As the Convergence from Thor 2 wanes Darcy Lewis is sent to brief S.H.I.E.L.D. on the events of the film. After trying to give a scientific report without the science background, she seizes a chance to do what she is actually good at, studying politics. She enters one of the fading portals and ends up on Asgard when the portals close, just as Loki, still disguised as Odin, seals the Bifrost to prevent further invasion.

While Darcy learns about Asgard and Loki plots to hold on to his new kingdom, an ancient enemy has acquired an item of great power and is planning to use it to destroy Asgard, forcing its new king and would be destroyer into becoming its defender.

The story begins almost immediately after Thor: the Dark World and takes place mostly away from Earth, but will be canon compliant with Captain America: The Winter Soldier (probably including some very spoilery mentions of HYDRA later in the story,) and The Guardians of the Galaxy (although that is probably less important to this particular story.)

Very slow burn Loki redemption and Loki/Darcy.

(For anyone who is worried about my OUaT story, it has not been abandoned, but it's really slow going right now. I expect it will speed up after OUaT airs in the fall.)

Chapter 1 – Home

Darcy Lewis tried her best not to sound like an idiot. This was easier said than done. For some reason Jane had decided she would be the best one to bring in their reports to S.H.I.E.L.D..

Not for some reason, Darcy mused. Jane had her boyfriend back from outer space and wanted to spend a little quality time with him away from the men in black, not that Darcy blamed her for that. And Eric was, well, his mental state was still a little questionable. Darcy had no doubt he would be fine with time, and probably a good bit of therapy, but for now he was still having issues with the fact that laboratories are not clothing optional and it was up to her to try not to sound like an idiot while explaining science to sciency type people without actually knowing any of the science.

She didn't even have her own intern anymore. Or a boyfriend. Ian had not really been cut out for the weirdness. He signed all the nondisclosure agreements and left that morning. He even tried to talk Darcy into coming with him. It was flattering because no one had ever asked her to run away with them before. Unless you counted the very literal running away that she seemed to do a lot of ever since Jane hit Thor with the van. But she couldn't quite bring herself to leave all the weirdness behind, even though a piece of her wished she could.

So here she was, trying to explain to Dr. Banner and a lab full of S.H.I.E.L.D. scientists what Jane and Eric had learned about the Convergence, which was waning now, and only one or two portals remained open.

Fury was less than pleased about Jane's unscheduled leave of absence and also that Tony Stark hadn't deigned to show up. Something about "not doing portals." Bruce Banner was nice enough but was asking all sorts of odd questions that she didn't know the answer to. She wanted to tell him she was just a Poly-Sci student on the weirdest internship ever. She knew more about science than she had ever thought she would when she began but that wasn't saying much at all.

Fury also wanted the full report on anything Jane might have learned while in Asgard, which was apparently not a lot and kept getting annoyed because Darcy knew more about the political situation on Asgard than she did about the science. What did he expect? She wasn't a scientist and was only actually useful to Jane for anything other than friendship for maybe a few minutes a day so she had found other ways to occupy her time. Learning about Asgard, the non-science side of Asgard, was one of those ways.

So she spent the entire day feeling like she was at least two steps behind in her own report, because everyone she had spoken to for the entire day knew more about astrophysics than she did.

She spotted Director Fury when she was finally getting set to leave and jogged a half step to catch up with him. Belatedly she worried that guards or agents or Hawkeye or someone would shoot her for running toward the Director, but nothing happened. He just turned his one eye on her in surprise.

"Sir," she said, not entirely sure what the proper thing to call him was. "No one has asked me the more important questions. Not that I have all the answers or anything, I just think…" she trailed off realizing she probably didn't need to be telling Director Fury where his priorities should be.

"Oh?" he asked, arching the brow over his patch, which was a little unsettling. He probably used the expression for just that reason. "What should I have been asking you?"

