I feel like an ass ending that way but that's what popped into my 5 AM addled mind and ugh so awkward. Anyhoo on with my favorite story…. And thanks to all the followers and favorite-ers! Love you guys!
The first thing she did was grab a tee shirt from the pile of laundry at the foot of her bed. Darcy was panicking internally, but externally, she was gonna be a cool motherfucker. Something about the darkness emboldened her, making her brave enough to maneuver herself into her wheelchair and switch on her lamp.
What she saw shocked her- before her was a crumbling version of the already frayed man Darcy had left in Asgard all those months ago.
Loki was slumped, clearly his mad self. Silently he stared at Darcy, his gaze almost searing in its intensity. She was frightened, not so much by the crazy god in her bedroom but more by the damage inflicted upon him. Loki Odinson had never been one for the untidy, wind tousled hair thing like Thor, but he did have some luscious locks. Now they were chopped short, lanky and disheveled to the point of insanity. His skin was pale and almost stretched too thin over his skeletal frame. His eyes were that eerie, glowing shade of blue indicating his evil self was in control, and Darcy had no idea how to react.
Her usual response to shit like this was to blather and cry, and this time was no different.
"Uh- er, Loki? I'm Darcy, in case you forgot, and we hung out in Asgard last time I was up there? Not really hung out, but I analyzed you, or well I tried except you were a screaming psychopath and I discovered the split in your personality!"
Loki's double take at the last statement encouraged Darcy to go further- "Remember? Baby blue eyes mean loco and sea green mean charming bastard. C'mon, tell me you know this!"
Inaudibly, Loki replied.
Darcy sighed and rolled closer to the tall man, asking gently "Please repeat that. I missed it."
Barely above a whisper, Loki quietly said, "I know of the battle in my mind. I know not of the cause."
PROGRESS! Was the initial reaction Darcy's inner psychologist had but she kept it in check, and instead asked, "When did this conflict begin for you?"
Loki dropped his gaze, and Darcy's heart fell. Unexpectedly, he walked over to her bed and tentatively sat on it. The instant he lowered himself onto the unmade mess, he deflated, as if literal tons of stress had been lifted from his shoulders. Darcy didn't know how to react but to position herself next to him, in a nonthreatening, non-confrontational pose. She then noticed Loki's clothing- ragged, worn apparel, once rich fabrics gone to ruin from abuse. He lacked armor, which was his crazy alternate personality's favorite outfit. Darcy kind of missed the horny helmet but that made her mind drift to inappropriate locations which were not helpful at all that will do Darcy Lewis and she forced herself to ignore the man on her bed.
In her reverie she almost missed his equally quiet answer to her second question.
"It was after I let go."
Darcy had no idea what context that was in but she assumed it was a metaphorical thing until he explained.
"…as Thor was about to lay waste to the Bifrost, our father- his father, Odin, stopped us from near death. However, I was dangling from Thor's hammer, as Thor held on to our father's hand. I was certain that… I thought it would be different. I thought… I know not what I thought, but I knew that Asgard was no longer a place I could call my home- hence, I let go. I fell."
A tear dripped down Darcy's face as she saw an imperceptible shudder run through the god's body.
He was a jotunn? A frost giant? Gears began to shift and previously puzzling contradictions in Loki's personality became crystal clear.
Darcy turned to her bed side table to put on her glasses so she could examine Loki's eye color. Fumbling as she put them on, Darcy turned to find she was alone in the room with naught but a chill in the air and an indentation where he had sat on her bed.
SHIELD had to know Loki was wandering the halls at night- Darcy couldn't let another New Mexico/New York incident to every occur again. Fury didn't believe her at first until he sent some unit of agents to her apartment to scan with some kind of magic detection thingamabob that Darcy could not believe existed. Sure enough, the magic-o-meter buzzed like crazy when Darcy had them point it at the part of her bed where His Godly tush had rested.
Sadly, Darcy's Good Samaritan deed was ruined when Fury insisted on a bodyguard for her as well as a change of residence to the SHIELD dormitories.
The first night of purgatory was awful. Not only was Darcy forced to abandon her apartment for an indeterminate amount of time, but she also forbidden from leaving the tower, so she had to order pizza for one and then go to the lobby of the building to pick up said pizza. On her way back to her cage, Darcy had to pass by a training room, where she had to stop and ogle men lifting weights and practicing hand to hand combat. She eventually was asked if she was lost, so she had to return to her room.
After catching up on her research for her psych clients, Darcy watched Youtube videos and scrolled around Facebook. She also absentmindedly googled "multiple personality disorder"- an illness which may or may not actually exist according to several scholars. She was soon hooked and delved deeper into the articles, finding out causes for the original split as well as the ways used to treat it.
Darcy woke up the next morning unreasonably groggy and with two determined findings: 1st, Loki was already working towards merging his personalities, because he acknowledged that they both coexisted. 2nd, Darcy was sure beyond a doubt that Loki would seek her out again- and this time, she would be wearing a bra, and she would be ready.
That night, she dreamt she could walk. Darcy watched her sleeping form curl into it, one weak, useless leg poking out of the coverlet. Feeling elation like no other, Darcy subconsciously explored the halls of SHIELD, occasionally breaking into a run just for the hell of it. After what felt like hours, she stopped before a room- from within she could hear the slightest of noise. It wasn't quite crying but a whimpering, and without a thought she pushed the door open and entered.
Darcy didn't know what she had expected, but it sure as hell wasn't this-
New York. Broken, battered, bashed to pieces- the aftermath of an epic battle.
Darcy gingerly stepped around some rubble, sidestepping a giant crack in the concrete with steam gushing out of it. Despite the clear chaos, the scene is empty-
But there's that whimpering.
