"Alright," said Darcy as soon as she had ushered Loki inside the lab. She started setting things out while he dropped his bags in the middle of the floor. "We're running out of daylight so I think I'll show you around later. First things first, we have to sit you down and make you watch that Nazi episode of Star Trek so you know what not to do." She took her laptop to the coffee table and pulled him over, lightly forcing him onto the couch with her hands on his shoulders. He stiffened a bit as she did it and looked at the device apprehensively. "It's only like an hour long, I'm gonna go to the library for a few books, and I'll bring us back some dinner." Tossing him a legal pad and a ball point pen before grabbing her giant purse, she headed for the door. "Enjoy," she said.
"Is that all? You trust me to stay here?" he asked, turning around to look at her, incredulous.
"Dude, you can't really go anywhere. Without magic, you're stranded in this town and trust me, I'd find you, there's like three places to hide." The familiar surroundings emboldening her, she added, "I can't even be bothered to cuff you to the couch."
"Is that something you're into?" he asked with a quirk of his lips. There it was, that look again, the one he'd given her in the car. The one that made it seem like he was inches from her rather than halfway across the room. She turned around, stalked out and slammed the door behind her.
She was back just as the credits rolled and set three pizza boxes down on a table. She busied herself about getting plates, napkins, and soda from the kitchen. Smelling the pepperoni, Loki had already opened a box by the time she got back. They sat down together and began a slightly awkward evening meal.
"Right. So what did we learn?" Darcy asked, desperate to end the silence. Loki quirked an eyebrow. She couldn't figure out if he normally did that or if he was answering her question with a Spock impression. Before she had decided he spoke.
"That lanky, green aliens should never be allowed to go shirtless?"
Darcy gave a snort of laughter. "Other than that homoeroticism was alive and well on 1960s television." He ignored this.
"Alright, well… I learned that we shouldn't try to make the Jotunns a system that works too well. But I already knew that. That's why I'm here. To find out how," he said, taking a long drink of his Pepsi and then eyeing it with disdain. "Also, the video program seemed to suggest that installing an arbitrary form of government on a foreign people is a bad idea."
"Yeah, but that's a rule in the Star Trek world. They call it the Prime Directive: you're not supposed to interfere with the workings of other planets. We're gonna be ignoring that."
They were quiet for a little longer, Loki picking off the bits of the pizza he didn't like and Darcy watching him out of the corner of her eye for any sudden movements. He was a bit strange. Much quieter than Thor had been, and he didn't ask so many questions, but then again, Loki had been to Earth before and for quite a long stay. Something had been perplexing to her ever since she got than phone call from Coulson yesterday afternoon, and now seemed as good a time as any to get some answers.
"How did you pick me for this anyway? I didn't think you knew I existed." She said. He looked her in the eye and smiled. It wasn't completely unpleasant…Eurotrash. Remember, libido?
"Darcy Lewis exhibits none of the qualities of a serious scientific researcher," he began, sounding distinctly like a dictionary. "She is irreverent and impulsive, refuses to undertake the study necessary to help with Dr. Foster's research. She maintains an inexplicable sense of priorities, treating everyone and everything with equal disrespect. She comes from the field of political science however, and is insightful and well versed in that discipline," he finished, looking pleased with himself. "Erik Selvig's notes, from his lab journal."
"Get out! He said all that about me?" She beamed. "How do I know you aren't making that up?"
"I could recite it in the original Swedish, I suppose," he said, going back to his pizza.
She didn't know that that would prove anything, but it did sound like Erik. "Wait. Hold up. You speak Swedish?"
"I speak all the languages of this realm." She waited for further explanation but none seemed to be coming.
"So, while you're here, do you think you could help me with a term paper I'm writing? A lot of great source material for it is in Russian but I can't use it without translations."
"We'll see," he said, picking up his Pepsi with some apprehension.
After dinner, Darcy showed him around the lab and the living quarters. Jane slept in the trailer and hadn't ever considered anything but the science stuff. Darcy's first task as her intern had been self-directed. She had taken it upon herself to make the diner/lab a more comfortable place to be, getting some furniture from the local Goodwill and setting up the kitchen. She was particularly proud of having rigged the dishwasher's station into a shower stall. There was a manager's office she had cleaned out to use as a bedroom and had installed an air mattress. "That is my room and no you cannot go in there," she had said, mindful of what had happened in the car. There was also a back room where the walk-in freezers used to be where she had set up a space for Erik when he came out last year. It seemed unfair that the man who was to be occupying that room now was the man who had driven Erik insane.
As she showed him around she started to think about the things he had done. Dressed as he was and without his powers, he seemed so much more subdued than he had been in the brief flashes of him she had seen on the news. They came to the end of the tour in the narrow hallway where the makeshift bedrooms were and she got up the nerve to ask him something else that had been worrying her which suddenly seemed very relevant, given that she'd locked herself in for the night with a mass murderer.
While he was surveying the store room from its doorway she asked, "What did Coulson mean when he said you weren't dangerous?"
Loki turned around and looked at her square in the eye. "He meant, to you. I'm not dangerous to you. Not that I'm not dangerous." He looked her up and down with his eyes narrowed. "Let's get that straight, right now," he finished, echoing her words from earlier in the car. She felt her chest seize in an unpleasant way. It must have shown on her face because he dropped his intense expression and plastered on a friendly, handsome smile. It was unnerving. A moment ago, he had seemed tired and somewhat distracted, but now he was very alive indeed.
"Okay, well. I'm pretty beat and I bet you have jetlag from Asgard so I think we should turn in for the night. Tomorrow maybe you can start by telling me about Jotunheim and I'll start by telling you how we do things here in America." She was nervous now and rambling and didn't really know what else to say. They were close together in the hallway which was also making her a bit leery. "Well, goodnight." She said, quickly going into her room and closing the door behind her. She locked it, hoping he couldn't hear the force or speed with which she did so.