"That Heimdall's a talker, huh? Couldn't get a word in edgewise around that guy. Not."
"He keeps his attention on guarding the realm and is not easily distracted," Loki replied. "He might also be a bit sore about me freezing him with the Casket when I was king. It is entirely possible you might be subject to an even more severe silent treatment than most for a short while."
"You just make friends everywhere, don't you?"
The loud rushing water and sound of the waking Asgardian wildlife provided a calming backdrop as the two of them made their way down the bridge back to the palace. Loki could have teleported them: they were both aware of this. Even with the situation being as urgent as it was, he could not bring himself to cut short the walk back. As deeply in thought as Darcy seemed to be while they made their way down the rainbow bridge, the new Aesir did not seem to mind. Her brows, now lacking in the cerulean discoloration, were gently drawn together in silent contemplation. He wanted to touch her, even just for a moment, to believe that she was really there, neither under his thrall nor trying to kill him. Even knowing that neither of those were true, he still felt a chasm stretching between them and he desperately wanted to vault it before it became any wider.
Gripping his scepter tightly in his left hand, he let his right tenderly touch the inside of hers, extending a gentle invitation. She looked up at him, then back at his hand, as if confused as to what to do. Slowly, she moved in closer to him, allowing him to gingerly circle her waist to rest his hand on her hip. It was comforting to feel her close to him, though it was strange touching Asgardian metal beneath his fingers rather than her usual soft cotton.
"Not worried I will ruin your reputation?" she asked softly, her mind still clearly elsewhere. He let himself smile discreetly.
"I sincerely doubt you could accomplish such a thing. I would say sneaking in an enemy to my father's sleeping chamber, putting my mother in danger, trying to eradicate an entire planet and enslave another did the job credibly." A humorless chuckle escaped her as she tried to ignore the strange emotion she heard in his voice. It was the first time he ever sounded as if he truly regretted anything he had ever done.
"Again with the making friends everywhere. I guess I should have asked you a few more of these questions before we got together, huh?"
"Darling, considering how we met, I think you were plenty well informed on the the poor decision you were making."
"True enough," she replied, her quiet demeanor returning. Loki had been happy to keep her engaged. This new, taciturn creature was one with which he would have to grow more comfortable.
"Are you well?" Loki asked. "If Odin made you an Aesir, I imagine it can be very..."
"Freaky?" she finished.
"I believe you have used that word in lieu of the word I sought."
"I feel like I'm looking at an LED television, and I'm not even wearing my glasses. Everything is loud. It's just making me a little dizzy. And I'm starving. Plus whatever tractor beam your dad used woke me up. I just feel like I'm slowly being pulled apart. A few hours ago I felt like I was freezing myself from the inside, and now I feel like I'm about to explode with trying to take everything in." She reached to feel the back of her head. "Well, at least that's not there anymore."
"I only recall one mortal being made an Aesir in the past few centuries. I recall the heightened senses being disconcerting at first for him. I shall make sure you are given ample time to rest. My father will, of course, wish to speak with you, though I am sure that he would be willing to wait until this evening. We both had a very long day yesterday." Darcy looked up at him uncomfortably before nodding.
" He just told me he'd basically owe me one. I didn't realize that meant making me immortal." Loki smiled.
"Being called the All-Father does come with its advantages," he replied.
"So..." she trailed off. He waited for her to finish. "You're... happy... about it?" she asked hesitantly. Loki tightened his hold on her hip just a bit, pulling her to him.
"It was met with no small bit of joy when my father told me you were being tested after you were taken, in spite of my concern," he replied. "How could you think otherwise?"
"Well, I mean, I just-" she looked at the iridescent floor of the rainbow bridge, either in thought or amazement. "You signed up when I was mortal," she said hesitantly. "You'd have of a few decades that you'd have to deal with me, max, and that was if we even... I mean, we never even had time to talk about what this was and now this happens?" He could see the tears she was trying to desperately hold in breaking the surface. "I didn't know if you had anything to do with this or not, or if it was some kind of power play between the two of you and you'd resent me for it...Everything is just happening so fast." He could hear pain in her voice, and it tore at his insides. Even now she was fraught with fear and uncertainty. He leaned down and pulled her closer, pressing a tender kiss to her temple, which she received with great contentment.
"Nothing is done here without purpose, Darcy," he said. "If you choose to stay in Asgard, you will need to grow used to it. Odin has too much power to be careless with it. But, in spite of what I would like to think of him, I do not believe anything he has done regarding you has been with malicious intent. He has spoken only with admiration regarding you, and I cannot pretend it does not please me. He might have given you a closer look because of my affection for you, but he offered you a place in Asgard for his own reasons. Had you been someone else, I am not sure he would have extended the same honor." He leaned in even closer before teleporting them to his room.
