Darcy wouldn't have minded having him there if he hadn't been so noisy. All she wanted to do was read in peace, but he seemed to insist on making as much ruckus as possible. Shaking her head to shut out his noise and sliding her finger along the spines, she finally found the book on coding she had been searching for and began to flip through, trying to pinpoint the flaw that had made her last hacking attempt fail. But as she reached the crucial page, a hand flew out of the shelf in front of her. Screaming, Darcy dropped the book to the floor and stepped back against the shelf, shutting her eyes. When nothing further happened, she opened them gingerly. It was only then that she noticed that the hand was covered in a black leather glove, with a green cuff she knew all too well shielding the wrist.
When he had asked to come down to the local library with her, she hadn't been very willing. Thor had returned to Earth to catch up with Jane and help her with the redesigning of a permanent Bifrost, and Loki was allowed to come with him on occasion. According to Thor he had repented and redeemed himself "through glorious battle", but SHIELD (and Darcy) were unwilling to take that at face value. Thor was a valuable asset and a good friend to keep though, and so in the interest of continuing his friendship they pretended to believe him – while actually keeping Loki under close surveillance at all times whenever he deigned to set foot on the Earth again. Thor was so wrapped up in Jane that he didn't notice the fact Loki never seemed to be anywhere alone – but Loki definitely did. That was what had made his request so strange. Normally he never wanted to spend longer with mortals than was entirely necessary, and seemed to spend a great deal of time trying to ditch the agents who followed him – and succeeding. But for some reason, the minute Darcy had mentioned to Jane and Thor that she was going to take her lunch break to visit the local Library, he had appeared behind her. Thor and Jane had wished her luck and turned back to their drawings, engrossed as ever, but Loki had looked shifty. At least, more so than normal, she added silently to herself.
"Did I hear you say you're planning to visit a library?" he had questioned, looking away from her eyes. She hadn't been too keen to make contact either, and tried to reply without seeming too flustered.
"Uh, yeah. Just the local one a few blocks away, but there's a book I want to read and I don't think it's one that SHIELD would – uh – have."
He shifted between feet and looked up.
"Would it be acceptable if I came with you? I have yet to truly see Midgardian culture and I would like to know how far the extent of your knowledge truly is."
For a second she had stood there, then closing her mouth gulped and nodded. "Yeah, of course. I mean, I should warn you that a Public Library isn't going to be the best representation of the millennia of culture you tried to destroy" – he had frowned at that, but she couldn't help reminding him that to her, he was still the enemy – "but if you really want to see it I guess you can, y'know - come with me."
Fury had been equally confused at Loki's request, unsure as to why he wanted to go to a building that smelt of dust and young children in the company of a college student. Fury would have probably found it difficult to understand why anybody would want to go there at all, but a Norse God with the magical knowledge of many cultures wanting to see how far humanity had progressed past working with stone particularly confused him. However, seeing Loki seemed to be genuine (and fearing Thor's reaction if he denied his brother's apparently innocent request), he agreed and let them leave the compound together – along with two judiciously appointed agents.
Picking up the now dusty manual, she huffed and walked round to the other side to give Loki a piece of her mind. Instead, she stopped thunderstruck as she saw what seemed to be the contents of an entire shelf he had thrown to the floor in a fit of anger.
"What on earth have you done?" she cried, trying vainly to pick up the books and replace them before anybody could come to find out what the commotion was all about. As she threw them back without checking the numbers on their spines, she couldn't help noticing that they all seemed to be concerned with mythology. Norse mythology in particular.
"I wanted to see how accurate your world's portrayal of my culture was." he stated evenly. Darcy couldn't bring herself to look at his face, but she could hear something simmering in his words.
"And? How close were we?"
He turned his back to her and sighed.
"You were – what's the phrase? – dead on. Every battle, every feast, every deception was almost exactly as it happened. Except for someone called Sigyn. I don't know who she was meant to be, I'm certainly not married."
Darcy finished restacking the shelf and turned to face his back.
"So what's the problem? Your glorious misdeeds are set down in all their detail for hundreds of years. I thought that would make you proud."
