Welp, last chapter. Let me know what you think! Hope this has been enjoyable. I know my English is not the best, mainly because I'm not a native speaker, but I'm trying to get better at it.

This moment is your life.

Omar Khayyam

"Thank you for bringing me here, Loki" Darcy could barely stand on her own two feet, and Loki wasn't in better shape.

Malargüe hadn't been touched by war. The desert extended in front of them for thousands of miles, untouched. Untainted. The sun was up, the trailer was there, Jane's equipment was shining under the light...it was almost surreal.

"It was nothing", he dismissed her words.

Darcy didn't answer. Her hands were trembling. She needed something to do, fast.

"Okay, um... do you have to come back right now?" she asked, her voice unsure.

"The families in Asgard are reuniting. I imagine Thor will arrange funerals for the dead in a few hours. Meanwhile, I have nothing to do." He stated without looking into her eyes.

Darcy examined him carefully. His hair was disheveled and dirty, his armor dented, and he had blood in his hands.

"Let's go. We'll get cleaned up. It's a very small place to be in, but...I can't go to a city right now. I need a few hours." Loki nodded, and they both went into the trailer.

Thanks to Darcy, things were in order. The bed was made, the kitchen was clean and there was food in the refrigerator.

"You can shower first", she offered with a tired smile. "I'll eat something. I have no clothes for you..."

"Don't worry, Darcy. I have clothes in my pocket dimension, and healing stones as well. I think you will need one for that wound." Loki pointed at her arm.

She agreed and turned around to open the fridge. There were some rice, cooked hamburgers, and fried potatoes. Not much, but there was also coffee, and she needed coffee.

Her injury was starting to hurt really bad, and her brain wasn't entirely there yet. The shower started to run and she sat down and ate the food without even heating it in the microwave.

Five minutes later, the shower stopped and Loki came out. His hair was now wet, shiny and slightly curly.

"I always suspected that under those ignominious amounts of hair gel you had curls," Darcy observed.

He smiled and opened the fridge, finding food and helping himself to it. He had learned that from all the years traveling from Earth to Asgard. He had learned many things, actually, but the biggest changes were noticeable in the way he moved. He had stopped being an arrogant prick, as Thor, the other arrogant prick, liked to say. Actually, their time on Earth had changed them both to be more tolerable, merciful and intelligent in different ways. She just hoped Asgard would be prepared for that change.

"Go shower, and when you come back I'll heal that arm." Loki started eating, and Darcy grabbed clothes from the drawer and went into the bathroom. When she closed the door, the space seemed too little, but she tried to breathe deeply. The humidity in the air made her cough.

She stripped off her battle attire. Underneath it, there were bruises, tender places and little cuts that did not bleed.

The hot water made her knees buckle and her skin sore, but it did wonders for her mind.

It seemed like a really long time in that other world, warm, small and comfortable that was the bathroom. In reality, it was only fifteen minutes, and she walked out feeling a bit better. Loki was sitting on the couch, and she sat down next to him. Crushing a healing stone between his fingers, Loki cured her arm.

Then, the trembling started.

Her entire body was shaking uncontrollably, her teeth chattering and her hands unable to grab the cup of coffee Loki had made her.

"I...cannot stop shaking," she said in horror. "I just..."

Loki embraced her and started caressing her hair.

"Don't worry" he murmured against her ear, "this is a good sign."

"If it is a good sign, then why the fuck are you not trembling like me?" she asked. He chuckled and the rich, low sound vibrated in his chest. Darcy could feel it against her. She closed her eyes.

"It will come. Only later."

After a while, the shaking faded away and she was left too tired to move. Loki was soft and warmer than usual. She hid her face in his chest and he rested his chin on top of her head. By then, she was embracing him.

