Hey everybody! So…I read every single review I get and they make me so happy you guys, you have no idea. They mean so much to me so thank you so so much for writing them! Here's the next chapter, hopefully will have the next one up later this week. I'm visiting my baby in the afternoons Monday-Friday so I guess it just depends on my mood. Enjoy, as always, and thank you once again, I love you all!

But goddamn do I love this chapter. GODDAMN!

Disclaimer: Don't own the Marvel Universe

Warning: Okay this warning is pretty serious since I had trouble just writing the first part of Loki's perspective and even just reading it over made me feel like I was about to go into a panic—I know it's cliche but please don't do drugs, guys. I don't know any of you on a personal level but I love each one of you and whatever you're going through now, bad or good, it can't stay that way forever. If you ever need someone to talk to just message me on here or on tumblr and I'll talk or listen, whatever you need. :)

Comments/critiques welcomed as always!

Finding Loki was like trying to find Waldo except everyone kept moving. While he was in a study in the back, Darcy was looking around the dining and living rooms, searching every group and crowd but giving up her search. Everyone in there was grinding anyways and Loki wasn't drunk enough for that yet. Darcy wanders around a corner when she runs into a hard body, drinks spilling all down the front of her dress. "Fucking hell!" she swears, looking down at herself and thinking of all the ways Loki was going to kill her. It was his after all… Ready to backhand the idiot that spilled the drinks on her she freezes when she sees a very upset looking Steve, two empty glasses in his hands.

"Gosh, Darcy, I'm really sorry…" his face turns redder and redder. "I should've been paying attention and you came out of nowhere-"

"Relax, Steve, I…didn't really like this dress anyways," she grins and bites her lip, twirling her curls around her finger. "Doesn't really fit anyways…sleeveless never really works on girls with breasts like mine, huh?" A shameless flirting tactic since Steve was fighting his baser instincts not to look.

"Ah," Steve blushes and rubs the back of his neck. "I don't know I think you look…good. In the dress. I c-could find some uhh—some wet naps-"

Christine strides up to them—having waited so long she changed into a shorter skirt—and smiles sweetly at Steve. "There you are…did you get my martini?" She glances at Darcy and makes a face. "Oh. Darcy."

"Hi, Christine," Darcy shoots her a smile. "Your drink, I believe, is poured down the front of me. You can lick it off if you'd like? I'm sure that'll liven the party up."

"Don't you have any other private affairs to ruin?" Christine sneers.

Darcy groans. "God—for the last time, I didn't tell anyone you were having a fucking party! Why would I ruin your stupid Future Women of America meeting, I am a future woman of America! Your announcements from the organization are very important to my wellbeing as a female citizen of the United States."

She rolls her eyes. "Whatever. Forget about my drink, Steve, how about that dance now?"

Darcy leans towards Steve, pretending to lower her voice. "If she tries to get you into bed just call her Carolyn. She hates it."

"Oh, shut up, Lewis!"

"What, I thought you liked that? Didn't stop you from fucking Stark-"

Steve frantically speaks up, not wanting to be caught in the crossfires. "Darcy—are you sure I can't help clean that off? Or at least…drive you home so you can change?"

"I'm sure it'll come off with some club soda and a dish towel…" Darcy blushes, not accustomed to being treated the way Steve was offering. Loki would've called her a dumbass and patted her down awkwardly with some thin napkins.

Christine speaks up with a smirk. "Oh, Darcy, I'm sure I can find you something to wear. My daddy should have a sweatshirt big enough. Don't know about finding you pants though…what with you having such wide hips."

Darcy's jaw clenches as she looks away with a scoff. "There's bound to be club soda in the kitchen somewhere…after all, Christine, your mother has to get those stains out of the living room carpet somehow. What with her excessive wine drinking?" Christine hisses at her under her breath obviously not wanting to come off as being vile in front of Steve. "If you'll excuse me, I have a dress to clean and my man-whore to find…" She was too proud to let Christine see her upset. Darcy turns on her heel and walks away. Who cared where Loki was? She'd probably go home to find him drunk or stoned out of his mind in her room. Darcy enters the kitchen and faces the counter, taking a deep breath. "Fucking bitch…" She wipes a stray tear from her eye and turns to find Steve had followed her, smiling faintly and holding out a towel to her. Darcy smiles, taking it. "You really don't have to help, this dress is embarrassingly tight enough without someone patting me down-"

Steve shrugs. "It was my fault. I'll try to find some club soda."

They both dig through the cabinets and refrigerator, Darcy eventually finding a bottle under the sink and exclaiming her triumph, causing a few people to turn and stare; most of them were drunk anyways. Steve holds the bottle and a spare towel while Darcy tries to scrub off the stain. "You'll be finding me in the obituaries if I don't get this stain out…" Steve laughs lightly, shifting in place. He always stood so stiffly. Darcy kind of liked that. She had a thing for a guy who could wear a uniform.

