Hello! this is LadyReaper1992 again! this is my first Avengers one-shot fanfic, i'm REALLY EXCITED about it (even though it took me i think 2 days to get it done, making sure that it was perfect)!

disclaimer: i do not own the avengers, Loki, Darcy, Jane, Thor or anyone in marvel, just my OC

warning: contains some violence, a mild innuendo, mentions of a psychological breakdown (if you have issues about that, i SEVERELY APOLOGIZE!)

Mostly inspired by Artemis Days one-shot fanfics: "By candlelight" and "The world is yours"

Relics of the Avengers

A hooded figure was walking down a vast hallway where windows were lined on her left, determined to get to her destination. She bumped into a servant as she walked down a hallway, and when the woman, who had been maybe in her mid-40s dropped to her knees, being submissive, something that really had bothered her for so many years. "My queen, forgive me for not seeing you!" said the frightened servant, pleading not to have her tell the king, her husband. "Please, don't be frightened. It was my fault for not watching where I was going." The figure spoke reassuringly when she helped the woman to her feet. A few more hallways crossed and she came across a little gold bejeweled box, which as she opened it, contained a sterling silver ornate key. Putting the box back in its place, she walked down a little further making sure she wasn't followed, until she came across a door. She opened then closed it behind her when she entered, and started walking down some steps, which lead to a door where she inserted the key into a lock, turned it, opened the door. She removed the hood and revealed herself to be Jane Foster's cousin, Ruby Anne Foster.

After turning on some lights, she took a look at the reminders of her friends, reminiscing about the times she spent together with everyone, including her cousin. She kept some of the things the avengers had, relics as she called them, in a special room she only knows about. "Hey guys. I'm back, so far, he hasn't known about this place and I hope to keep it that way. I managed to talk to him about the situation in Afghanistan concerning the ambassadors, he sent some spies to have the perpetrators killed quietly without causing disturbances, but I worry about him though." She said.

Although she didn't have her astrophysicist cousin's smarts and wild theories, Ruby, like Jane was still beautiful and smart in her own way, courageous, and a very sweet and semi-awkward person being at only 5'7 inches tall. Ruby had been in college for 2 years getting a degree in art history. Ruby liked exploring the different mythologies and the many paintings like the Mona Lisa, and some of Monet's works. Celtic mythology was something she had thought was alright, although she had not much information about it. Greek mythology she knew well and adored, despite its very grizzly stories about incest, betrayal, rape, and murder. Norse mythology she was somewhat acquainted with, with some of the fascinating Norse gods being Thor, Loki, Odin, Sif, and Frigga, to name a few people she was familiar with. However, she had her world turn upside down when Jane told her through email that Thor had crash landed in New Mexico and her town was nearly destroyed by his brother's rage, realizing that the Norse mythology was indeed real.

The first time she had gone to visit Jane in a long time was a year after the New York situation. She had heard some stories about what happened in New York. When she visited, she took a liking to all of the avengers in Stark Tower. Clint and Natasha had been a little intimidating to her at first, but she knew they would protect the ones they cared about. Tony, while sometimes sarcastic and narcissistic, was a pretty smart and loyal person. Ruby did wonder how Pepper handled being around him often. Steve was a very sweet, polite gentleman, but still felt uneasy about fitting into a new timeline after he was in ice for over 70 years. Ruby would sometimes tell him about the many things that happened after the 1940s, while helping him with the more modern technology. Bruce was a pretty quiet scientist to be around, but was always kind and loyal to his friends. Thor was introduced to her by Jane and then to an always outrageous Darcy Lewis, according to her, and Eric Selvig, the scientist-father-figure-mentor to Jane who gave her advice about her work.

One day, Clint and Natasha had been at Shield doing their duties, when they had gotten word from Thor, after making an emergency visit to Asgard that Loki had escaped from his prison in Asgard, recaptured the tesseract and was coming to reclaim earth as his own. He was winning this war very fast for a second round and slowly conquered everything.

