Remember that you can follow me in Ao3 now, there are more stories there. I will not update here anymore. Also, if you want, you can follow me on Tumblr! EmStarr-tasertricks. I accept suggestions of all kinds, and if you want to prompt me, I'll see what I can do.

No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man.
Heraclitus

Darcy closed her eyes for a moment, breathing deeply through her nose. The final battle and she had to stay there, doing literally nothing. She had been fighting for a long time just for...Loki to get all macho. But he had a point.
Jane needed her. Her best friend through the years and mother of two beautiful children was there, waiting for her to take them to the refuge and defend them from danger. After all, they were royalty, and just because of that they were in more danger than everybody else. The twins were the promise of Thor's legacy, of Asgard's bright, golden glory, and there were many trying to end them before they could actually rule.
Sighing, she walked towards the entrance of the cave, where Jane, Thyra, and Haldor were waiting for her.
The passage Loki had discovered was damp, cold and awful in every way Darcy could possibly think. It smelled like wet, thick and putrid dirt and it was clearly made for dwarves and not full grown human beings with things to carry around. Jane and she were almost on her knees, but the kids were shorter and therefore more comfortable in the narrow, dimly lit space.
The tunnel soon became wider, and eventually opened to a small space that had two sleeping bags -one of them clearly Asgardian- cans and boxes of food, bottles of water and some oil lamps. Darcy remembered she'd had to bite her tongue -literally- to avoid confrontation when he sneered at her perfectly functional fluorescent lights in favor of his golden Asgardian lamps...that needed oil. It was actually funny to see Loki not admitting that his lamps were not the best that could happen to them.
There she was, going back to...those memories that made her feel weird.
Well, what was she thinking? That because they wrote letters to each other they had a special, like, connection or something? Some kind of bond? For God's sake, she wasn't fifteen! Besides, the world was ending. She had more important things to do.

