sitting on the bedside table, as if to serve as a meaningful prop for that very moment.

She was right, he realized. So what if he had lost it a little? He’d get it back. He just needed time to recharge.

He smirked. 

And if it took a century or two, all the better: because by then, his usual victims would have been lulled into a false sense of security.

“I can hear you scheming from here, Loki.”

“And you wouldn’t have it any other way, would you, my love.”

Chapter Text

In days long past there were tales told by men of their gods – tales spoken by mortal poets and bards, spinning legend into song for the amusement of kings.

Time has long turned the bones of both listeners and speakers alike into dust, their names merely the ghost of memory, but when they lived they spoke of Ragnarok: the great battle in which all creation would be destroyed, the gods themselves would lose their lives, and all of fate would be decided.

In the legend they spoke of Mighty Thor, son of Odin, who would on that last day wrestle with Jormungand, the World Serpent. He would strike the beast its killing blow, it was said, and then he would step back nine paces and die himself, felled by the monster’s venom.

In the present day Thor of Asgard, first son of Odin, was fighting alongside his allies against a group of foes calling themselves the Serpent Society, when one of the enemy struck him with a barb filled with noxious poison.

Thor finished beating his opponent into submission and finished the battle. He took nine steps back, and did not die.

And then he took another nine, and sank swiftly down to his knees, stymied. His heart still beat dutifully, though his head was starting to swim.

“Easy there, big fella,” came the Man of Iron’s voice, stilted and broken through his armor. “No need to rally yourself for round two. We’re on the cleanup stage.”

“I am fine,” Thor protested stiffly. His head and upper body were visibly swaying. “I need only…a moment to recover my breath.”

“Uh huh. Sure you do.” Stark turned from him to call out at the rest of the assembled crowd. “Can we get a medic over here?”

Agent Barton walked past, re-sheathing one of his arrows. “Everything cool over here?” He stopped and frowned slightly, squinting as he took another look. “Hey. Why is Thor looking a little green?”

“Guess that King Cobra’s darts are a bit much even for a thunder god,” Stark informed him.

“That it?” Hawkeye snorted, impressed. “Hell, the fact he’s still breathing at this point is miles more than most could say.”

Thor never heard what it was Stark was going to say in reply. The world tilted sideways out from beneath him, and he was vaguely aware of the sensation of falling forward – and the distant sound of alarmed cursing from his allies’ direction – before his vision abruptly faded to black.

Everything turned to a fog.

Time moved forward, in a way where he was not fully aware of it, feeling detached from his body and the rest of the world around him. All he knew were the sensations of a fever, the echo of distant voices.

He woke with a dryness in his throat, a pounding in his head. Strands of hair clung to his forehead caked with sweat. He was surrounded by mortal devices that made faint sounds and flashed lights at him. There were wires attached to his chest and tubes implanted in his arms.

Thor groaned.

“Hey.” He turned his head and beheld Jane sitting curled in a small chair not far from his bedside. Her notebook was in her hands, a stack of books with titles he could not understand tucked beneath one arm. She shut the notebook, crossing her legs as she leaned toward him. Her face was wrinkled with concern. “You’re finally waking up. How are you?”

Her voice was soft, as if afraid the sound would be too much for his ears. Jane worried her lip absently between her white teeth, tugging a strand of hair out of her face and behind one ear. “How are you feeling?”

“Beset by illness,” Thor told her in a rough voice, honest. He coughed, and a tight smile came to her face as she turned around and grabbed a pitcher, offering him a drink of water. 

He drank from the plastic vessel in her hands gratefully. “For how long have I slept?”

“It’s been a few days,” she informed him. “If you were human, you would’ve been dead – as it is though, even your system needed some downtime to burn its way through all of the poison.”

Thor nodded.

“I will be taking my leave of this place.”

With a grunt he sat up, ripping away the strange wires stuck to his chest, ready next to pull the needles that’d been placed beneath the skin of his arms.

Jane’s hands flew swiftly to him, moving in an anxious flutter.

“What are you doing? Thor, stop!” She grasped his wrists, eyes wide. “Hang on. You can’t just rip these out – you have to be careful, or you can do damage to your veins.”

“I have no intention to stay here,” he told her, stubbornly. “If I am not near to death, then a warrior has no business lying about on his back, while there are still battles to be yet fought and foes to slay.”

“There aren’t any battles coming up in the immediacy,” Jane replied, sharp. “You haven’t finished your recovery yet. There’s still poison in your body. You can’t honestly tell me right now that you feel like you’re at a hundred percent.”

No, he could not. His limbs felt heavy and his chest tight and he knew that if he lay back down and allowed it, he would fall again to sleep, so great was his still-present weariness.

Thor shook his head.

“Then I will complete my rest in my home, at Asgard.”

Jane’s mouth pursed. “Thor…”

“Please, Jane,” he begged of her softly. With one hand he reached to press against her cheek.

He felt no comfort here. The white walls and dim lighting, the strange and pungent smells, reminded him in his feverish state of the place he had been brought to when he’d first arrived on Midgard in exile. The ways of the healers here were alien to him and there was too great an association with feelings of confusion and powerlessness.

If he must rest, then he would rest in a place that was familiar to him. He would gather strength once more in his own bed, in the palace where he had been born and lived his whole life.

He wished to go home.

Jane gazed deep into his eyes, her resolve already weakening. “It’s the wrong season for storms, around here,” she warned him. “If I send you now it could be over a month before I’m able to bring you back to Earth again.”

“I accept that consequence,” he told her. “Forgive me, for leaving you once more. But-”

“No, it’s okay. I…I think I understand.”

Her small hands were steady as she peeled back the tape and slid free for him the tubes connecting to his skin.

Jane helped him make his way out of the SHIELD hospital without alerting any who would report his leaving back to Fury, who would no doubt be less than agreeable with Thor’s decision. She helped him into her van, and drove them quickly back to her laboratory. She helped him out of the thin garment the healers had dressed him in, and into the layers of his Asgardian finery, though the armor weighed on his shoulders and where his chin slumped against his chest his panting breath fogged the silver of the breastplate.

And though her eyes were sad, her mouth set in a tight pale line, she was resolute and never took her gaze off him, as she pressed the buttons on her device that would send him realms away.

Thor managed to hold steady on the hard dirt outside the ground of Jane’s laboratory. Once the Bifrost struck waves of energy surged over him, his head once more starting to swim.

He made it to Asgard awake.

Heimdall stood to the side, having no doubt seen him coming. There stood nearby a line of guards, a royal escort.

Heimdall nodded. “My lord.”

“Gatekeeper,” Thor said in reply. He took a step forward and staggered. The assembled men rushed quickly to help him.

It took the assistance of four guards to keep him upright and walking. Fighting the fevered weight of his limbs, Thor kept moving forward, pace slow but determined.

“Bring him to the healers,” Heimdall began.

“No,” Thor countered, in a tone of order not to be disagreed with. “Take me to my chamber. I wish to rest.”

Such a command could not have sat well with the guards, but they were sons of Asgard. They obeyed.

Alone in the darkness of his rooms Thor managed to strip the outer adornment of his armor. He stumbled to his bed and collapsed face-forward. Once more, he slept.

He knew not how much time had passed when he opened his eyes again. But beneath shuttered curtains, the room had taken on the gray cast of daylight. Only moving enough to lift his head Thor lay there blinking slowly up at the ceiling.

There was faint movement from the corner of his eye. His reactions were feebly stalled, but he rolled over to one side to look.

Loki slid into view from behind a pillar, face half-hidden in shadow, his steps careful and precise.

Perhaps his mortal allies, or even his Asgardian comrades, would start with alarm at Loki so close when he was in such an injured state. But Thor had no such reservations. The thought didn’t even occur to him. He felt only gladness at seeing his brother again. 

And no surprise at seeing him in his room, either; he knew well his brother was accustomed to sneak about.

(He had been away from Asgard too long to know that these days, Loki travelled more often by secret passages than he did simply walking down the halls. That whenever he was in view the sorcerer was trailed by whispers, or the complete silence of weighted, icy stares.)

“Loki,” Thor croaked out in greeting.

There was a thin frown on Loki’s face, chin tilted upwards as he came in close. “You’re ill, more than just a little,” he observed in a murmur. “So, the rumors of unhappy courtiers are right after all: the games you play at with your humans are danger to your life. The life of Asgard’s heir and future king.”

“Bah!” Thor rolled back again onto his stomach, his dismissal swift. “I have seen far worse in my time. You know it as well as I.”

Loki gave a faint nod of acquiescence, moving in until he seated himself carefully on the edge of Thor’s bedframe. 

“But it is not often your injuries have been enough that you’d allow them to keep you bedridden,” he noted. “I can’t remember when last I have seen you thus.”

Thor writhed faintly with discomfort. “My body is more than capable of enduring this. I need only time.”

“Of course.” Loki’s voice had taken on a dry note. “And you are positively awash with it. So renowned for your patience.” Thor’s eyes rolled away from him in shame, the observations too sharp with truth. “And, all who care for you, all who depend on you, they are made of as much time as you.”

“Have you come only to complain to me?” Thor demanded peevishly. Then his voice stopped, his throat far too dry, and he was wracked by a broken cough.

Loki conjured a goblet of water out of thin air and held it to Thor’s mouth without hesitance, one arm going around his brother’s shoulder to help keep him propped up.

“You should have gone to the healers,” Loki rebuked him, quiet.

Thor shook his head, greedily lapping all of the cool water. “I am in no mood to be fussed over by the likes of them.” He firmly pushed Loki’s arm aside when he was done. “If you are so keen to see me tended to, then do it yourself.”

