Thor Fic: "Four Seasons Of A Friendship"
Title: Four Seasons Of A Friendship
Characters/Pairings: Loki, Darcy, Erik Selvig, mention of Thor, Jane, Frigga, Odin, Warriors Three, Sif, Heimdall, various others; Thor/Jane with some implied Loki/Darcy
Rating: PG-13 for adult tone and angst
Length: 7,180 words
Summary: Time passes, winds blow, the world changes as it slips from one season to another, and Loki has the folly not to think that he will change, too.
Notes: Companion piece to Building a Playlist For a Friendship; takes place over roughly the same time period, though the end jumps forward in time to being post a burning in your heart.
spring: children’s day
Ever since Loki leapt from the shadows, moved his plans from the preparatory stage and as good as announced his vendetta against the Avengers, he had become very busy indeed.
Not much of a surprise really, that.
When he wasn’t actively harassing or physically threatening his chosen enemies, he was doing his best to spy on them so as to learn more about them and any potential weaknesses; keeping an eye out for any loved ones or other allies that could be utilized as potential pawns; building up resources and a network of covert useful alliances of his own; and then, when all was said and done, doing his best to stay out of sight in-between schemes.
It was an undertaking. The only one Loki originally cared to destroy was Thor, but he never believed in doing anything halfway, and the Avengers were his brother’s friends and had gotten in his way one too many a time. It was frankly almost easier to attack them in a group than try and lure them apart. But of course that meant at times he needed help - or the closest thing to it he could bring himself to accept.
Keeping up so many contacts, across the world, for so many different reasons, kept him entirely occupied most days. There were a lot of connections to forge, manipulate, and then when necessary backstab and distance oneself from.
Of course not everything was easy. His ‘comrades’ ran the gamut from easily disposed pawns, corrupt businessmen and criminal thugs, mostly…to men as twisted and far-reaching in their web of influences as himself, with whom he had to play a constant dangerous game of back and forth, always careful to hold the upper hand.
(The Latverian Emperor, in particular, was proving to be a marvelously fascinating partner in both subterfuge and battle. Loki knew that the man was currently planning to double-cross him - however, that was perfectly alright, since Loki was planning a double-cross of his own and was fairly confident his would be sprung first. Meanwhile, Victor’s birthday was less than a month away and Loki was trying to think what to get him - there was to be a grand gala thrown in Doomstadt that he was quite looking forward to.)
It could prove to be entirely exhausting. Dedicated as he was to his goals, Loki found even he needed time to rest, to breathe, if only as a space in which to lick his wounds and gather his thoughts for another assault.
This was harder, at times, than he might’ve thought possible. He’d forget to use glamor one day and the next be quite befuddled to discover his face on front page news - someone had spotted him outside a coffee bar and snapped a picture with one of those myriad digital devices that mortals carried with them everywhere these days.
It was a world geographically a bit larger than Asgard, and yet infinitely smaller for how connected they made their lives through technology. At times Loki considered how easier it would be to simply conquer them all, crush their numbers and their distractions beneath the heel of his supreme authority - but the more he saw of modern humanity the more he backed away from the idea.
They proved a daunting, even intimidating miasma: cultures sharing space but full of endless variety and diametric opposites, a people blind to creating even the simplest magics yet capable of amazing tricks through their invention.
Loki found they held more interest than he would’ve liked; that he was learning far more from them than he would’ve cared to.
But, at the end of the day, it was useful. And when it was not that, it was entertaining.
An occasionally tiring would-be trickster god could at times certainly use with a bit of entertainment.
That, he told himself, was the main reason he kept up his acquaintance with the mortal Darcy Lewis. A childish, overly-talkative girl that was really too connected to Thor, as much of a potential flaw for him to exploit against Loki as it was the other way around, and who had seen far more of him in certain ways than he should allow most to and live - but oh, she could certainly be entertaining. Things she had to say, the wonders and oddities she showed him.
She considered them to be friends. Loki, for convenience’s sake, did not disabuse her of the notion. He visited her enough, whenever he could manage the time.
With her, he found the only time these days which he could ever…relax.
It was a Saturday morning. They were sitting side by side on the couch in the cramped living area of the quarters she shared, him in a version of the mortal clothes he found he preferred (a suit with a scarf instead of a tie), her in her pajamas.
Darcy was wrapped loosely in a blanket, and on her lap was a huge bowl full of milk and sugared cereal that was going to be her breakfast, her lunch, and if she could help it maybe her dinner as well.
Loki had accepted a smaller bowl, mostly of politeness, and was stirring and plucking his way through his with more lukewarm enthusiasm.
In his estimation, the words of the smiling illvätte on the side of the box were wrong. He did not find these vittles to be “magically delicious”.
They were ostensibly watching the programming offered by the television in front of them. Old cartoons, the type of which Darcy had enjoyed when she was a child. Though perhaps she had seen these many a time before, for now her focus on them was only half-hearted, engaged more in asking Loki a series of lively questions about where he had been and what he was up to, which he answered sparsely although honest.
In between, they lapsed into a comfortable lethargy, and focused more on the screen, as a silent predator chased his equally silent prey around.
“I’m glad you could stop by,” Darcy said at length. “You and I don’t get to hang out like this very often.”
“No,” Loki was forced to agree. He glanced down at the bizarre, fairly noxious color his bowl of milk was turning. “We do not.”
He didn’t bother mentioning he knew he could make his present stay more extended because he knew Thor was nowhere in the vicinity. She, he presumed, had the good enough sense not to ask.
Darcy’s next words were muffled, spoken through a mouthful of cereal she was chewing. “So, what’s going on with you for the rest of the week? Do you have any plans?”
“What is that mortal adage, Darcy? ‘Ask me no questions and I’ll tell you no lies’?”
She pulled a face as she swallowed, frowning her disapproval.
And it really did seem as if somehow, if only for a moment, she’d forgotten who and what he was - that his ‘plans’ were likely to include an attack on those she also considered friends, and that by all rights the two of them should be enemies.
Such a stubborn naïveté, for all her frequent snide, cynical remarks. Small wonder Loki was growing downright fond of her.
She allowed herself to be silent and they both resumed watching the program in earnest. After another minute had passed however Loki gave a contemplative frown.
“This does not make any sense,” he argued. “The beast makes its home in what’s clearly a vast desert. Surely there is more than one bird of this type he could pursue as a meal.”
“Are you attempting to apply logic to cartoons?” Darcy demanded, nearly affronted. “Loki, you can’t do that. They’re supposed to be silly. Part of the reason they’re so entertaining is it doesn’t make any sense!”
“But they follow certain patterns within their own sphere, as any story must,” he persisted. “The coyote hunts because he is hungry. So why not go after another since this one he cannot actually catch?”
“He can’t catch the Roadrunner because if he did then the show would be over.” Darcy exclaimed, “And I can’t believe you’re actually harping on this. In case you haven’t noticed, the laws of physics don’t apply to this world. Like five minutes ago Wile E. walked off a cliff and didn’t fall because he didn’t look down. You don’t have any problem with that, but you’re complaining because his fixation somehow violates the circle of life?”
“I find it bothersome, that’s all,” Loki muttered. Darcy rolled her eyes and sighed loudly at him.
There was the sound of footsteps behind them - though the tread was light and unfamiliar Loki’s back went partially stiff before they heard Erik Selvig’s voice: “Darcy, I don’t suppose you plan to get any work done today - oh.”
