"Darcy! Duck!" Jane screamed from across the SHIELD lab. Assistants were flying everywhere like ragdolls. The chalk board of equations was going to be irrevocably ruined, Darcy noted sourly, but she obeyed Jane's instructions anyway.
When one of her close friends told her to duck, Darcy Lewis hit the deck. Most members of her inner circle were super-humans or straight up super-heroes or in the case of Jane, plain old fashioned geniuses who were totally banging super-human super-heroes. The world was a dangerous place and since she had started working for SHIELD, nobody knew it better than Darcy. She had two scars and one hell of a story for her grandkids and she had only been operational for two months. There were aliens, gods, super villains, and terrorists trying to blow up her office on a daily basis. She spent a lot of time face down on the floor hoping her shatterproof windows would hold and that no one used napalm anymore; as it turned out, they did, and it sucked.
All of this occurred to her the minute she dropped under her standard issue desk and just after she heard the distinctive and unfortunately familiar sound of minor explosives destroying windows and the battle cries of vengeful aliens. Or maybe it was a new villain who had very reptilian vocal chords. The point was that Darcy was getting awful tired of their bullshit.
"Why do we even bother replacing the windows?" she muttered darkly, digging through her emergency back for her special issue alien-level taser. "Put up a fucking fireproof wall for once."
Darcy was expecting her desk to get shot up or to maybe take an alien spear to the leg (that would be way better than her napalm story) or maybe even to get evacuated by ISF, but she most definitely did not expect an ice cold hand to wrap around her mouth and then to have the entire room vanish in a stomach-dropping vortex. She did not expect to reappear in SHIELD secondary HQ two streets below the tower with Loki—take over the world oh well my brother still loves me so I guess I'll repent Loki—all wrapped around her like a really expensive stripper. Shocked beyond words, the mistress wordsmith herself was capable of only staring, blankly, up at her apparent saviour. He was out of his Asgard regalia, as per usual since his defection to Earth, and he had even cut his hair, but Darcy knew a reformed super villain when she saw one.
"Um, hi? I don't think we've met. Which makes this pretty weird. Not that you're weird or anything, but the situation is kind of freaking me out to be honest, I thought I was going to get stabbed by an alien today. And dude, your hand is totally still on my boob. Convenient grope time is over."
Loki blinked back at her, suddenly looking just as puzzled as she was but he retracted his limbs calmly. "You are Darcy Lewis, companion of Jane. I believe this makes us acquainted."
"Oh yeah, 'cause Jane and your brother are totally boning. I know because I had to listen to it. For real. All night. Asgardians are freaky in bed or what? I guess you would know better than I would," she rambled, straightening out her rumpled (semi-professional) clothing. "Although you're not one. Is that still a sore subject? I totally get the whole angst thing or whatever. I'm pretty sure I'm adopted too, but nobody ever said anything about it. Don't ask don't tell sort of deal. But you know, love is love, so, I'm glad you decided against destroying my planet."
"You are most welcome, Miss Lewis."
"Perf. Alright. Are you like, security cleared to be here? I don't think I am."
As if she had summoned them, a team of ISF agents in full reflective armour and SWAT shields arrived, screaming at both of them to freeze. Darcy stifled a giggle.
"Freeze, Frost Giant! Come on, that's hilarious," she hissed at the god to her left. He gave her a dour look. She stuck her hands in the air. "I'm Darcy Lewis, security number 1080660479, and I am I going to take my badge out of my pocket and slide it towards you. Please don't shoot me."
She did as she had announced and the ISF briskly escorted both of them to the quarantine area to await clearance from Director Fury (the FUREHMISTER, Darcy proclaimed ecstatically, fist-pumping). The one-eyed man arrived in a flurry some fifteen minutes later, in which time Darcy managed to draw out not one but three laughs from the God of Mischief. She was feeling pretty damn accomplished considering aliens had probably destroyed three weeks' worth of work only an hour before.
