It was less than ten minutes after Jane had walked out of her door, crying with relief, that Darcy met him for the first time.

Jane had come over the small studio Darcy was now renting (having, wonderfully, finally graduated with Jane's credits and been immediately snapped up by S.H.I.E.L.D to do exactly fuck-all) to watch the live coverage on the news and worry. Jane had said that she hadn't wanted to be alone, and that she'd been afraid. Which was totally reasonable. Thor had told them all (Darcy, Jane, and a strangely-behaving Eric, which made so much sense now…) what had happened after his sudden departure to Asgard, and that included his brother's threats against poor Jane. But it had been completely pointless to be afraid, then. Jane had started sympathy crying. As you do when your boyfriend's batshit little brother offs himself in the most melodramatic way possible. Darcy was not in the habit of thinking nice things about people who had tried to kill her. As collateral damage, no less! Darcy had awkwardly hugged him, and Eric had just taken a pull from the flask he'd taken to carrying and patted Thor on the back in a stoic and manly fashion before excusing himself.

And then Thor had been scooped up by S.H.I.E.L.D. in the same way Eric had, except this time Jane (and Darcy herself, in a valiant effort to defend her internship and get in with the hot new capes) had refused to just let him disappear again. So they'd all packed up and moved to New York, across the country! She'd missed her own graduation day for it, not that Darcy really cared anymore. She was to remain an assistant to Jane and sort-of S.H.I.E.L.D. employee until the 'current crisis', or whatever that was, was over. Superheroes were a lot more interesting than having to choose between social work and law school.

It had turned out the 'current crisis' was Loki, and Jane had started having nightmares. Darcy had tried to tell her that the whole 'paying a visit' thing had just been heat of the moment, villains had better things to worry about than…heroes'…girlfriends… Darcy had shut up then. She read comics. She knew the score. The love interest never survives. So Jane had started coming over every time Thor and the 'Avengers' and his little bro made the news.

It had been getting worse for months. People had died, mostly S.H.E.I.L.D. personnel, but there had been the odd civilian. Like that poor homeless guy who'd been crushed and bled out before paramedics had been cleared to go to him. A guy Darcy had had a nice flirtation with had been…vaporized. Not in front of her, thank god, but damn. There were benefits to being one of the few local friends of the hero's girlfriend, and never being at the scene of an attack if it could be helped was one of them.

So when Loki appeared in front of her, in the doorway to her bathroom, Darcy was somewhat surprised.

They both froze for a moment, disoriented. He was looking…worse for the wear. Covered in filth and blood and wounded and barely standing. But he was terrifying, nevertheless. He grabbed her by the throat, infinitely quicker on the uptake than she was, and squeezed.

"Where is she? The pathetic mortal, I can win here at least!" He screamed at her, spittle flying in her face as she choked. "I know she was here, I felt her! WHERE IS SHE?"

Darcy couldn't breathe. Like, at all. All she could do was vainly try to gasp an answer at the psycho yelling at her as she tried to sink her nails into his hands.

"Always ALWAYS I tell him he has to learn that he is not ready that he is not worthy and then this stupid pathetic mortal woman has him for a week and it's all better and he's ready to be king and I am ruined and shamed and made fool of again!" Almost he looked as if he was crying as he spat the next words out. "Again I am the spare brother the child the liar the mischief-maker who can do no right and I am wrong and evil for wanting to destroy those monsters once and for all and I- will- not- have- it-! WHERE IS SHE?" Darcy was seeing red spots before her eyes, and her lungs were burning, and she could feel the tears and snot on her face along with the fucker's spit and she was going to fucking die because fucking Jane had to go and be wooed by the cut homeless guy.

With that last scream, Loki's face so close to hers that she could feel his breath on her, the strength seemed to go out of him. His hand relaxed and she took her first breath in what seemed an eternity. He swayed, and Darcy had enough sense to shove at him with what energy she could muster. Loki collapsed, falling to the side and away from her with her push, and Darcy sank to her knees sobbing and drinking the air in. She wasn't dead.

She wasn't dead.

Of course, now she had a bleeding, murderous, possibly dying supervillain halfway in her bathroom. As she gulped down air and tried not keel over from sheer panic and terror, Darcy worried.

Thor had recovered from a broken neck- she'd seen how his head twisted!- just as soon as he'd gotten his pseudo-godly powers back. She had no idea what it would take to kill one of those people, and the blood coming out of him wasn't so much pooling dramatically as it was oozing sluggishly. Fuck. So maybe he'd survive after all (Darcy was sure Thor would be gleeful about that, too, attempted asphyxiation nothing), and then he'd still be here. In her home. Definitely trying to kill Jane, possibly killing her as a sort of appetizer. On the bright side, if the thought of that and the actual experience of being strangled by holy-crap-Loki didn't make her pee her pants, nothing ever would.

The first thing Darcy did as soon as she could stand was grab her taser from her bag by the front door. The second thing (after, of course, aiming her one precious defense at the unconscious God of Mischief and sitting back down) was that she tried to call S.H.I.E.L.D. No dice. Her cell, her landline—nothing. She even tried the general phone down the hall, and just got static. She even tried to email them or Thor. No wi-fi.

So she had a choice. Leave, and try to contact someone once she was out of range of what was probably some sort of background protective spell-thingy he had going on. Highly appealing. On the other hand, she'd be leaving him alone in her home with her neighbors none the wiser. Somehow Darcy couldn't imagine herself mustering up the balls to actually run screaming a warning once the initial panic had faded. Maybe he'd wake up and actually find Jane. They'd watched as much of the fight as they could, bless those nutjob reporters. The whole crew had looked almost as bad as the supposedly-defeated one lying just there. Darcy wouldn't bet on Jane's safety if he woke up and tracked her through whatever creepy feeling thing it was he'd mentioned.

She could duck and run and try to get help, which her brain was telling her was the smart option right now. Or she could play the hero, which her brain was adamantly against but her compulsive snarker and her inner comic nerd LOVED. Fuck. FuckfuckfuckfuckfuckFUCK.

She would stay, and she was so completely going to die, wasn't she? Darcy tried not to cry. Again.