I recently saw that I had reached 100 reviews on my story, and that is so amazing for me personally, as a writer! I know that most people think 100 is nothing but to me it's absolutely everything! Thank you all, and please, above all else, keep reading and critiquing my work because I am ever a work in progress! Love you all, AUTHOR!
Darcy was having trouble sleeping. Lucy had been fussy at nights, as Jane's few days of work became more than a week. Thor wasn't on planet, so there was no choice but for her to keep her little niece with her. It wasn't a huge imposition, but Darcy was worried about Loki's reaction- or rather, his lack of one. He was completely at ease with the child, playing with her and talking with her of silly fantasies and Asgardian fairy tales. It was as if a switch had been turned off that removed all of Loki's fears of hurting the little girl with his mere presence, making him a model uncle.
It would have made sense if Loki had gradually spent more time with his flesh and blood niece, but the change was son instantaneous that Darcy wasn't buying it as easily as she might have- her gut was screaming that something was off, but what could she do on a hunch? Accuse her boyfriend of… what, exactly?
Loki hadn't even noticed her suspicions, a fact which indicated how out of character he was acting. He, who was on average much more intelligent than any man, couldn't sense that she was walking on eggshells around him, avoiding asking if he was… himself.
In fact, everything about him seemed slightly off- Darcy only realized the extent of it during a round of lovemaking, of all things-
He had turned to her around 11 PM after coming home late from work with SHIELD, and Darcy had already been in bed. Loki had greeted her with a kiss to the base of her neck, an act that usually sent electricity to her groin so fast that she was on him in the next instant.
This time though… it felt intrusive. It felt weird, like a stranger was imitating the acts of a loved one dead and gone- and as those thoughts shot through Darcy's mind, she realized that something was truly amiss. She went along with it though, as her body responded somewhat, and there it was again- Loki couldn't tell her lack of passion or even lust- and he called her beautiful and gorgeous as he came close to orgasm, when usually his phrases of choice were "Fuck, Darcy!", and "I love you so goddamn much!"
As she lay abed, watching Loki's chest rise evenly with each breath, Darcy understood what she had to do.
Shutting her eyes and matching her breaths to her lover's, Darcy slowed her thoughts until she was near sleep. Then, with all the power she could muster, she called to Loki with her mind. The link between them had faded for several months past, due to their increased physical involvement with one another, but they had yet to truly sever it. Darcy was sure it was too strong a bond to have completely been lost, and she was right.
"Loki?"
She was in a new room- a quiet, empty room with concrete walls and no windows. There was rain outside, she could hear it, and traffic- an anonymous building in an anonymous city of the mind.
Darcy shivered, and glanced down upon herself. She wore her usual jeans and a hoodie, but her sneakers perturbed her. The usually pink and green Nike kicks were spattered with grime and gore, and Darcy wondered what that was meant to tell her subconscious.
The thought flew away though when a door that hadn't been there seconds before slammed open and shut, and then there was Loki reinforcing the door with magic and with desperately whispered spells and furniture that also hadn't been there before.
"Dammit Loki, what happened?!" Darcy ran to help him but he only laid a finger to his lips, pointing to the door. With bated breath, she listened, hearing then for the first time a presence- a heavy tread that was infinitely more frightening than anything she'd heard before in her life.
For long moments, the fearful silence was maintained, until Loki finally took a deep breath and dared to speak.
"You've realized, I see."
His face was ashen gray, much as it had been when she had first began her nightly visions with him, and his eyes were sunken in. Gratefully noting that they remained as yet a cloudy green, Darcy replied,
"I've realized nothing. All I know is that… you're not you. What's going on, love?"
Loki visibly wilted before her, and he could not answer but shook his head furiously. "I cannot directly say, or I will be heard! All I shall tell is that that which you repaired has been torn anew, and everyone- absolutely everyone, is at risk."
"What the fuck do you mean, Loki? You're… you're not in control anymore?"
The look on his face said quite enough, and Darcy knew her gut never lied.
"Can I do something to stop it, Loki?"