There was a pause before Loki began folding back his sleeves, even as he shook his head. “I taught myself how to wield healing magics out of necessity, Thor,” he reminded him, voice resigned and warning and almost sad. “I am at the level of battle medic, little more.”

He sighed as he pressed one palm to the small of Thor’s back, other hand going to cup his throat. Slender fingers feeling out a pulse, and the line of Thor’s lifeblood.

“You should not come to me for this. Those that have made it their life’s work can do it much faster.”

“It’s not often I hear you selling short your own abilities,” Thor joked lightly. He made himself comfortable in his bed, already feeling relaxed enough that he might again go to sleep. “You are more than capable, brother. I have faith in you.”

Loki made an almost silent scoffing sound. I don’t need your reassurance, he was saying. 

Out loud he went, “Close your eyes, brother. You should catch up on your rest.”

But the heat and aches that ebbed throughout Thor’s body made it difficult for him to let sleep take him, tired though he truly was. He tried to hold still, the weight of Loki’s magic and concentration lapping against his skin, taking his sickness away from him drop by drop. Tried, and he knew, probably failed.

He waited for Loki to complain, but he did not. Though it was clear that having Thor remain tense and awake was doing what he attempted no favors.

Finally, in a clear and even voice, he began to sing: an ode describing the exploits of a legendary, long ago hero, that they’d both had memorized by the time they were children.

Thor breathed out, eyes closing as he let the rhythm of Loki’s words wash his mind clean and allow him to forget for a time his body. His brother has served as many things – he made a more than passing bard. He inflected the lines of the ode with just enough feeling, and he did not forget a single word.

Thor drifted in and out, between half-awake daze and dreamless sleep. When he came to it was to the sound of his brother singing, his presence, reassuring, and he knew that all was well.

(Because he was not awake to hear every word, Thor did not notice Loki omitting a verse entirely: one that in Thor’s youth had been his favorite part. Because it wasn’t in Thor’s nature he didn’t focus enough to recall what it was, to remember that it described the glorious slaying of Frost Giants, the smashing of skulls and breaking of long frozen fingers. It was not in his nature to feel the belated realization, the horror, and shame.)

Loki ran out of the ode before he was finished with his healing. After a pause, he began singing anew, composing another on the fly.

He sang a tale of a group of Midgard shield-brothers, mighty and strange, led into battle by the son of Odin. A heroic soldier from another time. A man who wore a wondrous enchanted suit of armor. A woman who killed as quietly as a shadow. An archer whose targets were never missed. A monster made tame by the loyalties of a man.

One by one, Loki counted off their victories, and Thor was half-sad he fell into a true sleep before the song was finished.

When he woke again for the third time, he opened his eyes to find his room no longer closed in, the space awash with the golden light of Asgard’s afternoon sun.

His body didn’t felt weak, or heavy. He breathed deep and free, his forehead cool, his eyes unclouded. Thor grinned broadly, elated, and sat up from his bed.

Loki sat a short distance away on the floor, curled up, his legs folded under him. His back was to Thor, appearing perfectly oblivious of him as he paged through a book.

Even Thor was not so easily fooled. “You watched over me as I slept?”

Loki paused, one finger still pressed to a page. He turned to meet his older brother’s eyes across one shoulder. “I wished to be entirely sure, in case you took a turn for the worst,” he answered, flatly. “Merely a precaution. Don’t flatter yourself: I was hardly fussing over you all night.”

“All night,” Thor repeated. There were gray smudges underneath Loki’s eyes. He turned away again as if not wanting him to see them. Thor pretended not to notice. “Thank you for healing me.”

“You insisted.” The book vanished from Loki’s grasp and he straightened up, pushing himself to a standing position. “What else could I have done?”

“Refused,” Thor said, with a laugh that rang slightly odd - for they both knew that Loki would have once, and much worse besides.

Loki ducked his head, and neither smiled nor frowned, and said nothing.

“What happened to the venom within me?” Thor asked, making an attempt to move the conversation forward, after clearing his throat.

“I got rid of it.”

“You did not take it into yourself!”

“Nay.” Loki’s eyes half-lidded, and the gaze he gave him could only be described as withering. “Burned through it with the strength of magic. Do not assume everyone is willing to lay their own lives before yours for a trifle.”

Despite the coolness of the words, there was humor in them, albeit in darkness. Thor smiled and gave his brother a bow, taking it as a jest.

“Forgive me, then, for my…arrogance.”

“I’ll forgive you, as I do this time, all the times before, and every time after…” Loki shook his head, hands dangling listlessly by his sides as he turned towards the door.

“Where are you going?” Thor asked, anxious at the thought of his brother so suddenly leaving him.

“You have not been on Asgard for nearly a month,” Loki replied. “You have much to catch up on. There are many who will wish your company.”

Thor went to his side. “I have not seen you in just as long,” he reminded him, gently. “Will you not walk with me awhile?”

Loki blinked, and the smile he gave in response was only polite. “If you insist.”

Together they walked the length of the balcony along the edge of the palace just outside of the throne room, overlooking the gardens. Thor smelled the familiar scent of Asgard’s breeze, watching the travels of those below in the courtyard, his brother’s footsteps at his side, and felt all was right with the world. Loki did not say much.

(“You are too quiet,” Thor thought in complaint, but did not say aloud, for even in his head his own words confused him. Loki was always quiet. Why should this be any different? But there was a change in him that Thor did not know the name for. It was like that ever since his return.)

“I am glad to see you still here,” Thor admitted, at last. “After I left to return to Midgard, the last time-”

“You thought that I would run away?” Loki finished for him, interrupting. “You thought that it’d be too much for me after all, and again I’d abandon everything?”

There was a lump in Thor’s throat. Loki stopped walking, turned to meet his eyes.

“Oh no.” He lifted his head, something almost defiant in the gesture. “Do you think I’d accept the shame of giving up so easily, after having declared my intentions and only just started?”

Thor felt a sharp urge to embrace him. He settled instead for merely reaching out to Loki, to clasp one hand to his shoulder.

“You should visit me, on Earth. I would like to introduce you to Jane properly, now that circumstances are different. I’m certain the other Avengers could grow to enjoy your company if you got to know them. Erik Selvig has asked after you, and so has Darcy.”

Loki swallowed, thinly. “Not yet,” he said. I’m not ready.

How long? Thor thought, but did not ask. Very well. Loki had said he was not patient – but for his brother, Thor would be patient. After having mourned him, fought him, won him back, he would wait as long as it took.

For you, brother, I will learn patience.

“I can send you back, though,” Loki was saying. “So that you don’t have to wait for the mortals’ version of the Bifrost. It will be much faster.” He smiled, and it was tired and small, but it was real, and it made something in Thor’s chest burn. “But not too soon. Mother would never forgive you.”

Thor let loose a booming laugh, and despite Loki’s look of reservation and protest, threw his arm around him more thoroughly to pull him to his side in a hug.

He did not ask what he would do without Loki, for he already knew what it was like, no longer having a brother. He would break apart Yggdrasil himself with his hands before he ever felt that pain again.

“Walk with me, then. We’ll go see her now.”

“If that’s what you want, brother.”

Chapter Text

Some things on the world of Asgard are spoken of in the myths of men.

And some things in the same myths are not of Asgard at all, belonging only to the realm of imagination and dreams.

And some things are remembered, but as half-truths, the idea of the real thing having shifted and changed and grown fanciful over time.

The golden apples of Asgard are one such as this last kind.

The apples are special, this is true. A bite of them will not grant power or immortality, but gives strength to flesh and spirit and on mortal lips will greatly lengthen a life. They are not the source of Asgardian youth or godliness, but they grant succor and energy to what’s already strong.

Without the golden apples to eat, the people of Asgard will not wither and die. They will not grow old before their time. But if in the symbol of belonging, nothing else, deprived of them they will feel the loss.

It’s customary that a child won’t be given their first bite of a golden apple until after they’ve begun to speak; until they’ve grown old enough that their days of infancy, of helplessness and dependence, are past.

But though she did not perhaps mean to, Asgard’s queen couldn’t help breaking with tradition - at least when it came to doting on her firstborn child.

Thor still mostly crawled, though he’d begun experimenting with walking. When he fell, which was often, he would cry out only sometimes, before pushing back to his feet and giving it a try again. 

Never mind he would usually fall right back down. There was stubbornness in his little eyes.

As for talking, it was still a ways off – he made sounds at times which could be words, but the only ones who could decipher their meaning were the small prince and his mother.

Frigga sat in the gardens, embroidery put aside in favor of bouncing her son gently in her lap, a beauteous smile on her face. When she lifted a slice of golden apple towards her mouth, Thor made an eager, curious noise, one fist reaching up towards her high as it would go, chubby fingers grasping.

“Do you want to try a taste, my dear one?” Frigga asked warmly. Amused by his behavior, she didn’t hesitate in indulging him, and broke a tiny piece in half and tucked it into his mouth.

Thor smiled at her as much as a baby could smile, and chewed.

It was a moment of no personal significance in his life and one he would not even remember.

*

Frigga’s second son was given his first bite of golden apple when he was even younger than his brother had been.

Loki was an infant still, not yet fully weaned. His mother offering the apple to him was no accident; she mashed it carefully and had to feed it to him off her fingertips.

As she held her warm, pink-pale son close to her breast, watching the green of his eyes blink behind soft black lashes, she remembered the first time she’d seen him. 

Remembered the blue Jotun boy she was handed, and how she had fallen in love at first sight.

