Some Loki/Darcy for you guys.
8/30/12-This story has been updated; it's not a happy fluff piece.
Hope you enjoy!
DISCLAIMER: I do not own any of the characters nor do I reap any benefit from this story. :3
She walked by his window.
She had done nothing of interest, nothing to catch his attention, but he saw her walk by. At first it made no difference, countless of people walked by his little room daily and paid him no mind.
No, no one paid him mind anymore. He had been exchanged between the Earth and Asgard so many times it was almost laughable. The man he had once called father had no purpose for him, accepting him home as a prisoner only to find he had no room for him.
No room to spare for the man he had once called his son, or so he claimed. But Loki knew better. He knew his father was ashamed of him, of the stories and gossip his presence would stir amongst the Asgardians.
So, he was sent back to Earth, returned as a prisoner to the planet he had once tried to rule. No other worlds tried to save him, there was no purpose in him pursuing freedom.
Loki was almost numb to the idea. Thor had tried his best to defend him from the government organizations that held him accountable.
Thor had promised he would watch over Loki himself. He had promised it would not happen again, if only they would give Loki another chance.
If they would allow Loki to be free on Earth.
But Thor failed to understand that living with him, under his thumb, hidden in his shadow, Loki would never be free. Loki would never be able to be his own man, his own person. All he would ever be was the brother of Thor, the one who must be watched over.
The other one.
So he had chosen to be a prisoner of SHIELD. He had chosen to live his life behind bars and glass and be shut away from the rest of the world because it would be his own choice.
If he was damned to spend the rest of his life as a prisoner, he would choose the sentencing.
Though Thor still attempted to exert some sort of control over his life; a day didn't go by where he would not try to visit him, attempt to promise him freedom when it was truly the last thing Loki wanted.
He would just stare past him, pay Thor no acknowledgement when he came.
If he acknowledged his brother at all, even with disdain, Thor wouldn't understand. He would misconstrue his hatred for pain that Thor could alleviate. He would still be convinced that he could be Loki's savior, that he alone could save Loki from his enemies, from himself.
Loki wished he could laugh at his brother, at how seemingly stupid he was.
Yet the laughter never came, the joviality never entered his heart. There was nothing to mock Thor about, only things that made Loki grow indifferent to him.
That was the opposite of love, wasn't it? Indifference.
Loki would then watch; he would note the different people that would stroll by his window so carelessly, as if he had never posed a threat to him at all. In Asgard, his presence brought nothing but speculation and stories.
Here, he was soon another faded face, a memory no one in the fast paced realm of Midgard could dwell on for too long without hindering their own life. And so he would watch; he watched all the agents of SHIELD walk by, discussing trivial matters or important matters. None of them looked his way unless it was accidental, they would make brief eye contact before getting distracted again in their own conversation, in their own world.
Yes, Loki was of no consequence to them. He was another face in a sea of a million that lived inside their thoughts.
He could almost smile; how quickly he was forgotten by all.
Except for Thor, he reminded himself with bitter distaste.
They were just faces; passing faces of people Loki didn't know besides what they would divulge by his cell every once and again. He knew some of them had marital troubles, and some couldn't figure out what was the trouble with their cars. He knew there were people causing chaos all over the world, but he knew not their names or where.
She walked by his window in the same manner, prattling on about some man she had met once at a bar. He hadn't paid her physical presence much attention, only catching the bounce of her dark hair and the contrast of the hair with her pale skin. But that was it, and soon she too had gone past, leaving little to no real impression on Loki. She wasn't special or remarkable in any sense of the word.
She was talking to the woman Thor had become so fond of, the scientist, who seemed indifferent to the girl and her trivial qualms with life.
And then they were gone, just like all the others. And Loki had paid them little thought afterwards. She was of no consequence to him. Her life, her successes and her failings would bear no repercussions for him. She was just another face, another body.
And a few hours later, he caught her walking by again-the familiarity in the movement of her hair told him it was her. She was on the phone, struggling to push the other arm through the sleeve of her jacket as he assumed she went home for the day.
It was an obnoxiously yellow jacket that Loki immediately despised. She had paused by his window to try and pull the jacket on, and Loki heard her quickly explain to the other side of the phone that she had to beg to get out early so she could go out that night.
She begin to explain where she was going-a little bar she'd never heard of but soon her voice faded as she walked down the other side of the hall.
Loki had wondered where she had gone, but then forgotten about her all together, and her plans, instead focusing on himself and how one could find amusement locked away in a cell.
Soon she began walking by his little cell almost daily, he assumed it was the quickest way to her office. He begin to watch her daily, not really noticing her as anything more than entertainment.
