Chapter 19

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Tension was thick in the air as the dark SHIELD commander studied him.

Emotions swirled inside Loki; a potent mix of hatred, anger, shame at being made so vulnerable, thousands of others. And the slightest twinge of fear. He was at the mercy of this man, a thought that made his skin crawl.

Fury had only one eye, but it was dark and unreadable as he studied him from above.

Fury simply stood, back straight and arms at his sides, silent and watching. Being the one to break the silence first chafed at him, but he had too many questions that needed answers.

"Why are you here?"

Fury didn't react to the venom in Loki's voice, folding his hands in front of him with a deceptive calm. "I think you know the answer to that."

The same answer he always gave. Every few days he stopped by to play mind games with Loki, trying to draw out his secrets and pull him to their side. Futile attempts that always ended with hostility.

"I won't help you."

"But will you help someone else?"

His eyes widened before he could school his expression. Loki inwardly cursed; the confidence in Fury's glance told him he did not miss the reaction.

The same nervous adrenaline from his dream shot through him as he thought of Darcy and the darkness. He was still untouched, but the last time she'd been physically burned from the dream.

This time, he'd been torn awake without knowing what had happened to her, unable to wish her awake to safety. She could be hurt again, or worse…. If Thanos had found her, it would be too late for them.

The end of them all.

He could feel the same violent rage and helplessness from the past growing and festering inside him like a cancer. The same dark emotions that had made him so perfectly vulnerable to Thanos' influence. If only he'd been stronger. But he'd had nothing else to live for, nothing to help him resist…

"I think it's about time you explained exactly what is going on."

"Look around, and why don't you tell me." He curled his lip as he motioned to his prison.

He'd be a fool to think Darcy's visits had gone unnoticed. But that had only been part of it. Fury couldn't know of the magic, or seen the dreams… if they weren't warned of what was coming…

He threw another futile punch against the glass wall, bruising his fist and relishing the pain in his hand that matched the pain in his soul.

There was no way he could tell. No way he could reveal what Darcy had asked him to. It exposed too raw and pathetic a part of him, the part that had been so vulnerable in the first place… his weakness.

"You may not care about any of us, but I don't think you want to die." Fury's stark words were like a slap across his face, echoing Darcy's thoughts and turning him inside out. He couldn't let him see. He couldn't let him know.

"How astute of you. The Asgardian prisoner has a survival instinct. It's incredible. Really, I don't know how you do it. Such brilliance despite your handicap."

Fury remained stoic in the face of his sarcasm. Always a mask of calm and severity. How he longed to break it…

"I thought the world would be safer if we locked you up. But I'm starting to think the truth is much simpler. I'm thinking if we moved your glass cage out in the open, we wouldn't have to worry about you for long."

That hit a nerve. Swallowing the bitter resentment, Loki kept his face locked in a bitter sneer. No trace of how unsettled he was at the surface. "Why don't you try it and see?"

"Don't tempt me. Unfortunately for me, our problems are aligning so I won't get the pleasure of hanging you out to dry just yet. Something tells me you know exactly what's coming, and the way I see it, you have two choices."

A sardonic eyebrow raise was Loki's only response.

A frown line creased the commander's brow before he replied: "You can either help us by telling us everything you know, or you can sit here knowing that when this hits, no matter how many of us it takes out, it's coming for you too."

"How perfect. Surrounded by the bodies of your SHIELD agents, putting their lives on the line to keep me safe. How heroic."

The faintest crack in Fury's façade showed, his leather-gloved hand curling into a fist.

"Do you understand the concept of innocence?"

"Innocence? You think your soldiers are innocent? You think any of you humans are innocent?"

"Tell me then, what crime has Darcy committed against you?"

A cold sweat broke out on his skin at the mention of her. A bad feeling twisted his gut, the way he'd been wrenched from his dream in the forefront of his mind.

Fury knew far too much, but he didn't know everything.

He didn't give a damn what happened to her. Or so he tried to remind himself.

"You have no right to talk. You pull people like her to your side, to fight wars they don't understand against enemies that will wipe them out in the blink of an eye. Don't speak of innocence to me. You think I don't know about your tricks?"

Fury's jaw clenched as he studied him.

He knew the manipulative games Fury liked to play, the way he'd pulled his little team of Avengers together with deception and lies.

"I live with what I do. Can you live with letting her die?"

"You think I would be bothered by one little human dying when I've killed thousands?" The question was a cover as fear and guilt tore a hole in his gut, and he prayed Fury could not see through his bluff.

