Summary:

Loki is forced to Earth by Thor to help out but then abandons him in the Avenger Tower to go out with Jane. Loki does what he does best and spends his time insulting everyone. But a talk with Darcy leads to a revelation about himself that he never wanted to face.

Notes:

Beta: mischieffuckingmanaged

This is a bit silly with an undertone of seriousness.
There is a mention of suicide and mentions self-hatred.

(See the end of the work for more notes.)

Darcy struggled through the door holding her oversized purse and five bags of groceries through the door of her and Jane's floor in the Avenger Towers. Thor and his psychotic little brother came in from Asgard yesterday and Thor managed to eat everything in their kitchen overnight. Loki on the other hand ate a banana and called everyone stupid intermittently and randomly throughout the night.

She dumped all her bags onto the kitchen table with a relieved sigh, happy to be home and eager to start her weekend. She rubbed her hands over her eyes groaning at the tension being relieved in her shoulder. All that stress came rushing back though at the sudden sight of Loki leaning up against the wall and drinking a beer.

She yelped startled and tumbled off the chair and onto the floor.

In response, Loki only titled his head.

"What are you doing?" She asked in all the anger one could muster while sitting on her butt on hard tiled floor.

"Scaring you." He answered. "Duh."

For some reason Loki managed to fit into Earth much better than Thor, who still sounded like he helped Shakespeare write plays. Though Loki still had his accent, he sounded more like someone who moved to America in the last five years.

"And why are you doing that?" She asked, anger still in her words as she picked herself up from the floor.

"Thor went to dinner with his Jane and left me here all alone with no one to play with. Then you came in." Loki answered with a devious smile.

"Lucky me." She said more to herself as she started to unpack the groceries. "They left you alone, without an Avenger present?"

"Tony was here for a little while and left his talking guardian to guard me. As if I can't teleport."

"Why didn't you?"

"And go where? Doom's? We had a fight over whether my replicas were better than his doombots in battle. Amora's? She's mad at me for almost killing her latest boy toy."

She stopped what she was doing and turned to face him, a fake smile on her face. "Look at you, making friends everywhere you go."

Loki's smile was a bit more generous. "For all everyone talks about my wickedness, I find it odd that everyone keeps coming back to me asking for help."

There was some truth to that. The Avengers called Loki in to help against some other wizard with a weird name despite the fact that no one really trusted him.

But none of that had anything to do with her. She never called him. For anything. Ever.

"That means if you weren't a jerk you'd have a friend." Darcy pointed at him with a harsh finger before returning to her unpacked groceries.

Loki snorted. "Who needs friends when I have enemies?" He was still perched by the entrance of the kitchen but now he had his back up against the closed door. She probably should have felt threatened or maybe closed in but somehow, his relaxed look kept her calm.

Now Darcy snorted. "I'm about to cook some chicken. I suppose you are as useless in the kitchen as your brother so you can do the dishes."

"I bet I'm better than you." Loki challenged.

"Ha!" Darcy laughed. "Toasting PopTarts is not cooking."

"First of all," Loki said pushing himself off the door and further into the kitchen. "PopTarts are better untoasted. Second of all, I've been away from Asgard a lot longer than Thor. How do you suppose I fed myself?"

She regarded him, as his slid into a kitchen chair and placing his beer on the table. "I don't know, stealing?"

Loki frowned looking a bit confused. "How do you steal cooked food?"

Darcy shrugged. "I don't know but I bet you are capable of it."

"Gah, sit down and I'll show you how good of a meal I can make." With a wave of his hand a whole roasted chicken appeared on the table with string beans, rice and wine.

"Shut… up…" Darcy gasped at the food.

"No. You shut up." He knew she wasn't actually telling him to shut up but it was a natural response and he didn't fight it.

Darcy squinted at him and eyed the food suspiciously. "Is it poisoned?"

"Oh, are you serious? All I've ever done is stab people. I've never poisoned someone. I have no reason to. Knives are my thing and sometimes magical blasts. And sometimes freezing them. And sometimes…"

"Yeah, yeah I get it." She said as she sat down but she couldn't resist smiling back at the lunatic.

