Continuation of "Still Lost." I don't own any of these characters, it's all for love, not money.
Darcy wasn't sure she was really happy to be back on Midgard (oops - Earth). She was settled into staff quarters very close to Jane and Erik and to be honest, she really missed her rooms on Asgard. No servants silently glided in and left coffee and pastries on a table to be eaten in the golden splendor of an Asgardian morning. She was lucky if she could slip out for a Starbuck's run before 10am. The human part of her group was housed very far away from the Asgardian contingent, and Darcy knew that wasn't an accident, but rather by design of Shield director Fury.
She missed her days in the library on Asgard, and she missed a certain dark haired melancholic god of mischief. There'd been very little mischief that she'd witnessed herself, but she'd heard some garbled stories of pranks between Loki and Tony Stark since everyone had begun rebuilding the destroyed parts of Manhattan. Loki was assigned to stay in Stark Tower under the watch of Thor so they could supervise and direct their science/magic repairs and have access to Tony's arc technology. Pranks were good, she thought. At least he's not still pining. Getting some closure on Jotunheim with Odin when the Bifrost had been repaired seemed to lighten the psychological load he was carrying. The Frost Giants had wanted to execute him immediately on the spot, but aid from Asgard was too valuable to turn down and so they accepted Odin's terms. The realm was still in shambles, without a new King as of yet. Odin had warned Fury that the realm of Jotunheim was not quite a threat, but they were not to be ignored.
All this had come out the last time Darcy and Loki had met in the grand library on Asgard a few days before the whole crowd had decamped for Earth to help Shield and the Avengers in New York. Her work now consisted of adding every nugget and shred of information she could to her master's thesis, which had grown to a hundred pages and counting. It was still very much focused on what Asgard had done over the history of its association with the realm of Midgard, ie. saving the people of Earth from godawful monsters and being regarded as gods for doing so.
In fact, she'd had some meetings with editors (set up by Nick Fury) about expanding and turning her thesis into a book. She wasn't sure how she felt about her scholarly work being used for Shield propaganda but she knew which side her bread was buttered on. If she wanted to stay in academia she'd need to "publish or perish." In addition, she was very worried about the general reaction to Loki being back in New York. It hadn't been made public yet, and Fury was trying to finesse it into some kind of Shield PR coup: behold the mighty Asgardians rebuilding what was destroyed by hostile aliens. How to get folks to forget and forgive that the hostile aliens were invited in by one of the mighty Asgardians was the real trick. This was the key to Darcy's continued paycheck and welcome in Shield headquarters.
This was also why she had to meet with Fury find out why she couldn't see Loki. It'd been three weeks since Asgard, and she'd been cut off from her source of information; she'd only seen Loki once, and it was a brief moment of eye contact across a hallway while they both were being ushered into separate conference rooms for "de-briefing" a few days after they'd arrived. She'd smiled, he'd smiled, that was it. She had almost run down the corridor after him, but reason stopped her. Surely, they knew his part in her research and would set up some kind of regular meetings to work together? Maybe not, she thought.
Fury blinked at Darcy across the conference table.
"What? We aren't keeping you from seeing Loki. You're free to meet with him at any time. What gave you the idea we were keeping you two apart? You're the writer, he's the story!"
"See, I don't really believe you. I've asked Thor and Jane several times when I could see Loki, and all I get are super weaselly answers. 'Oh, he's too wiped out from working all day,' or ' He's meeting with Banner,' or some other B.S." She furrowed her dark brows at him. "Why would Jane and Thor make excuses for him if not told to do so by some higher ups? A higher up that they might actually obey, meaning, you, Director!"
"Look, Lewis, I'm on the level. I gave no directive to anyone regarding who Loki is allowed to meet with, at least within the 'need-to-know' inner circle. I'm trying to keep everything quiet until we can figure out a way to let folks know that he's back without causing a panic, but if you've been paying attention, you're part of that whole plan. If there's nothing else, I've got somewhere to be." Fury swept out of the room, leaving Darcy more confused than ever.
She thought back to the night on Asgard spent in Loki's room. It had only been the one time, and seemed mutually agreeable, but maybe this was his way of, oh please no, he wasn't, he couldn't… she couldn't quite form the words, but she could feel them in the pit of her stomach. She'd been dumped by a god.
-
Loki looked over the heads up display he was working on in one of Stark Tower's R&D labs. Jane and Thor were bent over some blueprints, heads together, whispering. It gave him a jolt to realize that he was staring and that what he was feeling was jealousy. He didn't covet Jane, he coveted what Thor and Jane had together. He thought of Darcy and wondered if he had made the right decision to cut off contact with her. He did this often. Constantly, really. He shook his head and refocused on the display. Then he thought about Darcy again. It's not fair for such a young girl to be involved with someone who, to be frank, was a walking disaster of epic proportions. He knew his tendency to nurse grievances and perceived slights into world ending tantrums pretty much disqualified him from normal relationships. Surely she was smart enough to know this? He frowned as he remembered Jane and Thor coming to him a few days after arrival, smiling knowingly and asking when he was going to "meet" with Darcy, again. He had told them in no uncertain terms that he didn't want to see Darcy anymore, and that the research they had been conducting was for all intents and purposes, finished. "Make up any excuse you want," he had said, "but I won't be seeing Darcy again." He then made sure to never be there when Darcy asked about him. He didn't know if he could maintain his control of the situation if he actually saw her. Thor had obviously convinced Jane to say nothing, because Darcy hadn't marched up and demanded an explanation for her banishment from his affection. Surely that was why she'd not attempted any contact beyond timid questions... He shook his head again. If it was a mistake, then why didn't she seem to care? NO. Not a mistake. The night on Asgard was the mistake. With that, he pushed her out of his mind for two or three minutes and got back to work.