Jane never meant to be bad at keeping in touch with people. It was just she always had so many things to think about that unless something specifically reminded her to call someone, she simply forgot. Thor (the bastard), in retrospect, had really lucked out with that. He was the stars. Even now it was difficult to not look up at the night sky and wonder about all the countless worlds out there and if he'd been to them. My dearest Jane...She wished he'd taken her with him. There was so much to learn, so much to explore...and he'd left her with only that most tantalizing taste: the confirmation that there was more out there, everything even her wildest dreams hadn't touched, and she had no way to experience it or study it.
So it was a surprise when she checked her email to find a message from Darcy, and it was hard to ignore the sharp spike of guilt that went through her. Darcy, bless her, had been the one in charge of remembering the everyday of relationships and colleagues, instead of Jane's more usual style of random flashes of friendship-inspiration (Hey, Joe! I know it's been a year and half but are you aware that there's a picture of a quasar that looks weirdly like you? We should catch up, no it wasn't an insult, you look perfectly normal...). It had been very convenient, but the unfortunate side effect was that Jane had never had much cause to write things down about Darcy herself, and so once Darcy was gone it was very out-of-sight-out-of-mind.
Darcy was asking about her old papers on the time differential anomalies present among the pyramids. Which was something out of a daydream where Jane could convince all her lab assistants that Science was Most Important and things like sleeping or regular meals could definitely be put on hold for five more minutes with the telescope and Jane also always got her grant funding.
Jane sent her the papers, and wrote down a note about Darcy's atypical behavior. She promptly lost the note, but it was the writing it down that was important. When Jane saw the girl again, she would remember.
Darcy still had no idea what Loki was after, despite spending every free moment examining the data. Well. She had the shape of the idea, with all the research she'd done about it, like there was one piece of the puzzle directly in the center still missing. She'd know what would fit if she saw it, could maybe even describe it to you to some extent, but Darcy still didn't know what the actual piece really looked like.
He hadn't asked her not to keep a copy of the requested research to herself, and neither had he asked her to obtain Jane's old work for him. Darcy knew there was something incredibly dense, probably some sort of energy source since that seemed like most appealing thing possible to Loki, something that caused similar effects to a very tiny black hole without actually causing the whole sucked-into-an-inescapable-singularity issue. It wasn't exactly good science, but Darcy was willing to accept that it had to be something incredibly weird and beyond the knowledge of mortals (it was difficult not to add mental airquotes around the word) if it involved Asgardians and their stupid magic. It had also stood the test of time and escaped the ravagings of tomb-robbers, the Victorian trend for stealing other country's history as souvenirs, and archaeologists desperate to catalogue and preserve everything else before anyone else decided the rest would be a nice conversation piece in their living room. Djoser had been stripped to the bone, but there was still something there.
She resolved to ask him about it, whenever he popped up again. Darcy knew he would, like a cold that just wouldn't go away and kept re-infecting you. She stopped leaving anything at her apartment or on her computer, instead bringing it with her wherever she went. It wasn't that much of a step up from obsessing over her phone like always, and no one batted an eye. Of course, when he did return two months after her decision, she still hadn't quite figured out how she'd ask him and actually get an answer. Darcy was, however, much more prepared to deal with him in general.
He still had her books, and it seemed his reason for showing up this time was that he was bored. Again. Considering whatever he had cooking in Djoser was causing her curiosity to practically burn a hole in her skull, she was deeply unsympathetic. "I can't afford to just give you my collection, and I don't think you can actually buy them off me. You're pretty much a space hobo." She paused, and added hurriedly: "Sir."
"I can order you to give me the books," he said mildly.
Darcy purse her lips slightly, thinking, and caught his eyes flick briefly to her mouth. Huh. It wasn't the first time it had happened, but it finally clicked for her that it was an in. If she was willing to take it. Darcy wasn't sure she was, but it was something to consider. She stepped closer, experimentally. "Yeah. You could. But, I bet you couldn't figure out something specific enough to actually get a real recommendation out of me, and I've definitely got enough unappealing-to-you claptrap that it would take a long time to find anything good." Darcy took another step and stuck out her hand, palm-up, to get her books. Her hand nearly brushed his chest, and he stepped back slightly. Loki didn't seem to realize he'd done it. Good.
He sighed in an exaggeratedly aggrieved manner, the ghost of a smirk playing on his face. "Very well," he said, voice light, like it was a game. Darcy could do games. He made a gesture and the books appeared in his hand. He passed them to her, and Darcy curled her fingers around them quickly, making sure she just brushed the inside of his wrist.
She smiled. "Thank you." Darcy turned sharply and went to consider her bookshelf. She already knew what she was going to give him, but she wanted to think for a second without having to control her face, which wasn't exactly a strong point. Yet. Darcy, as was slightly inevitable for someone as stacked as she was, had known a lot of different types of boys (as very few of the male persuasion in her age range yet qualified for 'men'), no matter how many layers she tended to pile on.
Loki, as it turned out, wasn't that hard to figure out once you got past the initial brush of death. Reasonably smart, but thought he knew more than he did. Thought he liked people being devoted, but that was because he thought he was superior and could drop them without much consideration. The trick to the 'smart' ones, Darcy knew, was to keep them on the wrong foot at all times. And to hate them a bit. It was depressingly common to find a guy who turned to putty in your hands if you acted a bit like you hated him. That, at least, would be easy.
The phrase in romance novels was 'spirited'. She didn't think the inevitable blow up when she couldn't keep up the asshole act and started being one of the disposable devoted people would be an issue.
Darcy turned back to him, her best arch smile on, and held up American Gods. Possibly it was stupid, but she did want to see at least one Asgardian react to certain mythological inconsistencies, and Thor wasn't the storybook type. When he read, he was more interested in tactics than characters. "I figured we'd go from Silvertongue to something where you actually make an appearance. Odin's in it too, but I figure you'd appreciate Thor being dead. You're kind of awful like that." She said it lightly, her voice teasing, and he took it from her cautiously, his face slightly disconcerted.
He flipped through the book a few minutes, resolutely silent, and when he made eye contact again and Darcy knew he was about to pull his disappearing act again, she blew him a kiss. It was gratifying to see the somewhat horrified look on his face before he vanished.
Two days later Darcy got a call from Jane, telling her that if she wanted another internship when the semester was over in a couple weeks, Erik needed them in London. Darcy was almost delighted to go. She had forgotten to ask her question, but at least she'd be on the right hemisphere. It was something. Besides, she hadn't given him the sequel.