"Christine shouldn't have said that."

Darcy blinks, looking up at Steve. He was squirming nervously, watching his shoes remain in place as shoes usually do when they aren't moving. "Don't…don't worry about it, Steve, I'm used to it. Christine's a bitch anyways."

"It probably doesn't matter much but…I think you're pretty. I mean—you know—uhh…"

"Thanks, Steve," she smiles, her heart fluttering a bit. She'd be lying if she said she didn't have a crush on Steve. Hell, she'd be lying if she denied ever having a crush on Thor—or Loki—but that was just how Darcy's heart worked. It always fell for someone who could see past the things she didn't like about herself. Steve was just one of those people who could see the good in everyone.

Jane taps Darcy on the shoulder with a smile, pulling her out of her trance. "Hey, Darce." It takes Darcy a minute, her face lighting up.

"Hey!"

Thor follows Jane into the kitchen, people having to move around awkwardly for him to get through. He grabs a new beer and smiles at his friends. "HELLO, STEVE, DARCY-" They both give him a small wave. "DARCY, YOU HAVE A STAIN ON YOUR DRESS!"

"Thank you, Thor, for announcing that—why are you yelling?"

"He thinks no one can hear him," Jane giggles, looking Darcy over. "You do have an awful big stain though—here, let me try." She takes the towel Darcy was using and the club soda, dabbing more on and scrubbing furiously. "So are you having fun? I know you didn't really want to come…"

"Yeah, well, Loki really wanted to for some reason-" Steve was really glad no one saw the way his face lit up…especially since he wasn't sure why he got so happy, "-but now I've lost him. I think he ditched me. HEY, THOR! HAVE YOU SEEN LOKI?!"

Jane makes a face at Darcy for screaming in her ear.

"WE SAW HIM EARLIER—I THINK HE WENT TO FIND YOU!"

"Oh, well, at least he's somewhere in the vicinity," Darcy sighs. "Why does Christine have such a big house? It's not like her parents are going to pop out any more babies! Rich people problems…"

"Thor has a big house. You don't seem to mind that," Steve smiles, sipping his water.

Darcy grins and rolls her eyes. "They only have a big house because Thor and his dad are roughly the same size. How else would they live?"

"I'M SURE IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH MY FATHER OWNING A MULTIBILLION DOLLAR CORPORATION, RIGHT?" Thor bellows, laughing. Darcy punches his arm.

"QUIT MAKING FUN OF US POOR PEOPLE!"

"There," Jane smiles, asking Steve for the other towel and patting her handiwork dry. "Good as new. Now stop encouraging him to yell, it's embarrassing, I just don't have the heart to tell him." Darcy snickers, tapping Jane on the nose. They'd only been friends for two years now but Darcy still knew how to get under Jane's skin. One of the many traits that made Darcy, Darcy. She knew Jane liked Thor but knew better than to tell him without her consent. Besides, teasing her about it in front of Thor—who was as oblivious as Steve (if not more)—was too much fun for her to resist. She pinches Jane's cheeks, grinning. "Daaawww…is Jane worried she'll hurt poor Thor's feelings?" Jane smacks her hands away, blushing furiously.

"Quit it!"

Darcy and Thor laugh, Thor not really sure why he was laughing other than he felt like it.

"Thor, man, you don't have to yell. We can all hear you just fine," Steve pats his friend on the back, winking at Jane. He was only oblivious when people liked him.

Thor offers to pour Jane a drink—who obliges—blushing as he hands it to her. He brushes a few stray hairs behind her ear which makes her laugh nervously into her hand. Thor just smiles, tucking his hand into his pocket and not making any other attempts to touch her; he was a gentlemen. Darcy makes a gagging motion for Steve to see who laughs, averting his eyes from the two of them.

"I'm going to keep looking for Loki," Darcy announces. "If he's wasted I'm sure he didn't get too far since he's wearing heeled shoes…" She takes a sip of water. "Thanks again, you really didn't have to wait on me, Steve, it really wasn't that big of a deal."

Steve blushes lightly. "D-don't worry about it…besides it was my fault. Need any help finding him?"

Darcy smiles and wrinkles her nose. "Nah, he's around somewhere, I'll find him. See you around, Steve." She walks out of the kitchen and taking a right. Best place to start seemed to be the bathroom.

Everything seemed so…significant. The world was so vibrant. Everyone could move so fast. Loki blinked and he was back out in the hall. He blinked again and he was in the foyer, everyone dancing and laughing. Everyone was so happy. Loki felt happy too. Everything felt happy. The people are dancing around him and they're all so happy and he's happy because they're happy. Loki can feel the music pounding around him and inside him, pumping through him just like his blood and suddenly he's dancing, letting the music take his blood and move him as it likes. He's dancing and dancing and dancing and three girls laugh and take his hands, dancing with him, but none of them are Darcy he can see they aren't Darcy; they're all so beautiful but they're not Darcy.