"Well," she said, suppressing the urge to gulp nervously. "The important questions like 'What does Asgard want with earth?' 'Does one king actually rule over all the realms we don't know?' and 'Is an alliance with Asgard a feasible possibility?' Those seem like a lot more important questions than how a Convergence works that only happens once every thousand years or so. At least, I think they do." She took a deep breath. "I'm surprised you aren't using the last few days of the waning Convergence to send someone to Asgard as an observer to learn more about their culture and try to establish diplomatic ties. Dr. Banner said something about having stabilized one of the portals for study and it should last for at least another day. Being on good terms with a people that powerful is always a good idea." She realized she was rambling and shut up.

Fury looked at her for a long moment like she was the alien. "You want to talk to the Asgardians?" he asked, as though the very idea were incomprehensible. Not distasteful, just so strange it would never have crossed his mind.

"Yes," Darcy said reasonably. "Well, not me exactly. We. Not you and me. That would be silly. You have another job and I have…" she didn't really know what she had, but there was probably something that disqualified her. Like her complete lack of qualifications. "We as a species I guess. Someone should."

"I have a lot of real problems to deal with. When aliens bring their wars to my front door it tends to give me extra work. If you want to go to Asgard to talk and have them send you back down to earth as soon as they see you, be my guest. Otherwise, stick to… whatever it is you do and stop wasting my time." With that, Fury entered his office, leaving her in the hall alone.

"This is…" she tried to call after him. "… What I do," she added lamely after the door closed.

Wait, had Fury actually offered her a job as a diplomat to another realm? Technically, he had, she realized with a start. He had only said it because he didn't think she would take him seriously and he just wanted her out of his metaphorical hair, but still.

It was sort of a dream job for Darcy, just not yet. She needed a lot more experience to be qualified, maybe an internship somewhere reasonably and sane, the U.N. maybe, where wars that started would be limited to one plane of existence, a place where she would get the requisite political experience.

She chided herself for even thinking about it. He hadn't meant the offer anyway. Then she chided herself for not thinking about it because it was the perfect job. Then she circled back around to chiding herself for thinking about it again because it wasn't really an option. She was just the intern who ran to get things for Jane, she wasn't the one who had adventures and went too far off realms.

Stick to… whatever it is you do.

"Well Director," she said aloud to the empty hallway. "This is what I do." Or at least it was what I was planning to do, before an alien fell out of the sky, she added silently, but then she realized that diplomat to an alien world hadn't even been on the table before Thor fell out of the sky.

She called Jane, because she figured she should call somebody, given that she could hardly tell Fury the truth because he might rescind the offer. Then she realized her phones were probably tapped so she really couldn't say anything to Jane either.

"Hey Darcy," Jane said brightly. "How did it go at S.H.I.E.L.D.?"

"About as well as you expect when the non-scientist is trying to teach a bunch of scientists about science-y stuff," Darcy said. "Actually, you're teaching Thor about earth-ish stuff so I'm guessing yours is about the same but better company."

"Don't do that," Jane called, presumably to Thor. "You'll start a fire." Then to Darcy, "He's trying to learn how to use the toaster."

"You should probably supervise that pretty closely," Darcy said with a laugh. "As god of thunder he can't electrocute himself, right? Look, Jane, there's, um, there's… something's come up that I really wanted to talk to you but kind of can't for… reasons. But if everything goes right I have this amazing job opportunity and may be kinda be off the grid, and I mean way off the grid, for a while."

"What kind of…?" Jane began but Darcy cut her off.

"Like I said, I can't really talk about it. You kinda work for S.H.I.E.L.D. too so you understand how the best opportunities sometimes are the kind you really can't talk about, especially on the phone to someone halfway around the world. I don't really know how long I'll be gone either. I just sort of wanted to say goodbye because I won't get another chance for us to talk for a while if this works out."

"And if it doesn't?" Jane asked, a concerned edge to her voice.

"Pretty much nothing happens. A few people are probably going to be kind a mad at me and I will turn up at the lab as usual. It's not like it's really a dangerous job, just one that's really far off the grid. Really far," she repeated, hoping that Jane would get it and see what a great opportunity it was.

"Ok," Jane said slowly. "Would it be too much to ask you to take some equipment and get some readings while you are off the grid?"

Darcy almost laughed. "No, I think I can do that. Text me a wish list and I'll bring what I can, but I can't really bring a ton of stuff with me, so smaller is better."

