(((Gotta love the dream and nightmare sequences, especially when you can add humor, foreshadowing, and enough metaphors to feed a village of starving artists for a year! I personally would like to see more of the conflict between Loki and Black Widow. I think perhaps with everything that happened between him and Sif he ended up with woman issues and it looked both painfully irritating and absolutely delightful for him to go wit to wit against a powerful human woman . . . it made him furious in the hottest way possible!)))

Chapter 49: Made of These

Loki felt the odd sensation of a powerful dream forming around him, not one of his own making at that. At least, it felt for the moment like he was detached from his own mind and seeing the images of another's creating. He narrowed his gaze in the dream state and allowed himself to feel where all of his respective limbs were, gauging whether or not he could move as freely in this dream as he had been able to do in others. To his relief, he not only had all of the necessary components to move and act as freely as he did in waking hours, but he seemed to have even greater strength than before. He grinned and watched as the strangest of sights filled his horizon. He stood looking into the green oasis that was surrounded by the steel and cement of what he had heard called Manhattan Island. His brother had tried to force him back home from here and to be standing so liberated was more than satisfying. He felt his armor, glimmering gold and heavy with magnificence, form around him. His hand formed around the hilt of something solid and cold and made itself known in his hand. he looked down and marveled as Gungnir extended from a simple glow, forming completely in his hand and touching the ground with its hilt, reaching almost his height and filling him with youthful pride.

Several people were gathered just as they had been at his departing, average citizens at play or work now turning to face him. He felt pride swell within him as the people who turned to face him grew closer slowly and a look of pure awe and adoration manifested thoroughly on their features. Men, women, the well-aged, and children all began to gather over the green and cement. The crowd contained all manner of humans, many colours and shapes and from what he could tell, all of their labeled classes. Even a few of the uniformed safety officials had gathered and none reached for their weapons as they watched him. A hushed murmur with audible praise for his many worthy attributes moved through the growing crowd. Loki looked out over the group and grinned, this was exactly what he had hoped to have on Midgard. He took a step forward and the crowd smiled lovingly at him now having grown to the hundreds, possibly more judging by the size and sound of them. He raised both arms, grinning brightly.

"Kneel before me," he said, though in a somewhat gentler and more amicable tone than he had done in Stuttgart. The crowd instantly, fluidly, knelt and seemed to sigh with contentment as they did so. A warm, satisfying sense of triumph filled him and he stepped forward. "My people . . ." he announced smoothly. "Is this not the peace I promised you? Is this not a better state in which to find yourselves?" He moved forward, walking slowly into the crowd whose eyes now followed him, looking up and admiring everything about him, every superior aspect of their new king. Each breath he now took seemed golden and wonderful. This was everything he had wanted on Earth and Asgard as well. He noticed a particularly old man, older and more frail than the one that had defied him. He gently placed a hand on the man's shoulder and the human seemed to respond with sheer reverence. "Obedience is easily and wonderfully rewarded, always. All of you are on this planet to live, to die in servitude of something greater, something better than yourselves." He patted the old man's shoulder affectionately and then moved forward again noting that the crowd had grown even larger and seemed to have grown eerily silent. He now noticed the familiar face of Londra and her brother, the two children that had needed to be rescued from the demolished building. The two stared up at him as if he was their father and the notion pleased him; to be worshipped by the young and old. He placed a hand gently on the side of the girl's face with condescending kindness. "You are all but children and now you will have someone capable to look after you," he said tenderly. He patted the boy's head with the same haughty fondness. "You can live and die truly happy, at real peace knowing that you are all of you lovingly, wholly, governed."

"Hail King Loki!" one of the uniformed officials suddenly shouted, clenching a hand into a fist and pressing it firmly against his left breast. "Long live the king!"

The trickster basked in the truly glorious admiration, beaming with a grand smile as he looked out over the crowd and noted that not a single human, not one stood and opposed him. This unity, this fantastic absence of the madness of freedom's illusion in mankind was more beautiful than anything he had ever seen before. As he turned and looked out over the rest of the crowd he saw an even more satisfying display. The troop of heroes, the mightiest force on earth, knelt as well with the same gaze of adulation aimed in his direction. The proud Stark, the valiant Rogers, and even the cunning Romanoff saluted him just as the rest of the humans with the same subjugated esteem. This was more gratifying than having seen his brother's expression when he had taken a human captive. It suddenly occurred to him that Darcy was nowhere in sight. The ecstasy of being worshipped suddenly left him. He turned from side to side quickly, scanning every available inch of the crowd and the city around him for his beloved. His heart began to quiver with anxiety at the thought of being without her.

