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Delegation

How Thor managed to court a woman who kept such slovenly louts for underlings was beyond Loki's ken. A late riser, she was practically nocturnal in nature and highly reliant on the technology most Midgardians wired themselves to by choice. He'd been monitoring the area for his brother's lady love for the last few days, but no sign was to be seen of the woman in question save for the unlisted call to her assistant. Even those were fairly sporadic.

The lass who'd managed to hold together Doctor Foster's labs in this arid desert was barely out of her adolescence, but remained very meticulous with the work she picked up. Otherwise, completely hopeless. Loki had never laid eyes on someone who could spend a whole day in their sleeping garments, but she'd yet to put on her normal attire after the second day of his observations.

Loki took one last look at the labs and the girl slumped over the laptop muttering nonsense about "quasars" and "credit hours" before deciding that this avenue was not one up for much perusal…if he did not want to pull out his hair by the roots in frustration. Some things were just not worth the effort expended.

Jane had a sort of "fuck them and the horse they rode in on" mentality about S.H.I.E.L.D. after Puente Antiguo. But even Jane had her weaker moments. MIB incarnate came rolling in earlier in the week to dangle a bit of shiny in front of her boss in the form of the University of Tromsø's observatory up in Skibotn. Literally the ass end of civilization.

"This is weirdly suspicious, don't you think?" Darcy asked her boss one lazy morning – they'd set Skype up to just continually stream around the clock while Jane kept vigil on one side of the world, Darcy the other.

Jane took a while to reply – buried under star charts and wedged against a bulky spectrophotometer she was probably, possibly, most likely using to take measurements and readings of some freaky space metal. Building rainbow bridges into other galaxies wasn't exactly something solely relegated to astrophysics…or so Jane had snipped. Jane grunted – yep, grunted in reply with that slight little inflection Darcy had learned to identify as agreement.

"I mean, first they send you off to the land of reindeer and the former alien Viking stomping grounds to stick your nose up into the intergalactic craw of the universe for no particular reason – it's not like we've been totally courteous with They Who Shall Not Be Mentioned. You're totally the only person in your field qualified to work on this shit, granted, but why do they want you to advance your research and invest in something that might bring another two ton suit of armor stomping in. Not exactly pro governing, but stupider shit has happened. Jane – Jane? JANE," Darcy barked, startling the tiny genius on the screen. It just made her go all cross eyed, which Darcy found endearing, before she slanted a look in her direction.

"I'm not looking a gift horse in the mouth, Darcy. Stupid saying – true fact. I've been on the waiting list for months for Kitt Peak and Apache Point, and at this point I think it's S.H.I.E.L.D. just being utter dicks about stretching the list with their government black bag threats against all the southwestern observatories, which are probably the best options for data gathering and plotting theoretical trajectories considering there's absolutely near zero light pollution in the area around them and they're close enough to the original drop site."

Darcy, for once, didn't shut off her brain after Jane rambled off into science speak. She nodded, made the appropriate noises of agreement and understanding, and pursed her lips by the end of what was Jane Foster's longest sentence to her in nearly three days. A tapping came at the door on Darcy's end. The figure had turned back around to observe the empty street, but Darcy definitely saw some couture threads and some killer pumps on the woman.

"Uh. Fuck. I'll call you back, Jane."

Jane nodded, muttering to herself as she dived back into the gopher hole of research quite literally. Her boss waded into the piles of charts as Darcy terminated the call, pinched some color into her cheeks, and motioned for the woman to come in with a sharp whistle.

"Enter at your own risk – mind the stains, and don't freak. It's just oil."

The lady sidestepped Mystery Stain Six, as it was dubbed. Didn't even scrunch her nose at the smell.

"I'm used to the whole 'lair of the scientist' sort of deal," smiled the redhead, extending one slim, perfect hand towards Darcy as she stood. She knew she should've washed up after recalibrating Jane's friggin' machines, but did a subtle hand wipe on the sleeve of her hoodie before grasping the other woman's hand in a firm shake.

"Darcy Lewis – lab slave and de facto overseer of Doctor Foster's place until she's back from Nowhereland."

"It's a pleasure, Miss Lewis – Virginia Potts. Just call me Pepper."

It took Darcy under a nanosecond to formulate a full response. "Holy fuck, are you serious?"

"As a heart attack," the redhead replied, showing off a set of teeth you only saw in fucking commercials for dental hygiene. She could front Crest's marketing campaign with a single smile.

