(Author's Note: Hi there! I hope you enjoy, and I'd just like to say I do NOT own any Marvel characters at all….no matter how much I wish I did.)

A touch.

That's all it started out with.

Loki, god of mischief leaned his head against the wall of the room SHIELD was currently holding him in. After letting go of Odin's spear, Earth was the last place he was hoping to fall. If anything, he was hoping for death. The memory of the air being sucked from his very lungs as he entered the black, cold void entered his mind and he closed his eyes to push it back.

He was sitting on a bed, not a very comfortable one, but it served its purpose. The room was tiny and stark white and clinical. He wished he could phase through the sickeningly white walls but he was still weak from his fall. He was unsure how long it would take him to gain his powers back at this rate, but for the moment he was mortal. He ran a hand through his raven hair and sighed in exasperation. Green eyes lingered across the small desk and uncomfortable chair that stood a few feet from him.

Death would have been a release, he thought. He was a failure. His plan was ruined and there was no way he would ever be forgiven in Asgard. He looked down at his small wrists wondering how difficult it would be to take his own life in his current human form. Not very, he decided, running his thumb over his opposite wrist and feeling the tendons moving beneath his flesh. He considered the possibility for a moment before deciding that it would be unwise at the moment. SHIELD agents would only haul him to the hospital before patching him up and putting him in an even less enjoyable room.

With no books.

The books lining a small bookcase were his only companions at the moment, and, as dull as they might seem by Earthen standards, Loki found them fascinating. He had recently been perusing the hodgepodge of literature and to his delight found an author that seemed to embody the dignified prose he so enjoyed: Shakespeare. And so his long and quiet hours were spent reading for the most part and desperately attempting to engulf himself in any world except this one.

Finally he leaned his head back against the wall with a thud and knit his eyebrows together. He was miserable. There was a pain in his torso that prevented his breathing from being even and caused tears to well up in the corners of his eyes. It was probably the three still-mending fractured ribs he had received from his fall, but to him it felt as if his very soul was cracking and breaking into tiny silver pieces in his body. All his life he had been second to Thor. Just when he thought death was something he could at least beat his "golden brother" at, Loki came to the realization that he wasn't even going to be able to do that right. Wonderful.

Darcy Lewis was bored. Very bored. She stared at her computer in the work room SHIELD had set up Jane's lab in and attempted to balance a pencil on her upper lip. Needless to say, there wasn't much to do. The political science major sighed, leaning back in the spinning chair and wheeling it around in a quick circle, giving her a sickeningly cyclonic view of the ceiling tiles she had already counted three times. One hundred and thirty seven. Well, the second time she had gotten one hundred and thirty-six, so she counted once more to be sure.

Once the chair (and the world) had stopped spinning, she let her forehead rest against her desk with a thud. She wished she had her ipod. Those damn agents had released all of Jane's work, but had they given a second thought to Darcy's precious mp3 player? Nooooo.

Her mind wandered to the days before, when they had camped out in the desert for days awaiting Thor's return after the Destroyer incident. Jane had had her eyes fixed on the sky every moment that Erik wasn't harassing her to get something to eat or go to sleep. When the aurora appeared again, Jane had taken off in the van with a squeal of delight, Darcy in tow as her faithful intern. The astrophysicist had exited the vehicle with a cry of, "THOR!" before being cut off by the startling realization that the man laying bloody and broken in the dusty night was most certainly not her god of thunder.

Darcy stared off at the wall as she remember the man's pale flesh contrasting with the crimson red of blood and deep raven of his mussy locks. He wore Asgardian armor bearing the seal of the mischief god himself in old Norse. Jane had quickly realized this was the traitorous brother that Thor had spoken of and her face quickly contorted into a twist of disgust and disappointment. Darcy, on the other hand, hovered over him and examined him from his sharp nose to his sunken eyes and high cheekbones. He was certainly not as muscular as the first Asgardian to fall to earth, but this one had a certain haunting appearance that she would find invading her mind like a parasite. Darcy had gasped as for a moment his vivid green eyes fluttered open and landed on her. His lips trembled in pain before he succumbed once more to unconsciousness.

