And so it begins… the sad stuff :[
Darcy awoke with a start, her chest heaving and body covered in sweat. Pressing a hand to her heart, she took a deep breath, attempting to calm her frenzied pulse. A glance to her left showed a serenely sleeping Loki, one of his legs intertwined with hers. The touch grounded her, bringing her out of the panic of moments before. Despite the reassurance of her love's presence, Darcy couldn't shake off the underlying fear.
Frustration at her inability to understand why she felt that way resulted in her downing three glasses of cheap wine at her kitchen table.
In the dim light of the microwave, Darcy carefully reviewed her life. As far as she knew, there was no impending doom to fear- no bogeyman in the dark, no terrorist threatening to destroy the world.
All she knew was that her intuition sensed something was about to go very, very awry- and somehow she knew it was going to devastate her.
Hearing Loki cough in the other room reminded her of another trifling matter- her supernatural boyfriend.
Darcy was perfectly happy in her relationship with Loki- it was almost too perfect, how good things were going between them. That made her worry, because even after Loki had started acting romantic, he had still maintained bits of his wicked, mischievous self. Now they were together, he was everything she had ever wanted, but something was off- a piece of him was missing. She knew that the old Loki had a bit of bite left in him- there was still acid and bile inside her lover, caused by years of anger and emotional trauma and turmoil. The bitterness she had learned to look out for was no longer present- it was "Poof!" gone. And that worried her.
Last time Loki had turned off a part of his personality, he had been driven mad. In his madness, he had lost all control- and everyone had paid the price, perhaps Darcy more than others.
Darcy's real worry was what would happen to Loki's barely healed mind if it was broken again. She could only imagine the mayhem which would ensue- the darkness of spirit within her lover was frightening to recall, but Darcy found herself digging through her past experiences with him in order to comprehend what was possibly happening. Unable to scrape together a plausible theory, Darcy was left no option but to drain her glass and turn on her laptop, to read the global news and check her email…
The next day, Darcy met up with Jane at a coffee shop, little Lucy in tow. The women chatted and caught up, both being extremely caught up with their respective vocations. Darcy's practice within SHIELD was in full swing, and she provided agents with insight on cases/suspects as a consultant, or she would counsel any interested parties. It was fulfilling work, which only rounded out her current satisfaction with life.
Jane too had rediscovered her former career- astrophysics was her passion, and she hadn't been able to indulge in it for years while on Asgard. Now she balanced being a wife and mother quite adeptly with researching the links between the universe and its many dimensions-essentially, Jane wanted to create means to connect with each of the planes of existence. It was ambitious, but Darcy knew it was totally possible for someone as driven and brilliant as Jane.
Their conversation was occasionally interrupted by Lucy, who was mostly distracted by her Stark Tablet, filled with games and videos designed to occupy the wealthiest of toddlers. Jane sneered every time she looked at the silver object, calling it Lucy's "real mother". She went on to explain that raising her baby and trying to connect the worlds of Yggdrasil was nearing impossible.
"I feel so guilty, leaving Lucy with a sitter. Thor's obviously wrapped up with his work and he already tries so hard to spend time with Lucy. Just last week, he ran from a helipad to the apartment just to put Lucy to bed while I did research. It's awful, but I just need someone to watch Lucy for a few days while I get this breakthrough on paper and into tangible data- I'm close to something, but I can't commit myself as deeply to the work as I was used to."
The worry was clear on Jane's lovely face, and Darcy could see the conflict between the nurturing mother and the dedicated scientist within her. She decided to resolve the fight by saying "I can watch baby girl, if you want. I'm free, and I'm totally willing. They're fumigating my office at work anyways, so it's no trouble whatsoever."
Jane literally squeezed the life out of Darcy in response, whispering in her ear, "You are really my best friend. You're the constant I've had to rely on for so long- I don't know what I'd do without you." Tears unexpectedly rose in Darcy's eyes as she hugged back, caught in the random deep moment.
Later, as she made plans to pick up Lucy's crib and playpen, she realized she had yet to tell Loki about his niece's visit.
She decided there was no point in putting it off- she put down her pen and paper and dialed his number.
"Hello darling. Chinese or Thai?"
"What?"
"Dinner. Do you want Chinese or Thai?"
She was momentarily distracted by their usual loving banter, but she couldn't avoid the awkward conversation for long.
"Loki, babe, I wanted to tell you something."
He didn't reply, obviously waiting for her news, and she hesitated before continuing.
"Well? What is it Darcy?" He sounded patient, but the tiniest hint of worry was betrayed in his voice.
"Actually it's no big deal. Just, Jane needs a little bit of a break so she can focus on something for work, so I offered to watch Lucy for four days starting Thursday…"
Her voice trailed off and she suddenly felt stupid for offering without asking Loki.
The trepidation momentarily disappeared however when Loki sounded relieved, and replied "Oh! Is that it? I'm perfectly alright with my niece staying, I love spending time with her."
Despite the seeming victory, warning bells were sounding off in Darcy's head. She knew Loki better than anyone, maybe even Thor, and for Loki, Lucy was an uncomfortable reminder of something he was unwilling to admit to. She had never pried out of him the truth- why the baby girl made him feel so vulnerable and raw.
