For weaverofhopes, who asked.
This is un-beta'd as of yet, but this is something that has been rolling around in my mind for about a year. I've seen Labyrinth no less than seventy billion times and I've always wanted to write an AU with this pairing in the Labyrinth setting. I just needed a little push.
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It's Only Forever
A Tasertricks Labyrinth AU Fic
By JessiokaFroka
"Give me the child."
Darcy's pale cotton dress shifted around her in the cool breeze while loose tendrils of dark hair brushed against the soft skin of her neck. Behind her a stream flowed under a bridge and there was soft grass beneath her feet. She drew her dress closer to her body to stave off the chill, her eyes never losing their focus.
"Through dangers untold, and hardships unnumbered, I have fought my way here to the castle beyond this Asgardian City, to take back the child that you have stolen. For my will is as strong as yours, and my kingdom is as great."
Darcy stopped, her face wrinkling with a small frown. She peered up at the dark clouds and thought while thunder cracked from a short distance away.
"Damn. I can never remember that part," she said to herself. She pulled a small leather-bound book from her jeans pocket, her long sleeves falling to her elbows. She flipped through the well-worn pages, the book opening easily to a passage that had been read so many times that it seemed as though the book knew what Darcy was looking for. She immediately found what she was looking for and rolled her eyes at herself.
"You have no power over me."
The clock in the training room began to chime and Darcy's eyes darted to it immediately, widening in surprise.
"I don't believe it, it's already seven o'clock! Program off!" she called out to the training room and immediately the grass, trees, stream, and bridge disappeared. She was left staring at the same old grey training room that she was used to in SHIELD's basement.
Darcy hiked up the skirt on her long dress, letting her jeans show while she ran as fast as she could through a narrow hallway. She made her way into the ladies' locker room and switched her long medieval-esque dress for a flowy white top with billowing long sleeves and a patterned vest. Vintage - although SHIELD didn't necessarily approve, she wasn't an agent so they couldn't flat-out tell her she couldn't wear whatever she wanted within reason. She took advantage of that little bit of leeway at every opportunity.
After she was done changing and fixing her hair, the clock showed 7:15 AM. She didn't think she would lose track of time so easily- early Sunday mornings was a great time to use the training rooms for non-agents and Darcy had become a little obsessed playing around in what she had come to refer as the 'Holodeck' much to Phil Coulson's chagrin. Phil - he would not be pleased that she was late. But she needed breakfast and she would be damned if she would try to face deciphering Jane's chicken scratch handwriting without some protein in her stomach.
The SHIELD cafeteria took forever getting her eggs and hash browns to her, but she finally got them, grabbed a coffee, and headed down to the lab. Her hope that she would be able to slip into the lab and take a seat at her laptop without Phil noticing was in vain; as soon as she approached the glass walled lab the unreadable Phil Coulson noticed her approach immediately and crossed his arms across his chest.
Before he could say anything Darcy blurted out, "It's not fair!"
"Oh, really?" Phil answered, "Well don't stand there in the hallway, come inside and put down your things."
Darcy trudged past Phil and put her breakfast and purse down unceremoniously down on her desk. She flipped on her computer and waited for the inevitable lecture.
"Darcy, you're an hour late," Phil started.
"I said I'm sorry," Darcy shot back.
"We ask you to come in on a Sunday very rarely-"
"You ask me to come in every single weekend!" Darcy interrupted.
Phil put a hand on his hip and took a breath, his face never losing its unreadable expression. "Director Fury only asks you to come in on a voluntary basis. You can say no to us, especially if you have plans. Quite frankly," Phil said, his voice lowering while he glanced quickly up at the lab's security camera, "I assume you would speak up if you had plans. I'd like you to have plans- you should definitely have plans at your age. But," he said, raising his voice to his normal volume once more, "if you're going to agree to come in on the weekend, then you need to be here on time. I had to wait for you to show you what we need you to do today."
"Ugh, I feel like I can't do anything right," Darcy muttered to herself, but followed Phil to the back of the room toward an ancient, massive computer. It was hooked up to a small laptop that was sitting on a desk next to it.
"As you know we're in the middle of bringing certain parts of SHIELD out of the dark ages. Unfortunately a project has come up that requires the information we have on this computer, but we need it in a form that's a little more up-to-date. We're going to start the information transfer and all we need you to do is watch it and make sure you press this button whenever the screen prompts you to do so," Phil explained, gesturing toward a blue button on the laptop.
"That's it?" Dark asked.
"That's it. It may not even prompt you at all. We just need a live body watching over the transference of this information, because if the prompt isn't verified on time then the whole thing will shut down. The trouble with that is that once any information is transferred off of this computer, we can't get it back. So it's pretty simple - sit here and press the blue button on time and everything will go fine."
"Got it," said Darcy. Phil turned to leave the room for a moment and hesitated. He step paused, but whatever he had thought about saying remained unsaid and he left the room.