Naturally, SHIELD had taken an interest in the man who had sicced the Destroyer armor on them and the government organization proceeded to repair him as best as they could, locking him away for questioning and examining. She had only glanced at him in the days that followed, occasionally seeing him through the crack of his door as agents brought him food and water. He had sad eyes. Indefinably lonely and deep as the night sky. She almost thanked Jane for sending her back to the headquarters alone to keep track of him in case he gave out any important information on Thor's whereabouts while Erik and Jane scoured the desert.

Darcy stood up suddenly, finally deciding she had an idea that might cure her boredom.

Loki had fallen asleep leaning against the wall, his mind wandering from reality to nightmares in a semi-lucid state of haze. His breathing was quiet, almost as silent as a cadaver as his chest rose and fell lightly. The slow cracking of his door didn't seem to wake him as the spectacled brunette crept in. It had taken quite a bit of convincing to get the SHIELD agents to allow her access to the mischief god, but they finally decided that human contact might do him good as long as it was closely monitored. Darcy looked over at him, noticing he was asleep and made the snap decision not to wake him. Instead she took care and patience in closing the door with as little sound as possible before slipping into the empty chair that faced his bed. She looked him dead in the face, her hands clasped together as she leaned forward in the chair and rested her elbows on her knees. Her rectangular rimmed glasses had slipped down her nose and she pushed them back up with a huff.

He was so pale...and she could barely tell he was breathing. Was he breathing? Oh God, was he dead? Darcy's mind ran at a thousand miles a minute as she watched him. She leaned closer, extending her fingers forward to gently touch his hand. As soon as her fingertips made contact with his icy knuckles, his eyes flew open and his other hand struck out like a cobra to grip her wrist. The woman screamed, jerking back in surprise and toppling the chair backwards and onto the floor. Her skull came in contact with the tile with a loud "CRACK", but still the god did not release her wrist.

"Ooow! Hey, man! What's your problem?" she said, not quite angry as much as annoyed. Her free hand went to the back of her head. No blood. Good. Loki continued to stare her down, now standing hunched over her like a lion on an antelope.

"What are you doing here?" he hissed.

"I was just checking on you! Damn!" She wriggled free of the confines of the folding chair and attempted to right herself with much difficulty due to the person currently latched to her arm. "Would you help me up?" It sounded more like a demand than a question. Loki looked off to a wall for a moment as if considering his options before pulling her up to a standing position and releasing her wrist.

"Why?" he question, retreating away from her and glaring at her with those intense eyes. If looks could kill, she'd be stone dead. She shrugged.

"I was bored." He cocked a dark eyebrow at her and she acquiesced. "And I was worried about you. I mean, holy crap, that was a bit more than falling out of a tree or something. You fell from another dimension! You're lucky to be alive." He snorted at this, looking away from her. An awkward silence soon fell upon the room as the two tried desperately to fixate themselves on the thin cracks of the wall. "I fell off a roof once."

"Really," said Loki, voice laced with sarcasm. "Do tell."

Apparently sarcasm was as foreign a language to her as ancient Greek. "Well I was nine and my cousin Richard wanted to play mountain climbers, so we climbed onto the roof and tried to scale the chimney, but a stumbled and fell off." The girl had awkwardly recounted her tale in what seemed to Loki to be a singular breath. He stared at her for a moment wondering if the petite, mousy girl was stark raving mad. He felt a hint of amusement well up in the pit of his stomach, but swiftly stifled it and kept his stoic composure unblinkingly. Darcy stared at him, desperately wishing for a reaction just to break the utter silence that had filled the room. She suddenly felt the urge to crawl under the desk just to escape the penetrating gaze.

Her story appeared to have had little affect of the master of lies and she shifted her feet to give her something to focus on. "Uuhhh...yeah...sooooo...I think...I'll just...go." Darcy awkwardly punctuated her speech with small pointing gestures towards the door before turning and tripping over her own feet. She fumbling for the doorknob and exiting the room with as much dignity as she could muster after the deafening silence and retreated stiffly back to her computer.

Loki felt the corners of his lips turn up slightly. Maybe this could be interesting.