Soon enough, Jane had managed to put the twins into the sleeping bags and they were whispering to each other in Asgardian, or ask Thor would call it, the Nordic Tongue. Loki had made sure that no one could hear them from the outside, so Darcy was relieved. She wasn't sure about the kids being able to shut up in a situation like that.
"Thank you, Darcy," Jane said, her words quiet and sad. She was sitting on the floor, near the entrance, her skinny arms bracing her knees and her chin resting on them. She looked just like any other woman forced to stay away during a war: tired, anxious, and afraid. Darcy was positive she looked the same, although a little more trained than her friend.
"You are welcome. It was nothing, really."
"It wasn't nothing." Jane countered, still not looking at Darcy.
"It was. You are my friend. And we fight for kids like yours, so they can grow up free."
Jane laughed weakly.
"I don't think they will easily forget this day. The entire universe is going to change forever, and there's nothing we can do about it. Cultures will be lost, traditions will be forgotten. We'll have to rebuild everything and it's not going to be the same."
Darcy sighed, sitting down next to her. She rested her head against the stone and put an arm around Jane's shoulders.
"I know. But...Jane, nothing can ever stay the same. It's like Heraclitus said...uh, that quote about the river, that you change and the river changes and there's nothing we can do about it?"
Jane was frowning and her eyes were full of tears, but she managed a small smile.
"Sometimes I feel like…" Jane sniffed. "Like this is my fault, ya know? Like, if I hadn't been obsessed with...Einstein-Rosen bridges and all that….stuff...if I hadn't been so eager to prove myself in the science field, to prove to all those misogynistic assholes that I was right…"
Darcy frowned, and when she spoke, her words were firm.
"No, Jane. Stop right there. Listen to me. You wanting to discover amazing things has nothing to do with all the shit that came after. I'd say you helped because you made us stronger. Your activity did not cause the world to enter this stupid war. Thanos did that, all by himself, because he is fucking crazy and for some reason needs to destroy the universe. He doesn't have a smither of kindness or good in him, and we all know it. You just wanted to be a scientist and that is fine, it's more than fine actually. Thor falling from the sky in New Mexico? It would have happened all the same. Loki in his batshit state? It would have happened too. So, if you hadn't tried to follow your dreams, you would be a frustrated young woman...dealing with the end of the world all the same. Don't speak bullshit, you have three degrees and two kids, and you are a princess. You are one of the most intelligent human beings I have ever met, you know your value."
"But, Darcy, you...what about your dreams? You abandoned them." Her friend asked, already crying. Darcy grinned to herself. She often was asked the same question.
"Yeah. I kinda had some goals -including becomin' the president of the US- but instead, I ended up working as an intergalactic spy. That's how things went at the end. It was necessary, and besides, I got to travel the universe and know a lot of interesting beings, so I can't really complain."
Jane shot her an incredulous look.
"You didn't want to fight, Darcy." She stated.
Darcy mulled over the thought. "I know. It's actually a little funny when you think about it, ya know? That someone like me, all full of...ideas about the world and peace and ecology and everything would end up having to kill another being just because we are supposed to be enemies. It took me some time to...assimilate it, I guess. A long time, actually. It is to kill or to be killed. And, to me, it was part of the life I ended up choosing. I couldn't just...ignore it. You were already deeply involved in the conflict, and I felt ...useless. So I trained. I for sure wasn't thinking about all the death that followed, but it is part of me now. I accepted it as the consequences of my choices, and if I had to make it all over again, I would. I would always choose to fight. And in the process, I met space people! And Loki."
Listening to her final words, Jane took a deep breath, like someone getting ready to jump into the water. Darcy knew what was coming.
"So, Loki…"
There was a moment of silence in which Darcy didn't know if she wanted to cry or to laugh. Perhaps it was worth to talk about it and distract Jane. Darcy knew that she was only in the cave because she loved her kids more than anything in the world, but Jane actually had no self-preservation, and if she wasn't distracted she could go outside and try battle. And boy, she wasn't ready for it. So the ex-intern, actual best friend of Jane Foster decided to just throw her caution to the wind and talk about feelings.
"He called me his best friend, a while ago. I felt so fucking disappointed, and dude, I hate to even think about it. All my defenses are going up like crazy. I mean...I've made poor life choices before, but this is just over the top."
"I think Loki is not that bad. Not anymore." Darcy groaned.
"Oh Jane I know, but you know he's really complicated to be with. I mean, we get along really well and have tons of fun and we are actually a great team, and he never tries to unnecessarily protect me..except for today. But he's an alien."
"Thor's an alien too." Jane pointed out. "And we had to work a lot in our relationship. Yes, it is not easy to...get used to each other's time, and spaces, and traditions...but you manage. It wasn't overly hard either, just a little more strange. I mean, it wasn't a morning talk about how the love of your life leaves the toothpaste cap open, but...we managed. And we barely knew each other. You and Loki do. You've been working together for a long time, you've been there a lot for him."
"Yeah, but...he's immortal."
"You're making this stuff up because you're panicked about committing yourself to someone."
"Well, yeah? He's Loki! We're at war!"
Jane shrugged, but when she was about to speak, Thyra started tossing and turning in her sleep and she stood up and went to attend her daughter.
"I'm gonna go watch the entrance of the cave," Darcy announced, and the answer was a single nod of Jane's head.
Almost crawling in order to get out of the refuge, trying to be as silent as possible, Darcy recognized to herself that she was scared to face her own feelings. So much for being a fighter and a Gryffindor.
Once she reached the entrance of the cavern, she just sat there, in the absolute darkness, listening with all her might. If someone broke the perimeter of the protective spell Darcy would know, but nonetheless, the darkness made her overly alert of her surroundings.
Her senses stretched out like tensioned ropes, almost trembling, picking out each and every wet drop hitting the floor, the humid air, the slightest of breezes from the outside, the coldness of her Glock, attached safely to her side.
When she checked her clock, an entire hour had passed, and it was about time for her to step out the cave and find Loki. She had wrapped her mind around the possibility of dying in battle a long time ago, and she wasn't scared of it. Funny that she was more frightened by the possibility of love than death.
Still silent as a mouse, she put on her black hood, withdrew the safety catch on her pistol and started walking. Jane already knew Darcy wasn't going to come back once she left her, and they had sworn to each other not to interfere in battle decisions. They respected each other too much to think they were going to be unnecessarily risky. Like when Jane decided to have her babies even when everyone on Earth told her she was going to give up her career.
Darcy had never even thought about having children, and she was almost thirty. Would she be a good mother? What kind of mother? Was she even allowed to have children?
She could smell the smoke even before seeing the light of the exterior, and her heart started beating faster. She took a black oxygen mask that covered her mouth and nose and that she had bought in Vanaheim years ago when the war had barely begun. She had learned the bad way that smoke could suffocate you really fast. Crawling and trying not to accidentally shoot herself in the leg, she approached the entrance of the cave.
Darcy could hear nothing outside, not even the sound of the trees being moved by the breeze.
That, itself, was far scarier than the loud, bloody sound of battle.
When she finally got to see the exterior, her knees gave out under her.
The cave had been in the middle of the most enchanted, oldest forest of Asgard: Skog. Its millenary trees had provided food and refuge to many peasants once the war caused a shortage of food in the planet. It was almost a sacred place because Asgardians loved nature and worshiped no other gods.
Before Darcy's horrified blue eyes stretched out a black wasteland.