CHAPTER 3

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The next day, she came back.

She was late this time, not coming around in the middle of the day as she had the previous two times. Loki had found himself glancing more than once at the digital clock across the room from his cage, before he turned and shook his head as though to shake her out of his thoughts.

He'd figured she'd decided against coming, having gotten bored with him. Yet when he heard the tiny door he couldn't see scrape open and heard light footsteps on the metal landing above him, he knew instantly that it was her.

He wasn't glad she'd come back. He felt drained.

Nick Fury had paid him a visit for most of the morning. While he hadn't set foot inside the cage or touched him in any way, spending hours in his company felt nothing short of torture. The military man had tried every cheap tactic he could think of to extract information from Loki.

What he didn't realize was that there was nothing Nick Fury could threaten him with that would frighten him. Nothing that could persuade him to give up the knowledge he kept buried inside of himself. And absolutely no reason to help a Midgardian.

He'd demanded more information on the aliens he'd guided to their planet, but there was no way Loki would reveal that information. No way he would speak of Thanos.

Thanos was true fear. Everything Loki hated and adored all at once. To reveal the depths he'd fallen to, to give up information about him would expose Loki in ways he could never allow.

No one could see the darkness inside him, the weakness he'd allowed Thanos to exploit.

So he'd stuck with his usual cutting silence and occasional sarcastic retorts until the man gave up for the day and left.

He was getting so tired of this.

"Hey," Darcy's shy greeting pulled him from his thoughts. She wasn't looking at him, but took a seat on the bench with her back against the wall and got herself situated.

He didn't have the energy to think about her, to puzzle her out.

He missed the darkness all of a sudden, its dark, quiet depths comforting, blanketing him against too much information that spun around in his head, contradicting thoughts that threatened to tear him apart.

No matter where he was, he was alone. At least in the darkness, no one could see his shame. No one would witness him suffer.

"Are you okay?"

Her voice sounded worried, and he caught her studying him again as he reluctantly turned to face her.

Why did it sound like she cared? It had to be some cruel game to her. Not for the first time, he felt like lashing out at her, releasing all of his anger and pain.

He glanced around his glass cage.

They'd padded it, with a small pallet to one side for him to sleep. His clothes were brown and plain without buttons, zippers or string of any kind.

So he wouldn't hurt himself.

Loki let out an ironic laugh.

"I don't know, why don't you tell me? What do I look like?"

His voice was bitter, tinged with malice as he lifted his hands around to motion his cage. She flinched at his tone, and nibbled her lip as she wouldn't take her eyes off him.

Damnit. He didn't need those clear, sharp eyes looking at him any longer.

She looked like she understood, and that infuriated him most of all.

She could never understand. She had no idea. If she had even an inkling of what he'd been through, she'd run screaming in the opposite direction.

A violent spike of anger tinged his vision red for a split second. He fought to remain standing as his body shook from the strength of it.

He couldn't stay locked up for much longer.

"You're angry." Her tone was puzzled. She was trying to figure him out.

"What a clever little woman you are."

Again, sarcasm dripped from his words, but this time she didn't recoil.

"Don't get all snippy with me. I only just got here so I know you can't be angry at me."

"That's where you'd be wrong."

"Oh really? And how have I managed to get on your nerves in the span of oh... 30 seconds? I'd love to know because that is a record, even for me."

She sat, impatiently waiting, glaring at him and tapping her foot. Expecting an answer.

He wasn't used to her tone. Few talked back to him in such a way. He expected hurt, anger, anything he had experience dealing with.

Instead, her expression was demanding, and slightly amused. She was making light of his mood. And somehow, instead of making it worse, the red slowly faded away and brought him back to reality.

"You wouldn't understand."

"Try me."

He didn't have to answer her. He could simply turn away. But that would feel like a defeat, and Loki would not be defeated by a slip of a woman centuries younger than him.

She was challenging him, and he had to win.

Before he had a chance to voice his biting reply, the sound of a door fizzing open interrupted him. The door on the lower deck, across from the platform to his cage was sliding slowly open, which could only mean another visitor.

He glanced up in panic at her, but she'd pulled back from the balcony so she was hidden from view.

He wanted to tell her to leave, but it was too late.

Thor stepped into the room, the familiar blend of love and pity that Loki had come to know so well etched across his face.

"Brother."

"Do not start with me. Will you not leave me in peace?"

Thor's expression turned disgruntled, the hope fading slightly from his eyes at Loki's cold tone.

"I will never give up on you Loki. You know that."

"Time will tell. We can only hope."

"Why do you wish me to give up on you so badly? We are family."

"No, actually, we aren't. Now, is that all?"

Loki felt his heart racing, felt the acid anger bubbling up from deep inside of him. He couldn't deal with Thor on the best of days, but now it was so much worse.

That Darcy should witness his humiliation was abhorrent. She could not be allowed to see how weak he really was, and if he knew Thor well enough, he would be all too keen to dig up every little secret he had to try and win him over.

The obstinate fool was stubborn as hell, and it was slowly suffocating him.

The image of Thor's face at the bifrost flashed through his mind, just before Loki had given in to the darkness and let himself fall into the black.

He wanted to see that expression again; his look of utter hopelessness, of defeat.

The hope in Thor's eyes was killing him more than he would ever know.

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She'd been caught up in her thesis and actually getting some work done when she'd remembered that Loki had asked her to come back.

