-2-
"Are there going to be any more experiments?" was the first thing Loki asked her the minute she stepped into the room. His voice was snappy and dry, chopping through the silence with precision. He must have been alone for some time.
Darcy let out a breath as she hauled her bag on the table. She had had to run all the way here this morning because she had overslept.
He was standing on the edge of his bed, his sleeves rolled up, staring at his arms in great concentration.
At first she just stood there, waiting for another question, but when she saw he was not moving, she approached him quietly and stared down at his arms.
His skin was punctured in several places. The marks were bright red and slightly swollen.
"Ouch," she said, sympathizing. "Sorry about that."
"Sorry? Is that what your mortals do? Stick needles into people and then say sorry?"
Darcy shrugged her shoulders.
"Hey, if it were up to me, injections would be illegal, but until they find a less painful way to..."
"What were they doing to me?" he interrupted her impatiently.
"They were...they were sort of treating you. It's medicine," she explained. It wasn't a total lie.
"Medicine? Do you think I have lost my ability to think?"
"They didn't draw any blood, did they?" she asked instead.
"They certainly tried, but they couldn't, I'm not human," he spat.
"Right," she confirmed, nodding her head.
"Well, don't you think they would study a living form which is not human?" she followed logically. "That's what they're doing obviously."
Loki looked at her for the first time. His eyes held a strange passive intensity, as if he was tired of his own malice.
"I assure you, no Asgardian would treat a mortal this way, no matter how beneath them," he replied.
"You're right. Our cell rooms would probably look worse," she said, gesturing around the room.
Loki's nostrils flared in anger.
"Stop taking everything I say and making a frivolous comment about it."
"I wasn't aware I was doing that. If you can't handle someone else's sarcasm, that's your problem."
"Sarcasm? Don't add insult to injury, the art of parley would benefit greatly from your silence," he replied coolly.
"Okay, I admit you do have a smarter way with backhanded insults," she conceded, rolling her eyes. "No need to be a jerk about it, though."
"You don't take anything seriously. I shouldn't have even bothered to ask you anything. Discussing is pointless."
Darcy pursed her lips in silent amusement.
She took one of the chairs, sat down and opened her bag.
"Have you ever thought that maybe you need to do that?" she asked, after she had taken out some items.
Loki leant back against the wall, letting his arms rest on his legs in resignation.
"Of course, the child is preaching to me about common sense..." he muttered.
"That maybe," she continued ignoring him, "you shouldn't take yourself so seriously?"
Loki shot up at her words.
"I shouldn't take myself so seriously? What in Odin's name does that even mean?"
Darcy shrugged her shoulders.
"It's pretty self-explanatory, actually."
"Enlighten me," he drawled.
"Well, you may be Loki in Asgard, but...you are just some lost guy here, on Earth. Your powers are...receding (at this Loki flinched visibly), to the point where you're slowly becoming human. That's one thing. You're also not very popular around here. It's not a big deal, it just means people aren't willing to put up with you. Sure they'll study you till you drop, but they won't actually take the time to listen to your rants. So acting almighty and above-it-all is a bit silly at this point. Maybe you should just accept some facts and find a way to cope with them."
Loki's eyes burned into hers. Her audacity was only slightly lessened by the ridiculous way she employed her words. He tried to focus on what interested him.
"How do you know my powers are receding?"
"Those experiments, as you call them, aren't so secretive. Well, not when you're an intern here and can sneak with some coffee and muffins just about anywhere," she explained.
"So...you've been spying on their testing," he concluded dryly.
"I would not phrase it that way, but sure, what do you think I do during my breaks?"
"And you think I am almost human," he continued.
"Physically anyway."
"And mentally?" he challenged.
"I wouldn't even want to go there, since I don't know what goes on in there," she said, pointing at his head.
"But since your body is becoming...normal, for lack of a better word, maybe your mind should adjust as well," she continued.
She wondered why she was talking like Jane all of a sudden.
"I know it's tough, but your options are few and far between," she added.
Well, Jane, you'd be proud of me, Darcy thought, remembering the scientist had asked her to try and act more mature.
"The options are few? There are no options," Loki countered.
"Sure there are. Being cooperative is one of them. It would make their job easier. And mine too, but hey, don't worry about me," she joked, waving her hand.
"What job could you possibly have? You only sit there and talk about irrelevant things."
"You'd be surprised what you get paid for here on Earth," she replied, turning on her laptop.
"Just because my body is...weakening, does not mean my mind should adjust," he argued, repeating her words.
"It is crucial that I keep my mind strong," he added.
"I didn't say you should try being a moron, though you could probably pull it off. I only meant you should probably stop torturing yourself uselessly with thoughts of grandeur and power," she replied.
"You think I torture myself?"
"Well, it's not making you any happier."