He watched her carry heavy boxes behind Thor's scientist, rolling her eyes or mimicking the woman as she rattled off tasks for the day.
Once she had been rushing by his cell with some tube of some blue smoking fabric. He'd heard the glass shatter and he heard her muffled shouting as she attempted to clean it up, only to be scolded because it was acid. And Loki found himself smirking slightly at the stupid mortal girl.
He learned then her name was Darcy, as Thor's scientist shouted it multiple times.
Most days, things were not so blatantly entertaining. Most days, the girl was on her phone or with Thor's scientest, talking about this man and what they did the nights before. The stories were usually the same premise-she would go out, meet him, they would have drinks. But it was the little differences in each story that Loki found compelling. He had never meant to listen to her, to pay her any heed, but she seemed to be unintentionally forcing him to notice her. What with her clumsiness, her loud voice on the phone.
And Loki had become disgruntled in realizing she proved mildly interesting, at least enough to distract him every once and again.
She would retell what happened the night before, talking about musicians she had met and their dramatized reactions to things she said or talking about a catty girl she had run into and regretted starting a conversation with. Her renditions of stories were often dramatic, with flailing limbs and changing voices to personify the different people she spoke to. It was like watching a poorly written play, one only meant for laughs and mockery.
Loki didn't mind though, and found himself hooked on her words, often waiting for her to walk by again to hear the next installment. He wondered why she had never passed by his cell before, what in her daily route had changed. Or perhaps she had passed by a hundred times, and Loki had just begun to notice her.
Loki began to listen to her conversations, just little bits and pieces of the muffled sound that came through his bullet proof window. Something about them stuck out, something about them was so terrible he couldn't help but be drawn to the sound.
He begin to notice certain details-which clubs she liked most versus the ones the male took her to after some coercing. He noticed how her tone would change depending on who she was talking to-how her reactions seemed more relaxed and flamboyant when she was on the phone as opposed to when she was walking with the scientist, where her quaking voice attempted to repress her excitement as she spoke.
She became a source of entertainment for him, her daily misadventures with the outside world proving to be somewhat amusing. She was odd-simple, yet very complex in her character. She was nothing extraordinary, in what he gathered from observing other young women, but something about her made her stand out to him, made her unique in a sea of hundreds of faces. Perhaps it was her romanticizing and exaggerating every trivial act within her life was comical to listen to that made her appear more...appealing, for lack of a better word.
Or perhaps she was the least boring person he had come into contact with as of late. Whatever the reason, Loki enjoyed her presence somewhat, and soon found himself waiting for her to walk by, waiting to be entertained by her stories.
Loki soon realized she was guaranteed to walk by at least four times a day: when she came to work, when she would leave and return from lunch, and when she would leave for the day. Her stories were trivial, stupid and frivolous, yet they gave him something to think on. They gave him something to dwell on for a bit that wasn't his own personal misery.
Darcy liked to speak about the man in her life most often, especially to whomever was around. Loki wondered if she had ever had a relationship before, the way she endlessly prattled on about it. It had become nearly the center of her life.
Loki didn't mind for the most part, Darcy's stupid stories only provided him amusement. Though he could tell the scientist was getting more and more agitated with it each day.
One she told Darcy to just stop talking about it for five minutes. There was a long pause before Darcy wandered up the hall again on her phone, saying Jane (so that was her name) was something of a bitch.
Loki found it funny, though refrained from responding with anymore than a smirk. Darcy's stories were his entertainment but he had no right to contribute to them, nor show her he was listening.
Darcy also had a habit of leaving out details. For instance, it took him weeks before she divulged the man's name-his name was Ryan. And sometimes she would start a story, but Loki would never find out the ending. Once she'd been recounting felt ill before a date where he was taking her out for Chinese, but Loki had never known what happened. It was in those moments that Loki found himself embellishing on her words, wondering how Darcy would have acted in that situation.
He assumed with her luck she probably would have gotten sick on the date, and oddly part of him wished she had not. He almost had begin to root for her, the little plucky heroine in his stories. He liked to think about what kind of restaurant she would go to-was it an elegant kind or was it a fast food type place, with only tables for the select few who chose to live out their lives there? He liked to think Darcy settled for fast food places, yet only because she felt she was not cut out for nicer places.
She felt a sense of not belonging. Darcy struck him as someone who lived her life to please others. She would take orders from Jane, pile on work and roll her eyes, but she did nothing about it. She only settled and took what life handed to her.