"Loki," Darcy said from a distance behind him. He turned quickly, seeing the beautiful young woman he had grown to love clad in flowing white robes not unlike the lovely garb he had seen his mother in on several occasions. To his surprise, she stood on the massive golden steps of Asgard's palace, a beacon of familiar grace in the midst of the humbled city. It seemed to have appeared as instantaneously as Darcy had done. He grinned and moved smoothly towards her. Her expression was blank, nothing he could discern at the moment and certainly not the love that the crowd was displaying. It confused him that the young woman he knew had the deepest of affection for him wasn't even showing a glimmer of tenderness for him. He suddenly realized that as she had been standing there, as he had moved forward, her belly had suddenly swollen. He froze and watched her glance down at the growing protuberance sadly. She looked back up at him, the same pained expression and single tear that he had last seen on her as the door to her bedchamber had closed. The familiarity of the sight chilled him and he felt his armor fade, even the impressive plating and leather that guarded him in his most basic attire faded and he moved to take hold of her clad only in the simplest of royal clothing. She whimpered unhappily as he took both her hands in his and looked deeply into her eyes. "I thought you were different, I had hoped . . ." she muttered, her features trembling just as he had remembered them. He squeezed her hands more tightly. "You're complete now, you don't need me."

"Oh, Darcy, there is nothing that could make me complete if you are not beside me," he said firmly, almost pleadingly. "Whatever happens between us I can always return things back to the right path, to my vision."

Darcy looked up at him slowly, and her gaze shifted to pure anger. He looked back in surprise as she began to growl at him, her eyes glowing a more vibrant emerald than ever before. He opened his mouth, meaning to speak, to ask her what was wrong, but he couldn't find the words or his own voice at the moment. "Your vision," she whispered harshly. She growled more loudly and he suddenly felt her fingers clench around his hands like iron bars, painfully wrenching the bones and flesh too close together for affection. He cried out in surprise and stared at her in shock. "Your vision is flawed, trickster."

"Darcy, what's come over you?" he asked, horrified at the unmatched disdain that seemed to have overtaken her delicate features. She roared at him causing the trickster to shout in surprise and stumble backwards up a few of the stairs. He looked up at her as she stood over him, petrified at this horrific vision. Darcy's roar faded into a painful wail and she gripped the bulge at her midsection. She slowly knelt, still letting out one long, agonizing cry. He scrambled backwards and found the presence to stand, panting and trying to think of what to do next. He glanced from side to side as Darcy began to crawl up the steps towards him. To his horror, behind her was a stream gushing bright red.

Nausea struck him and he covered his mouth, trembling for a moment. The coward in him hurried even further back, but no matter how quickly he moved and no matter how far he got away, Darcy seemed to remain the same dangerous distance from him, still wailing and still clutching the growing ventral lump while blood coursed endlessly behind her. He wasn't sure what compelled him to do so, but he hurried into the palace, following a familiar path, and made his way into the throne room. Stumbling and having to craw every few steps, he made his way up the two sets of golden stairs and onto the ornate throne of the All-Father. Darcy continued to follow his movements, now finishing with the last stair and coming closer to the throne as she screamed and bled. "Darcy, what is this? What is happening?" he shouted frantically. She continued to scream and crawl, not making eye contact any longer and still swelling with each moment though not overwhelmed. He gasped as a strange noise came out of nowhere, a hissing and a nearby 'thump'. Suddenly, he found himself and the throne sealed inside the massive glass cage. He shrieked and hurried to the glass wall nearest to Darcy, still kneeling with cries of pain and crimson life flowing freely from her. "Darcy!" he called frantically. "Darcy, help me!"

The wailing suddenly ceased and Darcy remained still. He froze and watched in tremulous anticipation. She drew in a deep breath and growled once more. "Help you," she snarled. She slowly looked up at him, her eyes still glowing unnaturally green and now her face hollowed and ashen from weakness and loss. She raised herself to stand and slammed both palms against the glass where he stood. He jumped backwards, recoiling in terror as she sneered at him. "Help you? You selfish puppet!" Inwardly, Loki suddenly came into a more stable mindset and he filled with genuine concern for his lover; he was appalled that he had done anything but rush to her aide when she had first cried out. What could you have been thinking, he chastised silently. Darcy shouted angrily again. "I have helped you!" she roared. He cringed and tried to form words that would accurately and appropriately make amends. Nothing came to him but another wave of nausea as he suddenly noticed that the blood flowing from behind her had begun to billow up through the wide sleeves on her robes, coursing out past her wrists and oddly through the glass. The red stream dripped through no obvious opening and formed a gorey pool on the floor right at the glass itself. It was growing larger by the second. "You don't deserve this," she hissed and something within him told him that she had meant he didn't deserve the palace or the throne. His breath caught in his throat and he felt absolutely paralyzed. "You don't deserve ME!"

