For wineandroses and hquinzelle.
Loki was such a hard bastard to write, if you're wondering why this took so long.
Staring down at Darcy's sleeping form, Loki reaches down and cups her cheek with his fingers. She stirs, shifting into his touch, and it's all he can do to not just get back into her bed and curl up beside her.
He knows without them speaking of it that she wants him to stay, and he also knows that he cannot. It's utterly irrational, but he's sure that if he wakes up next to her, he will have crossed an invisible line from which there is no going back from.
"Good morning, Darcy," he whispers softly, and leaves to make himself presentable for the morning's activities.
His room is cold without her, a meaningless collection of ornaments and books he has no desire to read, and he spends as little time in there as possible before leaving.
Loki has the uncomfortable feeling that he's very much in love with Darcy Lewis. Infatuation is not something foreign to him—he's loved mortals before—but it was merely something to add excitement to the physical act. While Thor was always the more obvious target for women's affections, Loki has certainly never wanted for female company over the centuries. Especially the company of married women, he thinks to himself with a smirk. He'd never been short of pliant, willing bed-mates; lured from their clueless husbands by the promise of having their needs and desired fulfilled. But sooner or later, he's always tired of his conquests.
Darcy is different. His stomach tightens when he thinks of her easy laughter, the way she narrows her eyes at him when he can't stop himself saying something unashamedly arrogant; the way her breath catches when she draws her thighs up either side of his hips and he sinks into her, hearing his name on her lips spoken with a reverence that brings a lump to his throat.
There's much to a name, especially when your name is Loki-whether Laufeyson or Odinson, he can't decide which is worse-and Darcy is the first person since his mother to associate his name with something other than failure and destruction.
Loki knows these thoughts are dangerous, but he can't help himself.
"Will you just listen, Loki?" Fury bangs a fist on the table, uncharacteristically losing his cool.
"What is there to listen to?" Loki replies calmly, steepling his fingers. "I have advised you that to continue our experiments on the Tesseract would be unsafe. It is a source of unimaginable power, and Midgardian technologies have no hope of containing it, no matter how much I augment them."
"Dr Selvig seems to think that additional iridium would stabilise the reaction."
Loki shakes his head. "That was to create a portal, but the material would not be enough to support a self-sustaining energy source like you describe. What a pity our large green friend isn't here – no doubt he would have some priceless scientific insights to offer."
"Dr Banner is a brilliant physicist, yes, but he is also enjoying a well-earned rest. Don't bring him into this. I've already consulted with him and while he acknowledges the risks, he seems to think it is worth it to try."
"It seems that we are at an impasse." Loki narrows his eyes, and his stare is cold. Fury stares right back, unblinking. There was never any point in trying to intimidate that man – something Loki grudgingly admires about the stubborn fool.
"I really need to videotape this," says Stark nonchalantly, picking up his phone from the table. "Loki of Asgard and Nick Fury having a staring contest. It's like watching a dog walk on its hind legs."
"Tony, to be blunt about this, we don't have time for your crap."
"Raspberry?" he asks calmly, throwing the berries into his mouth two at a time. "You've been looking a little pale of late, maybe you need a little Vitamin C."
"I'm assuming that's directed at Loki," Fury deadpans, raising an eyebrow.
Stark grins, and Loki fights back the urge to wrap his fingers round his neck and snap it. These momentary homicidal impulses alarmed him at first, but he's since discovered that he's far from alone. Contemplating murder appears to be an entirely normal reaction to spending time with Tony Stark, something that even the man's long-suffering girlfriend has expressed.
"Perhaps Ms Lewis is tiring him out?" Fury's eyes are twinkling as he makes a rare attempt at a joke.
Loki grits his teeth and says nothing.
It's soon obvious that Darcy was not using hyperbole when he said that everybody knew about their relationship. The first few odd looks or raised eyebrows from SHIELD employees had been easy to ignore, or even brush off as something else.
When he bumps into Agent Dale on the way out of the sensor lab he takes pleasure in giving him a gimlet-eyed stare, smirking to himself when the man drops his stack of papers, his face paling. Loki is sure it is no bad thing that Dale will be experiencing a healthy dose of fear right now. It wasn't as if the man had known about him and Darcy when he'd slept with her, but all the same, he should know that she wasn't his to touch.
When Natasha Romanoff corners him in the break room, threatening all sorts of new and colourful torture methods if he hurts Darcy, he finds it merely tedious, and nods and smiles. Jane Foster and Erik Selvig are guarded with him, but appear cautiously pleased and tell him that Darcy is good for him. He doesn't miss Selvig's muttered aside as he leaves, "I just hope he's as good for her."