The man trailed off, briefly, as he noticed the other occupant of the couch.
“You’re here,” he noted verbally, brusque and obviously disapproving. “Again. I guess I’m just supposed to pretend I can’t see you, shall I?”
“Whatever suits your needs, son of man,” Loki answered him, light and unbothered, not dignifying his presence even by turning his head to look. He ate a spoonful of his cereal and sipped at the milk.
“We talked about this, remember, Erik? Jane says she doesn’t care when he’s here, so long as he doesn’t break anything and stays out of her way.”
“Jane is clearly giving in out of a sense of powerlessness,” Erik grumbled. “Are you actually showing him cartoons? You might as well give him new ideas for his next malevolent scheme.”
Darcy however was unabashed, and unyielding.
“One: you said ‘malevolent’. I call you’ve been spending way too much time around Thor. Two: Loki’s not going to be taking notes on how to fight superheroes from the Looney Toons! Give me a break!”
Erik seemed less than swayed, but he gave up and left with a head-shaking mutter. Loki slid his eyes sideways to look across to Darcy.
She looked back at him, and beamed, helping herself to a mouthful of colored marshmallows with a victorious air. She seemed cheerful, pleased, and especially proud of herself.
Loki found her much less smug about two weeks later, after he successfully taunted the Avengers by creating an illusion of a tunnel that turned out to be a flat wall when they narrowly ran into it, but ah well. She eventually let that one slide, too.
*
summer: father’s day
Time passed, and passed, and continued to pass. Despite his ever-growing list of adversaries and obligations to attend to, Loki continued to visit and speak to Darcy. If anything he saw her more and more.
He’d send her messages and they’d meet at pre-arranged times, or he’d pass by announced and find her out and wandering. He’d bring her with his magic to rooftops, private beaches, isolated corners of parks. They’d tell stories and share jokes, about Earth, about Asgard, about places in the universe of which no human had ever dreamed.
Darcy told him about her childhood, her studies, her hopes and fears for the future. Loki told her very little on the surface, feeding her details between the lines, knowing that she put the pieces together and feeling confident and comfortable in that.
She played music for him. He told her embarrassing things about Thor. She gave him books on art and history. He showed her places on her own world she hadn’t heard of yet.
They ate ice cream together and walked hand in hand in the rain.
It was all nothing. She was nothing. Nothing compared to his power, his lifespan, everything else that he had. But still he kept on seeing her, speaking to her.
In fact, he came to find he was making time to see her, putting off other things in order to find room for their casual, meaningless chats.
This realization did not make Loki happy.
Loki did not consider himself capable of having friends, real friends anymore. Every relationship was quantifiable, where people used him to gain something for their own benefit and he used them in like in return. It was so much safer, predictable, when everyone knew what they really wanted. When no one made any mistakes.
Only those gullible enough to get invested in the first place were the ones that left themselves with openings to get hurt.
And Loki could no longer deny that he’d let Darcy Lewis become such an opening. That it was probably too late to stop it.
Loki blamed himself for having fallen back into old and foolish habits. But he took his anger out on somebody else.
It was the middle of summer, and they were sitting on the floor of Darcy’s room in Puente Antiguo. It was a warm day, naturally, and the blinds in the windows rattled lightly in the background from the breeze put out by the air conditioner.
The sound grated on Loki’s nerves, along with a slew of other things. He barely listened to anything Darcy had to say. She nattered on and on and he grew increasingly irate with how content he felt physically sitting here, how familiar he had grown with the mortal that he recognized almost without thinking the nuances of her speech; the subtle little indicators of her mood and expression. He could tell in an instant whether she was happy, or angry, or sad, whether or not she wanted to be remarked on, cheered up, or ignored.
Loki was a gifted reader of people. But he didn’t need to try with Darcy: she had become a well-thumbed book to him. A favorite.
To think he had let a mortal become his favorite. To think that he cared for her so much. To think that he would give her favors, and fight to defend her, and tear apart anyone who dared to hurt her.
To think that he would talk to her, like…like it was nothing. Like she could be trusted with his secrets. Like his feelings weighed on him less when he whispered them in her ear.
He would sit and hear her pondering over his troubles, as if she could possibly understand them. Listen to her remark on some of his actions, his alleged mistakes, as if she had any right to judge him.
But she would presume. She would dare. And he would sit there and let her do it.
Darcy was going on about some anecdote about her family. When she next paused for breath, Loki spoke up, his voice thin and flat and careless, but carrying a hidden venom.
“Your parents live separate, do they not?”
Darcy blinked at him in sudden surprise. “What?”
“Your parents,” he repeated. “They don’t live together. They are divorced, I would surmise? I’ve gathered that’s fairly common today.”
A few seconds passed before he got another reply, and her voice was quieter in befuddlement.
“How did you know?”
Loki gave a half-hearted shrug, the very portrait of carelessness, head turned slightly aside as he rolled one of his shoulders.
“You speak fairly often of your mother. But never your father. I know you still speak to her; you’ve mentioned conversations you’ve had. But if I were to guess - you don’t talk to him, any more. Do you?”
His eyes narrowed as he met her gaze, and the edges of the smile that pushed at the corners of his lips was hard.
His meaning, he thought, was perfectly clear. She judged him and gave her gentle, soft-hearted advice about how things stood with his family - about how she thought he could live to regret his estrangement with his own so-called father. And here she was, her own house far from in order; her father also kept at more than arm’s length away. He named her hypocrite.
It was so easy to pick a fight with her, if he pushed the right buttons. It gave him a bitter, sick kind of satisfaction, but satisfaction all the same.
But Darcy didn’t immediately raise her voice and glare at him. Instead she drew a breath and looked down, quiet.
Loki found himself unable to speak as he waited for her, caught off-balance and perturbed.
Finally she looked up again. When her mouth parted her voice was soft, toneless.
“When I was about eight years old, my dad went through something. I guess it was a midlife crisis or whatever, only a lot worse. He said it was like he just…woke up one day and didn’t like anything about his life anymore. Not his house, not his job, not his family…anything.”
Her face had an empty, open composure to it as she closed her eyes briefly and shrugged.
“He went to the office, quit, came home and told my mom he was leaving. By the end of the week, he was gone. Next thing I knew, my parents were divorced, and he was just me and Mom and my two brothers.” She gave a tight, humorless smile. “He moved five states away, went back to school, switched careers, got remarried and had two other kids. And you’re right, I don’t really talk to him anymore. But that’s because he never tries. Not even a card on my birthday.”
Loki gazed at her, feeling - not guilty, exactly, for bringing it up. But this was honestly not at all what he’d imagined.
“Darcy. I’m so sorry. I didn’t realize.”
Her smile was a little closer to genuine, though still as pained as it was pleasant. “It was kind of a long time ago. I mean, I went through a period where I was really pissed off all the time about it - when I was a teenager, and all the father-daughter stuff I couldn’t do seemed like such a big deal. But, you know. I got over it. I mean, I’ve got my mom, and my brothers; and they’re all I need. And I don’t really think about it anymore.”
While he was coming up with a reply to that, she dropped her gaze to the floor and added in a mutter, almost defensive, “It’s his loss, anyway.”
“Yes,” Loki agreed, instantly, whole-hearted. “It most certainly is.”