Odin had stolen to her side cloaked in the runes of invisibility, a veil that only Heimdall’s all-seeing eyes could pierce through. While outside they heard the shouts and cheers greeting the parade of Asgard’s returning warriors, her husband spoke quickly, hurried to sneak back among them so none might know he ever left.

‘You were worried, with the kingdom at war,’ he said to her, low and intent, ‘and the pregnancy was a frail one. You did not wish to tell anyone, concerned the child might not survive.’

Frigga listened to the tale woven between his words, of a very small babe kept isolated at first by an anxious mother, tended constantly and rarely seen by any but his own family: at least until his health was better assured. She saw the wisdom, the sense it made, how easily it would be believed.

‘But is there such shame in it, admitting where he comes from?’ She handled the blanket-wrapped bundle with greatest care, soothing as his unhappy fussing faded and he curled tighter in her grasp.

‘Not shame, no.’

Odin met her gaze with weary sadness, wound still new and raw around a now forever-missing eye.

‘But it is not out of shame I feel we must do this, my queen. It is out of fear.’

The ballads sung at home of the glory of giants slain came in memory to Frigga’s ears, and the chill she felt had nothing to do with the cool-blooded foundling in her arms.

And though it was still her hope she could one day speak to her child honestly, not hide his origins from their people, the queen grew cautious, and ever-vigilant. 

Her new baby was quieter than her first son had been. Like with his brother before him, she eschewed all thoughts of a wet nurse, pressing him to her, supplementing her diet with herbs until her milk came in.

And though at first Loki only held his changeling appearance when in contact with the skin of an Asgardian, before long it ceased to be so. He was watched over day and night and nothing was suspect. The new prince slept in a soft crib in a patch of afternoon sunlight, at peace.

Really, Frigga was certain she’d naught to worry about. There was a slim chance the taste of a golden apple would even make a difference.

But she was a mother, and she loved her boy. She wanted to do whatever she could.

*

The day after returning in the wake of his banishment, Thor walked the palace he’d known all his life, and could not help but feel how he had changed. There were many little things he saw with different eyes, that until now he had taken for granted.

In a small courtyard near the center of the grounds was a garden that grew a single tree.

Thor walked to it and pressed his hand against its trunk, head tipping back as he squinted through the sun breaking between the cover of leaves - looking up at the fruit that seemed yellow in the gleaming light.

He lifted his palm and a thin branch snaked down, gently placing an apple in his open grasp.

Though his strength had already been restored Thor smiled as he savored that first bite, teeth sinking in with a crisp sound that brought him much satisfaction.

It was not the golden apple itself that gave him happiness. It was that he had the right to have it. His right as a prince, and a son of Asgard. His honor restored, and with it his sense of self, and belonging.

Though after that Thor would leave Asgard many times and usually think not of the journey, still every time he came back he would inevitably help himself to a new apple.

Its sweetness, the warm power it filled him with, felt like home.

*

The morning after Loki at last accepted his return to Asgard, he awoke in his chamber to find a bowl with a single golden apple had been placed on the table at his bedside.

He stared at it awhile and then slowly reached out and picked it up, feeling the curve of its smooth skin between his fingers.

Despite the sharpness of much his memory Loki couldn’t recall when last he’d eaten of the apples. It was symbolic liberty he’d grown bored with in childhood, viewed dismissively, rarely taken.

Had he one as a King intent on proving icy Jotunheim had no hold on him? Or perhaps in the hours before Thor’s coronation attempt, to give him strength before he committed his act of betrayal?

This much, though, was certain: whenever it was, it had been quite some time since.

Apple cradled between both hands Loki gazed down at it, knowing that if only for a little while its magic would bring restoration, healing wounds both in body and soul.

Loki closed his eyes and took one slow deep bite. 

As the juice rolled down his throat, for just one moment, he knew what it felt like to be forgiven.

*

Though she technically had no family left to witness it, Jane wanted her wedding to be on Earth. She wanted a white dress, and a veil, and a traditional ceremony. It was not out of superstition but a sense of strict adherence she found something borrowed and something blue.

The wedding of Dr. Jane Foster and Prince Thor Son of Odin was held on a private island guarded by an army of over a thousand SHIELD agents. The Avengers and two hundred members of the superhero community were in attendance.

Lady Sif was the maid of honor and Captain America was the best man. Dr. Erik Selvig was on hand to give the bride away.

The couple was joined in marriage by an ordained minister. After they kissed, Odin stepped forward to pronounce the union official in the eyes of Asgard.

There was only one terrorist attack shortly before the cake was cut, and it was stopped so long before reaching the island that most of the guests never even knew about it.

The newlyweds had their honeymoon on a nice remote planet the groom’s brother had told him about.

Upon finishing their trip, the couple returned to Asgard. A grinning Thor carried Jane into the bedchamber, her giggling all the way. 

But once inside he grew serious. He produced a golden apple, and with all solemnity he went to one knee.

He held the apple to her in offering, silent, gazing up at her with many emotions in his clear blue eyes.

When he had asked Jane for her hand, he had made it clear just what he was asking of her. Not only would she agree to become a wife, but a princess, and one day the queen of an entire world.

He would never force anything on her, but she would be expected to give up a normal life: a mortal, human life.

And there in the room with only the two of them, though they were wed already, though she had already said ‘yes’, he was asking her again.

‘Will you accept this from me? Will you do me this honor?’

And wordless as he asked, Jane said yes again. 

She took the golden apple from his hand and she ate.

*

Darcy saw many wonders of Asgard as a guest and a friend of the realm long before she became a princess.

And when she finally decided to start reading up on mythology, she could better appreciate them.

“So these are the golden apples, huh.”

Darcy knelt on the grass of the garden she’d been brought to and looked up, thoughtful. Loki stood some distance away in the small courtyard, directly beneath the tree.

He spread his arms, gesturing with the understated grandiosity of a magician, and gave a shrewd smile.

“Indeed. These are they.”

She played idly with a strand of hair, pursing her lip slightly as she thought.

“They’re not even guarded. But I thought they were supposed to be watched over, by someone named Idunn, who’s supposed to be really hot,” she remarked. “Isn’t that right?”

She didn’t understand at first why he laughed.

“Oh, in a way, I suppose they are.” He gestured to the tree again. “This is Idunn.” He ran fingers over the bark, a strange reverent, almost loving motion. “Is she not beautiful?”

Darcy blinked, startled, and embarrassed if only mildly. “Oh. So the tree is Idunn. Huh. Who would’ve figured.”

“There may well have been a Lady Idunn once,” he said to her in offering. “Likely the tree bears her name in memory. But if so the tale is old, and beyond our recollecting.”

“Which must make it like, even way older than dirt,” was her flippant observation. He smirked.

Reaching up he grasped at a fruit on the edge of the branches and it yielded to his grasp easily, stem breaking itself to land in his cupped palm.

Loki walked forward to Darcy, turning the apple almost carelessly in his hand. He held it down a bit so she could see.

“It doesn’t look like much, really.” But her voice was subdued. Uncertain.

“No. It doesn’t. But one bite, and it would change you forever.” His voice was unreadable, even. “That’s all it would take, to make a mortal into a god.”

Against the skin of her back Darcy imagined she felt the runes there tingle.

It was much time later when they were married on Asgard, a royal alien wedding, and a coronation where Odin crowned her a princess. It was what she’d chosen.

And afterward Loki brought her back to the garden, the two of them seated side by side as he sliced a golden apple in half and they shared it with a smile.

*

While Loki’s firstborn son grew inside him, he ate of the golden apples much more than was normal.

He clutched at them selfishly, fingers holding them tight, tips of nails threatening to tear through the skin, and gnawed to the very core until there was nothing left, like some strange beast in the wild wary of having its meal taken away.

If any asked, he would blame it on cravings. But nobody asked; no one even noticed, or if they did, they thought nothing of it.

Thor huffed at his behavior. “You worry over nothing, brother,” he murmured to him quietly, chuckling. “You were raised on Asgard. Your son will be raised on Asgard. And his mother is of Midgard. He will be fine.”

But Loki said nothing in response to such promises. His eyes darted away, sullen, and he did not stop asking for apples.

Wyclef was born in winter. In Asgardian form Loki had no way to naturally deliver; the only route was birth by the knife. Painful, and tiring, but such are the sacrifices of a parent.

Some at court observed it was strange, Loki going to the trouble to use sorcery to make himself with child, but not to make it any easier. Very strange.

Thor stood by in the face of such remarks and said nothing. One of the few to know it had nothing to do with his brother’s magic and everything to do with his secret nature. 

The same nature he was so terrified of passing to his son.

But from the first day he drew breath Wyclef was pink-skinned, and warm, and his eyes were never the color of rubies. He looked like his father and was every small inch of him Asgardian. Though he said naught out loud, in his mind Thor stubbornly maintained it’d nothing to do with all those apples.

The first prince of the new generation had ten tiny fingers, and ten chubby toes, and Thor loved to hold him even though for a while he could do nothing more interesting than wriggle.

He’d never been so close to a baby before. He had been still young himself when his brother joined their family, and so didn’t remember.

“You are blessed, brother, truly,” he congratulated Loki. “He is a fine child.”

His brother smiled, and Thor knew he loved his boy fiercely. But he knew too he was anxious. He was waiting, waiting, for what he thought a sign of the worst to make itself known.

Wyclef’s first tooth came in very soon, and was oddly sharp, which from Frigga’s quiet stories Thor knew was considered a Jotun trait. No matter how he howled though the prince never turned blue. His blood, when it showed against his poor sore gums, was red, and his tears never froze to his cheeks.