His silence was even worse than his hangdog expression from before, and she suddenly understood that not only was she in danger, but all her hard work rehabilitating Loki was being smashed to bits, right under her nose.
Darcy felt something shift in the room then, and Loki's face spasmed into a combination of pain and something akin to malice. She tried to grip his shoulders, but he only pushed her away and choked out a single word:
Run.
When she woke up, it was as she feared. Loki was gone- all trace of his existence in her bedroom removed- from the pile of books he never could let go of, to the vial of hair ointment that he so tended to overuse.
Darcy rubbed her face and glanced at the dawn peeking underneath her blinds- and she realized that it had to be almost 7 AM and Lucy hadn't wailed for her breakfast yet. Everything inside Darcy twisted in that moment, and she lunged out of bed and her room too quickly to register the sight in her living room. She stepped over the shattered coffee table, and picked her way through the broken glass, frantically searching for the baby girl- praying silently, fervently, unknowing of the shards embedded in her feet by that point.
Darcy was about to give up and call SHIELD when something dripped onto the floor by her big toe. Terrified of what she was about to see, Darcy slowly raised her eyes to her ceiling… and screamed.
…
Loki was roaring- not just vocally, but magically and mentally and physically- the power of the Tesseract was as familiar as the sting of an old blade, and he was flying high as a result. The ties and binds of his old life were cut irrevocably- he'd made sure of that with the blood on his hands, and now he could concentrate on what was truly his life's purpose-
Chaos.
He knew not what propelled him so fiercely, so constantly, but he knew it was not himself in charge. Loki dimly knew that this was not what his old self wanted but, that was the weaker him, and this was the better, superior Loki-
At least, someone had told him that.
He couldn't remember who- and he also didn't know who fed him the tasks of mayhem and murder, only that he relished carrying out his orders and awaiting more.
With a blaze of magic, Loki sent himself to the Kremlin. There was work to be done in Russia.
It was time for the God of Mischief to reclaim his rightful rule.
…
Darcy couldn't cry. Not when she saw… what she saw. Not when she called SHIELD- not when she sat in the black sedan while agents followed in a van which carried…
The remains.
Darcy couldn't speak. Her eyes couldn't stop seeing… what they saw. She couldn't comprehend it for what it was, so she thought of it in abstract terms.
The blood… somehow it was all over her ceiling, her fan, her vents- but none anywhere else. It screamed of a darker, powerful magic- evil.
There were limbs- some severed, some seemingly torn. The images of them wouldn't disappear, kept connecting to recreate the whole little girl…
And then Darcy would block it out again…
Until her mind made her see it for what it was, and that was too much to bear.
They arrived at SHIELD all too fast, and Darcy belatedly realized that her secret affair with Loki was now very, very public.
More than that, she had lied to Jane about it.
She had lied to Jane, and directly put her child in danger.
She had caused the death of her beloved Lucy… and all because she was too stupid to love the right man. Darcy had chosen the wrong man, and she was going to pay the price, and so was Jane, and so was Thor- who else was Loki going to hurt?
On autopilot she followed the suit to Fury's office, where the man himself sat, head bowed over what had to be pictures of the crime scene- her home.
"Sit, Ms. Lewis."
Darcy obliged, deciding then and there that candidness was necessary to catch the killer- Loki, or whoever had compelled him.
"You should first understand- SHIELD always knew of your relationship with Mr. Odinson. We were under no impressions when he moved out of his apartments in our facility. It's near impossible to hide something from us, especially shacking up with a former war criminal- and somehow I think you knew that we knew. But you hid it from others- implying you knew there was danger, didn't you?"
Dully, Darcy replied, "I actually just didn't want anyone to question me, or judge me… although look where that's got me. I've fucked it all up, haven't I?"
Fury looked at her with something akin to pity, and she couldn't stomach that, so she decided to speak.
"I think something's controlling Loki again. He's been strange for a few days- but noticeably when… Jane's daughter came to stay."
Fury's forehead furrowed and he shook his head. "Ms. Lewis… I understand that you were able to prove that in the case of the Chitauri, Loki was not in any control. This time however… what would Thanos, or anybody want to accomplish by ending the life of an innocent child?"
