It was cold.

Darcy liked most things about her secret little life in secret little Minnesota. The quiet. The solitude. The cold nights, however, buried under four blankets, she did not like.

It was another sleepless night. The kind where she felt like every memory and thought and emotion would come pouring out of her by her eyes or something. She wanted to squirm and scream but she couldn't moved under the weight of the layers keeping her warm. She wanted to go outside and scream into the night until she passed out from exhaustion. Her breathing was fast and she could feel sweat beginning to pool along her spine.

It was going to be an awful night, though it was hardly unusual. She hadn't had a decent nights sleep in two years.

The air shifted. She could feel it. Where she had been able to hear the static of silence, a deathly stillness seemed to coat her room.

"You choose interesting times to visit," she said quietly. In spite of what she knew to be wise, she was unafraid.

"I had hoped you would be asleep," the silky voice replied, a solemn note in his words.

"Is that supposed to make me feel better?"

"I have not come to hurt you, Darcy," Loki replied.

"It wouldn't matter if you had," Darcy said. She felt a dip in bed behind her as long fingers threaded through her hair, the tips ending on her temples. She blinked slowly, unconcerned with whatever he had planned.

"I have worked with Selvig on his condition from the Scepter," he said quietly as she could feel a warm tingling on her temples. "He has helped me develop a spell to counteract its effects on the mortal anatomy. He seems to be recovering quite well now. I would hope it would do the same for you." Darcy remained still as a pleasant warmth seeped into her skull, and slowly throughout the rest of her body. His hands slowly drifted behind her head, then gently down her spine.

"What does it do?" she asked quietly, resenting how nice his hands felt on her back. He had rarely touched her while in his control. It had always seemed a forbidden thing. All the same, she refused to feel disappointed when he removed them and pressure on the other side of her bed lifted.

"It should balance the chemicals in your brain," Loki explained, mechanically, "for the short version." Darcy turn around, sitting up as he straightened, clearing his throat.

"I'm surprised Erik let you within ten feet of his head," she said. Loki smirked, though humor did not reach his eyes.

"Much has changed," he replied. "Though he was quite hesitant for this venture, to be sure. The promise of helping you certainly persuaded him." Darcy said nothing in response, but wrapped her arms around her legs, watching him closely. "I apologize for the intrusion. I would have preferred to not have troubled you with knowing I was involved, but-"

"If you didn't want me to know you were here, then I wouldn't know," she interrupted. He froze, even his silver tongue failing to form a lie. An uncomfortable silence filled the room.

"What do you want me to say, Darcy?" he asked, his hands presenting some sort of imaginary peace offering.

"Why do you keep coming here?" she asked.

"I wished to see what I have done to you undone," he replied. "It will be the last cause I have to see you, if that bring you any peace."

"Why?" she asked again, a hint of desperation coating her words as she stood. "You wouldn't do anything that doesn't benefit you in some way." His eyes narrowed, stepping closer.

"You know me so well now, do you?"

"I would love to be wrong," she almost hissed. "I would throw a damn party if I was I wrong. Am I?"

"You know nothing of my motivations," he said sharply. "If I choose to do a good turn by you, why can you not simply be grateful? Or-if you must press the issue that it was I who caused you pain- at the very least be indifferent."

"There is no indifferent with you, Loki. You don't allow it."

"And so if you cannot love me, you must hate me then?" he questioned. The L word threw her, and she had trouble forming a retort. Rather, she stood gaping as she tried to start three sentences at once and failed miserably. "I will check on you in a week. You will not be troubled by me thereafter." Darcy was not sure what spirit possessed her, but she launched forward from her bed, grabbing his hand and he turned for the door.

"Loki, please," she managed to push out in a whisper as his tall form stilled. They both froze, unsure of how to react to contact. Slowly, Darcy let go of his hand, staring at her own like it was some malfunctioning piece of machinery as she brought it back. "I'm sorry... I don't want it to be this way," she finally said. "If it doesn't have to be."

"I have humbled myself on your account quite enough," he sneered. "I will see that you suffer no ill-effect from our-" he paused. A dry laugh escaped her throat.

"What? Friendship?" she asked as she turned back to her bed, getting back under the warmth of her blankets. "Yes. 'humble' is the word I think of when I think of you."

"Damn it, Darcy," he hissed. "What do you want from me?"

"I don't know," she said, exhaustion beginning to soften her words. "I want to hate you. I want to want you to go away and never come back. But I miss you. And I don't know what that says about me to miss the man who-" She stopped, squeezing her eyes together. "This isn't a friendship. This is a syndrome."