And Loki sighed, and Thor saw it – the moment he finally stopped worrying.

He was glad for that. Though part of him wished there was some way he could tell Loki it wouldn’t have mattered what his son looked like, and for it to be believed.

But experience had taught Thor better. So instead he did what he could to support his brother by doting on his nephew.

It was his honor to present the boy with his tooth-gift. For that he chose a book full of illustrated children’s stories.

“May you grow to be a wise scholar, just like your father,” Thor pronounced, while Wyclef kicked his legs, gumming the edge of Thor’s wrist bracer.

And when Wyclef was older and had all of his teeth, and had learned how to talk (also sooner than was considered normal, though that came to nobody’s surprise) Thor took his nephew to see Idunn.

He put the boy on his shoulders to help him reach the branches - helping him take his first bite of one of Asgard’s golden apples.

Chapter Text

spring: children’s day

Ever since Loki leapt from the shadows, moved his plans from the preparatory stage and as good as announced his vendetta against the Avengers, he had become very busy indeed.

Not much of a surprise really, that.

When he wasn’t actively harassing or physically threatening his chosen enemies, he was doing his best to spy on them so as to learn more about them and any potential weaknesses; keeping an eye out for any loved ones or other allies that could be utilized as potential pawns; building up resources and a network of covert useful alliances of his own; and then, when all was said and done, doing his best to stay out of sight in-between schemes.

It was an undertaking. The only one Loki originally cared to destroy was Thor, but he never believed in doing anything halfway, and the Avengers were his brother’s friends and had gotten in his way one too many a time. It was frankly almost easier to attack them in a group than try and lure them apart. But of course that meant at times he needed help – or the closest thing to it he could bring himself to accept.

Keeping up so many contacts, across the world, for so many different reasons, kept him entirely occupied most days. There were a lot of connections to forge, manipulate, and then when necessary backstab and distance oneself from.

Of course not everything was easy. His ‘comrades’ ran the gamut from easily disposed pawns, corrupt businessmen and criminal thugs, mostly…to men as twisted and far-reaching in their web of influences as himself, with whom he had to play a constant dangerous game of back and forth, always careful to hold the upper hand.

(The Latverian Emperor, in particular, was proving to be a marvelously fascinating partner in both subterfuge and battle. Loki knew that the man was currently planning to double-cross him – however, that was perfectly alright, since Loki was planning a double-cross of his own and was fairly confident his would be sprung first. Meanwhile, Victor’s birthday was less than a month away and Loki was trying to think what to get him – there was to be a grand gala thrown in Doomstadt that he was quite looking forward to.)

It could prove to be entirely exhausting. Dedicated as he was to his goals, Loki found even he needed time to rest, to breathe, if only as a space in which to lick his wounds and gather his thoughts for another assault.

This was harder, at times, than he might’ve thought possible. He’d forget to use glamor one day and the next be quite befuddled to discover his face on front page news – someone had spotted him outside a coffee bar and snapped a picture with one of those myriad digital devices that mortals carried with them everywhere these days.

It was a world geographically a bit larger than Asgard, and yet infinitely smaller for how connected they made their lives through technology. At times Loki considered how easier it would be to simply conquer them all, crush their numbers and their distractions beneath the heel of his supreme authority - but the more he saw of modern humanity the more he backed away from the idea.

They proved a daunting, even intimidating miasma: cultures sharing space but full of endless variety and diametric opposites, a people blind to creating even the simplest magics yet capable of amazing tricks through their invention.

Loki found they held more interest than he would’ve liked; that he was learning far more from them than he would’ve cared to.

But, at the end of the day, it was useful. And when it was not that, it was entertaining.

An occasionally tiring would-be trickster god could at times certainly use with a bit of entertainment.

That, he told himself, was the main reason he kept up his acquaintance with the mortal Darcy Lewis. A childish, overly-talkative girl that was really too connected to Thor, as much of a potential flaw for him to exploit against Loki as it was the other way around, and who had seen far more of him in certain ways than he should allow most to and live – but oh, she could certainly be entertaining. Things she had to say, the wonders and oddities she showed him.

She considered them to be friends. Loki, for convenience’s sake, did not disabuse her of the notion. He visited her enough, whenever he could manage the time.

With her, he found the only time these days which he could ever…relax.

It was a Saturday morning. They were sitting side by side on the couch in the cramped living area of the quarters she shared, him in a version of the mortal clothes he found he preferred (a suit with a scarf instead of a tie), her in her pajamas.

Darcy was wrapped loosely in a blanket, and on her lap was a huge bowl full of milk and sugared cereal that was going to be her breakfast, her lunch, and if she could help it maybe her dinner as well.

Loki had accepted a smaller bowl, mostly of politeness, and was stirring and plucking his way through his with more lukewarm enthusiasm.

In his estimation, the words of the smiling illvätte on the side of the box were wrong. He did not find these vittles to be “magically delicious”.

They were ostensibly watching the programming offered by the television in front of them. Old cartoons, the type of which Darcy had enjoyed when she was a child. Though perhaps she had seen these many a time before, for now her focus on them was only half-hearted, engaged more in asking Loki a series of lively questions about where he had been and what he was up to, which he answered sparsely although honest.

In between, they lapsed into a comfortable lethargy, and focused more on the screen, as a silent predator chased his equally silent prey around.

“I’m glad you could stop by,” Darcy said at length. “You and I don’t get to hang out like this very often.”

“No,” Loki was forced to agree. He glanced down at the bizarre, fairly noxious color his bowl of milk was turning. “We do not.”

He didn’t bother mentioning he knew he could make his present stay more extended because he knew Thor was nowhere in the vicinity. She, he presumed, had the good enough sense not to ask.

Darcy’s next words were muffled, spoken through a mouthful of cereal she was chewing. “So, what’s going on with you for the rest of the week? Do you have any plans?”

“What is that mortal adage, Darcy? ‘Ask me no questions and I’ll tell you no lies’?”

She pulled a face as she swallowed, frowning her disapproval.

And it really did seem as if somehow, if only for a moment, she’d forgotten who and what he was – that his ‘plans’ were likely to include an attack on those she also considered friends, and that by all rights the two of them should be enemies.

Such a stubborn naïveté, for all her frequent snide, cynical remarks. Small wonder Loki was growing downright fond of her.

She allowed herself to be silent and they both resumed watching the program in earnest. After another minute had passed however Loki gave a contemplative frown.

“This does not make any sense,” he argued. “The beast makes its home in what’s clearly a vast desert. Surely there is more than one bird of this type he could pursue as a meal.”

“Are you attempting to apply logic to cartoons?” Darcy demanded, nearly affronted. “Loki, you can’t do that. They’re supposed to be silly. Part of the reason they’re so entertaining is it doesn’t make any sense!”

“But they follow certain patterns within their own sphere, as any story must,” he persisted. “The coyote hunts because he is hungry. So why not go after another since this one he cannot actually catch?”

“He can’t catch the Roadrunner because if he did then the show would be over.” Darcy exclaimed, “And I can’t believe you’re actually harping on this. In case you haven’t noticed, the laws of physics don’t apply to this world. Like five minutes ago Wile E. walked off a cliff and didn’t fall because he didn’t look down. You don’t have any problem with that, but you’re complaining because his fixation somehow violates the circle of life?”

“I find it bothersome, that’s all,” Loki muttered. Darcy rolled her eyes and sighed loudly at him.

There was the sound of footsteps behind them – though the tread was light and unfamiliar Loki’s back went partially stiff before they heard Erik Selvig’s voice: “Darcy, I don’t suppose you plan to get any work done today – oh.”

The man trailed off, briefly, as he noticed the other occupant of the couch.

“You’re here,” he noted verbally, brusque and obviously disapproving. “Again. I guess I’m just supposed to pretend I can’t see you, shall I?”

“Whatever suits your needs, son of man,” Loki answered him, light and unbothered, not dignifying his presence even by turning his head to look. He ate a spoonful of his cereal and sipped at the milk.

“We talked about this, remember, Erik? Jane says she doesn’t care when he’s here, so long as he doesn’t break anything and stays out of her way.”

“Jane is clearly giving in out of a sense of powerlessness,” Erik grumbled. “Are you actually showing him cartoons? You might as well give him new ideas for his next malevolent scheme.”

Darcy however was unabashed, and unyielding.

“One: you said ‘malevolent’. I call you’ve been spending way too much time around Thor. Two: Loki’s not going to be taking notes on how to fight superheroes from the Looney Toons! Give me a break!”

Erik seemed less than swayed, but he gave up and left with a head-shaking mutter. Loki slid his eyes sideways to look across to Darcy.

She looked back at him, and beamed, helping herself to a mouthful of colored marshmallows with a victorious air. She seemed cheerful, pleased, and especially proud of herself.

Loki found her much less smug about two weeks later, after he successfully taunted the Avengers by creating an illusion of a tunnel that turned out to be a flat wall when they narrowly ran into it, but ah well. She eventually let that one slide, too.

*

summer: father’s day

Time passed, and passed, and continued to pass. Despite his ever-growing list of adversaries and obligations to attend to, Loki continued to visit and speak to Darcy. If anything he saw her more and more.

He’d send her messages and they’d meet at pre-arranged times, or he’d pass by announced and find her out and wandering. He’d bring her with his magic to rooftops, private beaches, isolated corners of parks. They’d tell stories and share jokes, about Earth, about Asgard, about places in the universe of which no human had ever dreamed.

Darcy told him about her childhood, her studies, her hopes and fears for the future. Loki told her very little on the surface, feeding her details between the lines, knowing that she put the pieces together and feeling confident and comfortable in that.