"Lewis, explain this shit to me right now," the SHIELD director barked. His eye was soul searching and vicious.
"Somebody bombed my office. Again. I beg of you, again, please put in some fucking walls. I mean seriously, how many windows is this? Five? Okay," Darcy snapped, stalling with a deep breath, "I was following procedure trying not to die when Prince Charming here zapped me into HQ numero doux and totally saved my ass. Not sure what he did with everybody else, though."
"Thor was already in the process of rescuing his damsel. I wasn't about to be outdone by my brother."
Everyone in the room fixed the God of Mischief with a horrified look, but Loki shrugged. "Today is turning out awesome," Darcy cackled, at which Fury raised a disapproving eyebrow.
"Both of you need to attend the debriefing tomorrow morning. Don't make a habit of bypassing our security, Loki. You're still on probation."
The director gave them one last reprimanding, thousand yard stare before he exited with a flourish of high security military personnel.
"You find me charming?"
"Dude. The accent, the old-timey manners, the brooding thing, the fourteen year old girl in me is melting. You know," Darcy said, looking up at Loki with a wicked smile, "I feel like this is the beginning of a beautiful thing."
Darcy jumped ten feet in the air when Tony burst into the living room (one of several provided almost exclusively for Avengers Initiative use) with a victorious scream. He was still covered in motor oil and looked like he had literally sprinted up from his workshop. He scanned her startled form, then the room, and then began checking behind the furniture.
"Christ, Stark, what are you doing?"
"Where is he? You had a boy, over, Darcy Lewis, one you obviously don't want everybody else to know about, but you can't hide from me! I know you told JARVIS not to say anything but I also know that no one plays Risk against themselves," the superhero announced, pointing a triumphant finger at the half finished game board on the table. "Seriously, though, how did he leave? That window is fifteen stories up."
"Seriously, though, mind your own business," Darcy mimicked.
Tony only smirked and lifted up the chair she was curled up on, casually dumping her on the floor. Darcy, mid swing in attempt to punch him in the face, let out an ear piercing shriek for help.
"JARVIS, call Pepper!" she screamed. She made a mad dash to save the Risk board from demolition as Tony grabbed the coffee table. "Or somebody! Come on!"
"Darcy, what's wro—dammit, Stark, what is going on?"
Steve stood in the doorway, hands over his grimly disappointed face. Tony paused like he was thinking, one hand keeping Darcy at bay and the other poised to open the doors on the closet. "How do I phrase this? Darcy has been having someone—a boy—come over here to canoodle once a week for the past two months under the pretence of playing board games."
"We do not canoodle!"
"Ah, so there is a boy," Tony said slyly. He winked conspiratorially at Steve.
"Darcy's dates aren't much of our business, Stark."
"Oh, but it is our business because it's one of us. No one else has the security clearance to get up here. Hell, the only reason Lewis can get in is because she batted her eyelashes at Barton," Tony explained, prompting Darcy to make an indignant noise. "So it's somebody in the inner circle, clearly, not me, not you, not Banner, and not even Barton. And I know it's not Natasha because the two of you bump uglies loud enough to wake up all of New York State."
"That only leaves Thor and Fury. You seriously think I'm boning my best friend's beau or a man old enough to be my grandfather? Seriously? For real? In real life?"
Steve let out a long sigh. Tony's face crumpled as he thought over Darcy's revelation.
"You are forgetting one person."
Both of the Avengers and the resident lab assistant spun on a dime towards the newest occupant of the room. Loki stood casually in the doorway bearing a plain white cardboard box, one eyebrow raised skeptically. Darcy squealed and snatched the package from his hands.
"Dude, you actually got me carrot cake! You are the best," she exclaimed. "I thought you just left because your Stark senses were tingling."
Steve looked disturbed and Tony, for the first time since Darcy had met him, looked genuinely surprised. "You're fucking Loki? He buys you cake? "
"No," Darcy mumbled through a mouthful of pastry. "We just have this thing. We play board games. I'm teaching him about human history. He learned how to cheat at Monopoly way too fast."