He was holding his breath a bit, waiting for her to say something about how different their circumstances were. About how he was lucky that he had a paternal figure that supposedly actually wanted something to do with him; and that on behalf of all those that didn’t have that opportunity, like her, he shouldn’t pass up on it or take it for granted.
But Darcy said none of those things. She said nothing at all.
And Loki looked closer at her face, then wordlessly held his arms out for the hug he knew she wanted.
And Darcy smiled, and without hesitance placed herself in his grasp. Squeezed him tight as Loki wrapped around her - despite himself, feeling better for how he made her feel better as well.
*
autumn: all hallow’s eve
More than a year had gone by since the two of them had first met. Since they had begun this unlikely but compelling relationship together.
In the wake of irritation, of finding himself caught in a snare, came a kind of surrender; and the despair that came after that faded far faster than he would’ve expected.
Conversations and jokes, sharing and long walks together continued. And everything all the more sweeter when every moment was lived for what it was, and nothing else.
No questions. No doubts. No self-rationalizations. Just things that he did, because he wanted to. And why not?
Loki no longer tried to argue against it within himself. He no longer found excuses, or denials, or reasons he had to fear. He no longer begrudged himself this simple pleasure. He accepted what he had, and enjoyed it.
Darcy was his friend. Likely the only one he would ever have again, in this world or any other. Short as her lifespan would be, he had all the more reason to get the most of it that he could.
They could still disagree at times, or even quarrel, but it was never on purpose and always the sort of minor bickering, easily resolved with a little time and few apologies between companions. They had fallen into a relaxed, near-effortless understanding. They could talk of nothing for hours, or make each other laugh with a single word; spend an entire evening flat on their backs, up on a rooftop or a grassy hill, gazing at the stars as they spoke in soft voices. And even if she was his only companion, he didn’t resent that she had many, for he got the sense that she regarded him closer than any other.
He never asked her anything about Thor, or even about Thor’s mortal paramour, that woman Jane Foster. He was no longer entirely sure if it was because he didn’t want to know - what did he care, for the doings or wellbeing of the Odinson, or the wench that had captured his oafish heart - or if it was out of respect to Darcy, not wanting his interests in her to be misconstrued as a source for information.
Most people had stopped questioning Darcy’s judgment, at least to her face. Though he knew SHIELD often gave her difficulties still - it led him to hit their agents a little harder when he faced them in battle, than perhaps was strictly necessarily. But then they should know better than to be led onto a battlefield between gods.
Were he a creature capable of pity, he might’ve pitied them, for how they broke so easily. They were only human, after all.
But he thought little of those he had due cause to hate when he was with Darcy. Her company was not to be diminished by such paltry distractions.
She had her studies; he had his vendettas. But their lives continued onward, in their own separate space apart. Loki no longer had to go running to her with questions about science or society, and Darcy no longer batted an eye at some of his more archaic figures of speech. They had that straightforward ease that came from shared experience; that came from history together.
And oh, they did have history together. Albeit one that was, mostly, not particularly exciting.
But maybe, then, that was the very thing about it that Loki found so novel.
It was late into the harvest season. In many places around the country the leaves had changed colors and the ground in the mornings was covered with a persistent frost. Even in the midst of the desert land that housed Puente Antiguo the air had gotten cooler, crisper, and something just smelled like the change and decay, the temporary death, brought on by fast-approaching winter.
There was a holiday coming soon called “Halloween”. From what he had heard, Loki was quite interested to see it in action. It was a night that had its roots in old superstition; when mortals told spooky stories and reminded themselves there were things not of this world to fear out in the dark.
It was a time of mirth, mischief and mayhem, with masks worn to cover faces and tricks carried out under the dead of night. Loki approved.
His plan was to walk among the masses throughout the evening, invisible through his magic, wandering from place to place as he observed their rituals - perhaps play a trick or two of his own, unseen.
He forgot to ask Darcy if she had any plans. He was absently certain she must. She could be a popular girl, when she put her mind to it.
But when he came by, intending a brief ‘hello’ before he went on his way, he found her standing near the door to the lab, a large half-empty bag by her feet, and fuming in unhappiness.
“What’s wrong?” he asked automatically.
“Loki,” she exclaimed, startled but never really surprised at his appearances, anymore. But she brushed off her distraction with a shake of her head. “Oh, nothing. Just I got invited last minute to a big party that’s being thrown by the people down at the diner. I didn’t hear about it until today.”
“But that sounds like fun.” She loved parties, even those thrown by the ‘boring and backwards people’ that lived in this town. “What’s the problem?”
“Only that I had no idea it was coming and so now I have no one to go with. Jane and Thor are off together, and Erik’s out of town. And I’ve got nothing to wear, so I had to go to the only costume rental place in town and take the last crappy thing they had.” She sighed. And then, considering him, she brightened. “Hey. I don’t suppose you’d like to come with me, would you?”
Loki drew back, frowning. “I don’t know that I really…”
“Oh, come on, Loki,” she pleaded, having pounced on the idea and not about to let go. “It’ll be fun! And I really don’t wanna have to mingle with these guys all by myself. Please?”
Loki realized he was already as good as doomed. Still, he said mildly, “What if I’m recognized?”
“Duh, Halloween? You can wear a disguise. No one will have any idea.” She looked at his clothing - no armor today, though it was Asgardian styled attire, complete with doublet and half-cape drapery, and all in shades of black. It had seemed fitting, to him. “That can probably work as a costume. All you need is a mask. Aha!”
In sudden fit of inspiration she dove into the bag next to her, rustling around.
“I was handing these out all day,” she explained. “I declared the building a ‘Halloween Only Zone’, and told any SHIELD drone that stopped by they couldn’t get in without a mask.”
“How many of them put up with that?” Loki watched her, amused.
“You’d be surprised.” She reemerged from the bag, holding an item in her hands. “Here. This one’ll be perfect.”
Loki took the offered mask, turning it over in his hands in an examining fashion. It was plain, completely white, designed to cover only the upper area of his face and part of his nose and cheek on one side.
There was something vaguely familiar about the shape, like he’d seen it before but didn’t know the reference behind it.
Darcy was looking at him expectantly, so he conceded and tied it against his face. She grinned, evidently satisfied with the effect.
“You look great! Now I just need to go get ready…hang on, it’ll take like twenty minutes…”
As Loki had fully anticipated, it was closer to forty. He passed the time waiting on her bed, reading one of the novels off her bookshelf.
When she reappeared her hair was done up in an elegant curly style, silver makeup shimmered around her eyes, and she had in one hand an ornate golden mask in the domino style, held up at one end by a decorated stick.
But the rest of her outfit…Loki got to his feet, face showing his disapproval. “This is unacceptable.”
He waved at her dress. It was a monstrosity of lace and cheap, shiny white satin. From the design one could tell it purported to be a ball gown based on the fashion of a bygone period in human history, but the construction was both shoddy and overwrought, and moreover it was clearly an older article that hadn’t been cared for very well. The thread that trimmed the buttonholes was fraying, some of the corners of the skirt were moth-eaten, and there were faint yellowed stains.
Darcy scrunched up her nose and rolled her eyes. “I told you, it was the last one they had. You don’t have to tell me it’s awful.”
“Beyond awful,” Loki rebuked her, stiffly. “As I said, unacceptable. I refuse to be seen in the company of someone wearing such a sad, unkempt excuse for attire.”
Darcy bristled. “Well what do you expect me to do about it?” she demanded. “At this point, I don’t really have a choice.”