"Thank you" Darcy whispered. She raised her eyes to find his completely focused on her, with an undecipherable expression. Affection, maybe. And maybe something more. Following an instinct older than her, Darcy closed her eyes and kissed him on the lips. It was beautiful. It felt right. It was something she had wanted to do for a long time, and she realized she had just been denying to herself and to everyone the truth about their relationship. His lips moved over hers in a slow caress that made her heart race. Then his tongue was exploring her mouth, delicately but not unsure. She sighed and relaxed in his arms, her mind drifting away from her, all images of war gone. No words had been exchanged, but both of them knew that that was the last time they would see each other in a long time. Darcy was staying on earth, and Loki had to go to Asgard. They came from different worlds, and now they had to rebuild them.

At some point, she moved until he was on top of her and then took off his shirt. Her hands moved over his chest and his back, enjoying the smoothness of his skin under her fingers. He groaned in her neck and bit it in response.

"You are a very good kisser, Loki" she whispered in his ear. His hands explored underneath her shirt, his long fingers caressing just under her breasts.

"You are the most beautiful creature I have ever laid my eyes on" he responded, his voice broken. His mouth descended from her neck to her shoulder, but then he stopped and asked if he could take her shirt off. There was no answer from her: she had taken off her shirt and bra, and he was left speechless for a moment, admiring the perfect curves of her body. So feminine, and yet so strong. She had saved his life more than once. Some of the scars that marked her body he could remember, and others he could not. They had shared years and years of missions together, and still, he did not know half of what he wanted to know about her. But then, Darcy distracted him by wrapping her legs around him and making his erection press against her body.

"Please", she begged. "Make love to me."

She wasn't ashamed of the words. Both knew that they were not only having sex. The feeling was completely different. She was giving herself to him, and he was doing the same to her.

"I have never been able to say no to you."

She laughed when he vanished her pants and underwear, and his own in the process.

"Magic is so wonderful", her blue eyes were sparkling with joy, and he laughed at her phrase. She was perfect. There could be no other being in the entire Universe like her. Darcy understood him in ways that nobody would ever even try to know.

They moved against each other with a slow, sensual pace, and he moaned in pleasure. Not able to resist her anymore, Loki entered her in one soft stroke. The pleasure flooded them both and Darcy gasped and closed her eyes. Loki bit her lip and she kissed him deeply, making him forget everything around them. Even the fact that they had never moved to the bed.

She grabbed his hair and moved her hips, and the pace started to increase gradually, becoming fast and urgent. The sensations became too much, no words except each other's names on their lips.

Darcy reached her climax first, with her body arched and pressed against his, her eyes fixated on Loki's. Then, he followed. A long, all-consuming wave of pleasure made his body shudder.

One hour later, they were still naked and entangled with each other. Loki tugged on one of her locks.

"What happened with Thanos?" Asked Darcy. Loki was tempted to distract her with his hands but stopped himself. Some things needed to be spoken.

"I never got to kill him. Odin got there first." He said thoughtfully.

"Odin?" Darcy was baffled.

"Yes. I...I got to see it, but he would not let me help him." Then, the truth spilled from his lips, unstoppable like a storm. "Odin told Thanos that he would never have me again. That I was his son, and that he had done enough damage. I...tried to pass his magic barrier, but he did not let me. Neither could Thor, Odin wanted us out of that fight. Thanos smiled... and said that I once had yielded my will and that he would do it all again. He told Odin that I was a delicious...toy. Those were his exact words. And while he was talking and saying all these terrible and true things about me, Odin trapped him in his magic and slowly choked him to death. Thanos never really understood Asgardian magic, to him only the Infinity Stones were weapons, so he had no real defense against my father, not with the stones powering his army and far from his reach. All of Thanos soldiers then tried to attack Odin, but we managed, Thor, me and the Einherjar. None of them could touch him. After that, magic depleted and weak, Odin went to the palace to try and rescue the servants trapped under the debris. He never came out, but we thought...we thought that maybe he had stayed in there, helping the wounded."

Against herself, Darcy felt a sense of loss for the death of the king of Asgard. He had a terrible death, betrayed by a Vanir woman. Frigga had been Vanir, and it was probably why the woman could kill him so easily. At the end, his own compassion had been the cause of his redemption and his death. And somehow she had avenged him. She had never believed in Fate, but sometimes she wondered if there was an entity that mocked them in their lives. She, who had never felt sympathy for Odin, had avenged his death. Loki, who had always sought revenge against Thanos, could not have it. His adoptive father had taken the matter into his own hands. The father Loki never thought would give a damn about him.