"So has real power thought about getting a subscription to Time?" the voice of Nick Fury announced. Loki spun around and saw the one-eyed administrator casually holding up an issue of one of the Earth's popular modes of spreading weighted opinions. On the cover was the smiling and gold-clad image of the trickster with the title, 'The Meaning of Real Power'. The trickster narrowed his eyes at it for a moment as Fury opened the cover and glanced inside, smiling. "It says here you don't support public assistance for the weak and insubordinate."

Loki turned hurriedly back to Darcy and gasped as he noticed the pool of blood was now so large that it practically reached him in the center at the throne. He climbed onto the gold seat, standing like a frightened schoolgirl escaping a mouse. He looked at Darcy, still terrified of the image. Her pale and sunken features now seemed desperate and frail as she began to sink to the floor. "I'll never be right again," she cried. "This is all your fault!"

"Darcy, I need you . . . I love you," he pleaded moving to step off and away from the throne. He gasped as the blood formed more than a pool, filling the glass cage and rising around the throne itself. He cried out as it slowly began to creep up the sides of the golden throne, menacingly making its way towards him. "No!"

"No? Well, then what about People?" Fury's voice offered just as casually. Instinctively Loki turned and noted the man was now reading a volume of another flimsy tome with a more friendly picture of himself on the cover reading 'Born to Rule, Live to Party'. Loki shrieked as the blood moved a fraction of an inch closer and Darcy suddenly collapsed. Too frightened of climbing into the vermillion tide, he simply reached out towards her and cried out. "Hey, it says here you're a Scorpio."

"9 out of 10 Americans think you're good for their image," the voice of Romanoff added. Loki turned frantically and noticed the calm figure of the agent leaning against the golden railing formed around the strange incasing. She flipped through the pages of a similar publication, lifting a brow and looking at him inquisitively. "Did you really break up with Katy Perry?"

"No, I heard she called it off to keep her career," Fury corrected. The two turned to one another and began arguing while the trickster's mind raced desperately.

"Help, someone, one of you, help!" Loki cried. He watched in frustration as Romanoff and Fury continued to argue as casually as if they were in their own homes. He suddenly noticed that they were joined by the figures of several of the other familiar S.H.I.E.L.D. agents and heroes, all carrying one of the flimsy books with various pictures of himself on it and all bickering among themselves about some ridiculous notion they had read. He looked down and saw that the blood was barely an inch away from reaching the edge of the seat. Turning, he saw Darcy growing more pale and still as she slunk fully to the floor. Panic filled him and he turned back to the image of Fury, pleading. "Someone do something, she's dying! Can't you see she's dying? Do something!"

"I don't know, I think it might not be such a good idea to start this season off wearing the same armor from last month," Romanoff added shaking her head with disappointment. "People want what looks good."

"Help! Stop your chatter and help me!" he screamed frantically as the blood finally made its way up onto the seat where he stood. He retched inwardly at the sight and smell of the putrid liquid, the substance he knew here had cost him the life of his precious Darcy. He screamed and watched in astonishment as several streams of red fluid shot into the air like sentient tendrils and then raced towards him. Too shocked to fight what was transpiring and trapped by disgusted terror, the trickster watched helplessly as the red pillars formed themselves into the same shackles that had been placed on him following his defeat on earth. As the sanguineous bands flew towards him, the rest of the blood began to recede through the same odd place in the glass, but did not go back into its normal host. He felt the red, hot fluid form solid bands around his wrists and he instantly tried to pull free of them, scratching ineffectually at the solid trappings. He noticed that the blood had receded from the floor within the cage allowing him to stand and move on the floor once again, though still sickened by everything that had filled the moment and the enclosure. He hurried over to the panel in front of Darcy's limp and pallid form. He knelt, still trying to pry the shackles off of his wrists as well as clawing madly at the glass between them. He had never felt more desperate, more terrified, more overwhelmingly burdened before. He turned back to the images of the impassive humans, still glancing over the printed drivel and arguing back and forth about what was and wasn't fact and fashionable. With one last feeble breath, Darcy ceased moving and Loki knew instantly that she was sincerely dead and beyond any healing. He screamed and slammed both fists furiously at the glass, wailing inconsolably. "Darcy, no!"