Darcy examined the laptop. The time required to transfer all of this information was just over thirteen hours-
"Thirteen hours?!" Darcy called out to no one in particular. "It's a good thing I really didn't have any plans, huh? I'm going to be here all day!" She sighed in disgust. "I hate this place, I hate it!"
She sat at her own desk and started eating her breakfast while clicking through her normal websites. She found a particularly funny gif on Tumblr and went to reblog it, only to find that the buggy website wouldn't interact correctly with the company computer. She pulled out her iPhone to do the same thing and the password for the WiFi in the building had been changed - no Internet was available.
"Oh my god, someone save me! Someone take me away from this awful place!" she cried out. No Internet? Wasn't that a basic requirement for life or something now? "And I can't leave now because of you-" she said, shooting venom with her eyes over at the laptop and massive clunky old computer that were quietly humming away while they transferred information from one to the other. She thought about what she could do to pass the time - she didn't have a phone to call security for the WiFi password and she wasn't writing anything at the moment.
Darcy suddenly realized that she had her little leather-bound copy of Labyrinth of Asgard with her - she could read it for the zillionth time - or, she thought, she could act it out. Right here in the lab - it's not like anyone comes down here on Sundays anyway, and Phil wouldn't be back until the end of her shift. Who would know? She reasoned with herself for a moment before opening her little book to the beginning.
Suddenly the laptop started making an odd blipping noise and Darcy glanced over at it to find that a prompt had popped up on its screen. She sighed and put down the book. The screen showed that she had two minutes to press the button, so she grinned at her own cheesiness and decided to use it in her little reenactment.
"Let me tell you a story," she shot at the unassuming laptop. "Once upon a time, there was a beautiful young girl whose workplace always made her come in on the weekends to tend to one menial task or another. One weekend, she was stuck watching over a needy, temperamental laptop and the girl was practically a slave. But what no one knew is that the Asgardian King had fallen in love with the girl, and he had granted her certain powers. So one day, when the girl had been particularly hurried and beaten down by this life, she asked the Asgardians for help."
Somewhere in the crawlspace underneath the laboratory, twelve Asgardian warriors awakened.
"'Say your right words' the Asgardians said, 'and we'll take the computers to the Asgardian City, and you will be free. Ah! But the girl knew that the king of the Asgardians would keep the computers in his castle forever and ever and ever and ever and eventually turn it into a piece of art to sit somewhere in his city, so she suffered in silence. Until one Sunday morning when she was tired of being asked to come into work on her day off and berated for being late and she could no longer stand it."
The computer blipped louder at her this time, urging her to hurry up and press the stupid button already.
"Oh, all right, knock it off!" she said, and strode over the the desk, pressing the blue button and calming the computer once more. But a new prompt came up and beeped and blipped at her again. "Stop it, just stop it!" she said, once more hitting the treacherous blue button. She laughed at herself a little bit over what she was about to say.
"I'll say the words! No, I mustn't, I mustn't say!" Darcy said.
One Asgardian warrior turned to another, his eyes wide while he cocked his ear to listen for the girl's words.
"I wish… I wish!" she started.
"She's going to say it!" hissed a warrior.
"Say what?" said another loudly, and he was promptly shushed by his peers.
"Shut up!" the first warrior said.
"You shut up!"
"Listen!" said the first warrior again, "She's going to say the words!"
The computer continued its maddening noise.
"I can bear it no longer!" said Darcy, and she glanced around the lab to make sure no one was here to see the epic amount of lameness that was about to go down. Of course there was the security camera, but who cared about that? "Asgardian King, Asgardian King! Wherever you may be, take this job of mine far away from me!"
Nothing happened.
"That's not it!" said one of the twelve warriors in the crawlspace underneath the lab.
"Where'd she learn that rubbish? It didn't even start with 'I wish'!"
Darcy hit the blue button on the computer, finally sick of her game. "Oh come on, stop it!" The computer wouldn't. Stop. Making. That. Noise. "I wish I did know what to say to make the Asgardians take you away," she muttered aloud while she messed with the laptop in an effort to find the volume settings.
"I wish the Asgardians would come take you away right now, that's not so hard, is it?" one of the warriors said quietly, frustration striated through his voice.
"I wish…" Darcy started, her eyes glazing with a thought that she couldn't quite form "I wish…"
"Did she say it?" the loud Asgardian asked.
"SHUT UP!" his cohorts whisper-screamed at him in unison.
"I wish the Asgardians would come take you away," she said, pressing the blue button once more. The noise continued. "Right now."
Darcy turned back to her own computer desk to get her coffee, and the noise of the offending laptop stopped on its own. At the same time the lights in the lab shut off all at once and she froze in her tracks. She felt a wind begin to blow and she panicked- there were no windows in this lab. The dim emergency lighting kicked on and she turned slowly toward the laptop, to find that it- and the massive computer it had been hooked up to- were now gone. She thought she saw someone duck behind a filing cabinet.