"I did a paper on you – the whole corporate raider and cutthroat, kickass personal assistant cum CEO vibe heading the world's largest conglomerate of a business is sort of great material for an A grade." Pepper Potts actually looked pretty damned pleased about Darcy's admission. Even her face felt like it was heating up in flames as the proverbial word vomit spewed out. No brain to mouth filter in these situations.

"So I take it you're here not representing Goonsquad Limited?" Darcy squinted, pointing outside towards the pretty obvious SUV parked about a block away from the lab in plain sight.

"No, but I do keep up with a few agents," Pepper admitted, her smile nothing but congenial as she took in the ramshackle equipment, glitch computer screens flashing up error codes every five seconds, and crusted plates of meals long past. Darcy was mentally kicking herself for slacking in the housekeeping department, but how the fuck should she expect the CEO of a megacorporation to come knocking during the lunch hour in the ass end of New Mexico?

Gathering up what little professionalism she had left, which wasn't much to begin with, Darcy offered her the least squeaky wheeled chair, dusting the Pop-Tart crumbs off. Pepper Potts folded herself into the chair and crossed legs that went on for like, miles. Either she was developing a major girl crush or Darcy was in severe, green tinted envy. How much more graceful could you get than Pepper Potts?

"So, cutting to the chase, since the flight is leaving later this afternoon and I wanted to give you time to think it over – come to think of it, got any good spots for lunch? My treat."

Woah.

Darcy blinked the haze off and nodded her "okay" rather than trusting her voice before shuffling to her purse, autopilot flicking on in her brain while the internal screaming glee in her head drowned everything else out. "Diner food cool with you?"

"Perfect."

She locked up shop while Pepper waited out front, enjoying the cool weather of spring eddying with the glaring sun.

"New Mexico gets it lucky. Only the mountains get the major snowfall, and even that is nothing compared to the frozen hell I grew up in," Darcy assured Pepper, trying to keep pace with the taller woman's stride as they made their way up Main Street.

"I was born in New Haven – believe me when I say that I know how cold it can get."

"Pfft. Try Concord in the middle of January on for size. Shit will freeze vodka on contact."

Pepper had a pleasant look of surprise. They navigated their way into the small diner, Darcy having a moment of nostalgia over the exact spot where Thor had smashed his coffee cup. Picking a spot by the windows was a reflexive gesture. Izzy came around to grab their drink orders – coffee for her, iced water for Pepper – before waddling off. Pepper turned that high beam focus back on Darcy and asked, "New Englander?"

"Born and bred."

Izzy was back with their drinks, Darcy advising Pepper to try the quiche.

"Then consider this a meeting of the minds over how no one has any idea of what cold is until they live in our states in their formative years." Pepper raised her glass and Darcy clinked, the plastic letting out a dull sound as the surfaces met. Appropriate toasting done and Darcy very sure that Pepper Potts should be crowned Miss Universe for sheer cool factor, they tucked in to a late, late brunch and swapped school stories over their alma maters, their respective wacko geniuses they herded around, and the yet-to-be-revealed reason for Pepper Potts even descending from the Mount Olympus (aka L.A.) to come out here looking for her specifically.

"Mr. Stark has been interested in getting Dr. Foster on board with research and development, but all details of her contract are completely confidential. We noticed that she's hired you straight out of school and were wondering why you chose to stay on?"

Darcy kicked back to chew on the question for a moment. "I believe in her research?" It sounded awkward and more of a tentative question than an answer.

It was the right answer. Pepper's eyes crinkled at the corners. "I can relate. You did take a bit of a risk. But I don't see it paying all that much."

"Eh," Darcy grimaced. The pay was pretty shitty, but it's not like she was complaining. Jane worked her ass off doing her own thing, regardless of any naysayers. Darcy respected that enough to be the only constant fixture in her boss's crazy life. That meant sticking through the shitty parts as well as the good and not running for financial cover in the form of a cushy day job back on the east coast.

"Graduated with honors from Culver – changed three times for your major?" Pepper smiled up from the screen of her phone. It was a state of the art piece that looked like it could run subroutines on Scud missiles.

When it came time for any fresh faced graduate out of Culver to drop their résumé on a future employer, they were assured by the school that their academic pedigree alone would set them above the other peons in the workforce. Culver would piggyback you to greatness.

Darcy Lewis thought that was a crock of bullshit up until she was sitting in front of Pepper Potts (who looked about as fresh faced and pretty as the covers of Time and Forbes made her out to be) for an impromptu job interview.