She played music for him. He told her embarrassing things about Thor. She gave him books on art and history. He showed her places on her own world she hadn’t heard of yet.

They ate ice cream together and walked hand in hand in the rain.

It was all nothing. She was nothing. Nothing compared to his power, his lifespan, everything else that he had. But still he kept on seeing her, speaking to her.

In fact, he came to find he was making time to see her, putting off other things in order to find room for their casual, meaningless chats.

This realization did not make Loki happy.

Loki did not consider himself capable of having friends, real friends anymore. Every relationship was quantifiable, where people used him to gain something for their own benefit and he used them in like in return. It was so much safer, predictable, when everyone knew what they really wanted. When no one made any mistakes.

Only those gullible enough to get invested in the first place were the ones that left themselves with openings to get hurt.

And Loki could no longer deny that he’d let Darcy Lewis become such an opening. That it was probably too late to stop it.

Loki blamed himself for having fallen back into old and foolish habits. But he took his anger out on somebody else.

It was the middle of summer, and they were sitting on the floor of Darcy’s room in Puente Antiguo. It was a warm day, naturally, and the blinds in the windows rattled lightly in the background from the breeze put out by the air conditioner.

The sound grated on Loki’s nerves, along with a slew of other things. He barely listened to anything Darcy had to say. She nattered on and on and he grew increasingly irate with how content he felt physically sitting here, how familiar he had grown with the mortal that he recognized almost without thinking the nuances of her speech; the subtle little indicators of her mood and expression. He could tell in an instant whether she was happy, or angry, or sad, whether or not she wanted to be remarked on, cheered up, or ignored.

Loki was a gifted reader of people. But he didn’t need to try with Darcy: she had become a well-thumbed book to him. A favorite.

To think he had let a mortal become his favorite. To think that he cared for her so much. To think that he would give her favors, and fight to defend her, and tear apart anyone who dared to hurt her.

To think that he would talk to her, like…like it was nothing. Like she could be trusted with his secrets. Like his feelings weighed on him less when he whispered them in her ear.

He would sit and hear her pondering over his troubles, as if she could possibly understand them. Listen to her remark on some of his actions, his alleged mistakes, as if she had any right to judge him.

But she would presume. She would dare. And he would sit there and let her do it.

Darcy was going on about some anecdote about her family. When she next paused for breath, Loki spoke up, his voice thin and flat and careless, but carrying a hidden venom.

“Your parents live separate, do they not?”

Darcy blinked at him in sudden surprise. “What?”

“Your parents,” he repeated. “They don’t live together. They are divorced, I would surmise? I’ve gathered that’s fairly common today.”

A few seconds passed before he got another reply, and her voice was quieter in befuddlement.

“How did you know?”

Loki gave a half-hearted shrug, the very portrait of carelessness, head turned slightly aside as he rolled one of his shoulders.

“You speak fairly often of your mother. But never your father. I know you still speak to her; you’ve mentioned conversations you’ve had. But if I were to guess – you don’t talk to him, any more. Do you?”

His eyes narrowed as he met her gaze, and the edges of the smile that pushed at the corners of his lips was hard.

His meaning, he thought, was perfectly clear. She judged him and gave her gentle, soft-hearted advice about how things stood with his family – about how she thought he could live to regret his estrangement with his own so-called father. And here she was, her own house far from in order; her father also kept at more than arm’s length away. He named her hypocrite.

It was so easy to pick a fight with her, if he pushed the right buttons. It gave him a bitter, sick kind of satisfaction, but satisfaction all the same.

But Darcy didn’t immediately raise her voice and glare at him. Instead she drew a breath and looked down, quiet.

Loki found himself unable to speak as he waited for her, caught off-balance and perturbed.

Finally she looked up again. When her mouth parted her voice was soft, toneless.

“When I was about eight years old, my dad went through something. I guess it was a midlife crisis or whatever, only a lot worse. He said it was like he just…woke up one day and didn’t like anything about his life anymore. Not his house, not his job, not his family…anything.”

Her face had an empty, open composure to it as she closed her eyes briefly and shrugged.

“He went to the office, quit, came home and told my mom he was leaving. By the end of the week, he was gone. Next thing I knew, my parents were divorced, and he was just me and Mom and my two brothers.” She gave a tight, humorless smile. “He moved five states away, went back to school, switched careers, got remarried and had two other kids. And you’re right, I don’t really talk to him anymore. But that’s because he never tries. Not even a card on my birthday.”

Loki gazed at her, feeling – not guilty, exactly, for bringing it up. But this was honestly not at all what he’d imagined.

“Darcy. I’m so sorry. I didn’t realize.”

Her smile was a little closer to genuine, though still as pained as it was pleasant. “It was kind of a long time ago. I mean, I went through a period where I was really pissed off all the time about it – when I was a teenager, and all the father-daughter stuff I couldn’t do seemed like such a big deal. But, you know. I got over it. I mean, I’ve got my mom, and my brothers; and they’re all I need. And I don’t really think about it anymore.”

While he was coming up with a reply to that, she dropped her gaze to the floor and added in a mutter, almost defensive, “It’s his loss, anyway.”

“Yes,” Loki agreed, instantly, whole-hearted. “It most certainly is.”

He was holding his breath a bit, waiting for her to say something about how different their circumstances were. About how he was lucky that he had a paternal figure that supposedly actually wanted something to do with him; and that on behalf of all those that didn’t have that opportunity, like her, he shouldn’t pass up on it or take it for granted.

But Darcy said none of those things. She said nothing at all.

And Loki looked closer at her face, then wordlessly held his arms out for the hug he knew she wanted.

And Darcy smiled, and without hesitance placed herself in his grasp. Squeezed him tight as Loki wrapped around her – despite himself, feeling better for how he made her feel better as well.

*

autumn: all hallow’s eve

More than a year had gone by since the two of them had first met. Since they had begun this unlikely but compelling relationship together.

In the wake of irritation, of finding himself caught in a snare, came a kind of surrender; and the despair that came after that faded far faster than he would’ve expected.

Conversations and jokes, sharing and long walks together continued. And everything all the more sweeter when every moment was lived for what it was, and nothing else.

No questions. No doubts. No self-rationalizations. Just things that he did, because he wanted to. And why not?

Loki no longer tried to argue against it within himself. He no longer found excuses, or denials, or reasons he had to fear. He no longer begrudged himself this simple pleasure. He accepted what he had, and enjoyed it.

Darcy was his friend. Likely the only one he would ever have again, in this world or any other. Short as her lifespan would be, he had all the more reason to get the most of it that he could.

They could still disagree at times, or even quarrel, but it was never on purpose and always the sort of minor bickering, easily resolved with a little time and few apologies between companions. They had fallen into a relaxed, near-effortless understanding. They could talk of nothing for hours, or make each other laugh with a single word; spend an entire evening flat on their backs, up on a rooftop or a grassy hill, gazing at the stars as they spoke in soft voices. And even if she was his only companion, he didn’t resent that she had many, for he got the sense that she regarded him closer than any other.

He never asked her anything about Thor, or even about Thor’s mortal paramour, that woman Jane Foster. He was no longer entirely sure if it was because he didn’t want to know – what did he care, for the doings or wellbeing of the Odinson, or the wench that had captured his oafish heart – or if it was out of respect to Darcy, not wanting his interests in her to be misconstrued as a source for information.

Most people had stopped questioning Darcy’s judgment, at least to her face. Though he knew SHIELD often gave her difficulties still – it led him to hit their agents a little harder when he faced them in battle, than perhaps was strictly necessarily. But then they should know better than to be led onto a battlefield between gods.

Were he a creature capable of pity, he might’ve pitied them, for how they broke so easily. They were only human, after all.

But he thought little of those he had due cause to hate when he was with Darcy. Her company was not to be diminished by such paltry distractions.

She had her studies; he had his vendettas. But their lives continued onward, in their own separate space apart. Loki no longer had to go running to her with questions about science or society, and Darcy no longer batted an eye at some of his more archaic figures of speech. They had that straightforward ease that came from shared experience; that came from history together.

And oh, they did have history together. Albeit one that was, mostly, not particularly exciting.

But maybe, then, that was the very thing about it that Loki found so novel.

It was late into the harvest season. In many places around the country the leaves had changed colors and the ground in the mornings was covered with a persistent frost. Even in the midst of the desert land that housed Puente Antiguo the air had gotten cooler, crisper, and something just smelled like the change and decay, the temporary death, brought on by fast-approaching winter.

There was a holiday coming soon called “Halloween”. From what he had heard, Loki was quite interested to see it in action. It was a night that had its roots in old superstition; when mortals told spooky stories and reminded themselves there were things not of this world to fear out in the dark.

It was a time of mirth, mischief and mayhem, with masks worn to cover faces and tricks carried out under the dead of night. Loki approved.

His plan was to walk among the masses throughout the evening, invisible through his magic, wandering from place to place as he observed their rituals – perhaps play a trick or two of his own, unseen.

He forgot to ask Darcy if she had any plans. He was absently certain she must. She could be a popular girl, when she put her mind to it.

But when he came by, intending a brief ‘hello’ before he went on his way, he found her standing near the door to the lab, a large half-empty bag by her feet, and fuming in unhappiness.

“What’s wrong?” he asked automatically.

“Loki,” she exclaimed, startled but never really surprised at his appearances, anymore. But she brushed off her distraction with a shake of her head. “Oh, nothing. Just I got invited last minute to a big party that’s being thrown by the people down at the diner. I didn’t hear about it until today.”

