Fandom: MCU-Avengers/Thor
Characters/Pairing: Steve/Darcy, Loki/Darcy
Rating: M, adult themes
Genre: angst, tragic romance
PR: the patient and beguilingly lovely, jarms
Word Count: 500
Prompt: Week 50, photo of snow falling on a hand, peeking out from a thick, cable knit sweater
Suggested Listening: Sam Smith, Latch and Matthew Mayfield, Come Back Home
A/N: Don't mind me-just ruthlessly mining my Black & Blue soundtrack for feels. ;)
The Flame
Part I. In The Warmth Of Her Embrace
A fire burned merrily in the modern version of a hearth in Steve Roger's penthouse apartment near the top of Avengers Tower. Outside, the first flakes of a long overdue winter drifted beyond the wall of glass spanning the main living space.
Steve marveled at the view; not of the city, but of his companion.
Tucked in on the long, leather sofa with her grandmother's afghan, Darcy Lewis's chest rose and fell softly, if not steadily. With his superhuman hearing, Steve monitored her rattling breath while discreet devices affixed to her pallid skin recorded the same for Banner's lab, two stories below. Beneath the garish floral knit, movement rippled along the broad slope of her rounded belly and Darcy shivered.
The only known human to carry the child of a Frost Giant.
Not that the Frost Giant in question had the faintest idea of his impending fatherhood.
'Nail and bail', Stark called their brief, drunken fling. It sickened Steve, what that monster did to defenseless, human Darcy. Never once had she named the father, but everyone knew, especially when the chills set in. Her skin took on a faint bluish cast, her temperature dropping as her belly grew under sweaters not quite bulky enough to hide her secret.
In need of round the clock care, Darcy eventually-reluctantly-agreed to move to Avengers Tower, but on her terms-on the condition that the Avengers would protect her baby from SHIELD if it turned out to be … different.
The child was innocent, she swore, no matter the identity of its father.
The only one willing to make that promise who would genuinely keep his word, Steve offered his spare room to the expectant mother.
He never expected to fall in love.
Settling by her side in the corner of the sectional, he laid a stiff arm along the back of the couch. Then, hesitantly, with all the awkwardness born of a 90-year old virgin, he brushed the messy tendrils from her forehead with a shaking hand and removed her glasses.
She sighed and leaned into his touch, murmuring softly, "Loki…"
Steve's heart clenched. Would she ever see him? Ever look at him and see the love, the longing in the kind eyes of America's hero? The one man worthy of her love?
Or would she always long for the one thing she couldn't have, the one man that could and would deny her with every waking breath for being less, for being mortal, no matter the innocent, kicking babe within her belly?
A chance, that's all he asked. Just one, to show her how good they could be together.
How right.
Until then, he'd play the only part she'd allow-the sexless best friend. Fetcher of midnight ice cream and hot water bottles, massager of feet, shoulder to cry on, supplier of hugs without strings attached.
It would have to be enough, for now, until the dawn of a new day when she was ready to let him into the warmth of her embrace.
E/N: How'd I do? You want the Loki POV, too? ;)