Refusing Silverware

Achievement 8: Just Eat It

"It is a travesty when two hearts at different intervals in life, find each other. And although they would otherwise be perfect for each other, they can't be together for the timing isn't right."

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Author's Note: Yay! So glad I was able to work on this sooner than later. Darcy has been having fun with being a muse lately. I certainly hope you all enjoy the chapter and review! Thank you!

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It had only been a week but Loki craved those cupcakes more and more each day. He wondered if Darcy knew the magic that she wove into her baked concoctions. The magic he sensed was something dormant, only prevalent when it came to the cupcakes. Perhaps she had a gifted baker in her family history, one that Frigga had taken a liking to. He doubted it with the way she handled herself. The Avengers had commented on how he must have had a fight since he was no longer taking his evening stroll that SHIELD and Stark allotted him, not that they could really limit him if they hadn't been given the knowledge of the threads that his father had sewn into his skin. Runes of glowing green string were embroidered into his chest and along his shoulders, containing the spell that bound him to his brother's whims, including that of protecting and obeying others at his brother's command.

Anything requiring heavily physical activities left him breathless at the end of the day. Thor had begged Odin to not use the enchanted threading on Loki, instead wanting Odin to bind Loki in a way that he had bound Thor during his banishment. Loki had nearly laughed his head off at such a joke in the large throne room with his mother's face turning more and more upset at his laughter. It was all a terribly written play. The play still was enacted though and it left him to Midgard and the devices of a whole slew of foolish humans that were barely out of their diapers.

Watching the fan's shadow that swirled lazily in its circular motion, Loki thought upon the tiny mortal he was protecting. It was something that was out of the ordinary for him. Darcy's death wouldn't affect him. Her capture would be an annoyance, especially if Enchantress tried to bring it up around the Avengers. He could very well deal without their smug looks and Thor's enthusiasm of the two of them falling for mere mortals.

He frowned. He didn't have to even protect her secret. He really didn't, but he had given his word, to which Darcy was holding him to. He narrowed his green eyes at that thought. If he was to be honest to himself, Darcy Lewis was a relief in the sea of humans too afraid or awestruck by him. She bantered, acted bravely enough to willingly annoy him, and he enjoyed every bit of it.

The schism between them was something he found unbecoming. The first day after he warded her apartment, he felt such anger directed at him through the bond of the spell that he chose to not go to the diner, instead going directly back to the prison cell of an apartment that Thor and his friends kept him in. Since then, he used his bond with her to feel how she was reacting. There was moments of apathy, anger, frustration beyond any comprehension, and lastly, there was a small amount of regret. He didn't understand why she felt any of that to be honest. She was without jailors. She could run and hide from him if she wanted to and he would be left with only the barest of threads connecting them.

She could leave him be and he would find her wiser to do so. There was a loud vibrating noise on the night stand by his bed. He glanced over to see the beeper, the thing he had misdirected her attention to when he was warding her as well. His heart jumped as it continued to vibrate against the grain of the wood before stopping completely. Loki rubbed his chest at the jump of his heart, feeling the words of his father's embroidery rub against his skin, uncertain if he should reach over and see the phone number.

Knowing that curiosity would only get the better of him eventually, the sorcerer rolled to his side and picked up the beeper. Her number was there. His mouth dried up while he reached for the bond between them. For some reason, he felt excitement, fear, anxiety, and a tiny bit of hope. Loki blinked to himself. She was hoping for him, after this week of anger? The feeling was strange to him. She didn't really know him, not in the sense that she should have hope for him at all. He was nothing more to her than an obstruction to her lifestyle of keeping out of SHIELD's public eye. Her cupcakes had caused him to forgo her comfort and take in his selfish want of home as there was nothing else in this world that could remind him of the only person who he knew loved him.

Looking at the number on the beeper again, the trickster smiled to himself. Who was he to disappoint?

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"Caroline, I'm going to kill you." Darcy reached for the phone in Caroline's outstretched hand. It sucked being so much shorter than the tall model-like woman. The blonde was laughing, having already dialed the number to contact Mr. Tall, Dark, and Handsome. Caroline easily danced out of Darcy's range, a teasing smirk on her lips.

