"And over here, you'll see one of the scrolls recovered from the site," Darcy explained to the crowd of museum visitors, motioning behind her.
"But how did Loki fall in love with you?"
"Did he save you from that Schmidt guy?"
"Was it love at first sight?"
Darcy sighed. Every week was the same. More than half of the crowd in front of her was teenage girls, all wanting to hear about her romance-filled adventure.
The story of their exploits in Egypt and Rome and whatnot had gotten published in quite a few magazines and newspapers, and the young female population had really taken to Darcy and Loki's relationship, even though it had barely even been mentioned in the articles. The girls had somehow assumed that the relationship between Darcy and Loki came straight out of a romance novel, and now every week instead of questions about the treasure and the site, she got questions like 'did he sweep you off your feet?' and once even 'how good's the sex?' Darcy usually just ignored the questions, but she was a teenage girl herself once, and sometimes she indulged their demands. But only sometimes.
Behind the crowd, Fabio himself walked in, spotted her, and grinned. She decided, someone rashly, that today was the day she would co-lead the tour. Plus, putting Loki on the spot would be funny; he showed off his cleverness best in situations like that.
"Hey, Loki! Come here!" she called over the group. The teenage girls present all turned in awe and watched as Loki made his way to stand right next to Darcy. She was pretty sure a few of them had orgasms as he passed them. I know the feeling, girls.
"How can I help?" Loki said, smiling politely.
"I was just about to tell them about this scroll here when I thought, gosh; Loki tells this so much better than I do."
"Ok," Loki turned around to look at the scroll for a second so he would know specifically what scroll he would be talking about. Darcy noticed more than a few of the girls checking him out during and once he turned.
It wasn't exactly jealousy that was eating Darcy; more like possessiveness and greed. Then again, she was the one Loki was living with, not these sixteen year olds checking out his ass.
"Ah, yes." Loki turned back around and a few of the girls made quite the show of attempting to not be caught staring. Loki was either extremely obtuse today or was playing them. Since Darcy knew Loki as she did, she took a step to the side and prepared to watch the show. Loki was almost successfully concealing a small grin, but Darcy could see in his eyes that he was planning on lying to these poor girls.
"This particular scroll is a declaration of love from a pharaoh to a young handmaiden. Though the pharaoh had a wife, and Egyptians were mostly monogamous, he says here that he loved this handmaiden more than anything and would leave his wife just to be with this young woman,"
A few of the girls actually sighed in unison. These girls are comically pathetic. Jeez. I hope I was never quite this bad.
Loki continued, "Sadly, history shoes that this particular pharaoh never left his wife. The young girl probably served the wife and watched the two of them have children while she remained a lowly servant. This poor young woman probably never found love and died alone."
That wiped the dopey smiles off of the girl's faces. He built them up just to squash them. Brutal, yet hilarious. I knew I loved him for a reason.
"Any questions?" Loki smiled what Darcy was sure he thought looked perfectly mannerly but she could see the thick layer of self-satisfaction underneath. The normal museumgoers had all left by now, so the crowd in front of Loki and Darcy was now just the young girls.
One girl raised her hand and Loki pointed at her.
"Do you work out a lot?"
Loki looked somewhat confused and surprised. "Sometimes, I suppose," he answered.
A girl near the front whose eyes hadn't left Loki since he walked in raised her hand. "I have a question!" she declared.
"All right,"
"Would you ever leave Darcy for someone younger? Like, a lot younger? I mean, I'm only fifteen, but-"
"No, I would never leave Darcy. Next question." Loki's bluntness was causing the girls to look a little hurt, but his last comment made Darcy smile and feel all warm inside.
"I have a question too," a small girl at the back said. This one had to be no older than twelve.
"Ask away, sweetheart," Loki said. Oh, he's good. I would have ended this by now, with these awful questions.
And then, completely serious, the girl cleared her throat and asked her question in the most innocent voice Darcy had ever heard: "How big is your penis?"
Darcy almost choked on air. Loki looked at the girl wide-eyed, unable to provide an answer.
"That is…" Darcy started speaking but was at a loss for words.
"Highly inappropriate," Loki finished, now fighting off laughter.