Darcy follows the noise to its source, someone trapped beneath a pile of debris.
After frantic digging she was able to remove a chunk of the trash, revealing a small blue baby, wriggling and frightened when exposed to the sun.
She lifted the infant, cradling it carefully as it fussed and cried in her arms. The little creature wasn't just blue- it- he was icy, chilly to the point of discomfort. Despite the smooth texture of the skin, the child had little ridged patterns on his face, and watery eyes a startling shade of red.
The baby began to settle, and soon it was peacefully resting. Darcy stroked his cheek with a gentle finger, but was startled when the sleeping infant tightly gripped her digit. What really freaked Darcy the fuck out, however, was when the baby suddenly heated up like a furnace, and its skin turned a pale shade of cream that was porcelain in its hue.
In her shock, Darcy jerked backwards, scaring the child awake. His eyes sprang open to reveal a familiar shade of green- fathomless like the sea, mysterious and beautiful like pure jade.
"Loki!" Darcy's exclamation was a trigger of some sort, and she immediately awakened in her bed. With her heart pounding, she attempted to move herself- no such luck.
Still, her dream had told her something-
Loki was reaching out to her, consciously or not. He wanted help, and he was asking her for it.
A very quiet, very bitter voice rang out within her as she resolved to aid the fallen god as best as she could…
Remember the way he shattered your life? Who are you to pick up the pieces of his mess?
She shoved down the niggling anger, just like always, and moved herself into her chair so she could grab her laptop and get a coffee from the cafeteria.
3 Months Later
Somehow, Darcy's life was either a high speed adventure with aliens and superheroes, or else it was a boring documentary about geriatric old women who spent too much time on the internet studying about certain gods. She had been so convinced that she was going to be the one to "fix" Loki- typical Darcy. She was the girl who always dated the loser, convinced she could help him heal.
Instead, her life was left hanging over a precipice- something life altering was about to happen and yet it never seemed to come.
Frustrated, Darcy fell into her work again. She saw patients, wrote case studies, consulted for SHIELD. Sometimes agents would ask her to "psychoanalyze" the baddie they were hunting down, which was a nice change of pace. Still, the constant feeling that her life was going nowhere began to resurface, and Darcy felt herself begin to slip into the darkness again.
Desperate to avoid the months of depression, she requested for the millionth time to go to Asgard and to meet her little Lucy Jane. Surprisingly, she was given permission, and was even briefed on important issues which she would report to Thor, as a diplomat from Earth.
Her arrival was mundane, for intergalactic space travel. Darcy ignored the gawking and booked it to Jane's quarters- she could hear singing inside- horrible, off key singing- and with great joy she carefully opened the door to the nursery.
"Kookaburra sits in the old gum tree,
Eating all the gumdrops he can see,
Stop! Kookaburra, stop, kookaburra,
Gay your life must be…"
In an awed whisper, Darcy exclaimed, "Jane, she's beautiful!"
The mother/goddess/astrophysicist broke into a giant smile, as she lay her now sleeping daughter into a delicate bassinet.
"Darcy!" in a stage whisper, Jane led her outside the nursery and into her bedroom, where she fell to her knees and hugged her best friend tightly.
"Jane, seriously, I'm this close to kidnapping your little nugget! She's so gorgeous, and she looks like a baby supermodel!" Darcy quietly rolled back to peek at the infant. She had Thor's glittering gold locks, curling softly on her scalp. Although she was sleeping, Lucy had lovely eyes- big, framed with lush dark lashes.
Jane proudly squeezed Darcy's shoulder and gestured outside towards a tray of fruits and wine.
Maneuvering their way into bed, the women began to reconnect. Jane was a wonderful mother- it was clear that she was born to care for someone else, and she had even given up poptarts for the sake of her daughter's health.
Darcy was glad to share her Loki story with Jane, who was rapt with attention. When she finished her strange tale, Jane closed her eyes.
"Darce… Loki's been recaptured. We've had him back for weeks, I though SHIELD would've told you!"
Darcy was quite unhappy that her boss was deceiving her again, but she was even more concerned with the state of the captive man who she had cradled in her arms.
"How did you catch him?" was her question after a long silence.
"He simply showed up one morning, beaten and weary. He let himself be taken, so we know he came by choice."
Jane's perfunctory answer made Darcy realize that this was not something her friend wanted to discuss, and she decided to change the subject.
As talk turned to Tony Stark and whether or not he was in fact boning his CEO Pepper, Darcy felt her mind wander back to the sea green eyes which had haunted her dreams. Whatever was going on, she wanted to investigate.
Brightly smiling, Darcy flipped her hair and prepared herself for a potentially dangerous experiment.
That night as she prepared to sleep, after a long evening of feasting and laughing with the royal family and the Warriors Three, plus Sif, Darcy was exhausted. She had just left the tub (Asgardian water pressure was divine), and was in her bathrobe, brushing her curling mess of hair. A soft Grace Potter song played against the silence- evenings made Darcy very aware of the fact that she was acutely alone.
Suddenly, the music stopped. Darcy assumed she had magically received a notification from Earth (not highly impossible, only highly unlikely).
Her phone showed no such thing, and her music wouldn't turn on.
Frustrated, Darcy resolved to fix her phone in the morning and returned to her beauty rituals. As she massaged lotion onto her knees, a quiet voice filled her mind.
"I am here."
Whirling around, Darcy was unsurprised to find the room was empty. With a resigned sigh, she pulled on some clean clothes and grabbed a flashlight.
Loki wanted to talk to her, and somehow she doubted he was gonna wait.