She never aspired for more, and it almost disappointed Loki. She believed she could never be equal to her superiors, prove herself worthy of their company. She assumed she had to take on a subordinate role.
When how wrong she was; she had managed to entice Loki with her charming clumsiness yet seemed completely unaware of how persuasive she was. It wasn't just anyone who could capture Loki's full attention, clearly from how he had ignored those before her.
Even now, he took what little information he had to build a story about her in his mind. She fascinated him; Loki had never been fascinated by a person before.
Loki liked to build on her stories. He sometimes wondered what Ryan looked like—he had gathered he was tall from Darcy's menial descriptions of him. He wondered how he treated Darcy. She always talked about the things they did, but never how he was or how he acted. She would talk about the man, often times, and he wondered what he looked like.
He pondered upon the face of the stranger.
She'd given him a few descriptive qualities that were vague and shallow, nothing Loki could build off of. He wondered what kind of man Darcy would like, if he was thin and lanky or if he resembled Thor physically.
He resented the idea that Ryan could look like Thor, that his storyteller could find something romantic about him...possibly.
It wasn't necessarily that she was his, but Loki was sure he paid her more heed than the son of Odin did. Loki sometimes felt he was the only one truly listening to Darcy's words.
He had looked at her once, something he had never really done before when listening to her. She had served no more purpose than She wasn't talking, she was listening Jane as she ran over what was to be done throughout the rest of day, walking down the hall as she nodded slowly, empathetically, though her eyes gave away her boredom.
She was small, curvy, with pale skin and dark hair. Her glasses were dotted with water, and he assumed it was raining outside. She had a serene expression on her face, and Loki wondered if she always looked that way or only was there because she was bored. She was pretty, for a mortal. She was far from what he would call beautiful, but her face was pleasant enough.
So that was the face of his story teller.
Loki soon began to resent the days Jane would do most of the talking. She had nothing to contribute to conversation, only giving out orders or discussing her relationship with Thor, something Loki certainly did not want to hear.
It was on those days that Loki would watch Darcy's face, the way her lips would twitch like she wanted to speak yet refrained from doing so in order to allow Jane to continue with her useless story.
Loki wanted to say something, to stand up and stare Jane down in the hopes he could frighten her into shutting up.
He didn't want to hear her. He wanted to hear Darcy.
And he hated the way Jane would dismiss Darcy. Each time the girl opened her mouth, she was immediately silenced either by Jane telling her to wait another moment or to be ignored completely as the scientist continued as if she hadn't been interrupted.
She was seen as trivial, stupid to Jane Foster, who instead would rather Darcy to listen to her go on and on about her accomplishments, about her relationship with Thor, about her own qualms.
Loki begin to despise Jane Foster and every syllable that was uttered from her lips. He wondered how Darcy could endure that talking, endlessly, each and every day.
There was something about Darcy and Jane's relationship that Loki found familiar, almost comforting. Loki wondered if Darcy felt she was living in Jane's shadow, living to please Jane and comfort Jane to the point of sacrificing any other purpose she may have had in the world.
With some resentment, Loki wondered if Ryan treated Darcy that way, if the world treated Darcy that way, like a secondary person.
Like she didn't matter, in the greatness of people like Jane Foster.
He now looked at Darcy with an empathetic eye, like he was watching a fallen friend as she walked by his cell every day, talking about Ryan, her life.
Something about her stories, or perhaps the way she told the tales had changed. Perhaps Loki was listening with a new sense of familiarity.
Now, when she spoke about Ryan and the previous nights, her voice sounded different, new-full of emotions and personality he had not seen before. When the nights were good, he could almost hear the excitement in her voice as she discussed them in detail. She would giddily talk about where they went the night before, what they ate. She would talk about what she wore, how her hair was done. And she would talk about laughs they would share.
She would reminisce about Ryan in a way that made Loki slightly envious, especially if the man was anything like the world around her. Did he care to listen to her, or was he like Jane Foster and the countless others who wanted Darcy as a pair of ears and nothing more? Or did he listen to her, like Loki did. Did he find her stories humorous, or see them as a waste of time?
Loki wished he knew.
He watched her face when she would walk by, how the skin would shift and convey her mood. When she was bored, her eyes would glaze over but she would furrow her brow again to remind herself to listen, to pay attention.
She was courteous, she wanted to be liked and she wanted to prove she was a good friend.
When she was happy, she would smile in a small way. The left corner of her mouth would raise slightly. That's when she was truly happy.
Her outlandish and dramatic behavior was a show; only when she would give a tiny smile was she truly happy.
Loki wondered if the world noticed this, or it was only he. Like a secret that only they both shared.