“Of course you do.” Loki instructed her, “Hold still.”
With a keen eye, he passed his hand over her gown slowly. One yard of fabric at a time the details shifted. The quality, the craftsmanship, the age were all updated. It was still an ornate ruffled dress of white trimmed with gold but now instead of being a caricature it had become a work of art.
When Loki stepped back to admire his transmogrification and deem it worthy, Darcy blinked and then ran to look at herself in the mirror.
“Oh, Loki! You made it…it’s…” She looked down at the mass of delicate embroidery at the front of her bodice. “The people at the costume rental shop are gonna be so confused when I bring this back in.”
He laughed. “It’s more than they deserve. Now, come.” He held out his arm to her. “We’ve wasted enough time.”
They walked the few blocks down to the diner in a stately manner. Under the cover of darkness the stifling desert heat had cooled, the air not nearly as oppressive.
Loki hadn’t known what to expect of the party. It turned out to be several dozen adults from around the town in costumes, standing around talking, drinking, and dancing. A few games and contests served as partial distractions, and there was a banquet composed almost entirely of sweets.
Darcy grumbled that she had been to livelier Halloweens, but she seemed to enjoy herself all night. As she had stated, no one recognized Loki. He made few attempts to mingle but mostly stayed by her side throughout. They bobbed for apples, voted on the carved pumpkins (there was a distressing number of Avengers based entrants), and early on in the evening when some small children were still stopping by, they took a turn at helping to hand out candy.
Loki gamely tried the ‘candied corn’, the apple cider, the many pumpkin-based dishes. Darcy giggled at some of the faces he made.
A few times they danced, Loki doing his best to show her the steps to a waltz.
The evening flew by much faster than either of them really anticipated. Like in an old fable, the night became a blur of merriment, until out of nowhere the hour was struck, and they were left standing there blinking eyes dazedly, more worn-out than they’d realized and wondering where the time had gone.
To their mutual surprise and mild discomfiture, they discovered they had accidently won the contest for “Best Couple’s Costume”.
Though Loki supposed it an understandable enough mistake to make regarding a man and a woman travelling together, still he wondered. He knew neither he nor Darcy had introduced themselves as a couple in any fashion all night. So where had the idea come from?
Too tired to protest, Darcy took the gift certificates anyway, with a mumble of “free pancakes”.
*
winter: yule
That night in the fall turned out to be the last time he saw her.
The problem with having a near-eternity laid out before you was that you fell into the habit of taking things for granted. You saw patterns and thought them set in stone. Assuming things would continue on, unending, into the future and for all of time.
Loki had known that his conflict with Thor was the stuff of fate and legends. They would keep on fighting each other, forever, lives lost and worlds destroyed in their wake. It would be consuming and monstrous and glorious.
Every pawn would play his part. The Avengers would keep trying to help, until they died off or were killed. And Darcy would keep being Loki’s friend until he finally did something that pushed her too far and drove her away.
Yes, Loki thought he’d written the tale of his own to-be history, captured it in his fist and had everything under control for how he knew, with certainty, the way that things were and that they always would be.
It could happen no other way. He was arrogant, assured in this conviction. It was destiny, and nothing less.
But Loki had been wrong.
For it turned out he’d forgotten something that he, of all people, should know quite well: that even immortal things could change.
Months had gone by. It was well into winter now, or as close to a real winter as it ever came on Asgard.
For that was where Loki was, now: on Asgard.
It turned out he had no idea what was in store for him in his future at all.
He still wasn’t completely sure what had happened. What any of this meant. Something had…shifted. Without meaning to, without any memory of how he had done it, somehow he had surrendered. Stopped fighting, and came back to the one place he had told himself that he wanted least to be.
The place he had known, or thought he’d known, he could never belong to again.
But he wasn’t a prisoner here, a captive. He was let to live and roam like anyone else. They called him ‘prince’ and ‘son’ and ‘brother’. They let him call this place ‘home’.
Home. Such a simple word, and yet it struck him in the chest like a bolt. Spread throughout his system like a sickness, making his heart ache and his breath come short, and his head feel tired and lost and oh-so heavy.
He slept often these days. He supposed he had a lot of catching up to do - it had been a long year, that he’d spent feverishly hard at work and rarely taking proper care of himself. He passed the nights and sometimes part of the days in his own bed and read his books from the shelves in his room and spent a lot of time just…sitting, looking out the widow and watching the world go by. Just being still.
Thor had gone back to his adventures on Midgard. The king and queen (Father and Mother) gave him his space. For the most part Loki was left alone.
His world had become silent. Sitting in the shadows, walking empty hallways, unable to bear anything that was too bright, too crowded, too loud, too cheerful.
And for the most part he preferred it that way. He needed time, space, to be with his thoughts and feelings. To perhaps be able to decide, at some point, what they actually were.
Am I happy? he asked of himself. I suppose that I must be. I certainly don’t feel angry, or sad. But all the same, I’m not sure. I seem so…empty.
It was entirely possible that it had been so long since he’d last been happy, really happy, that he couldn’t remember what it felt like at all.
He hadn’t seen Darcy in months.
He hadn’t been able to visit her since their time together on Halloween. He had spoken to her once since then (magic could be at times a wonderful, useful thing) but it had been briefly, very briefly; and not entirely pleasant. He supposed it’d even be fair to say they had argued.
He didn’t imagine she was still angry at him. But he realized that he missed her.
But it was a very long time before Loki felt like talking to anyone again, especially her.
It was the dead of winter when Jane Foster felt comfortable enough to use her mortal-fashioned simile of the Bifrost to visit Thor in his home on Asgard, instead of the other way around. And of course she brought her lab assistant with her.
Loki wasn’t there waiting for them when they arrived. He couldn’t stand there out on the golden road before Heimdall, holding a place amidst Lady Sif and the Warriors Three. He couldn’t bear it.
Instead he was half a city away, on the far side of the palace, sitting cross-legged in one of the quiet nooks he’d made for himself, hidden up high in one of the corners of the great library. Unable to fully resist curiosity he gathered his magic to him for a small scrying spell, holding a glowing orb of mist in his hands.
He saw the two women arrive, along with Erik Selvig. He saw Thor’s face split wide in a cheery eager grin at their appearance. He saw the three humans blinking, dazed, and the color drain from the man’s face as he looked up at what was above him. He saw Jane Foster’s eyes alight with wonder, and then he saw Darcy, still in a haze, start to take one stumbling step off to the side of the platform and have to be grabbed at the arm by the other woman to stop her.
He heard the Asgardians laughing merrily, welcoming, and then saw them start to rush forward in a gang to greet them.
Loki could watch no more. He ended his spell, banishing the image away, and curled up on his side in a ball, his pulse racing.
It was much later that he and Darcy finally saw each other once more. He had gone for a long slow walk out on the grounds, letting the sights and sounds of the palace drift far away from him. And Darcy came and found him.
They approached each other quietly, her smiling, him completely still.
“Hey, you,” Darcy greeted him affectionately.
“Hello,” he returned in a gentle even voice, almost a sigh.
She hugged him, and he held her in place, returning the gesture without committing to it more animatedly. “It sure has been awhile.”
“It certainly has,” he agreed.
He could think of nothing else to say. A recurring problem for him, of late. Darcy pulled away and looked up at him, and he waited for her to start querying and hassling him, wanting to know why he was acting this way. But she didn’t. She asked nothing.