"Your monetary system still puzzles me and the purpose of creating an economic game is even more bizarre. I find Risk to be a much more useful educational tool."
"Ah, but war is money and money is war! Just ask Tony."
"What the fuck is going on?" said superhero asked, "Am I in the Twilight Zone right now? Do you even have clearance to be here?"
"I am a God," Loki replied plainly. "I have clearance to be everywhere."
Steve mumbled something like the PG-13 version of cursing and stalked out of the room. Tony mumbled something like "I give up" and followed suit. The lab assistant and the god looked at each other and shrugged equivocally. Loki then got a strange look and like he had many times before, vanished into thin air.
Darcy finished the cake herself, but let the Risk game wait unfinished. Prince Charming always came back.
Loki had not been seen on Earth for five days. Darcy had busied herself in learning how to transcribe Tony and Bruce's notes as well as Jane's. It was more time in the lab and a welcome relief from the stares and whispers of the SHIELD agents, who were apparently a bunch of gossiping old biddies hanging on every word of her mostly imagined escapades with Loki. Tony had told everyone about the Risk incident and rumours were abound. In truth she had not seen or heard from the Norse god since he had apparated out of the living room and she was less than pleased.
She had a lot more Harry Potter references to explain, for one thing.
"I could fix that," a familiar voiced whispered close to her ear.
"Oh my god!" Darcy spun on a dime and dropped the Rubik's cube Tony had given her in shock. The resident god of mischief was looking over her shoulder. The toy suddenly appeared in his hand and Darcy blinked slowly.
"Yes and no," Loki taunted, twirling the cube in the air. "I could solve this for you."
"Sure you will, Rumplstiltskin," she bit back with a grim smile.
It was Loki's turn to look blank and his eyebrows knitted together in confusion. Darcy picked up the Rubik's cube with even more delicate hands. She had solved an entire side since the SHIELD team had left her alone in the lab with orders not to touch anything. "You know, the fairy tale? I will turn your hay into gold so you won't be killed but in return you owe me your firstborn child? No? Don't make deals with strangers; they'll take your babies, that's the point."
"I do not understand."
"Don't worry," she said breezily, "it's mostly meant for girls."
"Wouldn't the child's father be upset by the abduction of his heir?"
"Gotcha," Darcy said. Her eyes were still on the Rubik's cube, turning it over in her hands as though all possible angles would teach her the solution. "R-dog is the father."
"Darcy Lewis I have no plans of impregnating you or taking the baby away. Give that to me," he ordered and the cube appeared in his hand again. Cradled in his long, blue-white fingers it shimmered in the air and then solidified in perfectly solved sides.
"Well shit. Now what am I going to do until Jane comes back?"
Loki's lips curled into a foreboding smile and Darcy rolled her eyes. She knew that look. She backpedaled quickly. "Okay, never mind, just do your magic and make it the way it was again."
As per request her Rubik's cube was returned with one yellow side and she happily began spinning the dials again, giving her office chair an extra whirl around.
"You'll never solve it that way, you know," Loki said smugly, resuming his position over her shoulder. His breath was unnervingly cold. Darcy chucked the cube across the lab with a frustrated cry.
"Dude, come on. Let me do something on my own for once! I'm not some kind of damsel in distress here, I'm like—I'm like Xena, warrior princess! Of the mind! Of the cube!" There was a pregnant pause and Darcy realized she had never gotten angry with him before. She was almost—almost—paralyzed by fear and the memory of a god who had tried to crush her planet.
"I think I just learned something about humans again," Loki intoned. He made a face as though he had tasted something awful and as her fear evaporated Darcy shrieked with hysterical laughter.
"Okay, okay, whatever you were thinking before, I'm in," she promised, wiping tears from her eyes. "Just nothing with Stark again—my apartment still smells like dead raccoon."