"He wasn't all that bad then," she said, and Loki laughed against her and buried his face in her neck.

"No. He was not." He admitted with a low voice.

Midday was approaching and with it, their inevitable goodbye.

Reluctantly, Darcy sat on the couch and showered one more time. When she came out Loki was already dressed and waiting for her.

"We will see each other again." He stated with his usual confidence. Darcy did not feel so sure.

"When we...when this is all sorted out." She said.

"Yes. When this is sorted out and we regain some sense of normalcy in our lives, I will find you."

She felt her heart break. His time would never be the same as hers. Perhaps she would die before seeing him one more time. He had all the time in the world, and she, not so much.

"Yes." Tears were pricking her eyes again.

Loki smiled.

"I haven't seen you like this since that episode with your hair. I am glad that I matter that much." He joked with a light tone.

"You matter a lot more than this stupid hair." She affirmed with a teary laugh. The tears never left her eyes. " I would chop it off entirely if it meant I got to see you every day."

He kissed her with force then, with passion, and she could feel his pain for leaving her, for the war, for the destruction, for the loss of his father, for his mistakes. When they stopped, his eyes were suspiciously brilliant.

"I have enchanted your bag to take you to New York."

"Thank you, Loki." She said. "Now, go."

Moments after, he disappeared. The usual smell of leather and magic was gone with him.

"We will always have Malargüe", whispered Darcy to the landscape. Perhaps it was not as good as Paris, and maybe she wasn't as beautiful as Ingrid Bergman, but she would not forget those moments.

With a deep, tired sigh, Darcy grabbed her last weapons and clothing, touched her bag and disappeared, leaving the trailer opened, Jane's equipment under the sun and the desert alone.

Stark Tower was a complete chaos, but Darcy knew where to find the Avengers. The elevator took her to the top of the Tower, and when the doors opened she found them. However, her blood froze when she saw the scene in front of her eyes. Tony Stark laid in the middle of the room, surrounded by the rest of the team. His eyes were closed and he was still in his Iron Man suit. In the center of his body, the armor was broken and burnt. He seemed asleep, but Darcy knew better. Everyone stared at her when a gasp left her lips.

"There was nothing we could do. It was instantaneous." Steve said, and he was crying. He and Tony had recently moved past her differences.

Darcy kneeled at Tony's side and prayed, for the last time in her life, that Iron Man, her fictional father and dear friend, could rest in peace. She knew he had never found real peace while alive, and she could only hope he would if there was life after death. Her chest hurt almost physically, but her eyes were dry of tears.

When a scream pierced her ears, Darcy turned around to see Pepper. She looked older, mostly because her relationship with Tony had ended years ago and Darcy had never seen her again after that. However, everyone knew that they still loved each other. It was just too complicate for them to be together, but after Pepper left, Tony never even flirted with another woman.

The room emptied slowly, leaving Pepper crying with Tony. Hours later the woman appeared in the common room of the Avengers, her eyes red and puffy and her voice a little broken, but in business mode. She informed them that Tony had left half his fortune to the Avengers. Pepper had inherited Stark Industries.

"And here," said the red-haired woman with a sad smile, "It says that 'Miss Darcy Lewis, my fictional daughter, and funniest friend by far, will have the right to ten percent of Stark Industries economical gains.' The rest will go to charities and science promoting institutes. He wants a scholarship for young people with interest in technology. Wanted." Finished Pepper, correcting herself.

Darcy gaped. Suddenly, she was rich. Growing up with the right amount of money to survive the month, and sometimes not even that, had made her value money. However, she found herself desiring fiercely to be living off the minimum wage if Tony could come back to life.

Nick Fury was also dead, and Darcy sensed that he had been hard to kill. Only later she found out that he was killed by one of Thanos minions, Nebula, and that killing him had cost her life as well.