He's used to groups of female employees ogling him unashamedly when he passes them in the corridor, but now they whisper and titter like schoolgirls. They clearly are unaware of the fact that Asgardians possess superior hearing, and Loki hears speculation about certain aspects of his anatomy that are almost enough to make him blush.
Loki can't quite pinpoint the moment he fell for Darcy Lewis. It might have been around the time he started noticing all the little things about her.
For instance, Darcy is uncommonly fond of fruit. Often when she's slumped in bed, or taking a break in between her shifts, she nibbles at pears, apples; slices bananas onto the breakfast cereal she inexplicably eats late at night.
"I don't like vegetables, and I'd rather not die of malnutrition," was her glib answer when he asked if she intended to eat so much fruit that she turned into a bird.
He remembers when a shipment of strawberries came in, and how Darcy's eyes lit up when he presented her with a purloined box. He held the strawberry out to her as she bit into it. She'd made an unashamed groan of pleasure, the juice dripping down her chin, and he was unable to stop himself leaning forward to lick the sweet trickle from her skin. Her hands wound round the back of his neck to pull him into a deep kiss, and then they were falling back onto the sheets.
The rest of the box of strawberries remained on her nightstand, untouched.
Loki cannot help but think of the shimmering, golden orchard on his homeworld, its branches clustered with the apples that hold the secret to long life, watched over by the goddess Idunn. The place where the easy laughter of two young Asgardian princes once echoed through the trees as they played hide-and-seek for hours, until their mother came and shooed them into the palace.
It was these little things that Loki had always steadfastly ignored, especially whenever he found himself daydreaming about their significance.
Not everything about Darcy is charming, of course. She drinks loudly, leaves lipgloss stains on all her coffee mugs and sings dreadful Midgardian melodies in the shower that make his ears ache. She argues with him, her eyes flashing and her lips pursed into a frown.
Loki brews a cup of his preferred coffee and drinks it while reviewing the schematic diagrams on his desk, but concentration seems harder than usual today. He can't help but think that he would prefer it if Darcy were here.
And so he does something he's never done before. He finds Darcy at the end of her shift, and asks if they can talk. She regards him curiously, but nods and they walk to her quarters in silence.
"Are you going to explain to me why you didn't stay with me last night," she says coldly, but he can see the emotion behind her eyes.
"You did not ask me to."
To his shock, she bursts out laughing, but it's not the easy, pleasant mirth he knows. It's barbed and sarcastic and it hurts him, because he knows he's responsible for it.
"Really, Loki? Are we going to keep having the same conversation? Because I know you care about me. Don't even try to say you don't, because it's bullshit."
He exhales. "I care, Darcy." He watches her eyes widen, and it's clear that she wasn't expecting him to actually say it. Then she must know what it costs him to say those words, when it could lead to danger for them both.
"The truth is that if I were to show such affection for another, I would worry for their safety. If I keep hurting you, Darcy; it is only to keep you safe. If something happened to you I would never forgive myself." Loki turns away from her, unsure if he wants to see her reaction.
"What are you talking about?" she says, but her voice is softer, kinder.
"Have you forgotten what I am, Darcy? What I have done? I have enemies, and there will always be those that wish to harm me and those I care about."
A small, warm hand finds his shoulder, and it's so unexpected and comforting that there's a sudden wetness at the corners of his eyes.
"I know who you were, Loki. But I can see you're trying to change. Don't worry about me, I can take care of myself. If we both want this, then maybe we should stop fighting it and just let it happen."
The relief he feels when she says that is immense, and he can't stop himself from pulling her close, burying his face in her hair and murmuring "come here."
It's the first night they don't make love, but it feels even more intimate than all of the times they have. Her hand rests on his chest, over his heart as he breathes in and out slowly, falling into a cautious but content sleep.
When he wakes the next morning to her hand caressing his thigh, it only takes a moment to realise he's painfully hard, and to note how deliciously soft and pliant Darcy's body feels against him. She wraps a hand round the back of his neck and pulls him in for a kiss that's warm and sweet and lustful. In no time, he's tugging her pajama pants down to her ankles, pressing kisses down her body and sucking a pebbled nipple into his mouth, her thighs are opening and sliding up his hips and he's pressing into her, relishing the laviscious moan she makes even in her half-asleep state. It's quick and lacks finesse, but as she rocks against him he hardly cares, thrusting faster as she gasps into his ear.
"Please, so close, I..." she mutters, and he slips a hand between them, frantically rubs her clit even as he's on the verge of falling over the edge himself. She feels so utterly perfect around him, hot and tight and writhing beneath him, that it takes him a moment to notice the piercing, shrill sound that fills the air.
They stop. Looking up, he realises the alarm system is flashing red.
"Loki?" Darcy asks, her voice hoarse. "What's happening?"
"Red alert. Something's happened. We need to go."