Coming out of her little trance about the past, she started looking at her relics that she kept safe from her husband and the guards and servants. She first walked up to Steve's captain America shield, remembering how he had died. He was trying to get to a group of people, surrounded by the chitauri soldiers, when out of nowhere one of the chitauri had fatally shot him from behind and captured the group of people that were being surrounded while he took his last breath watching in horror.

Next, she walked up to Iron man's helmet, remembering how he had died. The chitauri had surrounded his tower, while Ruby had tried to talk tony out of facing Loki, but to no avail, saying that he had to at least try and stop him long enough for her to escape with Jane, Eric, Darcy, Bruce and Maria hill and Director Fury by helicopter. As she got to the chopper however, the chitauri soldiers, who were flying, had seen them try to escape. They started shooting at them to where Tony finally got to the top of the roof and started shooting his repulsors at the chitauri, while the chopper was getting away. Ruby kept calling his name while they took off, and she then knew that within a few hours, Tony Stark, genius playboy philanthropist and the super hero Iron Man would have given his life to make sure they got away safely.

Next in her annual remembrance tour were Hawkeye's (Clint's) bow and Black Widow's (Natasha's) belt.

She vaguely remembered how they died, but she had seen their prized possessions when the shield soldiers returned from an attempted mission to defend Europe was quickly becoming overwhelming for them to go on any longer. Also, while Ruby was at Shield's underground facility with Jane, Darcy, Eric and Bruce, she went to sleep, overwhelmed by what was so far going on and dreamed of a 6'2 tall man with hair black as a raven's wing that went to his shoulders, skin pale as the snow, and eyes like a creamy combination of emerald and jade, wearing armor that she had never seen before, although she somehow feared him, she found him beautiful. She woke up somehow assuming that it could be Loki himself, but she couldn't be certain.

Ruby next came across Bruce's glasses and Eric's laptop, picking them up and holding them to her chest and trying to hold back sobs as tears came down her eyes looking at the laptop, remembering another avenger and a scientist lost to Loki's budding reign of earth.

One day at the underground compound, Ruby had been in the cafeteria with Eric and Darcy while Bruce was taking a nap from hours of working in the lab, trying to find a way to stop Loki and grieving for his friends that were killed trying to defend earth. While Ruby was walking towards her quarters, she heard a scream that came from Jane. Running to where the scream was, she was shocked to find Dr. Bruce Banner, the incredible hulk, laying on his bed with his throat slit open and the phrase "Kneel before me!" written with his blood.

A few weeks after the funeral for Bruce had been met with tears pouring out of everyone's eyes, including Darcy's, the chitauri had eventually found the underground compound and started attacking. Many of the remaining shield agents died, including Director Fury and Maria Hill more than she could count because of the overwhelming amount of chitauri that got to the compound. Ruby ran to the nearest room to try and hide herself, when she saw Eric being dragged away by 2 of the chitauri by his arms towards the outside of the compound and followed him to the outside sunlight and found a huge piece of debris to hide behind, where she looked at the man from her dream, and she almost immediately recognized The god by his helmet. Loki, the new king of her home planet, and god of mischief, lies and fire was standing along the road with what had been left of shield along with Jane, Darcy and the 4 chitauri that were keeping them at bay from Eric. She could only look in pure horror as Eric was forced to his knees when they stopped dragging him towards their king. He circled around Eric, and Ruby could vaguely hear what the Norse god was saying, but she could make out that Loki was telling Eric that he would do great things if he would join Loki, minus the mind control that he experienced the last time he was with shield, working on how to harness the power of the tesseract.

She heard Eric say that he would rather die than help him and experience that mind control ever again. Jane then screamed at Eric to try and run away, while Ruby was practically glued to her hiding place, afraid to move for fear that the Norse god would see her, and try to kill her. Eric then fought them with every ounce of strength he had left and ran, poor Ruby could only watch as the chitauri that were holding him before had shot him three times. Darcy and Jane then screamed in pure horror as their friend and mentor fell down to the ground with blood coming out of his mouth while Ruby sat there with a hand on her mouth, trying to hold back her tears. Loki then turned to Jane and Darcy and she most definitely heard him tell the chitauri to take both the women away.

