Disclaimer: I own nothing. This saddens me greatly.

Pairing: Loki/Darcy, Thor/Jane, others mentioned

Summary: She stares. He stares. It starts as a game. Neither was prepared for what would come of it. Sometimes, redemption comes in the form of words, softly spoken but always there.

AN: Any mistakes are mine and mine alone and I apologize if they offend anyone!


Redemption

iv.


It comes as a surprise to her that she doesn't get fired the moment Fury sees her. Instead, he glowers and asks her why she still goes down to see Loki even if they don't talk. Darcy frowns but doesn't say anything. She's afraid to say anything in case she ends up making an ass out of herself and proving everyone else right.

She doesn't have the right to be in S.H.I.E.L.D., she's an accident. She was in the right place, at the wrong time, with the right astrophysicist (this made sense in her head, actually, no it didn't. That's a lie).

So, she passes Jane, Thor, Clint and Steve. She passes Fury and Coulson and she makes her way down the elevator to the basement and down the familiar hall and into a familiar room where she'll stare at a familiar face. She'll wonder idly if this is how her future will end up, always coming back to this room, staring at the man (God) chained to the table with a neutral expression on his face. (She ignores the slight widening of his green eyes and she'll ignore the small, almost non-existent smile, because her heart will probably not be able to take it).

She takes her seat and folds her hands in front of her. "I had an interesting conversation with Fury this morning." She informs him, "Actually, it was mostly him talking and me staring at him with the occasional nod."

"And what was this conversation about?" He asks with an air of disinterest but Darcy already knows that he knows what she's going to say. And damn it, how the hell does he do that?

"He's under the influence that all we do is stare."

And then he smiles and it's a mischievous sort of smile that promises all sorts of secrets. "It's because that is all he sees. That is all any of them see."

"I'm confused." She says bluntly.

"Of course you are. What is happening between you and I, right now, is not for their viewing; they see what I want them to see. Staring. Some days when I am feeling more giving, I allow them to see trivial conversations. But right now, all they see is you and I, staring."

"How are you doing this?"

"Magic."

She swallows a lump in her throat, "I thought this room binds your powers."

He laughs. It's not a musical sort of laugh that she sometimes dreams about or imagines. It's a dark, bitter and twisted laugh. Where his smile is mischievous that promises endless secrets, his laugh promises revenge. "My powers cannot be bound, especially not by something as trivial as one room."

"Can't Thor feel you using your magic?"

"Thor is an imbecile." The words are dripping with pure venom and hatred and Darcy almost coils back.

"Then why haven't you escaped?" She wonders. "Why haven't you used your magic and left?" She has a feeling she knows what he's going to say and she hates herself just a little bit because of it. There is a queasy feeling in her stomach and she puts a hand on it, in some sort of attempt to soothe it.

"I was going to." He admits to her, "but then I saw you and I thought to myself, wouldn't you be just right."

Oh God.

"You are going to be my escape, Darcy Lewis."

Oh. Oh, Darcy, what have you done?


She hightails it out of the room and races to the bathroom. She slams the stall door just in time to bend over and vomit in the toilet. The taste of bile and sour stench is enough for tears to sting her eyes. She empties the content of her stomach and falls next to the toilet. The tile is hard on her ass and she bangs her head against the stall wall, wondering how the hell she managed to get herself into this situation.

You are going to be my escape, keeps repeating in her head like some bad song. She feels like exploding as she covers her hand over her mouth to muffle her cries. She's going to help him. She doesn't know how, fuck, she still doesn't even know why, but she knows that she's going to help him.

She'll kick and scream and probably fight against him but in the end she knows that she'll do it. She'll do it for him and this sets her off all over again.

She's lost. She's lost to him and she doesn't know how to get out.


"Would you do anything for Thor?" Darcy asks Jane when she comes back into the office. She's gurgled water and downed an entire bottle of tic tacs to mask the smell of vomit. She hopes it works. It did when she was younger and lied to her parents about drinking. She hopes the two are the same. They probably aren't.

Jane doesn't hesitate to answer. "Yes. I would do anything he asks me to."

"Why?"

Jane puts down the pen in her hand and turns around to face her. She has a look on her face that Darcy has come to know as contemplation. "I…don't know. The scientific part of me is telling me that I shouldn't. That I should assess the situation before I do anything but I just…I know that if anything were to happen and if Thor needed my help in any way, I would help him. I would do it, no questions asked, because I love him. Because I can't imagine my life without him." She bites her lip and shakes her head. "That's really cliché isn't it? I would do anything because of a guy. As if the last hundred years of feminism and women's rights mean nothing, right?"

Darcy feels her throat go dry and she shakes her head. "No. No. I get it. You love him." She takes a deep breath. "But what if he asks you to do something that you're fundamentally against?"

"Darcy…are you okay?" Jane asks worriedly.

"This isn't about me!" She exclaims suddenly, her voice loud and she knows, she just knows that she's on the verge of sobbing…again. Jesus Christ, Darcy, get a hold of yourself. "Would you do something for Thor if you were against it?"