He was attached to her. Had known he'd been growing attached, as much as he'd tried to dismiss it. It made no sense and brought back the helpless feeling of weakness. She was human and defenseless, so vulnerable.

And yet, she'd been brave, honest and open. So strong.

Fury didn't answer, merely arching his brow.

Old fears resurfaced, that she might have lied about everything, concealed her true self from him to deceive him, to draw him to their side…. even as he knew he'd seen the truth crystal clear in her eyes. He clung to the suspicion to ground himself. But he couldn't help asking.

"What happened?"

"I was hoping you could tell me."

Loki's eyes narrowed, sick of his games and manipulations. But to his surprise, Fury simply motioned to Loki's left towards a dark monitor on the far wall.

At his nod, it flashed on to show Darcy lying unconscious in a bed in some sort of medical wing. She looked lost in sleep, and it would have been peaceful if her brow hadn't been scrunched in a frown, her fists clenched in the white sheets.

As Loki studied her, scanning the exposed skin of her throat, arms, and face for injuries, she grew more agitated. Her breathing shallowed, cheeks flushed as her lips parted in a silent scream.

A male held her down until she quieted, but she did not wake.

Trapped.

No. She couldn't be. It wasn't possible. Was it?

He'd found them.

Sucking in a sharp breath, he forced back the dark emotions that threatened to swallow him whole.

She did not deserve Thanos, and the thought of her trapped within the darkness ate at him, along with the painful memories that haunted him.

"Nothing we've tried will bring her out of this sleeping state. What is happening to her?"

The safest thing for them all would be to kill her. If she was trapped in the darkness with Thanos, it would only be a matter of time before he broke her and came after them all. He was already halfway here. They should put her out of her misery before it was too late.

But the memory of her lips on his, of the vivid emotions in her dark eyes pulled at his gut in a way he'd seldom ever felt. The idea of killing her turned his stomach. She'd offered him comfort when he'd been denied it for too long, without asking for anything in return.

"She's trapped in the darkness."

Fury's brow raised in question.

A cynical smile twisted Loki's lips as he was forced to accept his situation, no matter how much it chafed at his pride. He wanted to live, and to do that, he would have to cooperate in one small way or another. With a final defeated sigh, he relented.

"Your worst nightmare is on his way here, and she's going to lead him straight to us."

"What are we talking? Your army from New York?"

"Much worse."

A vein throbbed in Fury's temple as he swallowed hard. Kept himself in check. "What can we do to stop it?"

"Find a way to wake her up."

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Her arms were aching, and her legs were sore. Standing in the black void, Darcy shivered, even though there was no breeze.

It felt like she'd been here forever.

There was no sense of time, no end or edge. No textures, no colors, no sound.

She felt like she was losing her mind.

Her thoughts were tumbling around themselves in her head, buzzing incessantly trying to fill the void of noise and people. Desperate for any kind of stimulation whatsoever.

Her skin felt itchy, every nerve fiber desperate for touch, any kind of sensation.

This is probably what ghosts felt like, if ghosts were real, she mused to herself. She wasn't hungry or thirsty, or tired.

She was numb, and yet everything felt heightened. The ground felt solid beneath her feet, but it was so dark she couldn't see it, and when she leaned down, her hands felt nothing but air. As though she was standing on a ledge, or something was holding her feet up in the middle of nothingness.

She tried walking forward and back. Her feet lifted in the air, and then landed again on something solid. She walked and ran and ran into nothing but air with interminable darkness in every direction for what felt like hours.

After wearing herself out she stopped, struggling to get her breathing back to normal, the fear rising inside her.

She felt like she was going crazy. She couldn't tell how much time had passed. Was she inside the darkness? Had it swallowed her up? Why wasn't she waking up?

She thought of Loki and how he'd pushed away the darkness and sent her to safety before. Was he trapped with her?

Desperate, she shouted his name once again. Her throat vibrated, going through the motions of speech but no sound came out. She tried again and again.

Still nothing.

She screamed and shouted, wearing herself out but not a single sound could be heard in the interminable black.

Her heartbeat pounded in her chest. She felt it, even if she couldn't hear it.

She didn't feel any pain. There were no burns, skin smooth and unbroken. It was unlike the darkness from before that had harmed her. But how long would that last?

Desperate, she thought of the dreams in the past, tried to focus like Loki had instructed her to. Fighting to clear her mind so she could somehow jolt herself awake.

After several minutes of concentrating, she let out a heavy sigh as she stared into the dark.