Ruby saw this and knew she needed to stop Loki from taking her cousin and friend away, "STOP!" Ruby screamed as she came out of her hiding place, scared out of her wits, but courageous in confronting the immortal who had taken her home planet. Jane and Darcy shouted at Ruby to get away from the compound, and she stopped everything with these simple, yet agonizing words while trying to hold back tears: "Take me instead, and leave my cousin and friend alone, please!" Jane, Darcy and Loki looked at her with pure surprised expressions on their face. Loki told the chitauri to release both Jane and Darcy while walking towards the little would be hero, willing to go with him to spare the ones she loves, all while having a triumphant and fascinated expression grace his features. "What is your name, my darling?" he asked as he gently caresses her face with his right hand as if she were made of porcelain while Jane and Darcy screamed for her to run while she still can. "R-Ruby, sir." She said nervously. "Such a beautiful name, for a beauty like yourself." He purred as he guided his other hand down her body to her hip, pulling her closer, where he then lowered his head and he did the one thing that nearly made her faint, had Darcy calling him vulgar names and caused Jane to start crying her heart and soul out to her: Loki started to kiss her from her lips to her ear where he gently nipped her ear lobe, and put his mouth to her ear and whispered the words that sealed her fate forever: "You are very brave, my dear Ruby, brave enough in fact to be my queen, much more better that Jane or Darcy." As soon as he said those words, she was escorted with Loki and the Chitauri, as Jane could only watch numbly as her cousin, who exchanged her life for the safety of both of them, get on a jet with Loki and his soldiers.

Ruby arrived at his palace in what had been formerly London, England the same night and was escorted by servants into her bedchambers told that she would be waiting for the king to return as he had some duties to take care of. Her new bedroom was beautifully decorated in the way she would have felt like a queen more than a princess. She lay on the plush and silky bed, thankful in her mind that it was more comfortable than the shield bed, although she hadn't minded the bed over there. She then started crying as she remembered that she would never see her friends again, and knew that if she were to try and escape, she would either be killed or punished.

Breaking out of her reminiscing again, she put the laptop and glasses down and looked at the last relic that she had in her possession: Jane's journal that contained her notes about the bifrost and Asgard's constellations; she remembered how it happened that day as if it were yesterday.

After she stayed with Loki for so long, getting to know him better and having her fears of the king of earth slowly vanish, and instead feeling compassion and falling in love with him despite the fact that he killed the most of her friends. He even showed her his sorcery, and Ruby admired that he was so skilled with his magic, especially enjoying that he could conjure up anything he wanted, from plants to even pastries, and even cloning himself, which she found especially enchanting. She was reading a book in his library in the afternoon near a window sitting in a green leather lounger chair, whilst the sun was glancing at her, shining its light on her face. She had even seen his frost giant form one night in private and said to him that no matter what form he has, asgardian or frost giant, she thought that he was beautiful. This had made him smile, not a sly smile, the smile of a genuinely happy child getting his Christmas present. She had seen that he was truly looking out for the subjects and best interests of his kingdom after he had helped a little girl find her parents one afternoon while in a market.

She then marked her place in her book as she then noticed the shade in front of her face, and smiled as she knew it was Loki blocking out the sunlight. "Hello, Loki." She said smiling as he bent down to kiss her at first gently, but turned wild as his tongue went below and across her bottom lip and she allowed him entrance, having a glorious battle with his silver tongue, while gently caressing his head. "Hello little dove. Would you care to join me for lunch?" he asked after pulling away from her mouth. "I would love to, my king." She said playfully, inducing a light and airy laugh from Loki while getting up and putting her book where she last had it, and took his arm.

As they were walking to their usual spot in the gardens for lunch, she recalled a memory that still made her smile and blush to that very day:one night, one of the servants brought Ruby, clad in her pajamas to Loki's bedchambers to wait for him while he would be finishing his nightly bath before going to bed. When she made the mistake of turning around, she saw that he was in a pair of silky, yet baggy green pajama pants on, and a black robe that was tied. She blushed and looked away when he saw her looking at him dazzled by his body, and started to do a little sexy dance to try and tease her a little bit. When she looked at him again, she saw that he was slowly untying the rope to his robe while doing the sexy dance and smirking at her playfully. He then turned around with his back to her as he slowly lowered his robe to where his upper and middle back were shown, all while Ruby tried to stifle and smother some unladylike sounds and laughter from bursting out of her mouth. When he stopped, he put the robe back on his shoulders, turned around and left the robe open so that she could see part of his pale chest, with a little patch of hair that she couldn't see from a distance, his defined abs, and seeing something quite prominent in between his legs that had Ruby's face red as a cherry. He had laughed at her while wearing a playful expression on his face as he walked up to her and took her in his arms.