"Oh my god…" she said, and she heard snickering from behind her. When she whirled around to look at what was making the noise, whatever it was it had disappeared already. She squinted to try to see in the low lighting.
The odd wind that seemed to be contained only within the lab picked up in the dim emergency floor lighting Darcy saw a that a huge raven had managed to make its way inside. It was beating its wings around the room and it seemed to be coming right at her, causing her to let out a little shriek and over her face with her arms. She could hear wind and a dozen voices laughing and the heavy black feathers flapping, when suddenly-
Silence.
Darcy slowly opened her eyes and uncovered her face-
And gasped.
Before her stood a tall man with black hair, sharp features, and a curious, knowing look in his green eyes. He was dressed in black from head to toe with a billowing black cloak that hung dramatically over his shoulders, making him appear even taller than he already was. Darcy took an involuntary step backwards and he smirked, a line forming in his pale cheek. When he said nothing, she finally spoke.
"You're him, aren't you?" she asked, and he gave the most minuscule of shrugs, his smirk never wavering. "You're the King of Asgard."
The man still said nothing.
Darcy glanced over at where the laptop and the ancient computer had been. "I want those computers back, if it's all the same."
"What's said is said," said the king, his voice dripping in promise and enjoyment, enjoyment at her obvious state of mild panic. He arched a brow and studied her.
"I didn't mean it," Darcy pleaded.
"Oh, you didn't?"
"They are going to kill me if I can't get those back. Please, where are they?"
"You know very well where they are," said the king.
Darcy's stomach dropped. She knew.
"Please, I need those back. Please."
"Darcy," he said, her name rolling off of his lips like a prayer, "Go back to the training room. Play with your books and your fantasies. Forget about the computers."
"I can't."
The king waved his hand once, a crystal ball appearing on it seemingly from nowhere. "I've brought you a gift," he said, and waved his hands, effortlessly moving the crystal ball in fluid movement from one practiced hand to the next.
Darcy was mesmerized with its movement and had trouble tearing her eyes away from it.
"What is it?" she asked.
His eyes bore into her own. "It's a crystal. Nothing more. But if you turn it this way, and look into it, it will show you your dreams. But this isn't a gift for an ordinary girl who looks after the tedious tasks of the company for which she works. Do you want it?" he asked, "then forget about the laptop."
"I can't," Darcy replied. "It's not that I don't appreciate what you're doing for me, but I need those computers back. If the information transfer messes up-"
"Darcy," said the king, and the crystal in his hand transformed before her eyes into a green-and-gold snake. He looked at it lovingly and then glanced up at her. "Don't defy me."
Without warning he tossed the snake at her and it coiled around her neck. Darcy screamed and wrenched it off of her neck to find that it was only a silken scarf. She heard the disembodied laughter behind her again and she whirled around, but like before, there was no one there. She turned back to face the Asgardian King.
"You're no match for me," the king said simply, so confident was he in his own power.
"I need those computers back. Now."
The king nodded once and stepped to one side, revealing a window in place of the blank wall that had been there before. "They're there, in my castle."
She took a few tentative steps past him and went to the window's opening. There, through the trees and shrubbery, she could see a shining golden castle in the distance. It was surrounded by a city and that was surrounded by a massive maze made up of walls and forest. She didn't hear the king approach behind her, so close was his body to hers that they almost touched. His smooth voice next to her ear startled her.
"Do you still want to look for them?"
She turned to face him and found that she was no longer in the lab - no, hey were both in the middle of a clearing, green grass beneath their feet and a stream nearby trickled. Darcy stared out at the castle and tried to wrap her mind around the distance from herself to it.
"Is that the castle beyond the Asgardian city?"
"Turn back, Darcy," the king warned, "Turn back, before it's too late." She turned to face him. His cloak billowed in the wind and tugged at his hair, making him look even more powerful than he already appeared. A tall clock was behind him that had not twelve hours, but thirteen.
Darcy thought for a moment. "I can't. Don't you understand that I can't?"
"What a pity," said the king, almost as if to himself.
Darcy raised her chin to him and tried to build her own confidence. "It doesn't look that far," she said.
"It's further than you think. Time is short," he said and gestured toward the clock with a black leather gloved hand. "You have 13 hours in which to solve my labyrinth before your equipment becomes part of my castle… forever," he said, and Darcy glanced back nervously at the castle.
It was so far way.
When she turned back to the king, he was gone.
"Such a pity," she heard his disembodied voice say again.
Darcy glanced at the clock again. Thirteen hours. She could do this. She had to.
"The Labyrinth of Asgard," she said, looking out upon the massive maze one more, "It doesn't look that hard. Well, come on feet."
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