"Wow, you've been nominated three times for the anti-humanitarian of the year medal?" Fury asked in surprise. Loki turned heatedly towards the man, eyes brighter red than the blood that bound him. He stood and threw himself harshly at the panel of glass in front of the man on the opposite side of the cage. "It must be exhausting to have all that negative attention."

"Caitiffs!" he shouted, clawing and straining against the shackles while slamming both fists into the glass walls yet again. "Cowards, charlatans all of you!"

"Uh, oh," Romanoff said with a heavy sigh. Loki watched as she turned to her employer with ever so slight discontent. "I don't think I can respect anyone that hates children."

The trickster's heart sank at those words and rage fueled by the deepest piercing tragedy continued to fill him. As he repeatedly thrashed the glass before him, the glass suddenly began to crack. A small measure of satisfaction met him and he began clawing and pounding against it all the more. Fury shook his head and walked slowly over to the control panel, lined with gold as it appeared in the odd throne room to the side of the strange vessel.

"Oh well, I guess real power is overrated," he said with a shrug. Loki's eyes widened in horror as he saw the man typing in a familiar set of codes on the panel. He shrieked and protested only to suddenly feel the same burning, sanguineous material at his wrists fasten itself over his mouth. He relinquished the battle with the glass and reached up to the new muzzle secured over him. He cried out and breathed as best he could while tugging and wrenching the unmoving pseudo-metal on his face. He fought madly with the device, unaware that Fury had finished all but one sequence on the panel. He glanced over at the man in time for the grinning director to wave. "I guess this is goodbye."

Loki felt the floor underneath him lurch and then the world around him spin uncontrollably. Between the panic he had in being bound unreasonably and the terrifying knowledge that he was falling in the steel trap, the trickster felt his mind go numb. This was too much to handle; the thought of being oppressed, the thought of dying, the thought of losing Darcy. A firm grasp formed around his heart and yanked it downward then up, causing him to retch again and curse every selfish demand he had made. He rued every moment of pleasure he had enjoyed standing in the crowd instead of turning to look for his beloved. The ground grew closer, he could feel it through the tumultuous fall of the cage. Tears formed in his eyes and he readied for the impact, there was nothing that mattered now. Even the promise of death's sweet silence were not comfort enough for the loss he now felt. Vigor and esteem fell away from him completely as he felt the ground drawing near. Nothing mattered now, nothing.

BOOOOM!

Loki sat bolt upright, breathing heavily and glistening with perspiration. He stayed completely frozen for a moment, not wanting to move and chance finding any truth to the horrors he had just witnessed. The reality that he had just been dreaming and that the nightmare had passed came upon him, but fear gripped him too greatly at the moment to dare tempt fate until he gathered more strength and breath. He shuddered in the cold of the night as he came more and more to his senses. What a truly horrific nightmare, nothing could have made that worse. He grasped his head and leaned forward, fighting the urge to both vomit and weep. Instead, the thought came to him that he had left Darcy in the other room. He threw aside the bedclothes and dressed, hurrying to the door of her chamber and gasped as he realized the door was open. He raced inside and felt his heart drop into his already unsettled stomach as he saw that she was gone and had likely been so for some time now. He dropped to his knees and leaned against the bedside, groaning and panting heavily. He was overreacting. She was gone, not dead; he was covered in sweat, not blood. The dream was passed and it should be forgotten.

As he climbed slowly back to his feet and drew in a deep breath, centering himself and forcing the memory of the dream as far aside as he could, he thought about where she must have gone. He closed his eyes and relaxed his pulse, allowing his superior senses to drift around the room and take in everything she might have left behind in thought or feeling. This was difficult enough to accomplish when at his peak, but he knew it was the only answer at the moment and if concentrated enough he would be able to follow her in no time. As his senses came to rest on one particular thread of energy clearly attached to her, he filled with relief and joy. The affirmation that she was alive was enough to sustain him for days. Before he could reconnect his senses to the strand, a loud knocking at the front door interrupted him. He growled and frowned. He had almost forgotten about his promise to Volstagg. He turned and made his way towards the door, determined to not only find Darcy quickly but to enlist the help of the oldest warrior on Asgard . . . with or without his genuine consent.