(Author's Note: Sorry for this taking so long! It had to go through at least two pretty serious rewrites before it was ready, plus chapters one through three were updated in the meantime. Hopefully everyone will find this chapter to be worth the wait!)

Chapter Four: Spies Like Us

Loki had told her to go back to her apartment and wait for him there. She was pretty sure that Jane would be back there by now. The woman had wanted to spend some extra time in the lab, still working on her projects, but right now, all Darcy wanted to do was get Jane THERE so that Thor would bring Loki by her apartment and he could get rid of whatever tracers were in there.

It made her want to scream and pull her hair out thinking about her apartment being bugged. Were there hidden cameras there as well? Had they been spying on her while she was sleeping? While she was showering? The idea of it made her skin crawl. Who knew what sort of perverts SHIELD employed because of their useful skills? Someone could be jacking it to videos of her! If this whole scheme worked, she was totally having Loki burn down SHIELD's headquarters (okay, not really; and she still wasn't sure she wanted Loki to win, it was just—ugh, she didn't know what to think). They had made her sign so much paperwork that she had lost track of what she had initially agreed to (as much as she had been given a choice) when she started working for them, but she was SURE she hadn't consented to anything like that.

When she got back to her apartment, Jane thankfully was there, but she was passed out on the couch. Trying to keep her mood light and jovial (the walls had ears, after all), she nudged her friend with her foot, giving her a playful kick in the rear to try to wake her up. "Wake up, science lady. Thor and Loki are coming over."

Jane grunted at the kick, but shot up at the mention of Thor. "How do you know?" Jane asked, rubbing her eyes and yawning.

"I was getting coffee outside of Stark Tower and ran into Loki," Darcy explained, forcing Jane to sit up so that she could sit down on the sofa beside her. "Thor was having an Avengers meeting upstairs and I told him to make sure the two of them stopped by before running off or whatever."

"Speaking of Loki," Jane said, a smile in her eyes despite the serious face she was trying to put on. "What is going on between you two? I mean, I saw you guys holding hands at SHIELD headquarters. Didn't we have a talk?" Darcy wondered if Jane was putting on a fun face just for show. She hadto be worried that Darcy and Loki were spending too much time together or something. Jane could occasionally be oblivious, but she wasn't stupid. Still, Jane probably just wanted more reassurances.

"You know I'm handsy!" Darcy protested. "I touch everyone. It's not a big deal, so don't make it one." She had bigger things on her mind than what holding hands with Loki one time meant, but Jane didn't know that. Parts of Darcy's own brain didn't seem to know that, either, as they wanted to dwell on it, even as she told herself she had more important things on her plate.

"Well, even if it's not a big deal for you, maybe it could be for him," Jane tried to explain. "I mean, hand holding could mean like, a proposal or something for people in Asgard!"

"So that makes you and Thor married already then, huh?" Darcy asked with a smirk, deflecting.

Jane blushed. "Well, we're actually dating. Anything promised can actually, you know, be handled! You and Loki aren't dating, though." She paused. "You're not, right?"

"No!" Darcy replied quickly. "We're just friends, so get your mind out of the gutter or out of fairy tales where a handhold means something medieval. We're just buds."

Before Jane could reply, protest, ask questions, or whatever she was going to do next, there was a knock at the door. Since the door nearly shook off its hinges, she had to assume that it was Thor and Loki. Since Jane didn't walk around covered in bruises, she knew that Thor must have a light touch at times, so why couldn't he use it in normal circumstances, too?

Darcy popped up and ran to the door, peeking through the peep hole just to be certain before opening it, stepping back to let Thor and Loki inside. Jane tried apologizing for looking rumpled, since she had dozed off after getting back from the lab, but Thor assured her that she was as lovely as a spring day, and Darcy resisted the urge to gag again. God, even when she was dating a person she wasn't this kind of romantic with anyone. Romantic platitudes just weren't her style at all. Passion was nice, sure, but not that constant gentle sweetness. Thor and Jane together almost gave her cavities.

When Thor and Jane FINALLY disappeared for 'private time,' Darcy made her way into the kitchen, grabbing the half-finished bottle of wine from the last time Loki and Thor had visited, pouring herself a generous glass. She had been bubbly and happy Darcy on the outside for Jane and Thor (and the bugs in the apartment), but her nerves were rattled to the core. The idea that someone could be listening in on her conversations, even now, was really getting to her. She was trying to act normal, but the worry was always there, in the back of her brain, and it was already getting to her. How was she really going to survive this stuff? She took a gulp of the wine, and then grabbed a notepad and pencil, scribbling on it for a second before passing it to Loki.

Can you sense the bugs in the apartment?