"You couldn't possibly understand that gods do not chase happiness the way mortals – " he began.
"Fine, fine. It's not bringing you any peace then."
Loki shook his head in irritation.
"Once again, peace is not –"
"You can spew all the bullshit you want, but I can see you, everybody can. You are being watched 24/7. You're pretty miserable. And who wouldn't be? You're trapped in here, with no way to get back home," she said, gesturing around.
Loki looked into her eyes with a hidden curiosity. He was slightly taken aback.
"I get it. I do. Hell, if I got stuck here I'd be going insane and I live half an hour away," she said, shaking her head.
"You pity me," he said in a hollow voice.
Darcy frowned.
"No, I don't think you deserve that, but I understand. It's no astrophysics."
"I don't think you do. You seem to belong to a simpler world," he spoke coldly.
"This simpler world is powerful, though. You're turning human," she countered.
"That is not the cause of my –" he began, but stopped shortly.
Darcy waited for him to go on, but he just looked down at his arms again. He felt an odd tingle across his skin. And a nauseating feeling. A burning in his bones.
Medicine, she had said. They thought he was an idiot.
"Are you okay?"
"Questions like these make me wish I were not," he said, his eyes glued to his skin.
"Does it hurt?" she asked, staring at his arms.
"I would appreciate some silence. If you must stay here," he said more to himself.
Darcy sighed and rubbed her eyes tiredly. How she wished she was at home, hugging her pillow.
She waited for a while to see what he would do next, but she was waiting in vain. He remained still.
She took out several heavy-looking textbooks, notebooks and writing utensils. She was going to get started on some due papers that she had been ignoring for a while.
She felt very uncomfortable working not only under the watch of several cameras and monitors, but also in the presence of someone as peculiar and sharp as Loki, but he seemed to be distracted with his own thoughts and she had to get them done.
There was one more Word document which was open almost all the time but which Loki would never know anything about.
Erik had half-ordered, half-advised her to write all observations she assessed on Loki, anything useful she could gather, any bit of valuable information, even to the point of writing down his own words. And she was going to do just that, not only because he was a fascinating specimen, but also because she wanted to keep working there.
Maybe it was a bit unfair to let him believe she was just there as a simple companion, since she was secretly studying him as well, but then again, her petty little notes could not be dignified with the actual term of research and Loki himself would probably realize soon enough she was no real threat, if he hadn't already. There was also the depressing fact that no one would ever take her observations seriously and that, despite what she told herself, the god had a point about her presence being an indirect means of entertainment. It was like going to the zoo and watching a rare, unknown species on display, only in this case, she couldn't decide which was the visitor and which was the attraction.
She was more than certain she found him a lot more interesting than he found her, but you couldn't exactly not be interested in a Norse god fallen on Earth from a mythical kingdom in the skies who could wield magic and had knowledge of so many unknown realms. The big shock had come with Thor. Now she was learning to approach this step by step, without the complete fright and disbelief she had initially felt. She was beginning to learn to treat this new discovery with rationality and calm, although there were many times when she'd wake up in the middle of the night and just start laughing hysterically or she'd just burst into tears during classes for no reason.
It was new and hard on everyone, but she knew she was taking it a lot better than most.
It was a lot easier with Loki, though, because she could somehow control her curiosity and fear. He was the common enemy. He was the reason for everyone's frustrations and anger. It was easy to latch on to this significant detail and somehow diminish his power or importance, rendering him a lot weaker in her eyes. It is true, in the very short time they had spent together so far, she had constantly felt the urge to treat him like a normal human being just to make things easier.
She snuck a glance at him while she was taking down notes.
He had lied down again, staring at the ceiling, ignoring the fact that she had suddenly started working.
She would have wanted to tell him what she was working on, but decided revealing more useless information about herself and her boring tasks would not in any way help him.
Seeing as he was immersed in his own thoughts, she took out her headphones and plugged them to the laptop, but kept the volume low, so she would not be surprised if he chose to speak.
Loki could hear the sound of her typing away. Once or twice he almost opened his mouth to ask what she was doing, but he decided against it.
She would probably give him some incoherent explanation he would not fully understand and he knew human technology couldn't be more fascinating than the workings of gods.
When she covered her ears with those giant round black pads, he looked up briefly and wondered how anyone could sit there with those things on their head without getting a headache. He assumed they isolated sound, but soon enough, he heard the whisper of a strange melody coming from them. She was listening to something while she appeared to be working.
How incredibly daft.
He stole one more glance to get the full image.
She looked so odd.
He had seen many women, mortal or godly, in his lifetime, but she was different and not in a good way.
Women were beautiful, he believed, when they revealed what was intrinsically feminine; their delicate, round figures, their soft arches, their gentle expressions, their rosy cheeks, their firm, slender movements.