"And that about wraps things up. Thank you all for coming today, it's been… wonderful." Darcy decided that girl's question was a good of a closing as any. The crowd, at long last, began to disperse.
Darcy turned to go to Loki, but yet another young girl cut her off, facing Loki. The only way this could've been worse would be if the girl had Loki's face on her T-shirt and was asking for his autograph.
"Is it true that you lied to the leader of Hydra and fooled him into going to the wrong place?" she asked, craning her neck back just to look at Loki.
"Yes, ma'am," he said oh so politely.
"And then you beat him up for taking Darcy?"
"Yes, but only because I had to." Aw, Loki's teaching children not to fight. I'd find that sweet if everything he did wasn't so arousing.
"Wow," the girl was in awe.
"If you'll excuse me, miss; I would like to talk to Darcy. It was lovely meeting you,"
"It was lovely meeting you too," the girl said.
And then, finally, they were alone.
"Are the questions always like that?" Loki asked after kissing Darcy quickly.
"They're not usually that bad," Darcy explained, grabbing his hand and lightly pulling him from the room.
"You ready to go home?" he asked.
"More than ready. Eager."
It was almost ten when Darcy came to a sudden realization: she had forgotten her phone at the museum.
Loki had insisted she just wait until tomorrow to go get it, as they were already in bed and both in a state of undress, but Darcy knew she needed her phone on her. With all this wedding business, Jane could call at any moment having a panic attack and Darcy would definitely need to answer that call. After quickly pulling on her clothes, Darcy kissed Loki chastely on the cheek and promised him she'd be careful and take a taxi and that she'd be back soon. He had offered to come with her, but she had insisted that she could run over and get back on her own quickly enough.
The taxi driver was nice but a little too slow for Darcy, and when they got there she handed him a little too much money and jumped out of the car. Once she ran up the front stairs, she knocked on the door and waved at the security guard, Gabe. She was very familiar with the night staff of the museum, as a result of her forgetfulness.
"Darcy, what are you doing here?" he said after unlocking the door and letting her in.
"I forgot my phone," she said guiltily.
"Again? I swear, you forget that thing every time you come in," Gabe laughed.
"Yeah, you know the saying. I'd forget my head and all that jazz,"
The two parted ways as Darcy left to go to the staff lounge and Gabe went back to his post. The museum was pretty creepy at night, but Darcy had gotten used to that the second time she'd forgotten something.
As she was leaving, Darcy walked through her exhibit. The large room had an almost serene vibe to it that was rarely present during the business hours, the artifact-covered walls echoing her every step loudly back to her. Since it was after-hours, the moon peeking through the windows provided the only light in the room. The shadows, even those of stationary objects, seemed to dance around on the walls and white marble floors. The silence of the museum felt fantastic to her ears, refreshing even. There was something about the peacefulness of the silence and this lighting that was bringing up some feelings, and Darcy could tell she was about to get sentimental.
She placed her hand lightly on the glass case covering a collection of small tools.
Almost seven months now.
She remembered how worried she had been, the morning she woke up with Loki's arm around her in that tent at the site. It brought a small smile to her face, thinking back to her little worries and knowing now that everything would turn out all right. Hell, better than all right.
A small noise interrupted her thoughts. Darcy wouldn't have even noticed it if she hadn't been so focused on the silence around her. At first she passed it off as Gabe doing something, but a few more little noises followed. A really bad feeling washed over Darcy.
It seemed far away, probably were Gabe was, actually. A click, followed by the noise of shoes briefly skidding on the ground, and then a light thud.
What the hell?
Footsteps. There was more than one other person in the museum.
Heartbeat elevating and eyes widening, Darcy thought back to the article Pepper had been talking about. Loki had said another break in should be happening 'in the next few days.' There were only so many museums around the world that had artifacts from the site, maybe fifteen in total. It was only a matter of time before they hit New York.
The footsteps were drawing closer. What would happen if they found someone in the exhibit they were planning on robbing?
Panic swelled in Darcy. Of course she hadn't brought her taser tonight. Well, one person with a taser wouldn't be much against several people with guns. She began backing away from the door, looking around the room for somewhere to hide. There was only one door to the room, and that was the direction the people were coming from. She checked her phone: dead, of course.