Darcy couldn't believe how dense the director of SHIELD was being- couldn't he see that an intergalactic war had to be on the horizon after this- Loki versus Thor as never before? And god knows, Thanos was pulling the strings behind it all?
But Fury would hear none of it. He was more interested in when Darcy began to date Loki, when they first became "intimate", when they moved in together.
She didn't know what to say after that, and Fury had fallen silent too. It was a strange moment, but then Fury turned on a screen on his wall and footage began to play- of her apartment.
It took a minute to register but then she saw herself in bed- and then there entered Loki- and then she knew what came next, as Loki leaned close to her, embracing her, and there was her reluctant response- although on camera she seemed far more willing than in reality, and then off came the clothes- and mercifully that was when Fury fast forwarded ahead to 2 AM, when Darcy was asleep (or dream traveling). Loki was nowhere to be seen in the room, and Fury took that moment to meaningfully look at her.
The footage then shifted to of her living room, where Lucy's cot was set up, with all her toys scattered about.
Darcy could remember a conversation she'd had with Loki once, when she had complained about the mess kids made, and Loki had replied that if it was his child, he wouldn't really mind all that much.
A tear slipped out after that, but the poignant moment was lost when she saw that Loki had suddenly popped up- he was in what she had once dubbed his crazy clothes, or his armor and helm.
He stood before the crib for a long five minutes, his back to the camera. Darcy could see even on a tv screen, even beneath layers of leather and metal and linen- her man was clenching and unclenching his fists and his back was completely tense and his neck- his neck was completely seized as if he was holding himself so tight, he was about to explode.
She was about to point it out to Fury as proof of her theory, but then it began- the tension disappeared and Loki's body was slack- and then, in the most jarring way possible, he turned around and faced the camera- his face, and eyes- colorless- and then in the eeriest way, he leered at them, and in that second Darcy felt like she was back on that skyscraper in New York and she was about to be broken again.
Close to tears, she covered her face and tried to breathe, but then… she spoke. Lucy, her bubbly, babbling baby- she spoke. Ironically, she had grasped onto Loki's name quite adeptly, and so in her childish lisp, she often called out her uncle's name. "Lo-ki! Loki!"
Darcy couldn't look away then- the light yellow footie pajamas- the tousled blond hair, so like her father's-
And then Loki grabbed the child and the camera scrambled but not before she heard one horrific crunch and then a quiet whimpering- and then the screen went black.
She couldn't take it- she ran out of the office, wanting nothing more than to fling herself off the Empire State Building.
Office aides and SHIELD agents tried to pursue her, but Darcy ran to the first place she could think of- Jane's office.
But that was an even worse mistake, because there sat Thor Odinson with his wife in his lap, comforting one another as they both literally shook with sobs- and there stood Darcy, the literal cause of their daughter's brutal murder.
Before she could run away from her worst nightmare, Jane emitted a strangled sob and lunged at Darcy, grabbing her by the legs and pulling her down, pummeling her body with frantic blows that barely even registered as painful.
"YOU- (THWACK)- FUCKING- (THWACK)- IDIOT! DID YOU REALLY BELIEVE HE COULD FUCKING CHANGE? HE KILLED THOUSANDS AND NOT JUST ON EARTH DARCY! NOT JUST ON EARTH! HE TRIED TO KILL HIS FATHER, HIS BROTHER, HE TRIED TO KILL YOU! HOW COULD YOU DATE HIM AND FUCK HIM AND LOVE HIM AND THEN BRING MY BABY UNDER HIS ROOF?"
By then Jane was just hoarsely shouting, her arms limp by her side, and in her grief Darcy could see nothing but Lucy's little face, her beautiful features still undefined but undeniably hers.
Thor had remained silent in that time, letting his wife rage, but he had had enough.
"Jane, my love. Allow Darcy to breathe- we cannot lay blame on her… although, Darcy, I cannot help but share her sentiment."
Thor's face was not angry, nor was it upset- just mournful and disappointed, and that was enough for Darcy.
