DAY SIX

Loki is woken by muffled screams. He bolts out of bed, his blade in hand and rushes into the living area. More ont fill his expectations of what he will find, and he braces himself for an onslaught of attacks.

Surprisingly, it is empty. Apart from a tossing and turning Darcy Lewis on the sofa, her face screwed up in pain. Her arms are pinned to her sides, shaking, and her breathing is quick, laboured. He wonders whether to wake her, but decides against it, kneeling by the sofa and lowering his blade.

Instead, he takes one of her shaking hands and his other goes to her hair, softly smoothing it down. Within seconds, she stills, her breathing slowing, her face relaxing. It was what his mother had done for him when he had terrifying visions and dreams that left him yelling out for her. He wonders what she dreamt of.

"Were you dreaming of me, Darcy Lewis?" He asks her sleeping form idly, not expecting a reply.

"Thanos." She mutters, half awake, to his surprise. "Those creepy ont guys."

"Anything else?" He asks, half believing she would speak his name. His hand was still in hers, his fingers frozen in her thick hair. He tries to compose himself.

"Do you ever wear a shirt?" She mutters, her eyes half open. "It's distracting."

Loki surprises her by laughing out loud, but his laugh is cut short by another one of her ramblings.

"It's day six, isn't it?" Her eyes flick open, her gaze going straight to the dim light of sunrise through the curtains. "I don't think my life is worth too much."

"You never know." Loki caresses her hair. Was she still dreaming or was Loki being unusually tender? "Thanos may find us yet."

"Great. So either way I die. Go figure." She reaches up to take his hand from her hair and sits up, slipping out of his grasp.

She tries to keep her glance on his face- she wasn't lying when she said his bare chest was distracting. Mind you, she realises, even his bedhead hair and sleepy eyes are kinda distracting, too. Is she seriously developing some intense Stockholm Syndrome?

He seems to sense Darcy checking him out, and jumps away from disappears into his room and returns fully clothed with a strange, determined look on his face. His fists are clenched and he stares at her icily.

"What's on the agenda today, then?" She asks as he stands in front of her. "It's my last day, so I was thinking maybe you could get something nice to eat. Like, Chinese takeaway and a movie or something. I could murder some sweet and sour, pardon the pun-"

Darcy turns to look at him, detecting something severely wrong in his silence. The atmosphere doesn't feel joking and light anymore- it is cold, unnerving. She notices his unsettling stare, the look behind his eyes as if he was figuring something out, fighting something. Her breath catches.

"Loki? What's up with you?"

Unprovoked, Loki takes one disgusted look at her before dragging her to the corner of the room roughly. What the fuck? She thinks as he binds her hands with the same handcuffs she had worn six days ago to the pipe. His chest is heaving as he looks at her with fury, and stalks off into his room, slamming the door shut behind him.

"What did I do?!" Darcy yells after him, her wrists already burning from the pain of the cuffs.

So much for Chinese food, she thinks idly as her stomach rumbles. What the hell kind of behaviour was he exhibiting? Nice to her one minute, and downright awful to her the next? Maybe this was his tactic, she thinks with a pang. She realises she had a tiny ounce of hope that Loki wouldn't kill her that very morning, but that hope had been wiped out completely.

The hope that Loki would come out and laugh, saying it was all a joke.

But instead, she stares a hole in his bedroom door, daring him to come out and talk to her.

It's close to midday when the door opens with a bang.

She's about to start with a rude quip, or some sort of 'what-the-fuck-Loki' rant, but the words die on her tongue as she sees what's in his hand.

"Loki…" She tries to reason, seeing the blade in his hand as he makes a beeline toward her. She wouldn't be so nervous, but recognises the look of determination and fury on his face from the ont attack. Her heart wants to escape her chest, hammering against her ribs painfully as she takes sharp, deep breaths.

Loki lifts her effortlessly, knife in hand, determination still on his face as he meets her eyes. Her eyes are pleading- his are murderous. He lifts the blade to her throat and positions it carefully under her jaw, his body pushing her to the wall of the cabin. She struggles, looking for anything to throw at him, to stop him, but her hands are bound, pulled painfully at an angle.

"Please…" She manages that word, scared that she'd be sick if she said anymore.