"Let's eat." Loki said carving into the chicken.

The meal was actually good, but she only got three bites in before Tony returned with Pepper looking a bit ticked off.

"Tony? What's wrong?" She asked wiping her mouth with a napkin.

"The funniest thing, Darcy." He answered in a way that told her what he was about to say would be anything but funny. "We ordered our food, roasted chicken, green beans and rice with wine when suddenly a green glow appeared around it, and it disappeared. Now… I wonder who would have done that."

She looked over to Loki who vanished.

000

"Thor please. I don't want to stay here anymore. It's so boring." Loki had been pleading with his brother for the better part of the morning trying to appeal to his brother's sympathy.

It wasn't his longest stay on Midgard but it wasn't his most fun stay. The help they needed he was able to do in a day and that left a whole weekend of Loki sitting around the towers with the talking Guardian denying him access to all the fun floors in the Avenger Tower.

"Well maybe you should think about that the next time you try to take over a realm." Thor said as he pulled on his shirt. "Mother's instructions were very clear. Her magic tied you to me so whatever realm I'm on you're on."

"Alright then let me go outside. These wall are dreadfully bare and that horrible talking guardian reminds me of Heimdall who is number 13 on my list of people I want to kill."

Thor rolled his eyes. "You have a list?"

"Of course. What kind of villain would be if I didn't have a list of people to kill?" Loki really couldn't fathom what Thor didn't understand about being a villain. Seriously, he had to do bad things to qualify.

"The point of this is to reform you." Thor reminded his little brother with all seriousness in his tone.

"Reform? Reform from what?" Loki threw his arms up in exasperation. "You know despite what people think, I wasn't exactly sane before I started killing people. I was already stealing, tricking, bothering…"

"Aye well, murder was crossing the line." Thor confirmed.

"You've killed people." Loki taunted back.

"Bad people." Thor reminded him.

"Who is to say who's bad?" Loki asked crossing his arms over his chest. "You? Odin? I happen to think Captain America is bad."

Thor chuckled. "Loki, please."

"He is." Loki confirmed. "It makes me physically ill when he goes on his righteousness rampages. He's so horribly nice to me."

Thor placed a comforting hand on Loki's shoulder. "Loki people are not bad because they are nice."

"Whatever. Can I go outside?" Oh how it burned him to ask his brother permission for anything. But he really couldn't take another day in doors.

"No." Thor answered firmly but then went on to taunt, "And if you teleport away I will tell Mother."

"You're a snitch." It was a conversation they must have had too many times in their youth.

"And you are annoying. But there isn't naught we can do about that, is there?" Thor smiled as he walked towards the kitchen.

Loki followed sullen and sulky as he tried to think of a valid argument. The other Avengers were all working around the kitchen getting ready to eat. It was sickening really. They ate together, played together, and fought together. Even when they disagreed it was so very respectful and they all sat around about it to talk to each other. It was gross and made Loki feel a bit nauseated.

"Loki." Steve nodded at him. "Do you want a plate to eat?"

Loki turned sharply to Thor. "See! He's doing it again."

Steve frowned. "Doing what?"

Thor waved Steve off. "Pay no mind to my brother, Steve. Loki is not used to things like forgiveness and generosity."

"I've been very generous." Loki insisted. "No one has been murdered in this house yet."

Natasha, Barton and Bruce turned around. "Yet?"

Loki threw himself into the chair like a petulant child and pushed his head into the crook of his arm on the table.

Steve placed a plate of food in front of him anyway.

Loki looked up, his eyes shooting daggers. "Stop being nice to me. I don't like you, I don't like any of you. You all make me sick."

"Well that's a shame." Tony said. "Because we all love you."

Loki disappeared before they could give him a group hug.

000

"Darcy!" Darcy jumped at the sound of Loki's voice. "By Odin's beard am I happy to see you."

"Really?" She frowned stopping on her route to her bedroom. "Why?"