Loki's not even sure how he got here. Where did these pearls come from? He grins watching them swing around his neck as he moves, letting the girls grind against him, not a clue as to who they are either but he doesn't care. Everything seemed so perfect, everything made sense and yet it didn't. He could feel the air around him, he could see it.

"You're a good dancer!" the blonde grins, dancing with him. He smiles back at her.

Then he blinks.

The girls are dragging Loki towards the dining room table. Everyone in the room is cheering and the music is blaring and the two brunettes climb onto the table and start to dance. The blonde climbs up next and she's moving her hips and her skirt swings and her hair flies and the crowd loves her. She flips her hair and they all cheer, she tosses her hip and they all whistle and she grins, giving them what they want. Loki's head is pounding, his heart racing, the room moving all around him as he watches her dance. The pearls are heavy around his neck and he looks down at them to watch them dangle, his head spinning; the music rushes like his blood and the sweat on his head feels like blood and he wonders if it's red, red like blood. The blonde takes his hand and the rings on his fingers glimmer in the dim light and he stares at them, fascinated because he doesn't know where they came from, he can't remember. He's pulled up onto the table and the girls all dance around him and the bass of the music starts to fill his belly and Loki can feel it pumping through his veins, taking him over.

Everyone in the room is still cheering while the pearls swing wildly around Loki's neck as he twists his whole body, working his hips because he knows that's what they like, and he runs his hands down his thighs and the crowd cheers. He tosses his head back, his hair flying out of place, the pearls swinging and he's filled with this overwhelming ecstasy and they all cheer and whistle and he keeps dancing because his blood keeps pumping with the music and everything around him feels so alive. Loki twists his hips and drops low, arching his body. He pulls himself back up slowly and the crowd goes wild.

Natasha can't help but laugh at how wasted Loki was. Enough that he was up on a table and dancing in front of a crowd of people he despises. It wasn't that he wasn't good—he was sex on the dance floor—but if he hadn't been stoned out of his mind he wouldn't be up there with the three sluts he'd befriended. She looks to Bucky and Clint, who were a few feet away and dying of laughter, and rolls her eyes.

"Here," Steve hands her a cup and takes a sip from his.

"You know, I can't help but wonder what you said to him." He furrows his brow, looking to Natasha who nods towards the table calmly and sips her beer. Steve looks up and chokes on his, sputtering. She pats his back, rubbing between his shoulder blades and smiles. "I'm contemplating on whether or not I should go find Darcy or Thor."

"Darcy—I'll try to get him down." Steve pushes his way towards the table, barely hearing himself think above the noise in the room. He wasn't sure Loki would even go anywhere with him but it was better than letting him embarrass himself like this. The music is pounding, making the chandelier above the table bounce and shake. "Loki!" Loki obviously didn't hear him because he's still dancing. "Loki!" he calls again. Steve couldn't tell what was wrong with him, but he needed to get him down before he hurt himself. There was a lazy smile on his face, his eyes hooded, and he was dancing and…and Steve liked it…but he couldn't just leave him up there. It was as if Loki didn't comprehend their fake cheers and whistles or the laughter that overwhelmed the room and for some reason it made Steve angry. "LOKI!"

Loki halters his dancing, hearing his name. The girls laugh, tugging at his arms, the pearls still swinging at his neck. He looks around—all of the faces swirling together, the whole room swirling together…

"Get off the table, faggot!" one of the boys yells, throwing his beer at Loki.

He yelps when the beer splashes all over him; it smells foul and he can hear the laughter and the pearls pull at his neck and the beer runs down his arms and he doesn't want them to see, they're laughing, he doesn't want them to see; he stumbles forward and slips, landing hard onto the table and hitting his head.

"HEY-!" Steve elbows one of the guys in the jaw, only a few of them laughing now, some of them trying to climb up to help. Loki's head is pounding and it hurts and the laughs are ringing in his ears. He blinks and there are hands reaching for him, multiple of them, and he throws out his arms with a cry, trying to push them away. Loki tries to get up himself, his head spinning violently, his arm caught in the pearls. They snap, all of the round beads scattering around him. He tries to catch them and falls off the table into one of the guys who'd thrown the beer. Steve can't get to him. Loki's now on the floor trying to collect the pearls, appearing and disappearing between the people but they're all drunk, they keep dancing and laughing. One of the guys pulls Loki to his feet, making him yell and try to pull away. He didn't know where he was now, everything was throbbing and red, all he could see was red and white shapes and they were all moving and hurting his eyes and he didn't like it anymore, he felt sick. Loki vomits onto the floor. People around him yell and start shoving at him and Loki begins to panic, his heart pounding and he starts hyperventilating.