There is silence and Darcy has almost given up on Jane even answering and all she wants to do is crawl into a hole and cry and wait for everything to end. She wants to turn back time and she wishes that she never went down to the basement to begin with. She wishes that she wasn't so damn curious about Thor's evil brother and she wishes a whole lot of things that are obviously too late for her to take back.

(She wishes that she were in another world where Loki isn't evil and it wouldn't be wrong to like kissing him. But then she thinks about it and Loki in another world wouldn't be the real Loki would he? He wouldn't be her Loki. And whoa! Hey there Darcy, when the fuck did he become your Loki? Jesus, she's so screwed).

"If Thor asked me to do it," Jane says her voice quiet, "then I would."

Darcy nods her head once and then turns away from Jane, unable to face her inquisitive eyes and compassion. One, two, three tears slide down her cheeks and Darcy knows she's in over her head.

(She's not a superhero. She isn't super smart. She has zero skills except her awesome taste in music. So, she keeps wondering what Loki sees in her. Because from where Darcy is sitting, she's just another mortal with big boobs and a bigger mouth).


It's nearing the end of the day and she can hear the chattering of people, she can already feel Manhattan come alive with people walking up and down the streets, eager to get to their destinations. She's getting antsy, all she wants to do is go home and soak in a hot bath and possibly get drunk. As it stands, she still has a half hour and she's about to suggest to Jane that skip out early when the lights flicker. Darcy frowns and feels a tug at her stomach. She blinks and stares at Jane who lifts her head slowly and looks at her. "Dude, was that just me-" she stops in the middle of the sentence because the lights are completely shut off and darkness reigns.

She stands up and looks outside the window and her shock grows as one by one, every single building in the greater New York area shuts down. The city is shrouded in darkness. Clouds of gray cover the sky in warning of something ominous and Darcy has a feeling she knows what's coming next.

"What's happening?" Jane asks.

No sooner are the words out of her mouth, an alarm starts going off. It wails loudly and blinks bright red. Darcy automatically covers her ears and bows her head. "Turn it off!" She shrieks, "make it stop!"

She can hear the thundering footsteps of people in the building and the loud voices of various employees. "What's happening?" Jane yells over the loud noise.

Darcy starts to answer that she doesn't have any idea (lie), maybe it's just a tripped wire (lie) and hopefully it'll go away soon (God Darcy, you're such a liar) but the look on Jane's face makes her stop. Jane pales quickly and her eyes widen with surprise.

Darcy feels him before she sees him. He's behind her and there's an arm wrapped around her waist, trapping her in place. "Ah, Miss Foster." Loki says pleasantly, "you are oddly plain to capture my brother's attention." He looks around nonchalantly, "your Avengers will be here in precisely twenty seconds and when they do arrive, I will be gone, as will Miss Lewis but this is not the last time you will see me. I will come back and finish what I started. It is fate, you see. You were all made to be ruled."

Through the shrill noise, she can hear Clint's loud exclamation "Let her go!" She hear the bullets that fly by her, she can hear Thor's thundering, heart wrenching yell, "LOKI!" but most of all, she can hear a loud manic laugh that promises revenge and chaos.

And death.


She is wholly unimpressed when she is torn through what is supposedly time and place and saddled in a garden. A garden. Really? "That was your master plan?" She scoffs to cover the fact that she's shaking and terrified. "To kidnap me from my office?" She kicks at a patch of ground, "where the fuck are we anyway?"

"Eden." Loki answers for her.

She blinks. "What?"

"Eden." He says slowly. "Or rather what Eden supposedly looks like. We are in a different plane of existence. They will not find us here."

"Why are we here?"

"So we can plan."

"We are not doing anything." She can feel the anger building in her chest. "You want me as a hostage, fine, you've got me. But I am not going to help you destroy anything. Especially not my world with my friends and my family and fuck-why are you smiling."

"Oh Darcy, you already are helping me and you do not even know it." There is a smug smile on his face and she has the sudden need to slap it off.

"I don't understand."

"You would not. You are mortal and therefore inferior."

"You know," Darcy grumbles as she sits down on the grass, "you're a psychotic asshole, has anyone told you that recently?"

"Not recently, no."

They sit in silence until Darcy can't take it anymore. "What are you planning?"

He looks at her and a shadow of a smile dances across his face, "I am planning the end of your world. It is going to be fantastic."

She blinks and then turns her eyes away from him. Well, she has to give him props for being honest at least.


So, this is a filler chapter. Something that kind of needed to be done. Expect more Darcy/Loki interaction in the next chapter. A few more blowups, a war of the wills if you please, because well, Darcy ain't going down without a fight, yo. There will be some twisted thought process on her part and the allusion to sex because I don't write smut. I'm horrible at it. Don't worry, Loki's plan for chaos will be featured in a couple chapters. Oh, Darcy, the ride I have her going through is not going to be pretty. Well, not for Loki either. I guess we'll just see.

So, my reviewers, you guys are awesome and I love you. Shout outs to: dhauren, Trini Li, Imperial Dragon, celia, chuuulip, k, I'm not ulyssess, Theresa Jane, ShimmeringWater, Scarletwitch0, EmCarstairs. If I missed anyone I apologize and thanks again.

Your support means a lot and I promise (hopefully) next chapter will be better.

Thanks again!

Bex