“But that sounds like fun.” She loved parties, even those thrown by the ‘boring and backwards people’ that lived in this town. “What’s the problem?”

“Only that I had no idea it was coming and so now I have no one to go with. Jane and Thor are off together, and Erik’s out of town. And I’ve got nothing to wear, so I had to go to the only costume rental place in town and take the last crappy thing they had.” She sighed. And then, considering him, she brightened. “Hey. I don’t suppose you’d like to come with me, would you?”

Loki drew back, frowning. “I don’t know that I really…”

“Oh, come on, Loki,” she pleaded, having pounced on the idea and not about to let go. “It’ll be fun! And I really don’t wanna have to mingle with these guys all by myself. Please?”

Loki realized he was already as good as doomed. Still, he said mildly, “What if I’m recognized?”

“Duh, Halloween? You can wear a disguise. No one will have any idea.” She looked at his clothing – no armor today, though it was Asgardian styled attire, complete with doublet and half-cape drapery, and all in shades of black. It had seemed fitting, to him. “That can probably work as a costume. All you need is a mask. Aha!”

In sudden fit of inspiration she dove into the bag next to her, rustling around.

“I was handing these out all day,” she explained. “I declared the building a ‘Halloween Only Zone’, and told any SHIELD drone that stopped by they couldn’t get in without a mask.”

“How many of them put up with that?” Loki watched her, amused.

“You’d be surprised.” She reemerged from the bag, holding an item in her hands. “Here. This one’ll be perfect.”

Loki took the offered mask, turning it over in his hands in an examining fashion. It was plain, completely white, designed to cover only the upper area of his face and part of his nose and cheek on one side.

There was something vaguely familiar about the shape, like he’d seen it before but didn’t know the reference behind it.

Darcy was looking at him expectantly, so he conceded and tied it against his face. She grinned, evidently satisfied with the effect.

“You look great! Now I just need to go get ready…hang on, it’ll take like twenty minutes…”

As Loki had fully anticipated, it was closer to forty. He passed the time waiting on her bed, reading one of the novels off her bookshelf.

When she reappeared her hair was done up in an elegant curly style, silver makeup shimmered around her eyes, and she had in one hand an ornate golden mask in the domino style, held up at one end by a decorated stick.

But the rest of her outfit…Loki got to his feet, face showing his disapproval. “This is unacceptable.”

He waved at her dress. It was a monstrosity of lace and cheap, shiny white satin. From the design one could tell it purported to be a ball gown based on the fashion of a bygone period in human history, but the construction was both shoddy and overwrought, and moreover it was clearly an older article that hadn’t been cared for very well. The thread that trimmed the buttonholes was fraying, some of the corners of the skirt were moth-eaten, and there were faint yellowed stains.

Darcy scrunched up her nose and rolled her eyes. “I told you, it was the last one they had. You don’t have to tell me it’s awful.”

“Beyond awful,” Loki rebuked her, stiffly. “As I said, unacceptable. I refuse to be seen in the company of someone wearing such a sad, unkempt excuse for attire.”

Darcy bristled. “Well what do you expect me to do about it?” she demanded. “At this point, I don’t really have a choice.”

“Of course you do.” Loki instructed her, “Hold still.”

With a keen eye, he passed his hand over her gown slowly. One yard of fabric at a time the details shifted. The quality, the craftsmanship, the age were all updated. It was still an ornate ruffled dress of white trimmed with gold but now instead of being a caricature it had become a work of art.

When Loki stepped back to admire his transmogrification and deem it worthy, Darcy blinked and then ran to look at herself in the mirror.

“Oh, Loki! You made it…it’s…” She looked down at the mass of delicate embroidery at the front of her bodice. “The people at the costume rental shop are gonna be so confused when I bring this back in.”

He laughed. “It’s more than they deserve. Now, come.” He held out his arm to her. “We’ve wasted enough time.”

They walked the few blocks down to the diner in a stately manner. Under the cover of darkness the stifling desert heat had cooled, the air not nearly as oppressive.

Loki hadn’t known what to expect of the party. It turned out to be several dozen adults from around the town in costumes, standing around talking, drinking, and dancing. A few games and contests served as partial distractions, and there was a banquet composed almost entirely of sweets.

Darcy grumbled that she had been to livelier Halloweens, but she seemed to enjoy herself all night. As she had stated, no one recognized Loki. He made few attempts to mingle but mostly stayed by her side throughout. They bobbed for apples, voted on the carved pumpkins (there was a distressing number of Avengers based entrants), and early on in the evening when some small children were still stopping by, they took a turn at helping to hand out candy.

Loki gamely tried the ‘candied corn’, the apple cider, the many pumpkin-based dishes. Darcy giggled at some of the faces he made.

A few times they danced, Loki doing his best to show her the steps to a waltz.

The evening flew by much faster than either of them really anticipated. Like in an old fable, the night became a blur of merriment, until out of nowhere the hour was struck, and they were left standing there blinking eyes dazedly, more worn-out than they’d realized and wondering where the time had gone.

To their mutual surprise and mild discomfiture, they discovered they had accidently won the contest for “Best Couple’s Costume”.

Though Loki supposed it an understandable enough mistake to make regarding a man and a woman travelling together, still he wondered. He knew neither he nor Darcy had introduced themselves as a couple in any fashion all night. So where had the idea come from?

Too tired to protest, Darcy took the gift certificates anyway, with a mumble of “free pancakes”.

*

winter: yule

That night in the fall turned out to be the last time he saw her.

The problem with having a near-eternity laid out before you was that you fell into the habit of taking things for granted. You saw patterns and thought them set in stone. Assuming things would continue on, unending, into the future and for all of time.

Loki had known that his conflict with Thor was the stuff of fate and legends. They would keep on fighting each other, forever, lives lost and worlds destroyed in their wake. It would be consuming and monstrous and glorious.

Every pawn would play his part. The Avengers would keep trying to help, until they died off or were killed. And Darcy would keep being Loki’s friend until he finally did something that pushed her too far and drove her away.

Yes, Loki thought he’d written the tale of his own to-be history, captured it in his fist and had everything under control for how he knew, with certainty, the way that things were and that they always would be.

It could happen no other way. He was arrogant, assured in this conviction. It was destiny, and nothing less.

But Loki had been wrong.

For it turned out he’d forgotten something that he, of all people, should know quite well: that even immortal things could change.

Months had gone by. It was well into winter now, or as close to a real winter as it ever came on Asgard.

For that was where Loki was, now: on Asgard.

It turned out he had no idea what was in store for him in his future at all.

He still wasn’t completely sure what had happened. What any of this meant. Something had…shifted. Without meaning to, without any memory of how he had done it, somehow he had surrendered. Stopped fighting, and came back to the one place he had told himself that he wanted least to be.

The place he had known, or thought he’d known, he could never belong to again.

But he wasn’t a prisoner here, a captive. He was let to live and roam like anyone else. They called him ‘prince’ and ‘son’ and ‘brother’. They let him call this place ‘home’.

Home. Such a simple word, and yet it struck him in the chest like a bolt. Spread throughout his system like a sickness, making his heart ache and his breath come short, and his head feel tired and lost and oh-so heavy.

He slept often these days. He supposed he had a lot of catching up to do – it had been a long year, that he’d spent feverishly hard at work and rarely taking proper care of himself. He passed the nights and sometimes part of the days in his own bed and read his books from the shelves in his room and spent a lot of time just…sitting, looking out the widow and watching the world go by. Just being still.

Thor had gone back to his adventures on Midgard. The king and queen (Father and Mother) gave him his space. For the most part Loki was left alone.

His world had become silent. Sitting in the shadows, walking empty hallways, unable to bear anything that was too bright, too crowded, too loud, too cheerful.

And for the most part he preferred it that way. He needed time, space, to be with his thoughts and feelings. To perhaps be able to decide, at some point, what they actually were.

Am I happy? he asked of himself. I suppose that I must be. I certainly don’t feel angry, or sad. But all the same, I’m not sure. I seem so…empty.

It was entirely possible that it had been so long since he’d last been happy, really happy, that he couldn’t remember what it felt like at all.

He hadn’t seen Darcy in months.

He hadn’t been able to visit her since their time together on Halloween. He had spoken to her once since then (magic could be at times a wonderful, useful thing) but it had been briefly, very briefly; and not entirely pleasant. He supposed it’d even be fair to say they had argued.

He didn’t imagine she was still angry at him. But he realized that he missed her.

But it was a very long time before Loki felt like talking to anyone again, especially her.

It was the dead of winter when Jane Foster felt comfortable enough to use her mortal-fashioned simile of the Bifrost to visit Thor in his home on Asgard, instead of the other way around. And of course she brought her lab assistant with her.

Loki wasn’t there waiting for them when they arrived. He couldn’t stand there out on the golden road before Heimdall, holding a place amidst Lady Sif and the Warriors Three. He couldn’t bear it.

Instead he was half a city away, on the far side of the palace, sitting cross-legged in one of the quiet nooks he’d made for himself, hidden up high in one of the corners of the great library. Unable to fully resist curiosity he gathered his magic to him for a small scrying spell, holding a glowing orb of mist in his hands.

He saw the two women arrive, along with Erik Selvig. He saw Thor’s face split wide in a cheery eager grin at their appearance. He saw the three humans blinking, dazed, and the color drain from the man’s face as he looked up at what was above him. He saw Jane Foster’s eyes alight with wonder, and then he saw Darcy, still in a haze, start to take one stumbling step off to the side of the platform and have to be grabbed at the arm by the other woman to stop her.