And her mouth would twist into a frown when she was sad, her face lost in confusion as she wondered what she did wrong.
She wore that face most often, especially after a bad night.
When the nights were bad, her voice was softer, slower. She would make excuses for his behavior, about why he had said what he said to her, or had done what he had done to her. She wouldn't acknowledge he had wanted to hurt her, merely saw her pain as the result of her own insecurities.
And Loki would wonder how she, someone of such character and interest, could allow the behavior to continue, how she could allow herself to be mistreated on a daily basis.
Some nights would be horrible, and she would walk by the next day with fresh tears in her eyes, her arms folded protectively across her chest as she moved swiftly by him.
And he would become angry, bitter for her sake.
Darcy was the one they stepped on, wiped the mud of their boots on, but seemingly did not care when she asked to be taken care of, to be heard. It filled him with bitter rage, a fury he could not quash.
Had he been free, he would have defended her, sworn vengeance against all who dared to draw a tear forth from her eye.
Loki would protect her from them, all of them who scorned her, hurt her.
Loki wondered how people could let her be treated this way; he wondered why no one ever dared to speak up and question the treatment she received.
He wondered how someone like her could be mistreated at all, scorned on a daily basis by those she held near to her for no other reason than they saw her as frivolous, a waste of time.
Loki felt an inclination to protect her, perhaps based on his own mistreatments as a youth. He felt a need to shield her, hide her.
People like Darcy weren't meant for the world for she only fell into darkness, neglect that she would never overcome.
She only served to make others happy, to give up her own voice to echo theirs.
If Loki could have, he would have kept her away from everyone always. He would have kept her away from those who hurt her most and kept her safe and sound, like a bird in a bird cage.
He could keep her to himself, keep her kind heart away from those would misuse it for their own selfish purpose. And he would protect her, he would listen to her stories.
He'd appreciate her, cherish her for all she had to offer. He would let her to know she was valued, loved.
She smiled at him once.
It had been after weeks of walking by his cell, after he had taken time to get to know her every quirk and trait and vowed to protect them all.
He'd been watching her as she walked by, waiting for Jane before they went out for lunch. She had been meandering, reading rules and regulations on the walls around her when she'd turned and caught him staring.
She hadn't been bothered, or didn't seem it by him watching her. Perhaps she had noticed him doing it in weeks past, just grown accustomed to the fact that he watched her.
Perhaps she could tell they were kindred spirits, both victims of the people around them.
But she was staring at the face of a prisoner, a mass murderer and a forgotten son, yet she only smiled slightly apprehensively, awkwardly and waved weakly.
"Hi," she had said, her voice shaking with nerves from the other side.
And Loki had only nodded slightly before turning away, contemplating on how Darcy had only seen him for him, not his past, not his family, not as the younger brother of Thor, but as Loki.
She had smiled and waved at Loki, for no other reason than that she had wanted to.
And for a brief second, Loki's heart soared; he had never met anyone who acknowledged him for him, who gave him a smile for no other reason than they could. Ad for a brief moment, he wished he could say something, to tell Darcy he understood her and he was compassionate towards her slights.
For a moment he wished he could take her somewhere, away from everyone and everything that caused them strife. His past wouldn't matter to her, he had a chance to be on his own.
To be Loki.
He turned back to look at her, to try and talk with her about something, anything. She should know he listened, he found her enjoyable. But she was gone. He pushed himself up from his bench and walked up to the window, to see if perhaps she was only a bit down the hall so he could capture her attention again.
But she was gone, not a trace of her remained except for the memory that lingered in Loki's mind.
His fist slammed against the glass, and he shallowly hoped his anger could shatter it, knowing it would never work.
He was trapped behind a wall of glass and bars from that world, from Darcy, and only because he wanted to be his own man. Perhaps now his staring had scared her off; perhaps he was never to see her again, the one woman whom had ever captured his attention.
Perhaps she was off running into the arms of Ryan, Thor, men like them who would never truly care for her, not the way Loki did.
What if she stopped walking down those halls all together? What if today was the last day he ever saw her, and she instead married Ryan or a man just like him, never knowing of Loki's empathy, his understanding and instead settling for someone who would mistreat her.
Forever more he would be tortured by her memory, by her presence, while she could go on living without ever knowing about his existence, how he cared for her. Whose shadow she would hide under, never truly cherishing herself for the gifts she offered.
Loki was the one locked away, damned to observe her from his cage.
He was trapped observing her, trapped behind his bars and walls and guards with nothing but a memory of Darcy and a dying hope she would return.