"Dammit, Loki, what I'd tell you about doing that without warning me!" she said, exasperated, wiping her eyes. He smiled, pleased her annoyance distracted from her from her insecurity for at least a moment. She looked as if she would continue until her surroundings caught her attention. The rather exquisite bedroom reeked of Loki's taste as she looked around, her eyes falling on the rich, green bedding of a bed the size of her bedroom. She arched a brow at him, even though she had to wipe her eyes again. "This is your room, I take it?"
"This is actually my first time in it in several years," he said. "I had not even had the time to see it. But yes. This was my room." He watched her as she left his side, curiously inspecting the various shelves of books, small projects, and spells he had been working on before Thor's banishment. His eyes travelled to the notebooks on his desk. Every scrap was exactly as he remembered leaving it. Nothing had been moved, and everything was clean. Someone had taken care of his things.
It was almost touching.
He watched as she walked over to his desk, absently picking notes from what seemed like so long ago strewn somewhat tidily on his desk. He smiled. Of course Darcy wouldn't ask for permission. He let his clothes transform to a more simple shirt and pants, though it was more like his Asgardian "lying around clothes," as Darcy put it. He allowed himself to recline on his bed, a strange sensation overcoming him as he allowed the familiarity to envelop his senses as he sent out a duplicate of himself to inform his mother that he had retrieved Darcy and they would rest until the evening. He dutifully ignored the fine arched brow against which he never had a defense, grateful she could not see the coloring in his real body's face. Still, she had nodded gracefully, telling him she would hold off Thor and Odin after their meeting with Mammoth.
Her words had reminded him that he needed to tell Darcy of the Frost Giant's presence there. She had been the one to encourage him to spare his life and enlist his assistance, but that did not mean they were sudden friends, especially after what Mammoth had done. Loki gritted his teeth as he retrieved his duplicate and watched Darcy running her hands idly over the collection of volumes he had kept in his room. The sight of her thin fingers touching and inspecting books he had held for centuries moved him somehow as she turned around to face him.
"Alfheim Myths and Legends?" she questioned. He frowned, as the book and title was not written in Midgardian.
"Since when are you able to read Ancient Asgardian?" he questioned. She looked up at him, her expression a bizarre combination of amusement and haunted fear.
"You taught me some of it," she said, placing the book on the desk, walking towards him. She did not see him move the book back to its place on the shelf behind her back as she came to stand before him on the bed. "You said it would be better to stay occupied. That madness comes from pain when you have nothing to distract you from it. When you can never imagine it stopping. When there is no hope: that was when you said I would slowly start falling apart, and that you didn't want that to happen. I guess it wasn't you. Maybe just whatever was left of you in the Tesseract. Some weird mix of both of us. You taught me everything I could absorb, in my mind, with that buzzing around in my head." She looked toward the scepter. "I'd probably stand a better chance of beating you at chess now." Her voice cracked on the word 'chess' and she spun around, covering her mouth with her hands as the tears began falling once more, her breath coming in heaves.
Loki was behind her in an instant, though still unsure what she needed. He tentatively reached a hand out to her shoulder, but she continued to shake, her sobs growing more vocal in spite of her attempts to smother them as she almost crumpled to the floor. Throwing the tense civility held between them out the proverbial window, he wrapped his arm around her, pulling her next to him. When her back made contact with his chest he scooped her up, her much healthier looking form still easy in his arms. She didn't even struggle as he carried her over to his bed, laying her down with himself beside her.
He had seen her cry before. They were usually subtle episodes she tried to hide. He supposed it was just as well, as there was never an occasion where he had less of an idea what to do with himself as when Darcy was upset. Completely unrestrained grief was something with which he was more familiar than he cared to recognize, but seeing Darcy in such a state was both foreign and unbearable for him. Her body shook with each breath as she buried her face in his neck and he held her tightly, slowly peeling away her new armor with his magic to leave a blue sleeping shift behind for her. The tenseness within her was even more apparent to him with metal no longer between their bodies. He could feel every quake of her muscles as her tears soaked his collar, and he resigned himself to be as still as possible, letting his hand run up and down her back.
"Don't worry, love," he said gently, his voice devoid of all humor, "we both know you will never beat me at chess." She wept harder, and he said nothing else.
"We have been told by Heimdall that several mutants, similar to the ones SHIELD encountered at Darcy's abduction, have been found at the Iron Man's power source," Thor said. "Not only that, but we have have been unable to see Shaw, even now with you not there to guard him. How is he doing this?"