As they finished their lunch, with Ruby talking about the many pieces of art that she would see and even talked about a nutcracker ballet that she went to as a school field trip when she was 8 years old. He had talked to her about what it was like in Asgard prior to finding out that he was the son of Laufey, the king of the frost giants who had abandoned him as a baby because of his size, after Thor was banished to earth, or Midgard, as the asgardians called it for going to Jotunheim and battling the frost giants, nearly resurrecting a long dead war between Asgard and Jotunheim. He even told her about while in the midst of the battle, Loki heard Volstagg warning them about not allowing the frost giants to touch then and when a frost giant touched Loki, although his armor chipped off in pieces, his arm turned blue, causing him to question his heritage. The events that followed after that were devastating to him. As his eyes glazed in sadness, she reached her hand across the table and took his long fingered hand in hers and squeezed it gently, assuring him that she would be there for him always.

One of the guards had found them and told both of them that Thor, Jane, Darcy and a few remaining soldiers were coming to recapture Loki and rescue Ruby, thinking that he was tormenting her when it was the total opposite. "Ruby my love, you must return to your chambers until I give you word to come out." He said conjuring up his battle armor, horned helmet and scepter. "Wait! Maybe I could tell them that you are not hurting me without having a battle happen." She said walking alongside her lover. He thought for a few moments and told her to stay close to either him or the guards while they try to sort things out with the trio of people. When they got outside the palace to the entrance courtyard, Thor had told the soldiers to lower their weapons, so they might negotiate the return of Ruby. She was slightly nervous about what would happen, especially with Jane more than likely VERY ANGRY about Loki taking her, even though Ruby had begged him to take her to spare both Jane and Darcy, but Loki assured her that he would be fine by kissing her sweetly on the mouth, in front of everyone, while hearing Jane growl in anger only to be restrained by Thor.

Both brothers walked up to the middle of the courtyard and stopped when they met up. "Brother, please release the girl, and no harm shall come to you. The charges in Asgard will be dropped-" Loki had held his hand up, cutting off Thor from pleading with him to release her. "Are you really that thick-headed, brother?" Loki asked, obviously exasperated. "The only thick-headed person around here is you my king! Give me my cousin back!" Jane shouted in agony and rage. "Jane, please don't do this." Ruby whispered, pleading to her cousin. "Is that so, Jane? I think you are the more thick-headed one around here. I see it in your eyes that you think I am tormenting your sweet gorgeous cousin." He said looking in her eyes. Ruby remembered that because Loki was the god of mischief, lies and fire, one of his specialties, besides his silver tongue, is that he could tell when someone would be lying. Just as Jane was about to say something back to Loki, she looked and saw her cousin taking some steps forward. Ruby started walking towards her lover's side to see if she could at least talk to Jane about Loki not tormenting her, but loving and caring for her as a groom would be towards his bride.

"Ruby, it's too dangerous to be around here right now." Loki snarled gently as she walked towards him, with her calling Jane forward to try and tell her about what happened while she was with him. "It's alright, my love. I know, at least I hope I know what I'm doing. If something goes wrong, you'll know, you see it in my eyes all the time." She said. Loki knew about this pretty well about her, recalling a memory that had him inwardly grinning.