"Look, Max, you needed a kick in the ass. He gave you his beeper number." She laughed as the brunette waitress lunged for the phone again, as if it would take back the fact that Caroline had called the number already. Darcy knew it wouldn't, but if only Caroline hadn't learned that she had memorized the number and agonized over whether or not she should actually try to repair their weird relationship.

"Yeah, like a drug dealer, okay!" Darcy finally gave up with a huff, crossing her arms in front of her as she started to imagine a burning hole in Caroline's blue-eyed face from how angry at her friend she was. Darcy knew that Caroline was trying to be well-meaning, but well-meaning with Caroline could potentially be dangerous because the blonde sometimes did not think her actions through, even worse than Darcy did nowadays.

"More like a booty call." Caroline stuck a tongue out at Darcy, cheekily, enjoying the flush of color on Darcy's face with teasing pleasure. For Caroline, this was for all the times that Darcy would tease her about her hook-ups, though Caroline would admit that if she had Darcy's hook up, or whatever he was, that she wouldn't mind the teasing.

"W-We're not like that!" Flustered, Darcy sputtered out her indignation for her to imagine Loki being more than non-touchable eye candy would destroy her barely held in inhibitions. Cherry red in the face, Darcy began furiously wiping one of the many stains that everyone who worked at Han's diner knew would never come out.

"I could be your booty call but my sweet Sophie has me instead." Oleg's meaty oily visage leaned out of his kitchen window as Caroline settled in the stool beside Darcy, leaning her weight on her elbows on the counter behind her. His cheerful accent did nothing to abate Darcy's embarrassment at the hands of her friend.

"Shut up, Oleg!" "Ew, Oleg." Caroline looked over her shoulder with disgust on her face and a gagging sound coming from her immediately from reflex. Darcy glared at Oleg as he grinned widely, waving his fingers rapidly back and forth. The intense nausea from what his fingers detailed in innuendo was enough for Darcy Lewis to want to lose her lunch, not that she had had time for one in the first place.

"Anyway, you keep baking his cupcakes and he hasn't eaten them." The snapping of Caroline's daintily painted fingers, ones that she had gotten after making nice with the Chinese lady in the apartment on the bottom floor who was also a nail artist, caught Darcy's attention from the creeping feeling that today was just going to go sideways. (Not that it hadn't already happened just yet.)

"So?" She grumbled, looking down at the spot with almost envy written in her eyes. That spot would offend Loki. It would offend him and he would look away in disgust, the same disgust that Darcy had felt when he thought her place was the worst, that she was the worst. With a vengeance, Darcy started scrubbing harder and harder.

"Max. I know he's a colossal dick, but he's probably a doctor. Maybe that's why he gave you a pager number and totes doesn't understand the entire being dirt poor thing." Caroline frowned in the way that people who try too much do and all their plans have failed. To her, Max was a grouch and completely a cup is half empty if she even had a cup that didn't have a crack in it and Max deserved something good, maybe fleeting, but at least something good, even if that something was the hot potential that liked cupcakes so much he wanted to enjoy them in quiet. Her fingers came to rest on Max's tensed arm, stilling her scrubbing.

"He insulted me, Caroline. I have more pride than to let him." Eyes still on the rag in her tight grip, Darcy whispered softly to her friend, under the din of the diner's usual closing sounds with Earl counting the till, the crappy music Han liked to try to create a better atmosphere for a diner so broken down that the health inspector had to be paid off by the mafia for it stay open. (Darcy had a feeling the mafia had an underground bunker in the freezer as the freezer was just way too tiny for a diner their size.)

"Sometimes," Caroline gave a heavy sigh, intently thinking upon the brunette's sense of self. "I think you have too much pride, Max." The tips of Caroline's manicured nails left Darcy's coiled arm, letting the brunette continue her scouring without interruption.

"Really? Gonna play that card, Princess?" Snorting in derision and rolling her eyes to herself at the hypocrisy of Caroline Channing, ultimate one-time princess of New York City, Darcy moved to a different spot at the counter, still facing away from the front of the diner. The want to roughly remove any dirty detail was a desire she couldn't find herself wanting to squelch.

"Yup. Now, I know you brought cupcakes for him tonight." Caroline's chirping voice interrupted Darcy's gloom as she could feel apprehension rise up from the bottom of her feet to her legs, crawling up at the mention of the cupcakes that she had made tonight.