She saw the black lines of his suited shoulders straighten and tense, and before she could run away he had whisked around, his green and gold scarf flying around him. He backed her up against the shelf and stared her down and she wished more than anything that she hadn't left the taser with Thor and Jane back in the lab. His eyes were a deep blue, ice blue, and they were on fire. His gaze pinned her down, crackling as she tried to match his stare with one of her own, and for a minute they stood there, she refusing to blink or back away and he trying to terrify her into doing so. Finally he gave a small frown, as if something confused him, and turned back again.
"It does. Don't you understand mortal? What I have done has been set down for eternity. I have committed regicide, fratricide, patricide and I have terrorised the world. That is who I am. That is who I will always be."
Darcy remained silent, still uncomprehending and scared but determined not to show it.
"I may never change, mortal, even if I wanted to. I will always be this way. The trickster, the liar. And anyone who wants to believe I could change only has to come and read these books to see that I can do no such thing."
He turned back and saw her still standing there, a look of understanding on her face. She tried to hide it, but too late. His eyes cracked again and he hissed fiercely at her "Do not pity me mortal! I have power the likes of which you will never know and I have done deeds more glorious than any of my brother's! You are a woman, a feeble mortal woman, and you will never understand!"
Darcy raised an eyebrow and looked coldly at him, crossing her arms and picking up the book of coding again. Her body was trying to tell her to run, but something within her – the same thing that had caused her to taser the God of Thunder, drive a van into a meteorological phenomenon, and accept Loki's request to visit this Library – compelled her to speak.
"You are a God, an immortal God. You have done more in your life than I will ever have the chance to, and I don't believe you are truly repentant for any one of those actions. You're guilty of all of those sins and, I've no doubt, of some more that you forgot to mention. So when you complain that you can never change, I don't know what you really mean, but I do know that that isn't truly you talking. You are a liar Loki, and you always will be. It's in your DNA - I mean, if you even have DNA. It's a part of you."
He looked to the floor.
"What if I did wish to change?"
"No one can make you change. And no one should. We can deal with the fact that you can't be trusted. I'm not so sure Fury could cope with an honest Loki."
He looked at her and she was shocked to see that a smirk was tugging at the corner of his mouth.
"You are an extraordinary woman, Darcy Lewis."
Her cheeks flushed red and this time she was the one to look away.
"Why did you really want to come to this library Loki? Any information you want you could have found on the internet. I know you know how to use it, I saw you on Jane's laptop the other day. Why did you really come?"
She looked up as he placed a hand on her chin and raised her head up. He stared into her eyes and she found herself wondering abstractly whether her pupils had dilated. The thought – and its consequences – made her blush again, and he smirked.
"To see whether you were as remarkable as I thought you might be."
He leaned forwards and she closed her eyes. Somewhere in her psyche she knew that kissing an evil, trickster Norse God was a bad idea, but the idea didn't seem to be transferring to her actions. Their lips met and she felt a spark pass between them. Her arms reached up to his neck and pulled him closer, and she felt him lean into her. He was tall, cold and hard and she was on fire against his ice – but suddenly he was gone, disappearing in an instant.
Darcy looked around and couldn't see him anywhere. Flustered, she was about to shout for him when an agent rounded the corner, walking towards her, and she realised why he'd run away so suddenly.
"Have you see Loki anywhere?" He panted. "We've been watching him sit still in an armchair for the last ten minutes, and then he just disappeared out of the air."
Darcy shook her head and the agent ran off again. She pulled out one of the books Loki had been reading and flicked through to his section, wondering if her hunch was right. Scrolling though the page with her finger she found what she was looking for and smirked.
Loki, the Trickster, also appears to possess the ability in Norse legend to duplicate himself. Examples of this ability appear particularly in Battle legends, where Loki uses his duplicates to confuse an enemy while secretly targeting another. The only way to stop him creating and sustaining these duplicates is by either mortally wounding him or by distracting him. However, Loki's powers of intellect mean that although we are told it would succeed, there are no examples in myth of his being sufficiently distracted to cease his illusion. Above all then, he is not to be trusted by either enemies or allies.
In another corner of the library, innocently reading the first book he had picked up (something purporting to be about "a boy wizard" whose powers seemed to be very weak indeed), the agent found Loki. He looked up innocently at the man and raised an eyebrow. The agent, accidently apologising, walked away. Loki shut the book and placed it back on the shelf, inadvertently licking his lips. He would be visiting the library again.