It was either greatness recognizing potential greatness in the lesser mortal Darcy considered herself to be compared to Virginia 'I run an enterprise the size of a small country' Potts or it was a handout. Jane had grown too attached to the notion of "do it yourself" over the months of Darcy's interning and continued tenure (she was a pretty badass PA, not to toot her own horn or anything), had subsequently refused all S.H.I.E.L.D. annexing attempts, preferring to eke out a living through SCIENCE, low budget equipment jerry-rigged from salvaged, secondhand shit.

"So are you looking to hire me along with Jane? Is this having anything to do with the suits trying to buy out Jane and make me sign a nondisclosure agreement fifty pages thick?"

"I don't believe I'm at liberty to discuss that," Pepper said with a touch of caution. At Darcy's hiked up eyebrow, she managed a quick "yet".

"Alright, so let's say hypothetically speaking I do know that They Who Shall Not Be Named is up to something."

"Then hypothetically speaking-" Pepper started, cut off by the entry of one beefy guy stuffed into a suit like sausage is to a casing. Darcy did a full pivot in her chair, nursing her usual sludge of coffee to squint over the mug's rim.

"Miss Potts," wheezed Beefy after he'd gotten within range of their table, "we've got a problem."

The place was dead and Izzy was in the back, so Pepper left a crisp fifty on the table before calmly leading Beefy – who'd intro'd himself as one Happy Hogan to Darcy's expression of disbelief – through an explanation.

"Most of downtown is a disaster area – they're evacuating most of the boroughs and there's a…hole hovering over Manhattan." Happy laid on a thick accent that was either purely Brooklyn or one weird sounding Bronx variation. Darcy hadn't been to New York in years.

Pepper just motioned her along, Darcy following into the parked rental Hogan had squealed in with. They were at the airstrip a mile outside of town soon, boarding a lear with the Stark logo emblazoned on the siding. Introductions were made again while Happy rattled off more factoids over some incident occurring in Manhattan, Darcy's sense of "Oh Shit" mounting by the second. Stark's CFO, Blake Ives shook her hand before seating himself while Yvonne Eames from H.R. waved her hello from the back of the cabin.

It didn't hit home until Darcy turned to get a look at the screen running the live newsfeed from New York. That made a believer out of her.

"Mind if I hitch a ride?" her voice grated out, Pepper's silent nod winning her a seat on the short trip out, Jane and the lab forgotten as Happy started the flight check.

Darcy excused herself, locking herself into the lavatory to dial up the first number that came to mind.

"Ben?" she said, and her voice sounded way too shrill and scared to be coming out of her mouth.

"Darce?" replied her brother, a wall of sound blaring through the speaker after his voice echoed over the line. She nearly collapsed against the lavatory wall in relief. It was the same shit she had to deal with when she was just a kid, staring at the television in the living room while the towers came down. Ben had been working as a junior associate in the firm's Manhattan offices for a year.

He'd missed the morning commuter ferry from Staten by a couple of minutes. Coffee spill on his suit kind of delay. The first plane had slammed into his office in the North Tower at 8:46 A.M. It had been about three hours of agony until he'd managed to phone the house and tell the family he'd been late getting out of the door.

"Jessica and Grant?"

"Safe – but I'm not so sure about Jen," he replied in a flat, dead tone. Darcy cringed.

"She probably just has too much going on. Are her offices still in downtown?"

"Yeah. But she won't pick up and the kids are getting anxious."

"Get off the island. The government is probably staging rescue and recovery teams. I'm on a flight out already."

She spent five minutes arguing with Ben about the practicality of flying into a warzone, answering his questions about who the fuck was flying her out on a lear, and summoning up some appropriate comments about his questions directed at her meds and how often Darcy dosed herself because she was acting insane.

"Love you, love the kids – be safe." She hung up on her brother's shouting and turned off the cell, sinking down onto the lid of the toilet – ceramic. Who owned a plane with ceramic bath fixtures? Tony Stark, obviously. She decompressed for a good half hour during takeoff with some in and out breathing, summoning up the willpower to de-jellify her legs and walk out of the lavatory.

The view on the flatscreen was something that made her want to crawl back into the lav. She grew a bit of a backbone and shuffled past a tense Yvonne clutching her portfolio in one hand like a lifeline, hypnotized by the newsfeed.