"I really don't think he wants them." Darcy groaned out as she watched Caroline move off the counter seat to go behind the counter where Darcy had stealthily tried to hide her delicious treat concoctions. Darcy bit her lip as the blonde waitress brought out the large container that obscured the top of the cupcakes from view. When Caroline looked up, her blue eyes went wide.

"Max." Her voice trailed off as she gaped at something that was behind Darcy Lewis. Trepidation did little to warm her nerves, rattling them as the feeling of something powerful behind her emerged.

"Oh god, he's here, isn't he?" Darcy whimpered out. Caroline nodded slowly with a soft 'Yup!' coming from between her chap stick pink lips. His scent introduced him and if that scent was not the absolute smell of seduction at its finest, Darcy would sell her soul to the devil to make it so. (Not that she hadn't technically already done so.) Her legs practically quivered at the slight brush of his scarf having hit the back of her lower thighs. He was close.

"Pray tell, Ms. Black, why would I not want the dozen cupcakes from the best baker in all of New York City?" His voice was even closer. Darcy wanted to damn it all ten ways from hell because sometimes she really couldn't handle him, though she tried. He was liquid silk in humanoid form. What was there to not like?

"Since you're both acquainted again, I'll make sure Oleg doesn't make an appearance." Caroline stepped away from the container of cupcakes and Darcy's frantic look for help. She hadn't been ready for this. She had wanted Loki to ignore the phone call to his beeper. She had hoped to all the gods that he would look at it and toss it to the side. Well, the one god behind her ignored that plea. Caroline had gone into the kitchen with Oleg, cautiously trying to avoid touching the sleazy cook as best as she could, not just because Oleg could benefit from a sexual harassment course, but also because the sweat of kitchen work and greasy diner food stuck to him with the force of a magnet with opposite ends. Both of them looked through the window, with a rag in each of their hands as they pretended to be cleaning the counter window with thin scrutiny.

"You're not hiding in the window of the kitchen well enough, Caroline." Darcy growled at her coworker, having left her to the figurative wolf of business clothes and good fashion sense behind her. A soft ahem broke her concentration on trying to mentally set the kitchen on fire behind Oleg.

"Ms. Black, I believe I did not receive an answer from you." Loki's soft lilting voice confirmed all of her suspicions about herself. She was probably fighting a losing battle with herself as far as Loki's sexiness was concerned. He was a living Calvin Klein model and frankly, she very physically liked it. His eyes caused her heart to go ten million miles per minute and his voice should cover audio books like Jarvis. Taking in a shaky deep breath, Darcy lifted the hand with the dirty rag and shook it at him.

"Just," She took another steadying breath, getting herself in full control of the confrontation that was surely going to happen. She was defeated. Her pride had died with Caroline beeping him like a robotic siren. "Go over there and I'll get your sweets." She heard more than felt him move away to the booth he normally chose to sit in. Darcy gave a glare of promised murder to Caroline and Oleg who were both giving her thumbs up. She was going to kill them.

Glancing down at the covered cupcakes, Darcy decided to herself that it was better to jump off this proverbial bridge before she thought about what exactly she was about to do. She took off the cover of the platter of cupcakes, ignoring the gasps of Oleg and Caroline as they both saw what type of cupcakes she had made. Giving a big fake smile, one Han would even tip her for, Darcy lifted the platter in the air and started forward until she reached Loki's table. Setting down the plate of cupcakes, Loki's smile slightly deflated as he eyed the platter.

"What...is...this?" He leaned over the delicious sweet treats with a firmly raised eyebrow. Darcy bit her bottom lip as she tried to figure out if she could tell him an innocent lie. Her one arm reached to rub the other as her nerves started jumping in fear.

"Well...honestly?" Darcy looked away from him, trying her best to ignore the pangs of guilt that ran rampant in her stomach. Her fingers tightened around her other forearm unintentionally.

"If you can manage it." Loki's thinly unamused voice flatly spoke.

"Low blow there, Maggy." Hissing, Darcy winced at his words. She only really lied about her life here. She sort of had to with SHIELD and Agent Coulson still somewhere lurking. Loki and her had some sort of accord where they seemed to honor honesty between them when alone. She supposed she should be honest with him about this.