"I inscribed the walls of Shaw's lair with ancient runes that would guard against enemy eyes," Mammoth replied somberly. "It was not necessary that I be there. It is within the Midgardian kingdom known as New York, though quite a distance from the main citadel."
"And you will tell us all you know of his plan?" Thor questioned. Mammoth shifted uncomfortably, crossing his arms over his chest, looking back and forth between Thor and Odin.
"In exchange for your aid in the event of his promised retribution against Jotunheim, yes," Mammoth replied.
"I give you my word you will have our aid against Shaw, if you prove to be true," Thor vowed. "If you know enough, we should be able to take him down before he can strike."
"I accept your word, and shall be grateful of your acceptance of mine, but your enemy is more powerful than you can know," Mammoth replied grievously. "It is why I sought his aid when I found him dwelling in secret in Midgard, knowing our interests would be so closely tied." He paused, a deep loud breath filling and leaving his lungs. "Darcy is but one of many humans he has transformed in such a way. He has a small army of mutants, many of whom have terrible power, some even equal to your Avengers." He paused. "He has kidnapped many agents from the organization known as SHIELD and other tribes run by The Council. The secrecy of them allowed many of them to disappear without notice, I learned. He has them in stasis in his laboratory. Using the blood of his small army, he has made it bigger. He has made more mutated humans. Thousands more. All of them have a device in their head for his control."
"His control?" Odin questioned as the door to the meeting room opened. Frigga, her elegant gown flowing behind her, floated into the room. She gave the Frost Giant a coldly respectful nod, but turned her attention to her husband and son.
"Your brother requests a pardon for himself and Darcy this morning." Her eyes fell on Mammoth ever so slightly at the mention of Darcy's name. "He says that it would be best for them to join you this evening." Thor knew he would feel better with his brother at his side, but also thought it might be better to let him stay away from the discussion. It was no secret that it had taken enormous self restraint for Loki to deliver Mammoth in one piece: it was best not to tempt fate. In the midst of any other discussion, Thor would have thought it amusing for their mother to soften Loki's words, as always. He doubt Loki "requested a pardon" for anything. Before anyone could respond, Frigga retreated, her short golden train disappearing around the door behind them.
"Darcy was not like the others," Mammoth continued in the silence of the queen's departure. "We were driven from his lab to keep them from finding it. Her chip, as Shaw called it, was not able to unite with his Midgardian machine that was meant to control her."
"Midgardian machine?" Thor asked. "You mean computers?"
"Yes," Mammoth said. "He plans on being able to control his army over great distances and with terrible efficiency through their chips. He called hers a 'Chaos Model.' She was meant to destroy and distract, not requiring central control. He told me he has many different models for his army, each giving them a certain function. But he needs a great deal of energy to bring them all out of stasis and link them with his command."
"And that is why he needed the Tesseract," Thor confirmed. "And now that he has no chance of getting to it without you, he now seeks the Iron Man's creation." Mammoth nodded.
"Even if it is not as powerful as the Tesseract, it very well could manage the task. If he is able to use it to wake his army, I fear it may be too late for Midgard. With such an army, I cannot imagine there would be anything to stop him then. It would only be a matter of time before he came after the Tesseract as well."
Darcy was surprisingly pain-free when she felt her eyes crack open. How she had fallen asleep -namely, her crying until she couldn't breathe anymore- flooded her memory like a nightmare, but the oppressive weight that she had felt on her shoulders since her capture seemed just a little bit lighter. She slowly let her eyes flutter open as she realized she was carefully wrapped in the arms of a sleeping trickster god, who still seemed to be in the middle of slumber himself. Her nose was not stuffy and she didn't feel like she had been hit by a mack truck, which was how she normally felt after crying herself to sleep.
She let her head fall back down on Loki's shoulder, enjoying the feeling of the incredibly comfortable mattress beneath them, something she had not fully appreciated before she had basically passed out, combined with the pleasant warmth radiating from the even more pleasant body next to her. She inhaled deeply, Loki's scent ridiculously distinct in her nostrils, which she found more than a little creepy. It felt like every one of her senses had been turned up to eleven. She could hear his heart beating within his chest slowly and steadily just beneath her ear, though it was louder than it had been before. She almost want to fall asleep again when she let her hand come to rest on his stomach, the contact with firm muscle beneath her fingers waking her up more fully.
She didn't understand why she felt a wall between them when Loki appeared to have to no such reservations. She had spent all of her energy trying to kill them, and he acted as if she had done no wrong. She had been kidnapped for three weeks, scared to her core that she would be killed or worse, endured being beaten, starved, and experimented on. That was nothing to say of memories she still had of wanting to destroy everything she ever loved, even if she knew them to be manufactured. She could still almost feel being overwhelmed with fear and hatred for everything, and she still felt like she was a visitor in her own body. She was glad that whatever mojo Odin had put on her had taken the blue away. She did not know how she would have handled that, even if Loki acted like he barely noticed.