He found her the next day reading one of the books he'd tossed to the floor.
"One Hundred Tales of the Norse Gods?" he smirked, and she jumped a mile in the air, obviously so engrossed in whatever it was she'd been reading that she hadn't noticed him sneak up on her. He waved his hand and the book appeared in his hands, open on the last page she had read. He scanned it quickly and looked up at her.
"The Children of Loki? Why are you reading that?"
She raised an eyebrow defiantly and crossed her arms.
"I'm allowed to read what I want, it's a free country. I don't know about Asgard but on Earth people don't generally snoop around to see what other people enjoy. Or actually I could be wrong, 50 Shades of Grey is still selling", she shook her head, "anyway, you shouldn't be looking at that. I was busy", and snatched the book out of his hands.
Trying to ignore him, she settled the book into her hands and began reading again, but his shadow was blotting out her light and finally, exasperated, she looked up again. "What?"
"Why were you reading about my children?" He asked quietly.
Darcy gave him an appraising look for a minute or two. He was still wearing a suit – unlike Thor he didn't seem to approve of this realm's more relaxed sartorial laws - but this one was less sharp than his previous favourite. An image of the stark black lines he had had in the library flashed into her mind, and she focused on something else. His scarf. He had a varied collection of scarves (she suspected it was the only thing he really liked from Earth) and today he was wearing a black and white checked number. Looking down she noted that his shoes were meticulously shined, and his hair (although still long and black) was pushed back fairly neatly. Involuntarily she pictured herself running her hands through it and shook her head to clear it. He coughed, lightly, and she remembered his question.
"I guess you just – don't look old enough to have three kids. And I find it hard to imagine that one of them is a wolf, another is a giant snake, and that your daughter is half dead. It just seems so – strange."
"In comparison to you or my brother, Ms Lewis, my life is indeed complicated."
"I knew that, it was slightly blinding obvious. I just wanted to know some more about – you."
He sat down opposite her and leaned forwards, placing his elbows on his knees and steepling his fingers. There was a few seconds pause while he stared at her before he broke it.
"What would you like me to tell you?" he asked her softly.
Darcy had not been expecting that. Anger, annoyance, even disgust at what was really just snooping on her part – but not this calm. She though through a million and one questions before finally settling on one that wouldn't draw too much ire from the God.
"You told me in the library that Sigyn wasn't real."
He paused for a second, then nodded.
"Well, was everything else completely true? I know you said it was" – she added as he seemed to start – "but you're the god of lies and I was curious."
Loki leaned back and smiled.
"Most of it was true. I do indeed have three children, I did kill Balder, and I once gave birth – or something similar – to an eight legged horse. However, I was never married, I've never met anyone named Sigyn, and as of yet, no one has trapped me in the entrails of my son. I have had my lips sewn together though."
Darcy leaned forwards as well, trying to see any marks.
"Have you really? I'm so sorry, that must have been horrific. What was it in punishment for – I mean, if you don't mind talking about it."
"Odin sewed my lips together as punishment for my actions on Earth. I spent a year like that before he finally deigned to unstitch them. I would have done it myself, but I was unable to use magic. It was – a very special thread."
"How come there are no scars?" she asked, enthralled.
"I healed myself and removed them. They were not pretty and I would rather not have suffered with them."
Darcy nodded, understanding, When she was younger, she had had a large birthmark on her shoulder. It never did any harm, and the doctors weren't worried about it, but she had preferred to remove it anyway. Obviously it wasn't the same as having needle scars in your face (she shuddered inwardly) but she felt a piece of his pain.
Loki leaned back in the chair and appraised her.
"Since I have answered all of your questions, may I have one of my own?"
She should have been expecting that, she realised. There was no way he would give her so much and ask for nothing in return. Snorting in a particularly unladylike manner, she nodded.
"Sure, go ahead. Make it good though."
He looked her up and down as she had him, making Darcy shiver with the force of his gaze, then smirked.
"How did it feel to taser my brother?"
Without meaning to, she burst out laughing.
It took them a while, but after a week or so they have established a repartee. She realises that she genuinely enjoys his company, and Loki finds more and more that interests him in this Midgardian chit. She's read all of the stories and she understands that he can't be trusted, but yet she still talks to him. Seems to even like talking to him.
She is a true firebrand, this Darcy.