Maybe Thor had already told her, that these days he was much subdued. Or maybe, in light of all that had happened, she had gathered it for herself.
They walked. Loki led her on one of the more beautiful paths around the lawn and gardens, pointing things out to her without making much in the way of gestures, without ever saying a word. They stood close by each other, shoulders and arms occasionally brushing.
“How do you find Asgard so far, Lady Darcy?” he asked her at length, geniality at last bringing some warmth into his tone.
“It’s good,” she answered. “I mean, there’s still a ton to see. But I like what I’ve been shown so far. Although,” she shook herself, “it’s colder than I expected. The way Thor goes on I was thinking the place must be just one big ball of gold, made entirely out of shooting stars and sunshine. The weather’s a little chilly. Though not nearly as much as it is on Earth right now, I guess.”
“Oh no,” Loki told her, voice adamant and drawling, “you don’t understand. This is an abnormally cold winter for Asgard. If you look you will find many of the courtiers grumbling, and wrapped in furs. A few have started complaining that it’s a sign of the end times, that Ragnarok will surely be upon us. Why, there’s even a chance this year that we might get an actual cover of snow on the ground, instead of the few scattered falls that usually visit us.”
Darcy turned to look at him, and she eyed his face searchingly for a few seconds before she replied.
“Was that a joke?” she said at last. “Did you just make a joke? I couldn’t really tell, but I was starting to worry.”
“Worry about what?” he asked her with an anxious smile.
“That they did something to you,” she told him flatly. “Like your personality had been removed. Or they loaded you up on whatever the Viking equivalent is of Diazepam. You’re so…I don’t know. Mellow.”
He gave a sad chuckle.
“I know. I’m sorry. I just…I have much on my mind these days.” He stood there rubbing his hands together, looking down as he tried to apologize.
He doubted this empty version of him was what Darcy came to see. He only wished there was some way he could make up for her disappointment.
“Don’t be sorry,” she said, to his surprise. “I get it. I do. You’ve got a thing going on. It’ll be different when you feel better again, but right now…it’s quiet time. Hey, it happens.”
Loki gazed at her, not sure what to say. Between her understanding and her absolute, unthinking conviction that he would change again, that he would be better, he felt overwhelmed.
She put a hand on his shoulder, beaming hopefully at him.
“Besides - yeah, it’s a little weird, but even so. You do seem like you’re doing okay, underneath it all. That you’ve got something here you were missing before, back on Earth.”
“Do I?” Loki asked her in a murmur, earnest. He saw a stranger when he looked in the mirror these days; when he could bear to. He couldn’t read himself.
“Yeah. You do. I think,” she hesitated; “You seem happy. Maybe more, in a different way, than you ever were before. I mean I know we had good times together, and were laughing a lot of the time in the pictures from whenever you’d blow stuff up, but it always seemed like you could never just let go with it. Like there was this bitter, angry lump in you that was taking away from it, no matter what.”
She met his eyes, sincere; significant.
“You don’t seem angry like that anymore.”
He took that in.
“No,” he agreed, slowly, musingly. “You’re right. I am not.”
He felt hollow in some places, and it still hurt in some others, but that hungry awful fire in him had been extinguished. Had guttered and flickered and at last gone out, without his ever noticing.
And now that it was gone, suppose it left room for something else instead. Suppose it left room for new feelings, sensations that he’d been long denied, to grow.
Like contentment. Peace. Belonging. And yes, happiness, real happiness. The likes of which he hadn’t known in ages.
All at once Loki realized that as hard as his life was right now, it meant something else. It meant he had something to look forward to.
Things were changing, out of his control. But that didn’t mean that he had lost the fight.
In fact he might have won something, after.
Loki smiled at Darcy, the expression working its way across his face until it held every muscle, feeling unfamiliar but welcome.
“Come,” he said to her, “let me show you some of the sights of my home.”
“I’d love that,” she responded with a matching look of her own in reply.
And they walked along that quiet, cold, gray world together, his arm tight around her shoulder, hers snug around his waist.
Only two dear friends talking of nothing, laughing, sharing the same old jokes. Happy.
Characters/Pairings: Loki, Darcy, Erik Selvig, mention of Thor, Jane, Frigga, Odin, Warriors Three, Sif, Heimdall, various others; Thor/Jane with some implied Loki/Darcy
Rating: PG-13 for adult tone and angst
Length: 7,180 words
Summary: Time passes, winds blow, the world changes as it slips from one season to another, and Loki has the folly not to think that he will change, too.
Notes: Companion piece to Building a Playlist For a Friendship; takes place over roughly the same time period, though the end jumps forward in time to being post a burning in your heart.
spring: children’s day
Ever since Loki leapt from the shadows, moved his plans from the preparatory stage and as good as announced his vendetta against the Avengers, he had become very busy indeed.
Not much of a surprise really, that.
When he wasn’t actively harassing or physically threatening his chosen enemies, he was doing his best to spy on them so as to learn more about them and any potential weaknesses; keeping an eye out for any loved ones or other allies that could be utilized as potential pawns; building up resources and a network of covert useful alliances of his own; and then, when all was said and done, doing his best to stay out of sight in-between schemes.
It was an undertaking. The only one Loki originally cared to destroy was Thor, but he never believed in doing anything halfway, and the Avengers were his brother’s friends and had gotten in his way one too many a time. It was frankly almost easier to attack them in a group than try and lure them apart. But of course that meant at times he needed help - or the closest thing to it he could bring himself to accept.
Keeping up so many contacts, across the world, for so many different reasons, kept him entirely occupied most days. There were a lot of connections to forge, manipulate, and then when necessary backstab and distance oneself from.
Of course not everything was easy. His ‘comrades’ ran the gamut from easily disposed pawns, corrupt businessmen and criminal thugs, mostly…to men as twisted and far-reaching in their web of influences as himself, with whom he had to play a constant dangerous game of back and forth, always careful to hold the upper hand.
(The Latverian Emperor, in particular, was proving to be a marvelously fascinating partner in both subterfuge and battle. Loki knew that the man was currently planning to double-cross him - however, that was perfectly alright, since Loki was planning a double-cross of his own and was fairly confident his would be sprung first. Meanwhile, Victor’s birthday was less than a month away and Loki was trying to think what to get him - there was to be a grand gala thrown in Doomstadt that he was quite looking forward to.)
It could prove to be entirely exhausting. Dedicated as he was to his goals, Loki found even he needed time to rest, to breathe, if only as a space in which to lick his wounds and gather his thoughts for another assault.
This was harder, at times, than he might’ve thought possible. He’d forget to use glamor one day and the next be quite befuddled to discover his face on front page news - someone had spotted him outside a coffee bar and snapped a picture with one of those myriad digital devices that mortals carried with them everywhere these days.
It was a world geographically a bit larger than Asgard, and yet infinitely smaller for how connected they made their lives through technology. At times Loki considered how easier it would be to simply conquer them all, crush their numbers and their distractions beneath the heel of his supreme authority - but the more he saw of modern humanity the more he backed away from the idea.
They proved a daunting, even intimidating miasma: cultures sharing space but full of endless variety and diametric opposites, a people blind to creating even the simplest magics yet capable of amazing tricks through their invention.
Loki found they held more interest than he would’ve liked; that he was learning far more from them than he would’ve cared to.
But, at the end of the day, it was useful. And when it was not that, it was entertaining.
An occasionally tiring would-be trickster god could at times certainly use with a bit of entertainment.