The thought of Odin then brought up all of the other unanswered questions: namely, what was she going to do about this whole immortality business. Live forever? She did not really fit the bill of the type of person to live forever. She wasn't super-smart or super-brave or super-strong -well, maybe super-strong now if she was an Asgardian- so why? She didn't get what Loki meant by Odin making her immortal for his own reasons. And where did that leave her with Loki? Were they supposed to get married or something now? As much as she had, no, did love him, he didn't strike her as the forever and ever type. With her life a blink of an eye compared to his, she hadn't worried about it. But now they were equals, kind of, and they had just said that they loved each other a few weeks ago, before her world had been torn apart even more than it already had. Becoming immortal was kind of a drastic move before they had even had a date as an actual couple. But she didn't have to decided anything yet, he had told her. Staying immortal was not the equivalent of them getting married, and she didn't have time to even think about all that. Not with Shaw making his final move, whatever that was.
As if he had detected her thoughts in his sleep, she heard his heart speed up beneath her ear, could hear his breath change in cadence, and she knew he was awake. She could not see his face, but they both lay in a calm silence for many minutes before either of them spoke. She thought of their kiss on the bridge. He had not told her he wanted her to stay immortal with him, he had asked what she wanted, and she had wanted something she knew. Their kiss had not been the passionate storm of emotion it usually was. It had a mixture of longing and sadness and confusion with the balm of familiarity covering it. When his lips had touched hers, she had truly realized that her capture was over. She was there. He still loved her. Still wanted her. He had allowed nothing to change between them, even though so much was changing within her. Perhaps there was one advantage to having a morally ambiguous boyfriend: no matter how far she sank, he would always know what is was like to have gone just a little bit further.
"I thought you liked turning all of my clothes green," she said softly, looking down at the chemise that was distinctly Asgardian and distinctly the same dark blue as had been in her armor. Would she ever change clothes like a normal person again?
"I suppose it is time you have colors of your own," he replied, gently. "Though, I still have my mark on your underthings." She smiled against him as she slowly pushed herself up, looking down to find him looking quite content in his own giant bed, his arm forming a pillow for himself behind his head while other remained forming circles on her hip as she sat next to him, propped up on her arm.
"Thank you," she said simply, forcing herself to truly look at him. She searched the green orbs staring at her for any of the contempt she had dreaded from the moment she realized what Shaw had done to her, but there was none.
"Indeed, my love," he said. "It was a refreshing change to the be the one holding it together this time, though I would not grow accustomed to this mature side I seem to have formed. I find it incredibly dull to be the one on this side of sanity. I think it suits you much better than I." She smiled at the sight of genuine mirth twinkling in his eyes, his perfect teeth arranged in a smug grin. It was almost laughable. She had spent the past day trying to claw his eyes out, quite literally, and he acted as if it had been some benign lover's spat and all was well now.
Maybe he was a little crazy.
Still, she found herself grinning, grateful for the lightness in her heart as she leaned down to kiss him, refusing to think of the consequences.
Loki also seemed none-too interested in consequences as he came alive beneath her, his stomach muscles clenching beneath her hands as he used the arm wrapped around her to pull her on top of him. She felt as if a line caught aflame from her chest down to other areas as his mouth moved against hers, somehow both compliant and unyielding at the same time. She felt one hand fist into her hair and his other at the small of her back, pressing the previously mentioned other places against his other places with not a hint of reservation. She supposed it was like riding a bike, as her knees fell apart to straddle his legs and her fingers found the hem of his tunic to pull it over his head while he sat upright.
He let not a moment pass before he captured her mouth again. Even as he slipped the straps of her chemise down, his mouth did not leave hers to explore the rest of the curves her body had to offer that he so enjoyed. When she finally slipped her tongue past his lips, she felt something in him snap as the remainder of their clothes was gone with a wave of his hand and she suddenly found herself beneath him as he gently sucked on her tongue. She could not hold back the moan against his mouth as he hooked one of her legs over his hip. Their heartbeats thumped in her ears, their heavy breaths mingled within the space between them. She could smell the arousal from both of their bodies acutely, but at that moment, she found it far from creepy. There was only one sense she had not been able to test yet. She leaned up to lick a path from his collarbone to his ear as he hissed in pleasure. She smiled against his cheek when he pulled her tighter as she decided yes, she could get used to the whole Asgardian thing.