The only time she'd ever, ever seen Loki voluntarily spend time with his niece was when Thor or Jane were present, and that in itself was worrying to Darcy.
She ignored her thoughts for the time being though, calling it paranoia.
That night though, the panicky fear returned in full force- she dreamt again. It was the old dream, where she ran and ran through the rubble of New York City, leaping over broken stone and shattered building towards something unknown but terrifyingly vital.
The familiar horror and nausea rose in stomach when she reached her destination- she falls to her knees at the sight of her beloved Lucy, mangled and broken in a bloody pile of limbs and gore. The nausea becomes more persistent, and the urge to vomit is almost uncontrollable, but she swallows the bile when her vision catches a shocking tableau- Thor with hammer in hand, frozen in death as he was never in life, with bruises and cuts and shattered bones. Jane was behind him, her face contorted as wildly as her legs and arms were- someone had pulled her to pieces.
Darcy felt indescribably ill- all she knew was a desire to empty herself of everything- her stomach, her heart, her mind, her soul-
Her nausea was forgotten though.
That chuckle, that haunting, anonymous chuckle.
It was rusty and metallic, like nails across a chalkboard except magnified. She wanted to go deaf before hearing it again, but then she hears her name-
"Darcy…"
It is a broken cry from a broken man's broken mouth-
Loki, hung by his arms on a lamp pole like a satire of the Crucifixion, called her name again, but it's pitiful… like a lost lamb, bleating for its mother.
The metallic life echoed around her and she searched for the draconian goliath of her previous nightmares, but he wasn't present.
She turned back to Loki but he was no longer there, but behind her, and he held a knife to her throat, no longer injured but stronger than she'd ever seen him before.
The knife was pressed deep into the soft flesh of her neck, but her focus remained on her lover's eyes- they were the expected blue but she could not help but feel that she had ignored some vital clue.
She was about to open her mouth to speak when Loki interrupted her, hissing in an all too familiar rasp, "I thought I'd finish what I started in New York."
And the knife flashed across her jugular and-
Darcy woke up feeling sicker than she had ever felt before in her life. The trauma of her nightmare manifested itself in a full three-quarter of an hour spent vomiting into the toilet- but the gagging was silent, and somehow she couldn't bring herself to call Loki to her aid.
She also couldn't return to her bed just yet- couldn't face Loki just yet. Instead she lurched into the kitchen, anchoring herself at the small IKEA table.
There she sat till dawn washed over her with its soft light, reliving every moment of her terror- and in her fourth or fifth replay she began to pick apart the differences of this version.
The disappearance of the giant monster, who she had previously decided was her idea of Thanos, indicated to her that she was now threatened by something else in her life- although whether the threat was new was unknown to her.
Seeing Lucy dead had disturbed her as well, to the point where she was almost dreading seeing her that morning at nine when Jane was going to drop her off.
Darcy was considering canceling the babysitting offer when the door to her bathroom shut abruptly- causing her to jump out of her skin in fear. Realizing that it was just Loki, the man she loved and adored and trusted, she shrugged it off.
Deliberately and obstinately, she ignored her entire ordeal and returned to bed, claiming she had been thirsty when Loki sleepily kissed her hand and asked where she had been….
She continued ignoring her nagging fears, despite the ongoing nausea and loss of appetite that carried over well past nine AM when Jane dropped off a miraculously sleeping baby Lucy. The raging vortex of a headache Darcy had been nursing since she had woken up faded to a dull roar when she felt the warmth of Lucy's steady, chugging breaths against her chest. Loki emerged from the bathroom with a towel about his waist, just as Darcy lay Lucy down in her crib. Putting a finger to her mouth, Darcy gestured towards the living room.
Nodding, Loki grabbed a pair of pants from a chair and followed her.
Shutting the door, she took a deep breath and turned to face her boyfriend. At that moment he was nothing short of breath taking- the very picture of health, with his hair slicked back from his shower and his skin flushed a becoming pink from the steam- she wanted to interrogate him with a taser to his balls while simultaneously fucking him to the moon and back.
She realized he had been talking and asked him to repeat himself.
Laughing, he obliged. "Darling, I just wanted to know if Lucy was okay! I didn't hear her arrive- she's normally so willing to announce her presence."
His voice was so unaffected, it nearly broke her heart. What the fuck was going on? Darcy just knew something awful was about to happen, but what was it? And whose fault would it be?
She couldn't help but feel it was going to be hers…
Darcy was working in the kitchen, typing case reports on her laptop. She was under the impression that Loki was at work in the labs of SHIELD, uncovering god knows what.
Lucy was napping again- she was napping a lot lately-
And the baby monitor sat next to her cell phone on the coffee table in the living room with the volume turned just too low for Darcy to hear a single whispered utterance:
"Excellent."
And with a satisfying pivot, Loki of Asgard, burdened with glorious purpose and a returned ability to teleport, vanished away to a familiar corner of the depths of the universe.
My plot wheels are turning and I'm excited! Please, do read this for fun and don't feel obligated to review… that said, your words justify every minute I spend thinking about this stupid story.
Love y'all,
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