That, he told himself, was the main reason he kept up his acquaintance with the mortal Darcy Lewis. A childish, overly-talkative girl that was really too connected to Thor, as much of a potential flaw for him to exploit against Loki as it was the other way around, and who had seen far more of him in certain ways than he should allow most to and live - but oh, she could certainly be entertaining. Things she had to say, the wonders and oddities she showed him.
She considered them to be friends. Loki, for convenience’s sake, did not disabuse her of the notion. He visited her enough, whenever he could manage the time.
With her, he found the only time these days which he could ever…relax.
It was a Saturday morning. They were sitting side by side on the couch in the cramped living area of the quarters she shared, him in a version of the mortal clothes he found he preferred (a suit with a scarf instead of a tie), her in her pajamas.
Darcy was wrapped loosely in a blanket, and on her lap was a huge bowl full of milk and sugared cereal that was going to be her breakfast, her lunch, and if she could help it maybe her dinner as well.
Loki had accepted a smaller bowl, mostly of politeness, and was stirring and plucking his way through his with more lukewarm enthusiasm.
In his estimation, the words of the smiling illvätte on the side of the box were wrong. He did not find these vittles to be “magically delicious”.
They were ostensibly watching the programming offered by the television in front of them. Old cartoons, the type of which Darcy had enjoyed when she was a child. Though perhaps she had seen these many a time before, for now her focus on them was only half-hearted, engaged more in asking Loki a series of lively questions about where he had been and what he was up to, which he answered sparsely although honest.
In between, they lapsed into a comfortable lethargy, and focused more on the screen, as a silent predator chased his equally silent prey around.
“I’m glad you could stop by,” Darcy said at length. “You and I don’t get to hang out like this very often.”
“No,” Loki was forced to agree. He glanced down at the bizarre, fairly noxious color his bowl of milk was turning. “We do not.”
He didn’t bother mentioning he knew he could make his present stay more extended because he knew Thor was nowhere in the vicinity. She, he presumed, had the good enough sense not to ask.
Darcy’s next words were muffled, spoken through a mouthful of cereal she was chewing. “So, what’s going on with you for the rest of the week? Do you have any plans?”
“What is that mortal adage, Darcy? ‘Ask me no questions and I’ll tell you no lies’?”
She pulled a face as she swallowed, frowning her disapproval.
And it really did seem as if somehow, if only for a moment, she’d forgotten who and what he was - that his ‘plans’ were likely to include an attack on those she also considered friends, and that by all rights the two of them should be enemies.
Such a stubborn naïveté, for all her frequent snide, cynical remarks. Small wonder Loki was growing downright fond of her.
She allowed herself to be silent and they both resumed watching the program in earnest. After another minute had passed however Loki gave a contemplative frown.
“This does not make any sense,” he argued. “The beast makes its home in what’s clearly a vast desert. Surely there is more than one bird of this type he could pursue as a meal.”
“Are you attempting to apply logic to cartoons?” Darcy demanded, nearly affronted. “Loki, you can’t do that. They’re supposed to be silly. Part of the reason they’re so entertaining is it doesn’t make any sense!”
“But they follow certain patterns within their own sphere, as any story must,” he persisted. “The coyote hunts because he is hungry. So why not go after another since this one he cannot actually catch?”
“He can’t catch the Roadrunner because if he did then the show would be over.” Darcy exclaimed, “And I can’t believe you’re actually harping on this. In case you haven’t noticed, the laws of physics don’t apply to this world. Like five minutes ago Wile E. walked off a cliff and didn’t fall because he didn’t look down. You don’t have any problem with that, but you’re complaining because his fixation somehow violates the circle of life?”
“I find it bothersome, that’s all,” Loki muttered. Darcy rolled her eyes and sighed loudly at him.
There was the sound of footsteps behind them - though the tread was light and unfamiliar Loki’s back went partially stiff before they heard Erik Selvig’s voice: “Darcy, I don’t suppose you plan to get any work done today - oh.”
The man trailed off, briefly, as he noticed the other occupant of the couch.
“You’re here,” he noted verbally, brusque and obviously disapproving. “Again. I guess I’m just supposed to pretend I can’t see you, shall I?”
“Whatever suits your needs, son of man,” Loki answered him, light and unbothered, not dignifying his presence even by turning his head to look. He ate a spoonful of his cereal and sipped at the milk.
“We talked about this, remember, Erik? Jane says she doesn’t care when he’s here, so long as he doesn’t break anything and stays out of her way.”
“Jane is clearly giving in out of a sense of powerlessness,” Erik grumbled. “Are you actually showing him cartoons? You might as well give him new ideas for his next malevolent scheme.”
Darcy however was unabashed, and unyielding.
“One: you said ‘malevolent’. I call you’ve been spending way too much time around Thor. Two: Loki’s not going to be taking notes on how to fight superheroes from the Looney Toons! Give me a break!”
Erik seemed less than swayed, but he gave up and left with a head-shaking mutter. Loki slid his eyes sideways to look across to Darcy.
She looked back at him, and beamed, helping herself to a mouthful of colored marshmallows with a victorious air. She seemed cheerful, pleased, and especially proud of herself.
Loki found her much less smug about two weeks later, after he successfully taunted the Avengers by creating an illusion of a tunnel that turned out to be a flat wall when they narrowly ran into it, but ah well. She eventually let that one slide, too.
*
summer: father’s day
Time passed, and passed, and continued to pass. Despite his ever-growing list of adversaries and obligations to attend to, Loki continued to visit and speak to Darcy. If anything he saw her more and more.
He’d send her messages and they’d meet at pre-arranged times, or he’d pass by announced and find her out and wandering. He’d bring her with his magic to rooftops, private beaches, isolated corners of parks. They’d tell stories and share jokes, about Earth, about Asgard, about places in the universe of which no human had ever dreamed.
Darcy told him about her childhood, her studies, her hopes and fears for the future. Loki told her very little on the surface, feeding her details between the lines, knowing that she put the pieces together and feeling confident and comfortable in that.
She played music for him. He told her embarrassing things about Thor. She gave him books on art and history. He showed her places on her own world she hadn’t heard of yet.
They ate ice cream together and walked hand in hand in the rain.
It was all nothing. She was nothing. Nothing compared to his power, his lifespan, everything else that he had. But still he kept on seeing her, speaking to her.
In fact, he came to find he was making time to see her, putting off other things in order to find room for their casual, meaningless chats.
This realization did not make Loki happy.
Loki did not consider himself capable of having friends, real friends anymore. Every relationship was quantifiable, where people used him to gain something for their own benefit and he used them in like in return. It was so much safer, predictable, when everyone knew what they really wanted. When no one made any mistakes.
Only those gullible enough to get invested in the first place were the ones that left themselves with openings to get hurt.
And Loki could no longer deny that he’d let Darcy Lewis become such an opening. That it was probably too late to stop it.
Loki blamed himself for having fallen back into old and foolish habits. But he took his anger out on somebody else.
It was the middle of summer, and they were sitting on the floor of Darcy’s room in Puente Antiguo. It was a warm day, naturally, and the blinds in the windows rattled lightly in the background from the breeze put out by the air conditioner.