He heard the Asgardians laughing merrily, welcoming, and then saw them start to rush forward in a gang to greet them.

Loki could watch no more. He ended his spell, banishing the image away, and curled up on his side in a ball, his pulse racing.

It was much later that he and Darcy finally saw each other once more. He had gone for a long slow walk out on the grounds, letting the sights and sounds of the palace drift far away from him. And Darcy came and found him.

They approached each other quietly, her smiling, him completely still.

“Hey, you,” Darcy greeted him affectionately.

“Hello,” he returned in a gentle even voice, almost a sigh.

She hugged him, and he held her in place, returning the gesture without committing to it more animatedly. “It sure has been awhile.”

“It certainly has,” he agreed.

He could think of nothing else to say. A recurring problem for him, of late. Darcy pulled away and looked up at him, and he waited for her to start querying and hassling him, wanting to know why he was acting this way. But she didn’t. She asked nothing.

Maybe Thor had already told her, that these days he was much subdued. Or maybe, in light of all that had happened, she had gathered it for herself.

They walked. Loki led her on one of the more beautiful paths around the lawn and gardens, pointing things out to her without making much in the way of gestures, without ever saying a word. They stood close by each other, shoulders and arms occasionally brushing.

“How do you find Asgard so far, Lady Darcy?” he asked her at length, geniality at last bringing some warmth into his tone.

“It’s good,” she answered. “I mean, there’s still a ton to see. But I like what I’ve been shown so far. Although,” she shook herself, “it’s colder than I expected. The way Thor goes on I was thinking the place must be just one big ball of gold, made entirely out of shooting stars and sunshine. The weather’s a little chilly. Though not nearly as much as it is on Earth right now, I guess.”

“Oh no,” Loki told her, voice adamant and drawling, “you don’t understand. This is an abnormally cold winter for Asgard. If you look you will find many of the courtiers grumbling, and wrapped in furs. A few have started complaining that it’s a sign of the end times, that Ragnarok will surely be upon us. Why, there’s even a chance this year that we might get an actual cover of snow on the ground, instead of the few scattered falls that usually visit us.”

Darcy turned to look at him, and she eyed his face searchingly for a few seconds before she replied.

“Was that a joke?” she said at last. “Did you just make a joke? I couldn’t really tell, but I was starting to worry.”

“Worry about what?” he asked her with an anxious smile.

“That they did something to you,” she told him flatly. “Like your personality had been removed. Or they loaded you up on whatever the Viking equivalent is of Diazepam. You’re so…I don’t know. Mellow.”

He gave a sad chuckle.

“I know. I’m sorry. I just…I have much on my mind these days.” He stood there rubbing his hands together, looking down as he tried to apologize.

He doubted this empty version of him was what Darcy came to see. He only wished there was some way he could make up for her disappointment.

“Don’t be sorry,” she said, to his surprise. “I get it. I do. You’ve got a thing going on. It’ll be different when you feel better again, but right now…it’s quiet time. Hey, it happens.”

Loki gazed at her, not sure what to say. Between her understanding and her absolute, unthinking conviction that he would change again, that he wouldbe better, he felt overwhelmed.

She put a hand on his shoulder, beaming hopefully at him.

“Besides – yeah, it’s a little weird, but even so. You do seem like you’re doing okay, underneath it all. That you’ve got something here you were missing before, back on Earth.”

“Do I?” Loki asked her in a murmur, earnest. He saw a stranger when he looked in the mirror these days; when he could bear to. He couldn’t read himself.

“Yeah. You do. I think,” she hesitated; “You seem happy. Maybe more, in a different way, than you ever were before. I mean I know we had good times together, and were laughing a lot of the time in the pictures from whenever you’d blow stuff up, but it always seemed like you could never just let go with it. Like there was this bitter, angry lump in you that was taking away from it, no matter what.”

She met his eyes, sincere; significant.

“You don’t seem angry like that anymore.”

He took that in.

“No,” he agreed, slowly, musingly. “You’re right. I am not.”

He felt hollow in some places, and it still hurt in some others, but that hungry awful fire in him had been extinguished. Had guttered and flickered and at last gone out, without his ever noticing.

And now that it was gone, suppose it left room for something else instead. Suppose it left room for new feelings, sensations that he’d been long denied, to grow.

Like contentment. Peace. Belonging. And yes, happiness, real happiness. The likes of which he hadn’t known in ages.

All at once Loki realized that as hard as his life was right now, it meant something else. It meant he had something to look forward to.

Things were changing, out of his control. But that didn’t mean that he had lost the fight.

In fact he might have won something, after.

Loki smiled at Darcy, the expression working its way across his face until it held every muscle, feeling unfamiliar but welcome.

“Come,” he said to her, “let me show you some of the sights of my home.”

“I’d love that,” she responded with a matching look of her own in reply.

And they walked along that quiet, cold, gray world together, his arm tight around her shoulder, hers snug around his waist.

Only two dear friends talking of nothing, laughing, sharing the same old jokes. Happy.

Chapter Text

"One's friends are that part of the human race with which one can be human." - George Santayana

"One of the most beautiful qualities of true friendship is to understand and to be understood." - Lucius Annaeus Seneca

"True friends stab you in the front."  - Oscar Wilde

*

The fortress of Doomstadt sits halfway at the foot of a mountain range, nestled securely within its craggy peaks. It is a mighty building, intimidating to behold, with thick walls and guarded turrets as befits any ruler’s castle. The mountains tower over its back as a crown, tall and jagged. The expanse of snow-covered terrain spreads out below like an ermine cape.

Latverian weather is far from kind and the capital city and fortress sitting above is given no exception. The nights are dark and long-lasting. At the heights surrounding the castle it is especially cold and winds blow fiercely.

Few of the fortress’ windows overlook the city below, the houses and factories of the kingdom. But most are positioned to face other things – the mountain, the forest, the inhospitable wilderness.

A seemingly endless valley stretches out beneath like a gaping, shadowed wound. The fir trees grow tall, shapes as jagged and foreboding as weapons. The wind howls as the ground is pelted never-ending with small fragments of ice, and the night is full of the sounds of wolves.

It is a view that personifies Latveria’s strength and beauty, Doom thinks – strong and solitary and merciless. Like a reflection of the might of her people, the gifts of her ruler. It is not a sight he would grant to be seen by just any man.

But the inside of his keep is warm and lit by candlelight, decorated in austere luxury. It is his palace and his home. And that is a sight he would grant to even fewer men.

When the opportunity presents, however, it is a gift he is all too glad to bestow – when he has found someone worthy.

Standing before the window now is a visitor – a rare sight indeed within Latveria’s closely guarded and protected lands. He calls himself Loki, that name and no other. For he eschews all claims of fathers or country, his only title his own form of address, trusting in his actions and reputation to speak for itself. A self-made man in the forming.

Loki is a tall man, pale, cloaked in emblems of green – a shade not unlike Doom’s own cape of nobility, though darker and richer in its embroidery. He wears armor studded with leather and decorated with metal, and atop his head over thick black hair he wears a helmet featuring elaborate curving horns. In one hand he holds a sorcerer’s staff that is taller than he is. His face is long, sharp, and his green eyes study what lied before them piercingly.

Finally he turns from the window to face his host, words falling with a careless sort of eloquence as he remarks, complimentary, “My, what a most spectacular view your home is so fortunate to possess.”

And though it cannot be seen, beneath his jagged and intimidating metal mask, Doom smiles.

He gives a small nod of gratitude. “Magnificent, is she not?” he replies in his low, hoarse yet resounding voice. “The sounds of Doom’s Latveria are like music to his ears. At night, they are the only lullaby he would ever claim to need.”

“You are most proud of your country, the land of your birth,” Loki notes.

“Indeed.” Retrieving a goblet of strong red wine from a nearby side table, Doom offers one to his guest. “It is my plan to see her shaped under a mighty hand, into becoming one of the foremost nations on this Earth. Latveria will become known far and wide as the strongest and the most blessed; this is the gift I give to her with my rule. The legacy she at last truly deserves.”

Loki gives a slanted smile to this pronouncement, his eyes flashing in dark understanding and maybe even approval.

“An honorable task; a noble and praiseworthy undertaking.”

He raises the accepted goblet in his hand.

“A toast, then, Victor. To you, and to your kingdom. May it one day come to pass that you find everything you aspire to in your vision for the future.”

“Doom drinks to that, and gladly. And a toast also, to this profitable meeting of like minds, and kindred spirits.”

“Oh, but of course.”

The wine is rich and sweet on his lips, leaves a soft burn down its way to his gullet most pleasantly.

The Asgardian sorcerer is one of Doom’s most recent acquisitions as an ally, but he is quickly becoming something of a favorite. Conversations with Loki are neither distasteful nor tedious; he is both of noble breeding and good manner, and a scholarly disposition. And a longtime student of both the arcane arts as well as the sciences, Doom finds they have much to discuss at enjoyable length about each other’s work.

They share some enemies and goals in common they can join forces to take on together. And they have separate ones as well, that they can fortify each other for and against.

Yes, there is much that Doom feels he can gain from Loki. And all the more so that he might glean from the god-like alien without his permission. A sample of his hair, for example, harvested for a more detailed study of his DNA, and what tantalizing properties might be found within. Or part of magic, stolen from spell fragments he cannot help but leave behind.

Almost above these, though, their correspondence is most enjoying and amiable. Doom is not a man who knows the foolish weakness that is regret – still, it is nearly a shame to corrupt so pleasant and promising a friendship.