The goddesses he had had the pleasure to have as companions were all mesmerising, alluring, and yet powerful and wise creatures, silent and elegant warriors who governed with passion and feeling.
Thought and emotion consumed them with such beauty that it was a real wonder to watch them in their full glory.
Mortal women, though inferior in mind and feeling, could be equally charming.
Jane herself had seemed strangely alluring. Her beauty was something simple, but inviting. He could not feel his brother's passion for her, but he could understand, as an aesthetic observer, why he would find her suitable.
However, this...girl, this Darcy, her name so impersonal and unfamiliar, was very bland.
For one thing, her strange garments made her look puerile and silly, hiding any sort of shape or curve she might possess. She had her hair up in a messy bun which pulled up her forehead clumsily and made her head look like a wild forest. Her countenance held no mystery, no experience and no warmth to the point where she looked infantile. The strands which had escaped her bun fell down her t-shirt like tired ropes. She had black circles under her eyes from sleep-deprivation, but he couldn't even really see her eyes properly. They were hidden behind those things he knew were spectacles. He guessed there wasn't much to see. They looked lacklustre and grey.
Her posture was another thing. She sat slouched in her chair, almost as if she was about to fall over and one foot was angled over her leg so that the sole of her shoe was quite visible.
He wrinkled his nose.
He couldn't have imagined a more accurate caricature. But here she was.
His thoughts travelled further away from her and the confinement of the observation room as they wandered higher towards Asgard and what would await him beyond, if ever really turned mortal.
It paralyzed him, the simple thought of humanity. It made him even more human, just thinking about it.
Time passed fleetingly. He felt it had been hours.
When Darcy looked at the clock on her laptop she realized that almost an hour had passed.
She sat back and stretched her arms into the air, feeling like every muscle in her body was creaking like old furniture. She arched her spine until it popped and then sat up straight.
She put down her headphones and massaged her temples.
The sounds seemed to distract Loki, but he did not speak.
"Have you been sleeping?" she asked casually.
"You saw me. I was awake."
"Your mind was elsewhere. I thought that's how you sleep," she said.
Loki raised an eyebrow.
"The first interesting thing you've ever said."
"Don't worry, someday I'll get to say that about you too," she bit back, staring at the screen.
Loki shook his head.
"You can't forever disarm me with – "
"Why haven't you rolled down your sleeves yet?" she asked, staring at his bare arms.
He looked down in wonder.
"Oh."
He had forgotten. He hadn't wished to hide the bruises, but now it seemed irrelevant.
The punctures wouldn't go away very soon. It wasn't about the pain though, which was small and almost imperceptible to someone like him. It was about being branded. Being used as a disposable experiment, as their pet.
How low he had fallen. How low he felt.
He pulled them back up and resumed his staring, despite the layer of clothing.
"You can't imagine what it's like," he began suddenly, without warning, "being trapped here, feeling my powers dying slowly inside of me."
Darcy almost jumped out of her seat. She felt like an invisible force had shaken her violently.
Loki realized he had said that aloud, but he was beginning to grow restless with her in the room, even if they had just spent an hour in complete silence.
"You're right," she said at length.
He looked up sharply.
"I can't imagine."
Loki thought she would add something along the lines "but I am trying to understand". Humans loved to play with that word until it lost all meaning. To them, it was the essence of comfort. Surely, we can't do anything, we can't prevent anything, but we understand.
She remained perfectly quiet however, watching him, without any intention to speak.
Loki grimaced and settled his eyes on something other than her inquisitive face. He noticed her headphones.
"Was that music?" he asked quietly.
Darcy noticed his stare. She almost smiled, almost. Her hands travelled slowly to her headphones.
"Yep."
"Isn't it distracting?" he asked absently.
"No. Unless you let it be," she answered simply.
"Continuous buzzing in my ears..." he muttered to himself. "I suppose music is preferable to a noise."
Darcy hadn't heard him very well, but she caught the last part.
"Want to listen?" she said, holding the headphones.
He almost chuckled.
"No."
"I thought so."
Loki's eyes traced the shadow she made on the white floor.
"Is it time for you to go yet?" he asked in what she could guess was a tired voice.
"Sick of me already?" she asked, smirking.
"As if you cannot answer that yourself."
"What can I say? You put the "harm" in charming," she joked, stretching again. "I think there's still about ten minutes left."
Harm...charming...harm...char...oh, Loki thought feeling stupid. He wasn't used to people chopping up words like they were mere play things. He resented the fact that she was his outside contact and yet the best she could do was teach him puns.
He settled on his back again.
"I might go to sleep this time," he lied, "so you may leave without announcing it."
"Don't worry, I'll leave you a note on your forehead," she muttered, shoving the textbooks and notebooks back in her bag.
Loki shut his eyes. An amused smile struggled to move his lips.