An obnoxious hum was in Darcy's ear. The jet had a fuckton of noise going on outside and in it for such a tense silence. Until the hamster on the wheel in Darcy's brain revved back up, she didn't register the obnoxious hum as Pepper's StarkPhone vibrating until she looked at the thing. It was in danger of slipping off the interior ledge until she reached over to still it. The face flashing up on the screen gave her the kick she needed to snap out of the shocked trance the entire plane seemed to be locked in.

"Pepper," she croaked, jumping out of her seat to practically shove the phone under the other woman's nose. Pepper took a moment to register the interruption, her eyes focusing on Tony Stark's face before she let out a noise bordering the line between a shout and a scream.

She snatched the phone from Darcy, tapping furiously at the "accept".

"Tony? Tony!" Pepper shouted into the phone, lifting it away to look at the screen when no reply came out of the speaker. The screen had cleared. The line was dead the moment she'd picked up.

Darcy spent the remainder of the flight perched on the armrest of Pepper's chair, eyes fixed on the scene as it showed Iron Man's subsequent rise into the fucking vortex that'd formed over Manhattan and was spitting out things only dreamed of in a SciFi freak's wildest dream with what looked like a god damn missile in hand, his fall from the vortex as it zipped itself shut, and what looked like a flying green behemoth that she'd seen choppy news footage of over the years hurtling itself at Iron Man before the camera lost track from the vantage point in the news chopper.

Pepper was rapid firing orders to Yvonne and Blake over her shoulder, both picking up their phones to start firing off orders to their underlings. Darcy quietly went to the back, taking a much needed moment to gather herself on this most fucked up and strangest of days. Returning with a glass of water which was forced into Pepper's slack fingers, she set about reviving her into some state of coherency after Pepper came down from the adrenaline high and began to choke up.

Fuck it. She'd known the woman for under two hours. It was worth a shot. Darcy gently squeezed her into a hug, tucking the CEO's head against her shoulder as Pepper gave herself over to a bit of a rant directed at Tony Stark's self-destructive, selfless heroism and how "it wasn't fair". A few threats to Anthony Edward Stark's life if he was still alive were made into the musty fabric of Darcy's worn Culver hoodie until Pepper ran out of steam, sniffling.

They landed in the only fly zone in sixty klicks, according to Happy. Fucking Hartford.

Darcy gently pried Pepper's phone free from her death clutch and phoned a rental agency to get a car on the tarmac pronto. She may or may not have used the AmEx fished out of Pepper's purse, but what are company expenditures for? And it certainly damn well did qualify as an emergency. The sedan was waiting as Darcy and Blake got Pepper up and moving after landing, shock gradually wearing off when the fresh air hit her blotchy face.

It was all Darcy, Yvonne, and Blake could do to keep up as Pepper booked it down the stairs, across the tarmac, and into the sedan with superhuman agility for someone in four inch heels. Happy stuck behind to handle the plane and promised to follow as soon as humanly possible. All of that shouted to their retreating backs, Darcy recalled.

"I think Mr. Stark's been teaching her stunt driving," Blake said offhandedly to Darcy as they clutched onto what she fondly dubbed the "OH SHIT" handles in the backseat, Yvonne being the brave soul who didn't have much choice in seating and had lunged into the front as Pepper was squealing off. This train wasn't stopping for nobody.

Pepper was bent over the steering wheel as they practically flew down I-84 towards the state line.

"On the bright side, I think we'll make record time. It's like the Mach Five reincarnated with Pepper as Racer X," Darcy gibed in a shaky voice, but Blake was too busy vomiting out the window to comment or get the reference. Darcy was grateful for light traffic, not a state troopers in sight (probably preoccupied with alien invasions further south), and superior handling skills from Pepper as the speedometer ratcheted over the 120 MPH mark.

Darcy did send up her last prayer to whatever higher power out there to be on the safe side, but total and full disclosure on sins in the face of a possible high speed crash was warranted. A Lewis didn't raise no idiots, as the force of nature that'd birthed Darcy put it so often in those exact words.

Tony had the gall to text Pepper the location the rest of them were idling at in the aftermath. After ditching the rental, bullying her way through military checkpoints, and shooing Yvonne and Blake off towards Stark Tower, Pepper set off through the wreckage with Darcy tailing. How the woman still managed to do this in pumps, she would never know. But where there was a will there was a way for Pepper Potts, Darcy summed up.