But he is nothing if not a pragmatic soul. After all, if he does not betray and take advantage of Loki eventually, it would only makes things the worse for him.

For if he dawdles, Loki will with absolute certainty betray him first.

That is perhaps the best thing about their business and social relationship. It is forged on such mutual understanding. They have a like nature; Doom can see a kinship in the maleficent glitter to the trickster’s eyes, hear it in the corrosive honey to his words. They are ambitious creatures both, bound by a greatness that takes them outside the laws governing mere men; and not the least bit afraid of a little deviousness, if it means achieving what they want.

Doom knows that Loki works to eventually deceive him. He accepts this. His only move to counter it is that he must hurry to achieve his deception first.

And if Loki beats him and oversets his plans, his only counter will be to bow gracefully. And try harder again for the next time. For he knows there will be a next time – this is far too enlivening a partnership to let go.

And Doom fully knows and expects, were he to succeed in overreaching Loki instead, the other would respond exactly in the same.

It is so rare a treat to partake in interactions where the parties have such wonderful respect for one another.

“Well, enough pleasantries,” Doom concludes. “Shall we continue our conversation into the dining hall? Doom’s servants have certainly finished laying out the meal by now.” A fine feast he had commissioned prepared for the two of them – fitting repast for two rulers of the world.

“But of course, your lordship. Considering your hospitality so far, I most look forward to it.”

Doom gestures that his guest should lead the way – Loki does, but only a few steps, and he is careful never to fully give his host an unbarred view to his back. Doom approves.

Yes, this looks to be a favorable alliance many years in the making, and Latveria’s ruler most looks forward to it.

Who knows looking back on these auspicious if simple beginnings many years from now, what greatness and unimaginable, unspeakable feats they will have accomplished together since then.

Doom relishes the chance to find out.

*

Years later, Doom sits again in his throne room in Doomstadt. Gripping the rests of the arms with iron manacles, no matter what his weak-minded enemies might say at home and abroad, he is secure and domineering from behind the walls of his fortress home.

He has fought many battles over this intervening time. Made many discoveries, and weapons out of those discoveries, faced many threats, fought new enemies and defeated some for good.

He has been deposed from his leadership twice, but he has always made his way again back to Latveria; his country, his kingdom, the heart of his own small but not to be underestimated empire. For some things are destiny. Some things are simply never meant to change.

But then, it seems that some things are.

“Forgive me for stopping in on you unannounced,” Loki is saying.

“No apologies necessary, old friend. You know well that Doom feels we have no need to sit on such ceremony.” Without difficulty despite his heavy armor Doom shifts, crossing one leg over the other and bringing his hands folded casually together. “It’s good that you came by. It has been too long since we saw each other last.”

“Too long,” Loki echoes immediately in soft, remorseful agreement.

There is a beat of silence between them – the years since they last parted flying by in unspoken reminiscence.

“But then,” Doom adds, his voice empty, “you have been most busy with other things. Have you not?”

Loki gives a quiet laugh. Gone are the armor and heavy leathers he wore when the two first met. He wears embroidered finery most impractical for combat, though it still sits well on him and is in his favorite color. His head is without helmet, or adornment of any kind, save his neatly combed black hair.

He looks down, and pats his stomach fondly: he is belly-full with child. “Yes, indeed. It would be most fair to say that I have. The rigors of having and running a family.”

Doom does not bat an eye. “I am sure you cannot stay long, but perhaps you will at least sit awhile with me in conversation before you must return to your home.” Rising from his throne he summons a servant to bring them wine –turning back to glance aside at Loki, specifically his abdomen. “One glass, I trust, will do no great harm to your current state?”

“Oh no. I’ve more than a few toasts drunk in my honor, on Asgard,” Loki responds almost wryly. “One will be just fine.”

Doom nods, and they retire to a nearby room, where they may sit down facing each other in high-backed armchairs, by a roaring fire. Their attitude towards one another is reasoned and casual, borne out of their years of acquaintance. They have that still, at least. Time could never rob men such as them of that.

The Latverian ruler swirls wine in his glass idly, considering. “This is to be your third offspring, yes? Do I give blessings for yet another son?”

“No, actually.” Loki keeps one hand on his belly while seated, which seems an entirely unconscious habit. “This one is a daughter.”

“Ah, I see. Do I withhold my congratulations, then?” Doom asks politely. He knows well some men of power only heap curses upon unwanted females that crowd their household’s bloodline. Such barbaric custom; but when it comes to custom, Doom considers himself a man of at least outward respect.

Loki gives a shrewd smile, knowing exactly what he means. He chuckles. “No, no. Two sons is more than any man can ask for, truly. Darcy and I are quite happy to be having a girl.”

Doom raises his glass up with what some might call surprising delicacy, considering his thick metal gauntlet-bound fingers.

“Then I do offer my congratulations, then, and my wishes to the health and happiness of your family. Truly you are fortunate,” he says with all honesty.

“Thank you, Victor,” Loki replies graciously before he sips. “You know it means much, coming from you.”

The lapse into a comfortable if somewhat sentimental silence. Half a minute goes by as they sip their wine, no sound save the crackle of fire in the gilded hearth.

“It does remind me,” Loki comments, suddenly. “I never got a chance to thank you, for your defense of my wife at the UN summit, about a year ago. I’m very grateful to you for helping her.”

Doom recalls the incident of which he was speaking. It was a convention in Geneva, and of course Doom himself attended, for Latveria could have no other fitting representative. A moderately sized group of terrorists, suitably impressively armed, had attacked the conference, thinking to hold several world leaders hostage.

In the chaos the Asgardian ambassador to Earth caught the attentions of some of the gang’s members. Somehow she had been cut off from her bodyguards, and they moved to threaten her.

Doom got to her first, and wasted no time in coming to defense of the lady. The fools didn’t have enough time to regret their actions before they were efficiently dealt with.

“It was only a pleasure to be of service to the Asgardian princess,” he responds. “Those dogs perhaps did not deserve the mercy of Doom’s cold efficiency. But, it was of more pressing import that no harm came to Ms. Lewis.”

Toward the woman in particular Doom has no special interest, and for the most part he views her indifferently. But the few times their paths have crossed in her personality he does find something somewhat admirable, and more than that, she is Loki’s wife. If it costs him nothing then of course he will always feel honor bound to assist her when he is able.

“Yes. It was a very good thing that you were there. Darcy has many words of kindness and thanks to you, as well, of course.”

“She expressly made as much known to Doom at the time. You will pass along my greeting and well-wishes to her, I trust.”

“Absolutely.”

The silence and atmosphere between them continues to be companionable. But Doom’s mind wanders back to all the other times they sat as thus, years previous. He recalls the long discussions they had, of conquest and vengeances and dark sorcery. And he finds he cannot hold his tongue.

“My friend,” he says, slow and ponderously, “I confess I cannot understand how knowing you as I do, you could possibly be satisfied with such a settled and tedious life.”

Loki blinks once, visibly surprised. But his expression quickly settles into something almost sad.

“I don’t expect you to understand. I know you as you know me. I know this wouldn’t suit you.” He looks down again, more tightly gripping his belly. “It is…very settled,” he admits. “But I’m comfortable. And happy.”

Once more Doom steals a glance at the contents of his wine, distracting himself by stirring it in a regular rotation of his wrist.

He compares this image before him with the being he first met. Loki’s face is still pale, but there is more color now to his cheeks. He no longer has that gaunt, harrowed look to him, a wild intensity like an animal being hunted into a corner. Fierceness and grim darkness has given way to complacency, and trusting security.

Doom finds it impossible to view the present Loki without an air of disappointment.

“I can see that. But you had such…promise, once. I remember the things we spoke of. The plans you told me about.”

“Things change,” Loki reminds him.

Doom shakes his head. He does something incredibly rare for him – he sighs.

“You are wasted on a life of mere domestic bliss,” he pronounces regretfully.

Instead of getting angry, Loki smiles. There is something bittersweet but soft in his expression – something that has been deferred, but he has come to terms with, and feels little if no pain over.

“I know. You think that I don’t? It’s still in me, somewhere – all the darkness, the rage, all the mad, desperate hunger for power. I could still be that, if I chose. I could do it easily.” He shakes his head. “But I don’t want to, anymore.”

He turns his face aside, gaze half-hidden beneath his eyelashes, quieter as he’s lost to introspection.

“It would be the greater destiny, to live as the embodiment of chaos and destruction. But I find I actually like it better, being no one special. Being just another man, whose only contribution to the world is the simple act of raising his children. So what if a few thousand years after I’m gone, no one remembers me? So what if I’m passing up on what should be my proper role, my chance at being a legend.” He meets Doom’s eyes. “I don’t care. This is what I want. I’ll fight to defend it, if I have to – even if my greatest battle will be with myself.”

Doom listens to this speech. When it is concluded, he half-raises his glass, as if in another toast.

“I admire your determination, if nothing else. And I am certain if you put all your notable resources to it, you will surely meet your goal.” His voice is clear when he speaks. “You are right to say I do not understand. But that is of no consequence. Doom doesn’t need to understand to give his respect.”

Loki’s smile is different now – both warmer and full of wistfulness.

“I am glad that despite all else, I can still call you friend. Even if the nature of our acquaintance is no longer what it once was.”

“No indeed.” Doom sighs again. “More is the pity.”

He drinks his wine, and as much as a man such is as Doom is able to, he relaxes.

“But, as you say, though much has changed we still know one another. And that is of too much significance for any wise man to be ungrateful of.”

The winds outside are strong and the wolves are howling; Latveria sings to him. And inside, he has conversation and companionship. It is a good night.