"You think I do not know that?" he said. "You think I don't regret every day that we met as we did? Our paths ran along each other for so long. So close, but never crossing. Until I was in the absolute depths of madness of mostly my own making. I could have taken notice of you during Thor's exile. You could have remained with Jane in hiding when I brought the Chitauri, and we could have met during the Convergence. I could have laid the Scepter at your feet the moment I saw you, If only I had truly seen who you were then, and just asked to come back to Asgard. There are thousands of scenarios I have imagined, Darcy. None of which end with you hating me as you do now." A quiet stillness fell over them as Darcy absorbed his words. Her body ached with the desire -and also the fear- that she might believe him. "You were so-" he paused, and she found herself listening, though he did not seem as if he would finish.

"Stupid?" she prodded. Loki turned to face her again, a sad smile playing on his lips.

"I thought as much at the time. You were painfully unguarded. Mischievous in an innocent way that I had not seen in many years. And you were kind. The Scepter did not require that, but you were all the same. I thought perhaps I could-" he paused again, the silence stretching out between them. "I thought I would see what you were like without it."

"I guess a twenty-something with clinical depression who can barely hold down a job isn't what you expected," she commented dryly. He at least had the decency to look uncomfortable. "You were nice too, I guess. You gave me ice cream." She shrugged. "Doesn't really make up for trying to enslave my planet. But it was something."

"I'm afraid I cannot buy my way into your good graces with frozen dessert at the moment. I see you are well stocked."

"You went through my freezer?"

"I had to see if at least some things remained the same," he said, the first genuine smile ghosting over his lips. Darcy, surprising even to her, found herself returning the expression, though sadness remained etched in her eyes.

"What are you doing now, then?" she asked. "You and Thor are just here now? And you're just Mr. White Hat?"

"I doubt that will ever be a moniker ascribed to me," he replied. "I am assisting Miss Foster and Thor in research and doing my best to earn my redemption, as my brother so likes to call it."

"And you hate it," Darcy ventured.

Loki uncharacteristically shrugged, sitting on the edge of the bed. "It is preferable to prison. And it makes less enemies than trying to conquer planets, I suppose."

"Reasons are reasons, I guess," she said, wrapping her arms around her legs. "Do you really think whatever mojo you just did will help me?" She barely heard him mutter the word mojo under his breath with an amused chuckled.

"I am confident, yes," he said firmly. "With your leave, I can work to adjust the spell to you. It will take time, but I believe all physical evidence of the Scepter will be removed." Darcy nodded, for the first time actually contemplating the idea of recovery.

"I think I am going to go back to sleep," she said quietly.

"Of course," he said, going to stand. She reached out, grabbing his arm gently. He paused to look back at her.

"Was I right?" she asked. "The last time you were here." She paused as he looked her over. "Are you alone?"

"Yes," he said, casting his eyes down to her hand on his forearm. She began pulling hand away when she saw where his gaze had landed, but he caught it with his other hand to keep it in place.

"And you want to be friends with me now?"

"I will call myself a friend to you. I hope a day will come when you can do the same."

"Do you want to stay?" she asked. Loki froze, his green eyes boring into hers, the silence stretching for an agonizing length between them. "I hate sleeping alone."

"I know." Of course he did. He had been in her brain. There was probably not much he didn't know about her. "You play a dangerous game," he commented quietly, "inviting a monster into your bed, Darcy. Once I have you in my grasp, I might not be able to let go."

"I guess I'm still painfully unguarded." She didn't quite manage to summon the humor she wanted. "Let's not pretend like you this wasn't exactly what you wanted to happen when you came here."

"You seem very sure of yourself."

"Am I wrong?" she asked. Loki wrapped his long fingers around the hand he held in place, holding it gently.

"No."

"And I'm not inviting a monster. I'm inviting you." She paused, a sad smile forming on her lips as she removed her hand from his and tucked herself back into bed. "To sleep." Loki looked at her thoughtfully for a moment, taking in a breath as if he had five tons of rock on his shoulders. He leaned down, unlacing his boots and tossing them to the side, along with his overcoat. She smirked as he lifted up the blanket and himself into her bed next to her.

"What, you aren't going to magic yourself into Loki-pajamas?" she asked, recalling the banter they had once exchanged in the days when she had no fear and only adoration in her eyes for him. "Are they green? I bet they're silk."

"I normally sleep wearing nothing, if that would make you more comfortable." Darcy eyed him, snuggling back under her blankets as she observed him shift around until he found a situation.

"Thank you," she said quietly. "For trying to fix my head."

"You are welcome."

"Goodnight."

"Goodnight, Darcy."