The Lebanese joint would be totally kitschy and atypical of your usual Manhattan ethnic food joint on the go if it hadn't been for the entire storefront being in pieces on the sidewalk. The pair wove their way in. Pepper yelled for a solid five minutes into Tony's face about what Darcy suspected was "the usual" before collapsing against him, beating her balled up fists against his shirt and alternating the kissing/screaming routine with some old fashioned lecturing. Darcy took Tony Stark's vacated seat and shawarma – lamb.

It took her a few minutes to register the faces around the table, all still fixed on Tony and Pepper's exchanged with mixed expressions of shock, apathy, and amusement. The thousand yard stare dude with the massive biceps gazed off into the middle distance while the embodiment of feminine badassery in a formfitting set of body armor sat sentry at his side. One very wild haired gent sporting glasses that screamed "professor with tenure, thank you" with his rumpled clothes and greying hair sat at the end. And…

Holy fuck to the nth degree, is that Captain America?

She must've voiced that one. Everyone besides Pepper and Tony (currently occupied in another Pepper tirade while Tony tried his best to bring her back a notch, bless him) zeroed in on her with pinpoint precession that made every hair stand on end.

A door in the back opened after a muffled toilet flush.

"The Lady Darcy!" bellowed a familiar voice before Darcy and her chair were lifted into a hug.

"Thor," she wheezed, "good to see you. Mortal ribcage…cracking-"

She was gently set down, Thor coming into her spotty vision field as she regained lung capacity and gave him a pat on the slab of muscle masquerading as his shoulder.

"Apologies – I forget how delicate mortal bones remain in comparison!" Thor laughed, clapping her on the shoulder. She nearly buckled.

"We've spent all day smacking around Chitauri, is what he means." That came from the redheaded chick, her tone as flat as her expression.

"Verily. A fierce battle, to be sure. My Lady Jane is near, I trust?" Thor was scanning the area for any blip of Jane, but he looked about as crestfallen as a kicked puppy when Darcy shook her head in a "no".

"Still in Norway. The powers that be sent her packing a couple of days back. I'm guessing it's all connected…?" she trailed off, looking pointedly around the room and then outside the space at the chaos. A pipeline was split and the street was buckled in places, wreckage strewn everywhere. Car alarms blared intermittently. She thought she saw a flock of pigeons skittering on a crosswalk, but she might've been a bit dazed and mistook them for chickens. Darcy didn't want to even think about the level of damage costs involved in one square city block alone.

"Indeed. The Son of Coul was kind to inform me before he bravely met his end that Jane was sent abroad to protect her from possible involvement. My brother's schemes stretched far, from what we've been able to puzzle out," Thor rumbled, shifting his massive frame around in the chair. He made it look like a full grown adult squeezing into a kid's plastic chair. Darcy inched away on the off chance of the furniture splintering into a billion sharp pieces under Thor's less-than-slight weight.

At the mention of Coulson, the most awkward of awkward silences fell on the table. Even Pepper took a break from screaming at Tony to throw up her hands, storming out of the place to start nailing a detached car door with the tip of a heel.

"Phil and Pep were pretty close," Tony answered their disbelieving looks, scratching at the back of his neck in the typical male gesture of "how do I calm my female" as he ambled out to Pepper.

"Agent Repo? Dead?" Darcy's head was spinning in disbelief. She'd figured people like Coulson had at least five forms to file and a public notice to be posted two weeks before the date of their expiration. Apparently not.

"Yes. Dead." The redhead deadpanned, her mouth twitching into a thin line of annoyance. Darcy fixed her face into something more solidly regretful than disbelieving, slumping into the chair.

"As much as I would enjoy a brief respite, I must return to the Man of Fury and begin preparations for Loki's extradition," Thor said, glancing sidelong at Darcy with his best Asgardian "we need to talk" look. She nodded dumbly and followed him out with a two fingered salute to the others. Walking with Thor through a warzone was easy for scrawny mortals – he simply just shoved away debris the size of Humvees with a flick of his arm as they backtracked to what she supposed was S.H.I.E.L.D.'s hidey hole.

"My brother did not act alone in his schemes. I worry for his safety as he goes to face the Allfather for his crimes committed on this realm…as well as the mischief he caused while I remained banished. Whatever his reasons, they were influenced by some greater force. Perhaps the one commanding this vast army," Thor kicked the strangest looking humanoid corpse Darcy had seen outside of fiction. She gave it a wide berth as the spastic twitch set in and the armor it sported rattled on the asphalt.