A few months prior to the ultimate confrontation, he had her in his chambers one night and revealed to her that while she was with him, he had started falling for her, admiring her cultural intelligence, her laugh, the way she would blush, and even the color of her eyes. She had been surprised and confused about this, but let him keep going, eventually getting to where if she was willing, while getting on his knee and showing her a ring that he had made, with of course a ruby with diamonds around it, that Ruby would be his wife and queen someday. She had agreed because she had fallen for him too, admiring his intelligence as well as his beauty, his kindness and gentleness towards her, despite his terrible temper which she managed to soothe. She also admired his chivalrous and gentlemanly manner, his playfulness, and his eyes as well, putting on the ring. After that, he gathered her in his arms and spun them both around, knowing that it was going to be agonizing, but well worth it organizing a wedding ceremony for the next few months, depending on the date of the ceremony.

Jane walked up to her cousin, happy to see her again. "Ruby, I thought you were dead, please leave him and we can be a family again, just you, me, Darcy and Thor. We can stop Loki." She pleaded, trying to pull Ruby away with her, but she stopped her with a gentle touch on Jane's wrist and feet planted to the pavement. "No, Jane. It's going to sound very hard to believe, but it's the truth: I love Loki and he loves me, we're even getting married." She said, earning shocked gasps from not only Jane, but Thor and Darcy as well. "No, you're lying! He has you under a spell!" said Jane. Ruby then looked closer at Jane's eyes and could tell that she was no longer her bubbly, yet ambitious self, but a damaged, and enraged shell of what she used to be. "Jane, please, it's the truth. He may look cruel and malicious, but he's very kind and gentle. He just needed to be put in the right direction without straining him further away from his redemption." She pleaded, hoping that Jane could see reason. "Ruby! He killed hundreds, no THOUSANDS of innocent people, including Bruce, Tony, Natasha, Steve, director Fury, Maria, Clint, and even Eric! He can't love you; he's the god of lies, lies, Ruby!" Jane screamed to her, loud enough for Loki and everyone to hear. Loki snarled, enraged that she would lie to her own family member about him not loving her, but was calm by looking in Ruby's eyes when she turned around and saw that she was not fazed by what Jane was telling her. "Jane, I don't care about that anymore. I do mourn for them, but the only thing they would've wanted, besides Loki being taken down, is to try and move on. And I know for a fact that he loves me for who I am, please look at me and tell me that I'm lying to you." She said, pleading with Jane to look at her eyes. Jane turned to Thor and Darcy, as if trying to have them step in and help Ruby see that she needed to get away from Loki, with delusional thinking that Loki may have poisoned her mind with his false love for her.

Things took a turn for the tragic when Jane suddenly noticed that there was a sniper aiming at her at one of the tower windows and proceeded to take Ruby as a hostage, forcing her to turn and lock her arm around Ruby's neck like an iron band while the other had held a gun to the side of Ruby's temple, while many of the guards and soldiers had their guns pointed, ready to fire, but afraid to for fear that the bullets would hit Ruby. She pleaded with Jane to try and see reason, but finally realized that Jane had suffered the worst possible psychological break from seeing so many people die in front of her, including Eric, and her home being taken over by the 'evil' god, even Thor and Darcy had finally started to realize that Jane had finally lost her mind. Loki looked on, helpless to try and help his fiancée out with getting herself away from Jane. He then looked at her eyes and he knew that she would somehow get herself out of this situation. As Jane attempted to order one of the soldiers to have a vehicle ready, Ruby slammed the back of her head against Jane's nose, causing her to stagger temporarily, giving Ruby more than enough time to get to Loki's guards, running as fast as she can. As she was running, Jane, quickly recovering despite having a bloody nose, started aiming her gun while running towards Ruby, giving the sniper in the tower window the opportunity to end Jane in front of everybody to prevent her from getting to Ruby. She stopped and came towards Jane's corpse going to her knees in shock, seeing nothing more than a mere fragment of the person she used to love dearly.