"Magnus." Loki's nom du plume came out of his lips, a second nature by now with how long she had called him many different versions of it. She seemed to enjoy coming up with nicknames he noticed, an infuriating habit from the Iron-Man that he found he let slide when it came to Darcy.

"It's a dick..." Darcy grimaced as she finally took in his surly face and pursed lips. 'Gods above, could he look more maddeningly sexy?,' She thought, finding the blase visage almost as good as his haughty one. "Penis." His face still didn't change, intently focused on her explanation as he waited her out. She knew he knew what the hell it was. He had one, hopefully. ('Super hopefully!' her libido cheered.) His lips became more pursed at her words before she groaned to herself. Exasperated with his staring, she threw her hands out to showcase the cupcakes on the platter. "It's a giant chocolate cupcake penis."

"Why?" He nodded his head as he watched her frustration grow across her face. Yes, he knew the instant that she had placed the plate full of cupcakes that it was in the shape of probably the biggest chocolate flavored dick he had seen. Darcy's growing frustration though was a taste of excitement and teasing he was enjoying the taste of immensely.

"Do I have to spell it out for you?!" Her cheeks grew hot, red as anger bubbled dangerously to the surface and things she was scared to say might spill out. Loki bent her sideways when he spoke, twisting her physical desires with things she knew better than to hope for as Loki was not the type to go for her or humans or if he even had a type. She was so afraid he would take her emotions and destroy her with them just by being the pompous ass he was.

"I suppose you do." The nonchalant way he spoke was more than enough for Darcy. She just couldn't take his impassive tone any longer as his eyes seem to take in the way she practically hummed with energy and annoyance. He grinned to himself as she opened his mouth, childishly taking pleasure in the way she lit up.

However, he found himself quickly taking that thought and destroying it as Darcy took a deep breath and began her tirade.

"You were a total dick the other night! You came over and proceeded to sneer at me for my place. I worked hard for all those things in that apartment. I beat up hobos, hipsters, and even poor soccer moms for all that stuff. I worked for all of that. Just because it isn't some ritzy place like you're used to, doesn't give you any reason to put me down. I survive and just because I'm not surviving the way I could be with other option, I am in this mess because I made that decision a long, long time ago and its not something I'm going back on, even if it would be better for me." Heaving shallow breaths from letting everything out, Darcy felt the urgent need to hide. Had she said it loud enough for Caroline and Oleg to hear? She didn't dare to look over her shoulder to see as Loki's gaze kept her captive, held still as he stared rather dumbfounded for once up at her. He blinked. She blinked.

"I...see..." Darcy didn't know if this was how surprises normally worked with him or not. He just blatantly stared at her as if she was an alien with three eyes. She even felt like she was an alien with three eyes.

"Y...Yeah...I uh..." She immediately began trying to make a hasty retreat when Loki's firm hand grasped her arm to keep her near. He stood up, a building erected with his height in front of her as he searched in her eyes for something that she had no idea that he was looking for. His hand slid down her arm, trailing goosebumps and static in its wake before her fingers were engulfed by his larger hand. He had callouses on his fingers, she noted to herself, so he wasn't completely smooth and perfect. The thought was ridiculous but for Darcy, finding one thing that wasn't perfect about Loki, other than his attitude, was humanizing for her.

He kept her eyes to his before he looked down towards their hands.

"Ms. Black, I have found that it is easiest to squander one's potential on schemes that have no opportunity for fruition, such as your potential as a producer in your current living circumstances." He brought their joined hands up to the space between them, turning her hand to press the back of it to his chest where she could feel the warmth and the steady heartbeat underneath. Thousands of whys exploded in her mind as she began to panic. Why was he doing all this touching? She hadn't certainly fostered any indication she wanted more touching (Her brain screamed that she wanted it though). She hadn't expected even this much of a reasoning to be said to her. "I understand why you have chosen to do so, as we both know they are quite the paranoid type. Our relationship is that of a consumer and producer, but I find that without consuming your cupcakes that I failed to take in an aspect of our relationship into account, thus insulting the very person who makes them. You." He raised his other hand to her gaping mouth as she began catching up from her surprise, ready to retort at him before she closed it with a soft clack. "You are the embodiment of what you put into these baked goods. I can agree that you work hard. I have seen it on evenings when you are drenched in sweat and covered in stains that I imagine are terribly hard to get rid of. I have forgotten that in my entitled upbringing. To me, you are a freedom wasted. I envy you completely."