When he read the note, he nodded, looking around the kitchen. He plucked the pencil from her hands, writing on the notepad before passing it back to her.

I'm certain that there is one in every room of this house, except possibly Jane's bedroom. I do not think they would bother with hers, since you are the one they are watching. However, simply getting rid of them will arouse more suspicion.

When she read that, she moved her hands in an 'explain' motion. She wanted those things gone, damn it.

She watched him as he wrote again, noting that he actually had really pretty handwriting for a guy. Then again, everyone she knew had atrocious handwriting. Must be something to do with living in the 'computer age.'

They will notice if all of their listening devices stop working at once. I think a better idea would simply be to silence them in one room while we talk alone and then simply watch what we say otherwise.

She let out a huff but nodded. If all of them stopped working at once, SHIELD would know that they simply got rid of them, and then she likely WOULD be arrested. If they didn't hear anything for a long time, they might give up on her. She couldn't stand the idea of someone listening to her every word like this. If anything, it made her want to help Loki even more, despite the worry in the pit of her stomach telling her that this would go horribly wrong in some way.

Then she thought of something, grabbing the pad and pencil and writing quickly.

Are there any cameras recording video?

If there were, then all of this pencil writing stuff was for naught, because it would only look extra suspicious to SHIELD. When Loki read what she wrote, he seemed to think the same thing. He shut his eyes for a moment, concentrating. Darcy chewed on her lip nervously while she waited for him to let her know something. When he opened them again, he shook his head, and she let out a huge sigh of relief. One small amount of dignity in all of this.

Forgetting in her relief that they couldn't talk freely yet, she opened her mouth to say something, but Loki shushed her, bringing up a finger to her lips. With his other hand, he flicked his fingers through the air, and she could see what looked like almost green smoke emit from his fingers as his lips moved, reciting some sort of spell. When he was done, he slowly slid his finger down her lips before pulling away, and she blinked, because she felt that familiar warmth again. Darcy gave a tiny shrug, trying to clear her head. He was likely only doing this occasional fleeting touch thing to ensure some sort of loyalty from her, but just because she knew it didn't mean that it wasn't working, unfortunately.

"Now we can talk freely," Loki said to her.

Darcy swallowed hard, angry with herself for her heart rate jumping when Loki had touched her. It had OBVIOUSLY been a long time since she had gotten laid, which she needed to fix soon (preferably with a nice, normal guy) to keep her nerves under control here. "Good," she said to him, grabbing her glass of wine and taking another gulp of it. "Want some?" she asked.

He shook his head. "How often do you normally drink?" he asked her.

"Just when my nerves are all rattled like when I learn that my home is bugged," Darcy admitted. "OK, and when I'm trying to relax...and trying to have fun. I'm young, though! It's like, almost expected for someone my age to drink a little too much, though. You get away with it when you're young," she explained with a grin.

He tilted his head at her. "Do you do it because it's expected of you?" he asked her. "And exactly how old are you?"

"If I did what was expected of me, then I'd be in medical school like my parents wanted," she pointed out to him quickly. Her father was a doctor and he had wanted her to follow his example, but she'd just had no interest in it. She had flailed at dissecting the frog in biology in high school and, while she had a stronger stomach now, it still really wasn't for her. "And I'm twenty-three, so still plenty young." She grinned up at him before finishing off her glass, deciding against pouring herself another one. She'd really rather Loki not think that she was a total drunk or a party girl. She wasn't even IN college anymore, so she couldn't quite get away with it like she used to, even though she was still plenty young enough to not stand out badly in any club she went to.

"Your parents had different plans for you than the ones you have picked out yourself?" Loki asked her, continuing to study her. It was slightly unnerving to have him stare at her like that. Yes, totally hot and all, but right now he was studying her like a puzzle he wanted to unravel, and she wasn't completely sure that she was keen on being 'unraveled.'

"Whose parents don't?" Darcy asked with her trademark grin and a light shrug. She hadn't meant to bring this up. Her father's disappointment in her had really stung at the time, and, while she was beyond it now, old hurts still smarted when you thought about them for too long. "Besides, working as a lowly lab assistant wasn't what I had in mind for myself, either, so I'm not all that concerned about plans at this point. Not plans for my mundane career, anyway."

"What do you mean? You don't like working for Jane?" Loki asked. She had no idea WHY he was picking at this, other than likely just figuring out what it was that made her tick.

