tinyscribblequeenfromspace asked you: Well, since you left them in the same room…it would be pretty sweet/disastrous/hilarious to see Loki and Darcy discuss Thor and Jane.
Wherein Darcy and Loki launch a rescue. (Romance/Humor. G.)
Loki hates the Eye-Phone, but he listens to Jane Foster's recorded voice for the fifth time nevertheless.
"Hi, Darcy. It's me. Don't worry, I'm fine. But just in case you don't hear from me in the next hour—" and here there is a brief burst of what Darcy Lewis identified as 'gunfire' "—come by the crater site and try to find us, okay? It's gone about as well as Loki predicted. Don't tell him I said that. Okay. Bye."
It's a very strange feeling, to not enjoy being having been right.
The car — another thing Loki hates — jolts uncomfortably as Darcy Lewis races down the muddy road. The lights attached to the front of the vehicle only illuminate a few yards through the rain, making it difficult to avoid uneven bumps and holes. "They're going to be fine," she says. "Quit worrying."
"I am not worried."
"You're fidgeting so much that you're starting to make me jumpy. If I'd known you were going to be like this I'd have left you at home."
"That's absurd. The responsibility for this situation is mine, and thus it is my responsibility to rectify. You should have remained behind."
"Like I was going to let you drive." Darcy Lewis shrugs. "And it's not that much your fault. The only way to stop Jane from going would have been to hog-tie her in the bathroom."
Loki is silent.
"And no, you're not allowed to do that."
"Morality must sometimes yield in the wake of solvent courses of action."
"I would have tased you."
"That wretched weapon of yours ought to be destroyed."
"Be glad I stopped carrying mace. And aren't you wondering at least a little bit about Thor? I mean, he is your brother, and he seemed really upset about Mew-Mew."
Loki flexes his hand instinctively. The one that had turned to ice. If they hadn't been banished, if he'd had time to ask Father — or Mother, it would have been better to speak to Mother — and discover the truth of it all, perhaps, perhaps… "My brother—" is he really "—will have to rescue himself from the consequences of his actions."
"Yeah, I don't think he's so good at that."
"Well, it's long past time he learned."
"Then I'll help him." Darcy Lewis shakes her head. "I like how you've loosened Jane up and all, but you can be a real jerk sometimes."
"And you are an irritating little creature who hasn't the slightest notion of when it is appropriate to remain silent."
"Since you're freaking out I'm going to let that one slide."
"I am not freaking out."
"You so are. And she's going to forgive you, you know."
"I've done nothing that requires forgiveness." Which is exactly what Loki said to Jane before she stormed off into the night with Thor. Just after she accused him of hiding vital scientific evidence from her because of some 'ridiculous family thing' and then waited expectantly for an apology.
He only told her that recklessness and stupidity followed his brother wherever he went, and she would be equally reckless and stupid to accompany him on his quest.
She went anyway.
The situation may be his responsibility — what with having too many of that poison Darcy Lewis refers to as Jäger and bringing up the subject of Mjolnir at all — but he has no intention of apologizing.
What right has Thor, after all? Favored again by Odin, even in exile. Loki has tried for weeks to discover some method by which to recover his magic, any of his magic, even just enough to create an illusion of Asgard's constellations for Jane Foster to examine. But there is nothing. Only science. Science is not magic, whatever she says. There are bridges all over the realms, ones only he has ever discovered, including ones here on Midgard, but without his powers he cannot find them, let alone use them.
And yet there is Mjolnir, just sitting in the desert, waiting for Thor to pick it up and return to all his glory.
Loki had even tried to lift it himself. It wasn't the first time he'd attempted such a thing, after all. But that first night, lost and powerless and hoarse from shouting for Heimdall, for Mother, for Thor, when he stumbled across his brother's weapon in the middle of a crater, gleaming in the moonlight… it had seemed worth a try.
Of course Mjolnir hadn't budged. It never did.
So he'd walked, his human form — a human form, the final insult — growing weak and weary, until at daylight he'd stumbled into a little village and found his brother, hale and whole, sitting in a tavern with a group of mortals.
Thor had leapt to his feet and embraced Loki as he hadn't since they were youths fighting their very first wars. Brother, he'd said. Thank the heavens.
Loki had never been so glad to see anyone in his life.
But he'd told no one of the hammer.
Not when for once, just this once, they were equals.
And if that meant Jane Foster did not have access to something that could have perhaps aided her research, well, so be it. Everyone must suffer disappointments. Even her.
He's done nothing wrong.