The sound grated on Loki’s nerves, along with a slew of other things. He barely listened to anything Darcy had to say. She nattered on and on and he grew increasingly irate with how content he felt physically sitting here, how familiar he had grown with the mortal that he recognized almost without thinking the nuances of her speech; the subtle little indicators of her mood and expression. He could tell in an instant whether she was happy, or angry, or sad, whether or not she wanted to be remarked on, cheered up, or ignored.
Loki was a gifted reader of people. But he didn’t need to try with Darcy: she had become a well-thumbed book to him. A favorite.
To think he had let a mortal become his favorite. To think that he cared for her so much. To think that he would give her favors, and fight to defend her, and tear apart anyone who dared to hurt her.
To think that he would talk to her, like…like it was nothing. Like she could be trusted with his secrets. Like his feelings weighed on him less when he whispered them in her ear.
He would sit and hear her pondering over his troubles, as if she could possibly understand them. Listen to her remark on some of his actions, his alleged mistakes, as if she had any right to judge him.
But she would presume. She would dare. And he would sit there and let her do it.
Darcy was going on about some anecdote about her family. When she next paused for breath, Loki spoke up, his voice thin and flat and careless, but carrying a hidden venom.
“Your parents live separate, do they not?”
Darcy blinked at him in sudden surprise. “What?”
“Your parents,” he repeated. “They don’t live together. They are divorced, I would surmise? I’ve gathered that’s fairly common today.”
A few seconds passed before he got another reply, and her voice was quieter in befuddlement.
“How did you know?”
Loki gave a half-hearted shrug, the very portrait of carelessness, head turned slightly aside as he rolled one of his shoulders.
“You speak fairly often of your mother. But never your father. I know you still speak to her; you’ve mentioned conversations you’ve had. But if I were to guess - you don’t talk to him, any more. Do you?”
His eyes narrowed as he met her gaze, and the edges of the smile that pushed at the corners of his lips was hard.
His meaning, he thought, was perfectly clear. She judged him and gave her gentle, soft-hearted advice about how things stood with his family - about how she thought he could live to regret his estrangement with his own so-called father. And here she was, her own house far from in order; her father also kept at more than arm’s length away. He named her hypocrite.
It was so easy to pick a fight with her, if he pushed the right buttons. It gave him a bitter, sick kind of satisfaction, but satisfaction all the same.
But Darcy didn’t immediately raise her voice and glare at him. Instead she drew a breath and looked down, quiet.
Loki found himself unable to speak as he waited for her, caught off-balance and perturbed.
Finally she looked up again. When her mouth parted her voice was soft, toneless.
“When I was about eight years old, my dad went through something. I guess it was a midlife crisis or whatever, only a lot worse. He said it was like he just…woke up one day and didn’t like anything about his life anymore. Not his house, not his job, not his family…anything.”
Her face had an empty, open composure to it as she closed her eyes briefly and shrugged.
“He went to the office, quit, came home and told my mom he was leaving. By the end of the week, he was gone. Next thing I knew, my parents were divorced, and he was just me and Mom and my two brothers.” She gave a tight, humorless smile. “He moved five states away, went back to school, switched careers, got remarried and had two other kids. And you’re right, I don’t really talk to him anymore. But that’s because he never tries. Not even a card on my birthday.”
Loki gazed at her, feeling - not guilty, exactly, for bringing it up. But this was honestly not at all what he’d imagined.
“Darcy. I’m so sorry. I didn’t realize.”
Her smile was a little closer to genuine, though still as pained as it was pleasant. “It was kind of a long time ago. I mean, I went through a period where I was really pissed off all the time about it - when I was a teenager, and all the father-daughter stuff I couldn’t do seemed like such a big deal. But, you know. I got over it. I mean, I’ve got my mom, and my brothers; and they’re all I need. And I don’t really think about it anymore.”
While he was coming up with a reply to that, she dropped her gaze to the floor and added in a mutter, almost defensive, “It’s his loss, anyway.”
“Yes,” Loki agreed, instantly, whole-hearted. “It most certainly is.”
He was holding his breath a bit, waiting for her to say something about how different their circumstances were. About how he was lucky that he had a paternal figure that supposedly actually wanted something to do with him; and that on behalf of all those that didn’t have that opportunity, like her, he shouldn’t pass up on it or take it for granted.
But Darcy said none of those things. She said nothing at all.
And Loki looked closer at her face, then wordlessly held his arms out for the hug he knew she wanted.
And Darcy smiled, and without hesitance placed herself in his grasp. Squeezed him tight as Loki wrapped around her - despite himself, feeling better for how he made her feel better as well.
*
autumn: all hallow’s eve
More than a year had gone by since the two of them had first met. Since they had begun this unlikely but compelling relationship together.
In the wake of irritation, of finding himself caught in a snare, came a kind of surrender; and the despair that came after that faded far faster than he would’ve expected.
Conversations and jokes, sharing and long walks together continued. And everything all the more sweeter when every moment was lived for what it was, and nothing else.
No questions. No doubts. No self-rationalizations. Just things that he did, because he wanted to. And why not?
Loki no longer tried to argue against it within himself. He no longer found excuses, or denials, or reasons he had to fear. He no longer begrudged himself this simple pleasure. He accepted what he had, and enjoyed it.
Darcy was his friend. Likely the only one he would ever have again, in this world or any other. Short as her lifespan would be, he had all the more reason to get the most of it that he could.
They could still disagree at times, or even quarrel, but it was never on purpose and always the sort of minor bickering, easily resolved with a little time and few apologies between companions. They had fallen into a relaxed, near-effortless understanding. They could talk of nothing for hours, or make each other laugh with a single word; spend an entire evening flat on their backs, up on a rooftop or a grassy hill, gazing at the stars as they spoke in soft voices. And even if she was his only companion, he didn’t resent that she had many, for he got the sense that she regarded him closer than any other.
He never asked her anything about Thor, or even about Thor’s mortal paramour, that woman Jane Foster. He was no longer entirely sure if it was because he didn’t want to know - what did he care, for the doings or wellbeing of the Odinson, or the wench that had captured his oafish heart - or if it was out of respect to Darcy, not wanting his interests in her to be misconstrued as a source for information.
Most people had stopped questioning Darcy’s judgment, at least to her face. Though he knew SHIELD often gave her difficulties still - it led him to hit their agents a little harder when he faced them in battle, than perhaps was strictly necessarily. But then they should know better than to be led onto a battlefield between gods.
Were he a creature capable of pity, he might’ve pitied them, for how they broke so easily. They were only human, after all.
But he thought little of those he had due cause to hate when he was with Darcy. Her company was not to be diminished by such paltry distractions.
She had her studies; he had his vendettas. But their lives continued onward, in their own separate space apart. Loki no longer had to go running to her with questions about science or society, and Darcy no longer batted an eye at some of his more archaic figures of speech. They had that straightforward ease that came from shared experience; that came from history together.
And oh, they did have history together. Albeit one that was, mostly, not particularly exciting.
But maybe, then, that was the very thing about it that Loki found so novel.
It was late into the harvest season. In many places around the country the leaves had changed colors and the ground in the mornings was covered with a persistent frost. Even in the midst of the desert land that housed Puente Antiguo the air had gotten cooler, crisper, and something just smelled like the change and decay, the temporary death, brought on by fast-approaching winter.
There was a holiday coming soon called “Halloween”. From what he had heard, Loki was quite interested to see it in action. It was a night that had its roots in old superstition; when mortals told spooky stories and reminded themselves there were things not of this world to fear out in the dark.