"Knock it off, guys, he's obviously done for tonight." Steve pulls Loki towards him, yelling when something that felt like a switch whips across his face. He lets go of Loki, who stumbles out of the room. Steve touches where he'd been hit and feels blood and three scratches but nothing too deep.

Loki crawls up the stairs, the pounding in his head growing worse and the stairs shifting back and forth underneath him, making it hard for him to get to his feet when he reaches the top. Everything's still moving so fast around him and when he blinks he finds himself in the bathroom, gripping the sink, staring wide-eyed at his hands. All of the pearls are gone, he couldn't save them, and there's blood around the rings on his fingers. The water runs around his hand, turning red, washing away, the blood washes away. The room is spinning and throbbing and pulsating around him and he's not sure if it's his head or the blood coursing through his veins…

He vomits the contents of his stomach into the sink. Loki looks at himself in the mirror. His hair was out of place, his pupils were dilated, his mouth twitching. He wipes some blood dripping from his nose, staring at it intensely as he contemplates why it was there, why it had decided to leave his body. Because I snorted a ton of meth. He laughs, licking the blood off his hand and stumbling out of the bathroom. There weren't many people up here but he could swear he was up here before…he blinks and he's in a bedroom…there are two girls with him, trying on the lipstick and digging through the jewelry. His lips are red, red like the blood on his hand but he looks down and there is no blood, only rings, rings from the jewelry box…and there are pearls, long strands around his neck, but there aren't any pearls now. There are no pearls or girls, he's alone now. He blinks and he's back in the hall. Loki stumbles forward into the banister, laughing and breathing heavily as he stares down at all of the people dancing. The music and noise made it feel like his whole body was pounding, right in the core; his blood was pounding. Everyone was down so low…or maybe he was just up really high. Loki snickers. He could string himself up if he wanted. He could dangle down above them like a phantom, strung up by the pearls around his neck. He could dance above them, twitching and sputtering, so far above them…except he didn't have any pearls, not anymore. Everyone was so far, they were all so far away and he was up here all alone, all alone while they were all so far away. He starts to climb over the banister, hooking his heels between the balusters, both hands holding onto the banister as he leans out over the floor, over the people, his head rushing, the blood pumping through his ears. It was so significant, the blood. He could hear it pumping through his body, his heart drawing it in and pushing it out. He wonders what color it would be…the blood. Would it be red like he imagines as it pumps in and out, pumping out of his body as he opens the skin to see the blood? Would it be red like the blood on his hand? But there is no blood on his hand and he laughs because he'd forgotten he'd licked it clean.

Suddenly he's falling…falling and falling and falling and it feels like forever and he can imagine them screaming, crying out as they panic because there is no one to catch him…no one to catch him and his blood as it spreads across the floor, staining their shoes and their minds and their souls. 'Shame on you,' he'll say, 'Shame on you for not catching me…shame on you for only catching my blood.' but he can see the blood spreading, he can see it moving and gliding slowly towards all of them…towards everyone, everyone who had done this and made him to be this, a puddle on the floor. It was their fault, it was all them, everyone, everyone staring down at him and he reaches for them but they move away…

Loki laughs, looking up from where he'd been pulled back over the banister and onto the carpet, Steve Rogers glaring down at him. "What the fuck were you doing?!" His scowl lightens up as Loki laughs, Steve looking around and back down at him. Loki just laughs more, rolling over to muffle his sounds in the carpet. He rolls himself back over and blinks. Blood. He reaches up and touches Steve's face, his fingers sliding over the fresh marks where the blood was flowing and looks at the blood, the blood on his hand. Loki pulls Steve closer with a hand on the back of his neck and whispers into his ear. Steve sits back up when Natasha and Darcy come up the stairs, Darcy crouching by his side. He can hear their muffled voices and see their red shapes shifting above him and there's blood on his fingers and he laughs.

"Blood."

He blinks and everything goes black.

Darcy strokes Loki's hair softly, avoiding the patch on his head where his bump was. She's sitting back against the headboard of Loki's bed. It's early, still dark out, and they've been home for hours but Loki couldn't sleep. He kept mumbling things to her so she sat his head in her lap to calm him down. Something she was all too used to by now but she never lets him see her cry, she always faces forward, wiping away the tears before he notices.

"Is there blood on my hand?" he whispers, holding it up for her to look.

She sighs. "Not anymore."

There's a silence.

"I'm sorry."

Darcy doesn't answer. Loki places a hand on her cheek, his thumb rubbing over the bone and his fingers teasing her hair. He whispers to her again. "Darcy—I'm sorry." She takes his hand and kisses it, setting it down on his chest.

"You're always sorry."