She stared at him. His cheeks were glowing with a soft pink that she had never seen. His lips gave her the smallest sheepish smile she could decipher and her heart, oh by all of Asgard, it was going to burst through her chest between the quiet. He had spoken softly enough she knew that Caroline, Oleg, Han, and Earl must be leaning forward in their seats to try and understand what he had been saying to her.

"I-Is that an apology?" Even if he hadn't said the words, "I'm sorry", Darcy was betting this was an apology, even more a compliment with an apology.

"Max Black, I believe that is as close as an apology from me as you are getting." He placed her clasped hand from his chest to his lips and gave it a gentlemanly chaste kiss. Her throat dried in an instant and it took seconds for her heart to start beating again. A warning bell was going off. She needed to get out of there right this second before anything else happened.

Darcy was screaming inside her head to move, but her body stayed there, hand held in his against the barest brush of his lips.

"Magnus." She finally booted herself back up, gulping for her dried throat as she spoke, blinking owlishly at him.

"Yes, Ms. Black." Loki's smile behind her the back of her hand only made her feel worse. So many terrible names came to her mind, most of them including how much of a tease he was being. He had to know of his effect on humans. He had to, her mind accused.

"Just eat my chocolate dick, for god's sake. You're embarrassing me." She yanked her hand out of his hold very easily, turning to step away from him to breath easier, to try and calm her body down as jumping Loki's very tempting bones was just asking for more trouble than it was worth.

"Are you going to watch?" He grinned impishly, taking the very end cupcake with the extra whip cream and chocolate frosting underneath to his lips. Darcy looked over her shoulder at him with her mouth drying up from his words. Her body became a swamp, brimming with heat on the surface and wet in places one should not mention in public.

"...I...There's something...in the back...It needs doing." She needed to get out. Pronto. Eyes wide, she half-marched away from him in her soft leather boots and short skirted uniform, wanting to head into the freezer and die in there from how much heat she was giving off. She could hear Loki's dark chuckles. Oh god, he was being an asshole. By the counter, she turned around to yell at him. "JUST EAT IT."

"Lastly, Ms. Black?" He looked down at the cupcake, still standing before flashing those green eyes at her, trapping her in his gaze as his languid smirk took its place on his very large lips.

"Y-y-yes?" Her stuttering had to be the most embarrassing thing during this whole ordeal. It wasn't the fact that Loki had in a Loki way apologized. It wasn't that she had showed him a dick cupcake platter and had to explain what it was and why to him. No. It had to be the fact that she was trying to make a hasty retreat for her sanity and every damn word out of her mouth sounded like she had Parkinson's.

"Thank you." She gulped. Her stomach clenched as she knew whatever was going to be done next would not be good for her already steadily increasing heart rate. Loki took the cupcake in his hand, peeling back the paper cup it had been baked in, and licked the whip cream topping while keeping eye contact. Darcy's stomach bottomed out, falling into a pit of confusion and wondering just how she was going to deal if her heart exploded at this second.

"F-for?" She was having a seizure when it came to processing everything. If this was a contest to see who was winning in seducing the other, Loki was winning by far.

"You." Her heart was in no way available to chart if they put an EKG monitor on her right that second. There would be so many peaks, the doctors looking at it would believe she carried the Rockies under her breasts. Darcy couldn't say anything with how bizarrely the entire situation had turned out to be, promptly turning on her heel and full-blown marching past a giggling Caroline and a smirking Oleg in the kitchen as they both started clapping.

"You're totally getting laid." Caroline's voice made it through the freezer door as Darcy slammed it behind herself. The coolness of the room wasn't helping the heat from her body as her mind kept replaying everything.

"SHUT UP, CAROLINE." Embarrassed beyond anytime before, Darcy Lewis, blamed herself completely for her reaction as her heart jumped at the memory of Loki thanking her, apologizing, and then kissing her hand chastely.

Darcy cursed her attraction to one Loki Laufeyson as she tried to wait out Caroline's laughing and teasing, counting as Loki ate each cupcake, and Oleg's terrible puns that she could hear through the door.

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