"I've done nothing wrong," he says aloud.
Darcy Lewis snorts. "Well, if you're not going to grovel," she says, "then you better find another way to make it up to her. But the people across the street are going to start complaining before too much longer, just so you know."
Loki has picked up enough of modern turns of phrase to understand Darcy Lewis is making a suggestive comment, but the latter bit is confusing. "I don't understand. Why would they complain?"
"Because you're noisy and not everyone's got headphones. They don't want to know about what you two are doing all hours of the day."
"The sound of copulation... offends Midgardians?"
"Oh, yeah. Around here, anyway. It all comes back to the Puritan founders. Long story, but a pretty cool one, and if you promise not to be an ass about it I'll explain when we get back."
This was not the way of things last time they visited. What a difference a mere thousand years can make. "Why did Jane not tell me?"
"You'll have to ask her, but if it were me getting nailed like that, I wouldn't rock the boat."
Idioms.
Loki presses the Eye-Phone again. "Hi, Darcy. It's me. Don't worry, I'm fine…"
The rain has stopped by the time they arrive.
It would seem the black battalion has also discovered the location of the hammer. Loki had thought that persuading them to leave Jane Foster be had been a bit too easy, even for him. Something to consider for the future. "My brother is in there," he says, nodding towards the small white village and the path of destruction heading towards it. The signs of Thor's battles are always unmistakable. "They must have captured him before he reached Mjolnir."
"How do you know?"
"The village is still standing."
"Are you really not going to help him?"
Loki says nothing. There are two people here in need of aid, but only one deserves it.
Darcy Lewis waits for a moment, then rolls her eyes. "Fine." She strips off her outerwear, revealing a tight shirt and — beneath it — a truly impressive figure. When she catches Loki staring, she only shrugs. "Never hurts. Wish me luck."
That's asking a little too much, but Loki does nod.
Thor is chivalrous. He would never have allowed mortal Jane Foster to follow him into battle. So Loki circles the edge of the white village, along the least impressive battlements he's ever seen — they have holes, for heavens' sake — until he comes across a lowly, prickly scrub, and feet sticking out from beneath.
"Hello, Jane Foster," he says. "Your talent for concealment leaves something to be desired."
She squirms out, soaking wet and covered in mud. "Where's Darcy?" she demands.
"Attempting to rescue my idiot of a brother. But please, don't overwhelm me with your gratitude."
"I— right. Sorry. I just didn't expect to see you, is all." Jane Foster rises awkwardly to her feet. At this moment she looks very, very mortal — and very, very frightened. "I'm… glad you're here."
It's ridiculously sentimental, given that there is nothing between them but physical gratification and mutual interest in reopening the Bifrost. But Loki pulls her close all the same. "I apologize," he hears himself say, "for my ill-chosen words."
He still doesn't regret lying about Mjolnir, but one does not speak to one's lover as he did. It was beneath him. And beneath her.
Jane Foster wraps her arms around his waist. "That's the best I'm going to get, isn't it," she says, voice muffled against his chest.
"Yes."
"Okay. Then I'm sorry I called you a pretentious jackass."
He blinks. "I don't recall that."
"It was in the van on the way here."
"I see."
"But you still shouldn't have hidden all that research potential."
"We'll agree to disagree," he says, then presses a kiss to the side of her neck, because there are few things as soothing as Jane Foster's embrace, and because he is growing as foolish as Thor.
Darcy Lewis manages to talk Thor free with tales of drunken wagers and something called 'steroids'. Loki distrusts the look in the Son of Coul's eye, but sometimes victory is in a strategic retreat.
Thor is so listless as they walk away from the white village that Loki pulls him aside. "We will try again," he says, because maybe Jane Foster is right. Mjolnir will not get them out of the realm on its own, but if there is information to be gleaned from it and added to her science—
"It matters not. I could not lift it."
Loki frowns. "What?"
"I reached my hammer, brother. It was in my hand, and I could not lift it." Thor looks up, and Loki has never seen him so helpless. "I could not lift it. What are we to do?"
Perhaps Odin did not favor his eldest son after all.
Loki hasn't felt so much Thor's equal in their lives.
Another feeling he is not enjoying as much as he expected.
"We will think of something," he says.
After a moment, Thor nods. And claps him on the shoulder.
It is Darcy Lewis who drives Thor home, and Loki who rides in the van with Jane. He is asleep before they have travelled more than two miles; when they arrive back in town he sleeps in her trailer once more, in spite of the aches and soreness the tiny bed causes the next morning.
Mortal forms are far, far too weak.