She hadn't planned to. Jane had bought them both lunch from a little Italian bistro outside of town on her way in, complete with Darcy's favorite ciabatta bread sandwich and the most delicious Caesar salad she'd ever tasted. Who could blame her for indulging?

But her curiosity combined with the fact that he, the proud, all-powerful Loki, had actually asked her, had her stepping away an hour earlier than she'd planned to leave to head down and see him.

She'd sensed something was off the moment she'd stepped onto the balcony.

He didn't turn to look at her, pacing inside his cage like a cornered animal. He looked worn, drained. She wasn't sure what to make of it.

She figured he'd be angry that she was late, but he barely responded to her greeting. Clearly, something else was on his mind.

It brought back her awareness of the fact that he was all but chained in this tiny room for however long SHIELD thought to keep him there.

Every time she'd looked at him, every time she'd thought of him, she'd seen his face in her mind's eye, standing in front of her.

She never pictured the cage in her mind, but it was always there.

"Are you okay?"

The moment he'd snapped back at her, she knew with absolute certainty that this wasn't about her at all.

No matter what kind of man he was, there was only so long you could cage anyone until they cracked.

It made her start thinking of things that up until now she'd deliberately put out of her mind. What did they put him through here? What was SHIELD doing with him? Did he know what they planned for him? She hadn't even dared to contemplate it, the thoughts seeming too dark and foreign to her, but he was forcing her to consider it now.

He was a master at masking his feelings, but even he couldn't seem to contain the rage that was flowing through him. She could see it in the crease of his brow, in the unsteady trembling of his hands.

Did he even realize how tightly he was clenching his fists?

Whatever the reason, he was suffering. Darcy couldn't stomach watching it.

She thought of leaving, but he was the one who'd asked her to come, and he needed some way to unleash everything he was bottling up so tightly. Was she the right person to help him do that?

Why would she help him at all?

His face turned to her, all the bitterness, pain, and frustration clear as crystal in his dark green eyes. He looked as though he'd been about to say something, but the sound of a door below her opening nearly made her jump.

Whoever it was, she couldn't let them know she was here. She had no idea how much trouble she would be in, but she wasn't about to find out.

As quietly as she could, she yanked her backpack to her chest and leaned back into the shadows so whoever was on the floor below couldn't see her.

She recognized Thor's voice a moment later, and cussed under her breath as she wished herself to be anywhere else in the world but here.

It felt wrong, she was intruding, but there was no way she could leave now without making her presence known and making the situation even worse. She was stuck where she was, unable to get up without stepping out in front of the bench where Thor would undoubtedly see her.

So she held a hand to her forehead, brow scrunched up and eyes firmly shut as she tried to breathe as quietly as she possibly could.

As she focused on keeping herself concealed, she found herself listening to their exchange with rapt fascination.

"I know you insist on not caring, but I am working with SHIELD to free you from here."

"Crafting another pretty little collar to put around my neck? Another leash to tame me with?"

"No! I do not wish for that. If you could just prove that you do not intend harm, then perhaps there is something-"

"-And if I can't?"

Thor's sigh echoed throughout the room.

"Loki, is this truly where you wish to remain for the rest of your life?"

"They cannot hold me forever."

The room fell silent, and while she couldn't see either of them, she felt the tangible tension in the room.

"You truly do not care about your future?"

"What I care about is none of your concern."

"Loki…"

She heard the sound of fabric as Loki must have stepped across his padded cage.

"If I could have saved you that day, I would have done anything-"

"-Do not SPEAK of it."

Loki's low, controlled tone broke as he raised his voice ever so slightly. Thor had obviously hit a nerve, though what they were talking about she hadn't the faintest clue.

"You do not know what awaits in the darkness, of what is beyond the bifrost..."

"Then tell me."

Loki's harsh laugh grated out of his chest, sending a shiver down Darcy's spine.

"You wouldn't comprehend the ache, the pain that eats you from the inside out… you will never understand a world so black it chokes you."

"I wish to know. I wish to help you."

"No, you don't! You have your worlds, your freedom. You want to see me suffer."

"No! Never!"

"Then let them kill me! Let them take their revenge."

"You can't mean that. I won't believe you mean that."

"Then you will never understand."

Another shuffle sounded. Thor's footsteps clanged on the metal walkway.

"Loki…"

When his brother didn't reply, she heard Thor's large, rumbling steps cross the walkway back towards the door.

"I will not give up."

Darcy waited until she heard the sound of the door closing before she let out the breath she'd been holding.

Intense was the only word she could think of to describe it. There was so much emotion, so much more than the words they'd exchanged and their conversation nearly broke her heart.

"Satisfied? Have you seen all you wished to see?"

Sarcastic Loki was back, biting at her as she sat back up on the bench and faced him.

He was being deliberately cruel, but it no longer fazed her.

She saw too easily past his cover to all the hurt he kept hidden from the world.

That was when it hit her. He'd wanted to die.

Whatever had happened between them, and whatever had transpired in Asgard, Loki had wanted death more than he'd wanted to live.

She recognized the signs. Everyone around her friend Kathy had swept them away like cobwebs assuming that she'd simply get over it and be perfectly fine given enough time. Everyone had ignored it until she'd been found hanging from her living room ceiling.

Somehow, that desire had been at the center of whatever he'd tried to do to their planet. She didn't know how, why, or what had transpired, but she knew it with a certainty.

If he couldn't move beyond that on his own, then Thor had no hope of saving him. None of them did.

Unsure of how to deal with that, she could only think of one thing to do.

"I have to go."

And this time, he knew with absolute certainty she wouldn't be coming back.