She'd never been good at meditating, and here she was, with a literal blank slate all around her, the best environment for not thinking about anything, and yet she couldn't shut her mind up.

She was forced to do nothing but think, as a matter of fact. She thought about her family, about her friends and coworkers at SHIELD and whether they were safe.

She thought of the dark brooding figure that had brought her here and her heartbeat quickened just the slightest bit.

In the time since she'd begun visiting him, she'd formed an attachment that had been brought into sharp focus when she'd grabbed him for safety and kissed the daylights out of him.

Which was inappropriate on so many levels. But no matter how difficult, arrogant, or angry he'd been, he had tried to help her. She'd seen more of him than he'd wanted to reveal and the human, emotional side of him fascinated her. She loved verbally sparring with him because he met her snark with sarcasm and fire. When she'd been vulnerable, he hadn't mocked her. He had simply listened.

Of course, that was likely only because he was locked in a glass prison, forced to sit while she chatted as long as she felt like it. Outside of that situation she was certain he'd never have given her a passing glance. A depressing thought, but a truthful one.

He had more compassion and decency than SHIELD gave him credit for, even though he wasn't willing to admit to it. And he'd done more than his fair share of damage. But the situation was changing and they needed help he was unwilling to give.

She hadn't been able to convince him otherwise, which meant she needed to find a way to take a stand on her own and protect those she loved. Starting by getting out of here.

Tentatively, she crossed her legs and lowered herself to an invisible floor beneath her. Clearly she wouldn't be able to walk herself out of here. So there had to be another way.

She closed her eyes, trying to think about waking up from a dream, of jolting herself awake, of getting out of bed and opening her eyes to a sunlit room. When she opened her eyes, the darkness persisted.

And with it came a low hiss that sent a tremor through her bones.

"So close, little creature. Come closer to me…"

It was the same disembodied voice she'd heard with Loki standing beside her. It sounded muffled, as though coming through thick layers of fabric or a solid wall.

She had no direction in which to run, no way to tell how to get further away from it. Holding deathly still, she simply waited.

"I know you're there. Show yourself to me."

When she remained still and quiet, muscles tense and hands clenched on her knees, the voice disappeared.

Suddenly a violent boom shook through her shoulders.

"You think you can hide from me but I will find you and teach you the meaning of suffering!"

The voice echoed through her, whispering promises of pain and torture that were really not helping her state of mind right now. They would fade away, only to come back, and yet strangely, the more vicious the threats became, the calmer Darcy became.

Because astonishingly, it sounded like somehow, wherever she was at the moment this creature could not reach her.

"If you don't show yourself to me I will tear apart every member of your family one by one before I come for you!"

The voice grew more irritated because it couldn't seem to find her amid the blackness either.

Point one for the interminable void.

She didn't dare make a sound lest she give away her position. Stuck between an unending pit of darkness and the promise of a long, drawn-out torture.

Not her ideal place to be, but as things were and judging from the colorfully violent descriptions that were currently being shouted at her, definitely not the worst place either.

After a particularly vicious outburst, the voice disappeared.

Darcy almost regretted it. Despite the horrible threats, it was at least one clear sound that broke up the painful monotony of silence that surrounded her.

Without it, silence had a static that echoed in her ears, a buzz that was slowly starting to drive her crazy.

Maybe she was already halfway there; wishing for horrible threats to be shouted at her rather than sit alone in the dark.

Had a day passed?

Time stretched on, slow and steady, and still she sat, muscles tense and body alert.

"You think you can mock me, hiding out from me? I will find you and flay the skin from your bones while you scream for mercy."

Oh joy. The voice was back.

Again, Darcy focused and tried to concentrate, trying to calm her breathing and center herself. If she thought hard enough about waking, surely she could escape.

Still nothing.

After another attempt, she was about to give up hope when an electric tension filled the air.

Tense, she stopped and listened. Out of the black, two hands reached over to her and wrapped around her waist, pulling her backwards. She fought and kicked, trying to elbow her attacker to force them to release their grip. She let out a scream which was completely silent.

The arms around her were alarmingly strong, dragging her back against a solid, warm surface: a man's chest.

After she tried and failed to free herself from the steel grip, she stopped to draw in a sharp breath.

One of the hands around her waist pulled back, took her free hand and lifted it to their face, and to her utter shock deposited the faintest kiss on the tip of her index finger.

Loki?

Could he have somehow found his way to her after hours and hours of her trying and failing to call his name?

And if he was here, trapped in the same silent darkness as her, how the hell were they going to get out?