She sighed, forcing herself not to grab the bottle of vodka that she kept hidden in the apartment. She only broke into it when she wasn't doing well, and talking about her personal life usually ended with her moping in some way or another. "I had wanted to be a teacher before stuff happened in New Mexico and Jane caught the eye of SHIELD. They offered all of us jobs, but it was less 'offer' and more 'take this so we can keep an eye on you.' Living here, taking this job, this apartment, it's all because SHIELD thought I knew too much to let out in the general populace. I can't let my family really know what I do, which isn't too big of an issue since I don't really talk to them anyway, and I'm Jane's glorified monkey because she assumes that I don't understand anything about her work but I'm the only one who can actually decipher her notes and make sense of them, so she can't work without me around now." She hadn't meant for things to come out in a literal word vomit, but these were some of her many issues. "Jane's my friend and all, but it drives me crazy that she thinks I'm a ditz."

"So, SHIELD has you trapped in a job where you can gain no respect," Loki mused. "Is that why you are willing to help me? Doesn't that…bother you?"

"Um, well, a little. I mean, obviously, I'd like to work in a job that gives me recognition, and that I enjoy doing, and…"

Loki leaned forward, his eyes widening in sympathy. That was what overdid it. Raising an eyebrow, Darcy cut her monologue short. "Um, why are we talking about me? Does my workplace angst really matter to a Norse god?"

Loki tilted his head, still staring at her with those wide, interested eyes. "On the contrary. I've only begun to become acquainted with the ways of Midgardians in your 21st century, and you, Darcy, have been my best teacher so far. I find humanity fascinating."

Darcy wasn't buying it. "I thought me and the rest of humanity were ants," she said, with a smirk.

He smirked right back. "Haven't you ever found ants fascinating?"

"Maybe," she said, smiling, but two things occurred to her. One, Loki thought she was an interesting insect to poke at. Two, the collar didn't prevent Loki from doing magic, as he had sabotaged the cameras with that green smoke thingy. Was Thor really in control of his brother? Not that she was particularly afraid of Loki at this point, but it was something to think about, just for future reference.

Something must have showed on her face, because Loki looked concerned and switched tacks at once.

"What troubles you?" he said softly. "You seem…nervous." Reaching across the table, he stroked her cheek, and Darcy felt immense calm flood through her body, starting from the spot his finger rested on. As always, her mind cleared of all worry, and she regarded him guilelessly, without fear.

Why was she nervous? How could she be, when Loki was staring at her like that and being completely adorable?

"Is that why you're helping me?" he whispered. "So you can be respected?"

Why did he have to be so good at taking people apart? It really wasn't fair in the slightest. She cocked her head, feeling a twinge of regret as he withdrew his touch. "Is it such a bad thing to want the people around you to respect you for what you're worth?"

Loki shook his head, and she saw a brief glimmer of empathy as if he had gone through similar issues himself. SHIELD's files on Loki were still woefully inadequate, and she didn't trust anything she read from mythology books. She realized that, other than what she had been able to glean from him and SHIELD, she knew nothing about him. "It's not a bad thing, Darcy," he told her. He leaned against the kitchen island, most of his weight resting on his elbows now. "You work for me now, though. I at least respect that you know more about how to rule this planet than I do, and appreciate your knowledge. Isn't that preferable?"

She copied his motions, leaning on the island as well, grinning as she looked up at him. "I don't even care if you're possibly just saying what I want to hear, because that's still one of the most awesome compliments I've gotten in a long time," she said in a teasing tone. The idea that he might be saying it just because it was likely something that she wanted to hear bugged her, but she told herself that at least she knew it was likely. She wasn't going into this blind.

He smiled back at her. "If that's the best compliment you've heard in a while, then the people of this realm truly are idiots in need of rule," he said to her.

"No arguments here," she told him. If helping him do this would get more respect for her intelligence, then it might be worth it for that alone.

OoOoOoOo

When Loki returned to Asgard later, he went to his room, stripping down to his bare tunic and pants before lying down in his bed. He could still perform magic even with the collar on his neck, but it was harder and more draining than usual. A simple teleportation to meet with Darcy and a spell to mask their conversation from the listening devices installed in Darcy's home should have been simple for him, but struggle against the collar made them tougher, as it inhibited his magic to prevent him from sabotaging it. The one time he had tried, he had needed to sleep for a day straight to regain any sort of energy.

He rolled over on his bed, now lying on his stomach. He wondered if SHIELD realized how much they were playing right into his hands. Angering Darcy by placing those listening devices in her home was only going to incite her to rebel more against them. He couldn't have planned it better himself. The young girl (and my, she was young, younger than he had assumed) was spirited and rebellious, but had the capacity for loyalty and shrewdness that would blossom if cultivated.

He hadn't realized how much he would have in common with her, though. She had also been a disappointment to her father by not following in his chosen field. Odin had wanted him to be a strong warrior like Thor and the rest of the Asgardians, and her father had wanted her to be a doctor. Their hurts weren't on the same level, but that similarity was something that he could play if needed.