With Fury gone, the head of SHIELD was Coulson. After he gave her new orders, Darcy walked home.

Or what was left of it.

Her house, that she loved so much, was burned to the ground. There was nothing for her in there. Not even her parents' picture could be saved. Not even her plants or her books. Her best clothing was gone. There were even some books of Loki that were completely torn apart. She walked amongst the ruins for a while, trying to find something to carry with her, something that made her feel like she had belonged in that place. But there were only ashes.

When she dropped the news to Coulson, she expected some cold order. Instead, he flew by minutes later and stood there with her, staring at what once had been her house.

"I have a place where you can live." He said.

"I will not live in the Tower."

"No. But you are not the only agent without a house right now. You will have to share it with three other people, but it is going to be a place to sleep."

"Okay."

Hours later, she realized she still had the necklace he had given her.

She ended up living in an airplane. The Bus, they called it.

The first two months passed in a blurry. Every day they were given food, blankets, candles and water and they carried it to the places with the most destruction, houses that were being rebuilt, places where people could not access to the basic services. SHIELD had temporarily abandoned all other missions in favor of aiding the ones affected by the war. And there were millions of them. With all that action Darcy stopped seeing the Avengers and became a workaholic. She slept barely two hours per night and woke up from terrible nightmares. She usually lost her voice in the next few hours, and sometimes she shook again like she was made of jelly.

A year went by, and Darcy did not contact anyone from Asgard. She just couldn't. Thor hadn't come back to Earth, and she understood. He was the king of Asgard now, not an Avenger. And while Darcy knew first hand he would rather be an Avenger, she also knew he was not going to avoid his royal duties when his people needed him more than ever. She trusted Loki was behaving as well.

Another year quickly passed and one fateful Darcy was carried into the Bus with burning fever and convulsing. They gave her sedatives and after she slept a few hours, Coulson dropped by.

"I do not want to see you", she stated. Her body ached all over, but at least she was warmer than hours ago and not fucking freezing. Or being epileptic.

"Oh, that is to be expected from you. Agent May says you are exerting yourself. Have been for a long time."

Darcy raised her eyebrows.

"Me? Exerting myself? Look, Coulson, there are people dying out there, without homes, people who have lost family, and I am here, wrapped in blankets and drugged and completely healthy. I want to go back outside. You need my help."

The director of SHIELD composed his signature smirk, and Darcy wanted to tear his eyes out.

"You are not going back to work. Not now. Things have gotten much better out there. The world is pretty united now, but I doubt you've seen any of that since you don't watch or read or listen to the news."

"People are dying, Coulson."

"Yes. And we have a lot of healthy people to help them. You need to recover before you die."

Darcy laughed loudly.

"I am not dying! It was just a fever."

"And seizures."

"Sei...no! I always tremble. It's normal. I am a trembling person. Call me Jelly-woman or whatever. Just..let me go back out there."

Coulson sighed tiredly. He had known many people like her over the years, and the only way to make them process their own grief was to force them to be somewhere they could not escape their thoughts.

"Here's is the thing. The war lasted what, five years?" Darcy nodded. "And in those years you never really stopped working. And now, two years later, you are still working. Some people would call you heroic, but I call you stupid. You are stupid for not resting. Everyone needs to rest-

"There are people outside that can't rest because their homes are destroyed-

"I know. And we are going to help them. People donate every day, and there's not a single family completely alone. Now, you are going to rest. And I don't mind forcing you to do it. You are going to Hawaii and until I see you are completely recovered, you are not going to come back to work."

Darcy tried to protest, but Coulson's look was serious.

"Why Hawaii?" She finally asked.

"Because it is a magical place." Coulson winked and left the room.

The island was a property of SHIELD and the only human contact she had was the guy that brought her food and water every day and was probably scared out of his mind when he saw her furious eyes staring at him.

She spent two weeks inside her cabin, not even trying to go did not want to feel the sun, did not want to swim and certainly did not want to explore the island. Instead, she found security cameras in the front door and yelled at them innumerable threats. Nobody answered and she ended up breaking them with a rolling pin. Pathetic.