Darcy ran across the room as quietly as she could, looking for a good hiding spot. And then she spotted it: a necklace, laying out in one of the displays, caught her eye from the reflection of the moon coming through the window.
An idea crossed her mind. A dumb idea, but an idea.
She had maybe a minute before the footsteps would reach her room. They were going to take everything from the exhibit and do who knows what to it, more than likely destroy it or at the very least not take care of it. If these people were going to take everything they saw, Darcy would make sure they didn't see this. This was all assuming they didn't find her and kill her, of course.
The footsteps were in the next room. Darcy grabbed the necklace, jumped around the table, and got in the cabinet underneath it. It was a small cabinet meant to hold supplies for interactive tours and live refurbishments and stuff like that, but if she curled up in a ball Darcy could fit. She slipped the barely used sliding door closed just as the footsteps reached the room.
"All right," a deep, manly voice said. "You take that section, and you take that section. I'll take the delicates,"
A few seconds passed with nothing to hear. But then, right beside her, the loud thud of something impacting the wood siding shook the entire table. Darcy covered her mouth with her free hand to stop herself from making any noise.
"Dammit," she heard the same voice mutter under their breath; somebody had stubbed their toe.
Darcy could hear the man picking stuff up off the table above her. He was slow, careful, and unfortunately thorough. Lucky for her, he either didn't notice one necklace was missing, or he assumed it was being cleaned or something like that.
Darcy noticed something beside her head; on the bottom of the table, a small red button was sticking out. Beside it, printed on a tiny plaque, were the words 'Silent Alarm.'
Not even hesitating, Darcy took her hand off her mouth and pressed the button. Before she started working here, the museum guy had explained to her that the silent alarm buttons throughout the museum would alert security and the police, and that the police had a response time of a little over five minutes.
Five minutes. I can do this. Just breathe.
In this moment, Darcy really wished she had taken Loki's advice and not come in until tomorrow. But if I hadn't, they would've gotten this necklace too, and the silent alarm might not have been hit. Silver lining, Darcy. I hope Gabe's ok… maybe they just tied him up somewhere. Hopefully. Are there any other night guards? I don't think there are… just Gabe and me here. I really hope Gabe's ok.
The three men were cleaning out the place. They wouldn't be able to take the really big stuff like the sarcophagi or bigger statues, but here at the Met they had a lot of the smaller artifacts.
"Boss, police scanner says a whole squad is on its way here. We have three minutes to make it clear," a new voice alerted.
"Well, let's go then," the first voice said, surprisingly calm.
"Leave everything else?"
"We don't really have much of a choice, do we?" First Voice was annoyed now. "Gather what you have and move out."
There was a lot of scuffling, and then they were leaving. Darcy waited until she couldn't hear the footsteps anymore to start climbing out from underneath the table.
Every small artifact, every scroll, every piece of jewelry, every pot, everything that could fit into someone's hands was gone. Darcy clutched the necklace in one hand and her dead phone in the other, unable to move besides taking deep breaths. The police sirens were now in earshot.
Darcy didn't move until a few police officers ran into the room. One of them yelled for her to put her hands up. As she did, she said that she was the one who hit the alarm. The officer that had yelled went over to her and walked her out of the room, asking her a few questions. He got a statement from her, but didn't take the necklace for some reason. That was fine with her; she was pretty sure she wouldn't be able to let go of it anyway.
Darcy walked toward the exit, blankly staring out in front of her. She thought her hands were shaking, but when she looked down at them she saw her fists were tightly clenched.
She passed something on the ground: a sheet covering something. Her stomach felt sick. Blood was coming out onto the floor around it. A hand stuck out from underneath the sheet, a wedding ring gleaming in the moonlight.
Darcy stopped dead in her tracks. It took everything she had not to fall over. Some police officer that had been standing nearby was there, holding her arm. Maybe she had started to fall over after all.
Loki. She needed Loki. He would be able to comfort her like nothing else could. She really just needed him to hold her and tell her it would be all right and stop her from shaking. That's so anti-feministic and I don't even care.
"Phone," Darcy muttered to the police officer. "I need a phone."