"I know why you forgave him Thor! Even after all he did- I get it! He's… he's so damned easy to love, and I don't fucking know why I didn't give in sooner! All I know… all I know and all I can say is that I'm so so fucking sorry- and I don't know what I'm going to do! I wish I was the one dead! I wish he'd killed me-" and then the tears choked Darcy's words back into her throat, and she collapsed, crying too hard to fathom, as her chest literally wracked with sobs- and then she felt warm arms about her and for an instant- her heart pounded so hard in that moment- for an instant she thought Loki had come back.
But she could feel the greater strength and knew it was Thor, who despite all her mistakes, still forgave her- and she clung to the moment, and used it as balm on her wounds-
She would still have Thor to love, and someday Jane too-
But that was for another time.
Darcy unsteadily stood up, and she remembered the first time she walked with Loki in the SHIELD lab- and that was the start of the change, wasn't it?
In her mind's eye she could sense an idea forming, too vague to explain but enough detail was there that she knew she had to get to read Loki's research- immediately.
…
Loki of Asgard enjoyed human news channels- it was like a timeline of his actions, being reported on and analyzed and discussed- all the attention he had never received from his family culminated on a tv screen.
It was absolutely marvelous to watch his plans come together so beautifully- it was like watching waves crash into one another in the ocean, nature's way of balancing too much power in one wave, transferring it to another.
The moment he had been awaiting for centuries had arrived, and the time for musing has passed.
"We have breaking news reports coming in that… Oh my god- approximately 287 of the US House Representatives have been found dead in their homes in the past hour- and here we're getting news from the UK that the royal family has also had several deaths- oh my god…"
Loki tired of the mortal's supplications to the wrong deity, and shut off the tv. Closing his eyes, he reached out with his mind and probed for the right link- the one that glowed bright blue in his mind like a beacon.
"It is done."
Not a moment passed before he heard a reply in his mind.
"So it is."
"And now we wait?"
"And watch. And enjoy."
"Of course, Master."
"Yes pawn… and when this is done, and you have claimed Earth for yourself… I shall arrive. And I shall break you- do you understand?"
Loki had never felt reverence like he felt at that moment, but tears leaked out of his eyes as he whispered aloud his response-
"Yes- I can hardly wait…"
…
Darcy had a blinding headache as she read file after file, ignoring her pain and delving deeper into what exactly Loki had been up to. It seemed that Loki would vanish for a couple hours each day- inconspicuously, of course, and there was no trace of where he had been or who he had been meeting. In fact, all she could link to Loki was an obsession with a vein of mineral ore that the Siberian government had been fighting over with the Russians, although it seemed the Motherland was going to win-
But really, Darcy could see why Loki had been interested. Though it couldn't compare to the Tesseract, a minute amount of ore was able to produce a great deal of power- and it was clean energy too- and Darcy knew that SHIELD wasn't going to let Russia get in on that.
What that had to do with Loki, however, made no sense.
All she knew then was that she needed to talk to someone who was intelligent and informed about matters of the mind as well as whatever the fuck SHIELD would do with an energy source from Russia.
Darcy was trying to decide if Tony Stark was someone to approach when she realized that her seat was wet- so she stood up in disgust at her lack of control, but to her horror she sat in a puddle of blood.
It took her a moment to connect the liquid to her belated period, but she had enough sense to stand up and pass a hand between her legs.
"Shit…" was all she could utter as she came back up with a stark red hand covered in blood. She decided a trip to the clinic was required before any meetings would occur, anticipating an ibuprofen for her head and a very heavy duty tampon to staunch the flow.
She didn't expect to be assaulted by nurses as soon as someone sighted her back, which was frighteningly wet with her own fluids.
The shock of being dragged to a bed and then she heard a nurse call for an obstetrician-
And then she heard the word miscarriage-
And she thought of her nausea-
And all went black.
Okay so has the shit hit the fan enough for everybody?
Seriously though, I hated writing this but it was also so cathartic.
Love you all, read and review and don't hate me too much. Now I know how George R. R. Martin feels…