On the third week, she conquered her fears and walked to the beach. She sat there the entire afternoon, watching crabs get into and out of the water.

The sun started to sink into the sea in a fiery glory, and Darcy found out that sunsets hadn't changed. They were still beautiful.

She stayed there until the sky was covered in stars, and when she recognized some constellations, the tears just did not stop.

If she had just fought better. If she had saved more people. If she could have been there for all the broken families. All the if's she had been avoiding ran down on her. She wept for Tony, with his brown, brilliant eyes, and his sad soul. The soul of a genius. She missed his pretentious mustache. His laughter. She missed her parents. She missed her beautiful house in New York. She missed seeing Jane, and the twins, and Thor. She missed laughing with Loki and exchanging books. She felt guilty for being tired. For having had a breakdown. For not having killed Thanos herself. For hating Hawaii and loving it at the same time. For trembling every night. She cried until her eyes were red and she was thirsty, with her mouth tasting the salt of her tears.

That night, she went back to the cabin and slept deeply until the afternoon of the next day. She ate something and fell back asleep, waking up the following morning.

She actually felt better when she rose up from the bed that second day. Something had lifted from her chest. She was really hungry, for the first time in years.

When the man with food ringed the doorbell she smiled at him. It was weird, because it was a real smile, and she'd only had fake or compassionate ones to give all that time.

Of course, the man seemed even more scared than before. Maybe she was smiling like Terminator when he was learning to be more human with Connor. Maybe her smile had become just a row of teeth with no expression at all. She hoped not.

After eating lunch Darcy put on her bikini and went for a swim in the sea. Not that she was a great swimmer, but at least her body would have something to do.

However, on her way out she stopped by a mirror and examined herself.

Her body was exceptionally skinny. She had barely eaten the necessary to survive the past twenty-four months, and it showed. There were scars on her belly, her arms and her legs. Most of them had been on missions, but there was one above her knee that her mother had cured when she fell out a bike. The scar on her arm reminded her of Loki. His beautiful hair, chaotic when not combed back with gel, and his smile, scarcely given. His sense of humor and his broken and later repaired soul. Darcy wondered if he still went to Eir after the final battle. She never knew if Eir survived, but she had the hope that the woman was still around, healing people. If that was the case, maybe Loki still talked to her. Maybe even Thor and Jane had started treatment.

The short walk to the beach was thoroughly enjoyed by Darcy. The sea was shining under the sun, the birds were singing and some monkeys were staring at her from the top of the palm trees. She suddenly ran, jumped into the water and scared the fish that were peacefully swimming.

She spent the rest of the day there, and it felt good.

When the stars shone above her, she came out of the water.

She was drying her hair when she smelled it.

Magic.

Slowly, thinking that perhaps she had gone mad, Darcy turned around.

But Loki was actually standing a few meters away from her.

His hair was shorter. He had a sort of boyish look that Darcy did not buy for a second. His white tunic made him look hippie-ish, especially with the black pants and the bare feet. Darcy did not buy that either, though it was funny. His eyes glinted in the night, and she felt her breath hitch at the sight of him. How different he seemed from the first Loki she had seen, and even from the last. Different, but definitely Loki. Mischievous, cunning, broken but whole. Unique.

"I changed my mind about Ginny Weasley." His voice was thick with emotion.

"Oh. You did?" Darcy was rooted to her spot, unable to do anything but stare at him.

"Yes. She is perfect for Harry Potter, and after the war, the best they could do was to start a relationship."

"Really?" Apparently, her brain could not manage more than a few words at the time.

"No", he laughed. "But Harry will never find a better girl for himself than Ginny. She rescued him from his own mind."

There was a moment of silence on the beach when the God of Lies fell to the ground, impacted by Darcy's tackle.

That night, embraced tightly by Loki's body, feeling his breathing and the beating of his heart surrounding her, Darcy found peace.

The golden apple of Iddun's garden would come a year later, after the wedding. And then, eternity.

THE END