Not that he needed to play much with her. He couldn't even quite say that she was playing into his hands as well for she seemed perfectly happy to offer information and go along with his plans. It was one of her last comments to him during their visit today that really struck him. She had said that she didn't care if his compliments were just playing to her sentiments. She knew that he would likely say just about anything to make sure that she stayed loyal to him, and either accepted it as what had to happen or simply didn't care. It made him all the more intrigued by her.

Of course, it made manipulation much less affective when the person in question knew they were being manipulated, at least to an extent. Her heart still seemed to flutter whenever he touched her, though. Then again, when she touched him, his heart did the same. He simply assumed that it was because a person outside of combat hadn't touched him for a very long time and he was simply out of practice at processing it. He understood that women were a lot more...affectionate on Midgard than he was used to, but hers held no manipulation behind it, as far as he could tell. He supposed that she was just...friendly. Nothing to concern himself with.

As he felt his eyes start to close, he wondered exactly what role he should give her once he was firmly in place as ruler of her realm. He had initially intended to keep her on simply as an advisor. His need to understand humanity wouldn't end when he had conquered them, after all. Considering the cunning she had displayed today when she so casually mentioned that he was likely manipulating her had elevated her in his mind, though. If she lived in Asgard, she would be excellent at courtly intrigue.

Maybe he should promote her to a higher status in his future government. He would just have to figure out the right position for her.

OoOoOoOo

Darcy had to force herself to not tear apart her own bedroom in an effort to find the bug that SHIELD had stashed in there as she started to get undressed for bed that night. She couldn't stand the idea that they had a way to eavesdrop on her in nearly every room of her home. Even if they paid for it, it was still supposed to be HERS. This wasn't fair in the slightest, but then SHIELD wasn't known for playing fair.

She stripped down to her underwear, crawling under her blanket and clicking off her bedside lamp. She was mentally exhausted from the knowledge of being spied on all day and finally admitting to someone that SHIELD only employed her to keep an eye on her, not for her intelligence or anything. Not that it had been hard for her to put together. Jane was the one they really wanted. She had the big science brain. Darcy was just the chick who tagged along, listening to her iPod while grabbing coffee.

How sad was it that it took a homicidal egomaniac to show her any real sort of attention and she practically fell over herself to help him out? And those light, lingering touches that occasionally happened between them were enough to drive a girl out of her mind. She had no idea how he was able to both calm her down and completely rile her up in the same sentence. It had to be some godly power of his. She was pretty sure even her bad taste in men didn't normally cover egomaniacal gods with more complexes than most psych books.

Curling up on her side, even more thoughts popped up in her head. She wasn't sure how she felt about him saying definitively that she was working for him now. She could only hope that this would be a very slow thing and that she would be able to figure out some way to help him head towards being...less homicidal than he was. In fact, his incredible violence was the one true issue she had with him. She wasn't sure if it was just how things were done on Asgard, or if it was some symptom of the madness that she knew was still in him.

If he was for real, she wasn't even totally sure she wanted him to pull this off. Part of her thought that, if you dialed back the crazy by A LOT, Loki could be a good leader of Earth. However, she had no idea how to make him less crazy, and she doubted that Norse gods went in for the whole 'psychotherapy' deal. She just really hoped that, if this was really going to go down, then they had plenty of time for her to help him with the insanity.

It also freaked her out a little bit that, at least in the moment, she tended to feel comfortable around him. It sucked that he was charming, because it knocked down the walls that she would normally keep up around someone so unstable.

She wondered if he had some power that put her at ease when she was around him. She needed to think straighter. She was already in this pretty deep. Even if she ran screaming to SHIELD right now (and there was no way in hell she was doing that after they wiretapped her), she'd still be in a hell of a lot of trouble. She just...needed to figure out just what she was trying to accomplish here.

The only reason that this idea appealed to her at all (that she could come up with, anyway) was that she wanted to be in control of her own destiny, and, by working with SHIELD, she wasn't. As long as she worked with Loki and continued to prove herself, though, she thought that, in the end, she would have control of her life and have the respect that she craved and thought she deserved. It worried her that someone that, despite her enjoyment of their conversations, still frightened her could pull this sort of loyalty from her, that he seemed to understand her so well. Yet here she was, pretty much playing the Machiavellian advisor to his would be king. She had no idea how to feel about herself right now, but she still knew already that her course was pretty much set from this day forward. Maybe now it was just a matter of molding him into the right image and hoping that it went further than skin deep.

Right now, all she wanted to do was sleep, though. It had been a long day and evening, and she needed her rest. Thor and Loki were supposed to stop by again in a week as Jane and Thor had another date, and she'd talk to Loki then about just what they should do as far as communication was concerned. She was sure that he could cook something up.