"So sort of forced to invade under duress?" Darcy supplied, struggling to catch up with Thor as he continued the slow march up the block.

"Very possible. I must go plead his case in person, for his is my brother no matter the circumstances. Which is why I intend to return with him instead of tarrying on this realm any longer, as much as I would like." Thor grinned back at her.

"Oh, I bet," Darcy crowed, glad to find a bit of humor in Thor's totally bawdy but totally lovesick attitude towards her boss. They came to a sleek skyscraper that looked a little worse for wear but remained blanketed in military personnel and the telltale black suits of S.H.I.E.L.D. agents.

Thor breezed them through checkpoints. She'd give him credit – he was pretty officious when it boiled down to it. They were on the elevator to the lower holding areas when he looked at Darcy and asked, "Would you be opposed to waiting while I check on my brother's accommodations?"

"Not at all, big guy. I'll tag along if it's not completely restricted for lackeys."

If it was, Thor didn't pay the rules any mind. The "accommodations" was a modified, overblown glass cube bare of anything but a chair. It sat against a back wall in a cavernous hangar, rows of tech set up and a massive amount of people scurrying around. Thor excused himself as soon as they'd crossed over the area to the cube, Loki sitting far back in the cell against the wall.

Her first estimation of the man and the mystery weren't flattering. He was all lean muscle and the dual opposite to Thor's golden boy image, dark haired and sallow. He was far too occupied with the ground to take notice of the activity outside his cell, it seemed.

An idea popped into her head while Thor talked with a few scientific types off to the side, brow furrowed.

Darcy edged over to retrieve a laptop from an abandoned workbench down the way, booting it up and sidling back near the containment cell despite the dirty looks she was getting from the agents. Skype was downloaded in a jiff and she had it ringing on Jane's number for a solid minute until Jane's frantic face filled the screen.

"Darcy?! I've been trying your phone for hours! Did you see the news? He's back and the flux from our quadrant is going absolutely crazy with energy feeds," she gesticulated wildly with the words up until Darcy hauled Thor in front of the laptop after setting it down on a nearby table.

"Magic mirror. Talk." That was her best Midgardian to Asgardian translation of modern tech for Thor at the moment. The look on both their faces was worth the effort.

"JANE!" Thor shouted. Darcy could feel the vibrations from his voice beneath her damn boots. She left them to their relative privacy and edged around the room, trying her damn best to pick a spot on the wall and just stare at it. The agents were preoccupied, Loki was brooding, and she was so out of place that it was surreally funny. A laugh bubbled up before she could stop it.

"Something amuses you?" croaked Loki. He was a good five feet away and muffled by a wall of glass – runes of some kind coating the pane. Whatever hocus pocus they were pinning him up with seemed to be holding, so Darcy worked up the gumption to move closer. Agents shot her more dirty looks, but she pointed to Thor and locked her hands neatly behind her back.

"Just that I didn't expect to end up here when I woke up this morning. And that it's all sort of surreal and I'm probably just having a very trippy dream sequence," she explained. He looked like shit warmed over. Bruised, bloody, dusty – you name it. His armor was stripped down to his undergarments, similar to the stuff Thor was in after he'd gotten dumped on Earth. In essence, not a god. He made a "tch" sound in reply.

She didn't know whether the petulant child act was genuine or if it was the only reaction he had in his emotional range at the moment.

"You know, you're not the first kid that's ever had issues with their parents. Probably not the last. And you'd probably be dead now if it weren't for them and Thor sticking their collective necks out for your sake." It sounded a bit snippy and preachy coming out of her, but whatever. His kill count was in the triple digits. Let the shaming begin.

Instead of a biting remark worthy of going down in the history of snarkiness, Loki bent his head like a kicked dog. His reply was almost inaudible.

"It would be better for them if I were dead."

Ah, fuck. Kicked puppy look was a shared trait with Thor and his younger brother. Darcy did the first advisable thing to do in these situations and shut her mouth, staring fixedly at the wall he was so fascinated with.

Thor escorted her out after he and Jane had their exchange, promises to visit and whatnot made – Thor was apparently taking Loki's trouble causing ass back to Asgard first thing in the morning. But he would return, as he assured both Jane and Darcy.

As the lift doors closed on the scene in the containment room, Darcy caught sight of Loki's ashen expression. She certainly didn't pity him. But she lifted a hand and gave him a thumbs up all the same. The gesture simply seemed to bring him out of his shell-shocked state into one of bemused scorn, but it was a change all the same.