So, a few hours later, she packed everything she would need, including some science equipment form Jane and Erik's lab, into two large suitcases and headed for Banner's lab, the one with the semi-stable portal.

That was the advantage of technically being a S.H.I.E.L.D. intern. Sure, there was an unreasonable amount of paperwork and a staggering number of rules about who was allowed to know what, but she had this shining little badge that would get her into about half the labs, including all the Asgardian related ones. It felt a little illegal, using it this way, in the middle of the night. Actually, she had been to the lab plenty of times at night because astrophysicists tend to study the stars at night. Go figure. But this was different and probably slightly illegal, even if Fury technically told her to do it. Which was why she was here in the middle of the night with two bags instead of at a reasonable time with… well actually she didn't have that much stuff so two bags would still have been enough.

She had left notes in her room, so that if this worked people would know where she went. One very generic letter to her parents telling them not to worry because she had that internship with the government and would be out of touch for a while, one formal letter for Director Fury, informing him that she had taken his advice and gone to Asgard, and one for Jane, giving her more information about where she was going, although she was a little light on the why because she hadn't figured that completely out herself. She left them in her room so that, if Fury was right and they sent her right back, she could destroy the letters and resume her life and pretend that she hadn't snuck into a S.H.I.E.L.D. facility at night to use a portal to Asgard behind everyone's backs.

She half hoped that she would be sent back for just that reason, because she felt she needed to try this, to be more than the non-science intern in a lab she didn't fully understand, trying to catch at least a few of the words that the scientists said. Even if it didn't work, it would prove to herself that she was more than someone waiting for aliens to drop out of the sky. This time she would be the alien dropping out of the sky.

Loki's first act as king was to seal the Bifrost. With his magic he could unseal it of course, but no one else could and he had plenty of reasons to want it closed. Thor and Thanos were just the very top of the list. People had wondered but said nothing. He had preempted their questions with some nonsense about focusing on problems nearer to home and rebuilding after the destruction wreaked upon the city. Besides, he had his own ways in and out of the city, should the need arise.

Being All-Father is surprisingly boring work. Loki had given so much thought to acquiring the throne, he had never really stopped to think what to actually do with it. He'd had it before of course, but they were at war with the Frost Giants at the time and it had only been a brief time anyway. He sat on the massive throne and wondered, and not for the first time, if he shouldn't have made the All-Father rebuild the city before seizing the throne.

He bade the architects leave him. It had been a grueling day, but he insisted on seeing to the planning personally. Not because the All-Father would have done so, Loki was certain Odin All-Father had never so much as spoken to an architect in all his days, but because Loki wanted a say in the city's design in order to prepare a defense. And to leave room for his own special touches, passages that would only open for the king of mischief.

Loki smiled to himself, the expression entirely masked by the All-Father's face. He liked the title, King of Mischief. Perhaps someday people would know him by that name rather than by Odin's name. He gripped the arm of the throne angrily at the thought of Odin, the man he had once called father. The price of the throne, perhaps even of life, was to wear the All-father's face. There had been a time, and not so very long ago, that he looked up to Odin and Thor, would have given anything to be worthy, to be like them. But now it grated at him.

He glanced down and realized he had scratched furrows in the arm of the golden throne. When the All-Father was angry he would slam his fist against the arm sometimes and it never appeared the worse for it, but Loki had the throne for all of three days and the chair was already showing signs of wear. It could survive the fury of Odin but not the madness of Loki apparently. Not madness, he corrected himself; his was fury too, apparently more effective than the All-Father's. Against the furniture at any rate.

Allowing the illusion drop for a moment, he tried to image that someday it would always be like this, that he would have the throne in his own name, no illusions, no tricks. He used to find that dream easy, but now it seemed strangely out of reach. Even as king he still had to stand in another's shadow. He laughed mirthlessly at the thought. Loki Odinson, Laufeyson, it didn't really matter. He would always be in their shadows.

He wrapped himself in the All-Father's image again, but beneath the illusion his pale fingers clawed again at the arm of the throne as though trying to dig out of a cage.