"Because Mr. Everyone Deserves a Second Chance has infected everyone else with his niceness. All of the Avengers are being nice to me." Ever since that lunch everyone had been considerably nicer to him. He had a good feeling they had one of their little meetings to discuss how to torture the bad out of him by being nice.

"Poor you." Sarcastically responded while she continued her journey to her bedroom.

Loki followed right behind her and even opened the door she attempted to slam in his face. "This is serious Darcy. I can't take this nonsense. Natasha brushed my hair! I was too terrified to move! Who knows what she could do with a brush. And then Barton made me a sandwich that I left on the table because I think there is a bomb inside of it. Bruce, THE HULK, gave me a computer to 'Pass the time' which I won't even turn on but I'm afraid if I don't, it will make him angry. Tony wouldn't let me leave his work room for the entire morning, asking me questions and make the most lewd jokes I've ever heard and I've been sexually active for 200 years. Even Odin came by yesterday… and… and… he hugged me."

Darcy gasped as she started folding the clothes she threw all over her room while getting ready for work that morning. "What's that? Your father came and hugged you! How dare he show affection towards his son that threw himself off a rainbow bridge?"

Loki rolled his eyes and threw himself on her purple wheelie chair, sagging in defeat.

Darcy glanced him over looking so very miserable, his green eyes cast down and his lips in a frown. Darcy sighed. "It's hard to hate people who are being nice to you huh?"

Loki glanced up but didn't respond.

"What do you need me for?"

"Be mean to me."

Darcy laughed. "I hate to break it to you Loki but if you stopped killing people all the time you would actually be likeable. I mean, we all like Tony and he's a jerk too."

"So I should kill more people?"

"No! Loki… Listen to me… I don't know why you have this, 'I'm a monster', thing going on but seriously, the only thing that's making you a monster is your complete lack of regard for the rights others have to live."

It took Loki a moment to answer and when he did, he sounded a bit like a child being scolded. "I don't necessarily want to kill people."

"Then why do you do it?"

"I didn't set out to kill anyone. Well, except the Frost Giants. I really wanted to kill all of them. But I just wanted to rule everyone else."

"Wait, aren't you a Frost Giant?"

"I am." He said sadly.

"That's what you're saying. You wanted to kill all of the Frost Giants and you are a Frost Giant so you want to kill yourself. You don't want people to be nice to you because you don't think you even deserve to live and so you do horrible things to make people hate you. Is that it? Is that your master plan? Kill people until someone kills you?"

Loki blinked at her, before disappearing.

000

"What happened with Loki?" Jane asked as she slid into the booth across from Darcy. "Thor said since you spoke to him yesterday, he wouldn't come out his room."

Darcy frowned a bit, not sure what to say to her. She didn't really want to tell her in detail what they spoke about, she didn't think it was something that should be spread around. But she really didn't mean to make him feel bad, she was just surprised that the biggest jokester she'd ever met, alien or human, might actually be the saddest. And sometimes with her surprise came her inability to think about words before she said them.

"Loki's always hiding when he's plotting." She came up eventually. "Now tell me, what's the deal with you and Thor? Is he staying for good?"

Jane sighed. "Not this time. I don't know… He says the next time he comes it will be permanent but I think really, he's afraid to leave his family in Asgard."

That was a little weird to Darcy. Wasn't Thor older than Loki? And Loki was fine with not being on Asgard every moment of every day. "Well, maybe you should go up there."

"Oh Darcy I don't know about that." Jane told her. "When I went there for that whole Dark Elf thing, I saw the way women were treated up there. I would kill someone."

Darcy felt bad for her friend and little upset at Thor for taking so long to seal the deal and put a ring on Jane's finger. It felt like maybe Thor was stringing her along but then what did she know? She hadn't had a date in over a year.

The next day when Thor left though, she was less interested in Thor and Jane and more interested with Loki, who was handcuffed as always but looking very distant. Normally Loki had that little smirk on his face and had some witty last remarks, but as Thor called out to Heimdall and that familiar rainbow light came down, Loki turned to look at her, his green eyes more serious than she'd ever seen before and then he was gone.

But the look would bother her for weeks to come.

Notes:

As always I'd love to know what everyone thinks!