As Darcy, Loki and Thor came up to Ruby, trying to comfort her about Jane having to die under very tragic circumstances, she tried to hold back many amounts of tears, especially with Loki crouching down to Ruby conjuring his battle gear away, embracing her while Thor mourned the loss of his mortal love. Ruby and Loki both stood up as she tried to apologize for what happened. "Thor, I am so sorry about Jane, I tried to help-" Thor stopped her words with a gentle hand on her shoulder, assuring Ruby that it was not her fault. "Ruby, don't blame yourself for what has happened today, the second I saw Jane take you as a hostage, I knew that the intelligent, brave and kind woman I once knew died right before my eyes. She was deteriorating as the months went by, becoming dangerously obsessed with killing my brother." Thor said, showing a sense of sadness and regret for what happened. Even Darcy hugged her, comforting her about Jane's death. "Yeah, what he said. When you were gone, she started gathering people and soldiers to fight her cause to get you back, and I knew, even with her taking you as a hostage, that she had taken the train to 'Looney toon town' and she became more than the average ambitious person, she became the 'bat-crazy' ambitious person we never wanted to see enhanced with the obsession. I even looked at you and I knew you were telling the truth about what was going on while you were with Loki, and as for the whole 'wedding' jazz, you better make me your maid of honor, your majesty!" Darcy said, ending the last statement with her usual hilarious wit, releasing Ruby from her hug and inciting some laughs amongst the group of people.

The guards and the soldiers murmured amongst each other, confused by the turn of events that took place a few seconds ago. "Loki, even though you deny it, you are still my brother, blood or no. Will you at least allow us to rebuild the bond that had been broken between us?" Thor asked. Loki quirked an eyebrow up, and with quiet encouragement from Ruby, he knew what to say. "Absolutely not!" he said. At first Thor was disappointed, but looking at Loki's expression closely, he knew that he was joking. "Are you ever not going to fall for that, brother?" Loki asked while laughing, earning a playful punch in his side from his future queen. "Yeah, keeping tall, dark and handsome in line already, eh Rube?" Darcy asked, earning a laugh from Ruby.

That had been 126 years ago. Since that day with the events that took place on the courtyard entrance outside the palace, Jane was given an honorable funeral despite her mental breakdown, Ruby and Loki were married, with Darcy as the maid of honor of course and Ruby was given immortality through the golden apple of idunn after Odin watched her closely throughout the events and saw that she was worthy enough for an Aesir lifespan, Thor returned to Asgard and married Sif, Odin and Loki regained their father/son bond after Ruby couldn't take anymore of her husband delaying the rebuilding of his relationship with his father and rebuilding the friendships between Sif and the warriors three. Loki and Thor rebuilt their bond, which was now stronger than ever, Darcy and her descendants after her became advisors to the king and queen of earth, offering good advice about the situations surrounding earth. Thanos, the enemy that wanted the tesseract for himself so he could rule the universe, had been destroyed in a great battle, and with the tesseract, was used to rebuild the bifrost to perfection. Although some of the resistance was rebuilding it deteriorated because of the overwhelming support both Loki and Ruby had gotten from their subjects around the world.

Coming out of her final reminiscing with looking at the relics, after saying some words, she left to go back to their bedchambers, turning out the lights in her special room before shutting and locking the door with the sterling silver key, then walking up the stairs and coming out of the door, using the silver key again. She as she was walking, she began to notice that the sun was setting, meaning that her husband would return any moment and she would have to hurry to their bedchambers then and there before he could get there first. While she was at their chambers, she felt at first guilty about what happened with the avengers, but in the end Thor was around, and Darcy had been with her up until her death as their royal advisor, but her descendants would be there too, but most of all, her husband would be there for her, for all eternity, through thick and thin. Ruby then smiled with joy as Loki returned, taking her in his arms and kissing her as if he were a starved man awaiting a feast after his visit to Asgard. "Ruby, my little turtledove, I always look forward to seeing you again after I deal with my duties to the people and realm of Midgard. Thor told me to tell you that he and Sif are both expecting their first child, he tells me it's a boy, and he's giving her a 'real workout' as your kind would say." Loki said, earning a laugh from Ruby after releasing her from his kiss while still embracing her. "I hope to see my nephew when he is born someday, and it could be any day when she reaches the 9th month of pregnancy." She said, continuing to embrace her husband.

While Loki slept, after having a more passionate encounter, Ruby was still awake, embraced in Loki's arms, she counted her blessings about what happened over the 126 ears they were married and smiled, finally succumbing to sleep, feeling happiness for her life with Loki, guilt for the past, and feeling excitement for the future.

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