Loki looks at her, his chest heaving like before, his breath on her face, uncomfortably close. His other hand holds her face, and without the blade, it would look like some sort of passionate scene. But it is anything but. The warmth of Loki's body against hers is not welcome, but stifling. His hand on her face is not romantic, but controlling as he makes her look at him. The knife to her throat is cold, nicking her skin painfully.

They stay there a minute, Darcy not breaking eye contact with him the entire time, scared that any movement would prompt him to pull the blade across her throat and end her life.

Suddenly, something passes over his face, turning murderous rage to shock, determination to uncertainty. He lets go of her and drops his blade, throwing it across the cabin as he breaks into a dark laugh.

"I knew it." He steps back and lets her out of her restraints. Darcy can't move- her body is frozen in exactly the same position as before, her heartbeat still a steady thrumming. She can't find the words to reply, her mouth dry and gaping open as she looks her captor up and down.

"I knew I couldn't do it." He stops laughing. "I'm weak. Sentimental-"

Loki's pity party is stopped by Darcy throwing herself at him, rugby-tackling him to the ground. She straddles him and throws one of the angriest punches she's ever thrown in her life.

"Asshole!" Loki being Loki, doesn't even feel her punches, and rolls her over with ease and pins her down.

"Go." He says as she struggles underneath him.

"What?" She stops struggling and finally finds her words. What she really wants to do it to pummel the shit out of the joker pinning her down.

"There's no way I can kill you, Darcy Lewis." He scoffs at himself. "Ergo there is no point in you staying here."

"But… you still need the sceptre. Thanos will kill you." She doesn't know why she's trying to talk him out of killing her, but she does it regardless. It earns her a long frown from Loki, who is still an uncomfortable weight on top of her.

"I can hide from him."

"Why the fuck did you even make me think that you were going to kill me?!" She yells at him. He flinches back, and Darcy uses this opportunity to roll back on top of him, hitting him repeatedly. "You know how scared I was?"

She realises her punches are half-hearted and stops, looking down at a spotless Loki below her. Not even a scratch, she notes resentfully.

"It was a test." Loki admits stoically. "I have imagined killing you, Darcy, and even my mind has rebelled. I needed to see whether my body would, too."

"I was a test?" Darcy says as she rolls off Loki onto the floor. "That's cold."

Loki is silent, until she hears him sigh, still laid on the floor exactly where she left him.

"I'm sorry."

"I suppose you're expecting thanks for not killing me?"

"I wouldn't dream of it. You have nothing to be thankful for. I took you from your place by Jane Foster, and now I am letting you go. So go."

"Why didn't you kill me?" Darcy asks curiously. "What makes me so different from anyone else you've killed?"

At her question, Loki rises from the floor and looks at her hard.

"You are a strange Midgardian. You are rude, obnoxious. But at the same time you are quirky, cheerful, open, talkative. Even to someone like me. And your charm has protected you. I have told you things I would have never told anyone else. I have befriended you without my knowledge. I have never thought this hard about someone's death by my own hand."

"You're saying you can't kill me because you're my friend?"

"Do not mock me."

Darcy puts her hands up. "I'm mocking no one. It's just…me and you… friends? Really?"

Loki throws her a look that shuts her up. "Leave."

Darcy grins despite the disgust on Loki's face, and makes a decision she knows she'll regret years from now.

"No." She says resolutely. "You owe me Chinese takeaway and a movie."

"I threaten you with death, rupture my resolve and yet you still wish to stay?"

Darcy raises her eyebrows. "I am a stupid Midgardian, after all."

His look of shock turns to a sly grin as he offers her a hand to shake.

"Deal."

She takes it gladly and smiles.

She doesn't know how they've ended up on the sofa together, watching a projection of Pirates of the Caribbean, Chinese takeaway to hand.

Darcy would have never guessed that hostage day six would end like this, but hopes to god that tomorrow Loki wouldn't try some bat shit attempt to kill her again. She lets her mind wander, shoving Chow Mein in her mouth without abandon, completely oblivious of the look Loki gives her.

He's shocked she's stayed. He expects her to walk out any second, but she remains glued to the projector he's brought in, shovelling food in her mouth. He wants to laugh. Despite the threat of Thanos and his impending death, he has never felt happier. It was amazing what could change in six days, and for once, he's not regretting any of his actions.