It was a time of mirth, mischief and mayhem, with masks worn to cover faces and tricks carried out under the dead of night. Loki approved.
His plan was to walk among the masses throughout the evening, invisible through his magic, wandering from place to place as he observed their rituals - perhaps play a trick or two of his own, unseen.
He forgot to ask Darcy if she had any plans. He was absently certain she must. She could be a popular girl, when she put her mind to it.
But when he came by, intending a brief ‘hello’ before he went on his way, he found her standing near the door to the lab, a large half-empty bag by her feet, and fuming in unhappiness.
“What’s wrong?” he asked automatically.
“Loki,” she exclaimed, startled but never really surprised at his appearances, anymore. But she brushed off her distraction with a shake of her head. “Oh, nothing. Just I got invited last minute to a big party that’s being thrown by the people down at the diner. I didn’t hear about it until today.”
“But that sounds like fun.” She loved parties, even those thrown by the ‘boring and backwards people’ that lived in this town. “What’s the problem?”
“Only that I had no idea it was coming and so now I have no one to go with. Jane and Thor are off together, and Erik’s out of town. And I’ve got nothing to wear, so I had to go to the only costume rental place in town and take the last crappy thing they had.” She sighed. And then, considering him, she brightened. “Hey. I don’t suppose you’d like to come with me, would you?”
Loki drew back, frowning. “I don’t know that I really…”
“Oh, come on, Loki,” she pleaded, having pounced on the idea and not about to let go. “It’ll be fun! And I really don’t wanna have to mingle with these guys all by myself. Please?”
Loki realized he was already as good as doomed. Still, he said mildly, “What if I’m recognized?”
“Duh, Halloween? You can wear a disguise. No one will have any idea.” She looked at his clothing - no armor today, though it was Asgardian styled attire, complete with doublet and half-cape drapery, and all in shades of black. It had seemed fitting, to him. “That can probably work as a costume. All you need is a mask. Aha!”
In sudden fit of inspiration she dove into the bag next to her, rustling around.
“I was handing these out all day,” she explained. “I declared the building a ‘Halloween Only Zone’, and told any SHIELD drone that stopped by they couldn’t get in without a mask.”
“How many of them put up with that?” Loki watched her, amused.
“You’d be surprised.” She reemerged from the bag, holding an item in her hands. “Here. This one’ll be perfect.”
Loki took the offered mask, turning it over in his hands in an examining fashion. It was plain, completely white, designed to cover only the upper area of his face and part of his nose and cheek on one side.
There was something vaguely familiar about the shape, like he’d seen it before but didn’t know the reference behind it.
Darcy was looking at him expectantly, so he conceded and tied it against his face. She grinned, evidently satisfied with the effect.
“You look great! Now I just need to go get ready…hang on, it’ll take like twenty minutes…”
As Loki had fully anticipated, it was closer to forty. He passed the time waiting on her bed, reading one of the novels off her bookshelf.
When she reappeared her hair was done up in an elegant curly style, silver makeup shimmered around her eyes, and she had in one hand an ornate golden mask in the domino style, held up at one end by a decorated stick.
But the rest of her outfit…Loki got to his feet, face showing his disapproval. “This is unacceptable.”
He waved at her dress. It was a monstrosity of lace and cheap, shiny white satin. From the design one could tell it purported to be a ball gown based on the fashion of a bygone period in human history, but the construction was both shoddy and overwrought, and moreover it was clearly an older article that hadn’t been cared for very well. The thread that trimmed the buttonholes was fraying, some of the corners of the skirt were moth-eaten, and there were faint yellowed stains.
Darcy scrunched up her nose and rolled her eyes. “I told you, it was the last one they had. You don’t have to tell me it’s awful.”
“Beyond awful,” Loki rebuked her, stiffly. “As I said, unacceptable. I refuse to be seen in the company of someone wearing such a sad, unkempt excuse for attire.”
Darcy bristled. “Well what do you expect me to do about it?” she demanded. “At this point, I don’t really have a choice.”
“Of course you do.” Loki instructed her, “Hold still.”
With a keen eye, he passed his hand over her gown slowly. One yard of fabric at a time the details shifted. The quality, the craftsmanship, the age were all updated. It was still an ornate ruffled dress of white trimmed with gold but now instead of being a caricature it had become a work of art.
When Loki stepped back to admire his transmogrification and deem it worthy, Darcy blinked and then ran to look at herself in the mirror.
“Oh, Loki! You made it…it’s…” She looked down at the mass of delicate embroidery at the front of her bodice. “The people at the costume rental shop are gonna be so confused when I bring this back in.”
He laughed. “It’s more than they deserve. Now, come.” He held out his arm to her. “We’ve wasted enough time.”
They walked the few blocks down to the diner in a stately manner. Under the cover of darkness the stifling desert heat had cooled, the air not nearly as oppressive.
Loki hadn’t known what to expect of the party. It turned out to be several dozen adults from around the town in costumes, standing around talking, drinking, and dancing. A few games and contests served as partial distractions, and there was a banquet composed almost entirely of sweets.
Darcy grumbled that she had been to livelier Halloweens, but she seemed to enjoy herself all night. As she had stated, no one recognized Loki. He made few attempts to mingle but mostly stayed by her side throughout. They bobbed for apples, voted on the carved pumpkins (there was a distressing number of Avengers based entrants), and early on in the evening when some small children were still stopping by, they took a turn at helping to hand out candy.
Loki gamely tried the ‘candied corn’, the apple cider, the many pumpkin-based dishes. Darcy giggled at some of the faces he made.
A few times they danced, Loki doing his best to show her the steps to a waltz.
The evening flew by much faster than either of them really anticipated. Like in an old fable, the night became a blur of merriment, until out of nowhere the hour was struck, and they were left standing there blinking eyes dazedly, more worn-out than they’d realized and wondering where the time had gone.
To their mutual surprise and mild discomfiture, they discovered they had accidently won the contest for “Best Couple’s Costume”.
Though Loki supposed it an understandable enough mistake to make regarding a man and a woman travelling together, still he wondered. He knew neither he nor Darcy had introduced themselves as a couple in any fashion all night. So where had the idea come from?
Too tired to protest, Darcy took the gift certificates anyway, with a mumble of “free pancakes”.
*
winter: yule
That night in the fall turned out to be the last time he saw her.
The problem with having a near-eternity laid out before you was that you fell into the habit of taking things for granted. You saw patterns and thought them set in stone. Assuming things would continue on, unending, into the future and for all of time.
Loki had known that his conflict with Thor was the stuff of fate and legends. They would keep on fighting each other, forever, lives lost and worlds destroyed in their wake. It would be consuming and monstrous and glorious.
Every pawn would play his part. The Avengers would keep trying to help, until they died off or were killed. And Darcy would keep being Loki’s friend until he finally did something that pushed her too far and drove her away.
Yes, Loki thought he’d written the tale of his own to-be history, captured it in his fist and had everything under control for how he knew, with certainty, the way that things were and that they always would be.
It could happen no other way. He was arrogant, assured in this conviction. It was destiny, and nothing less.
But Loki had been wrong.
For it turned out he’d forgotten something that he, of all people, should know quite well: that even immortal things could change.
Months had gone by. It was well into winter now, or as close to a real winter as it ever came on Asgard.
For that was where Loki was, now: on Asgard.
It turned out he had no idea what was in store for him in his future at all.
He still wasn’t completely sure what had happened. What any of this meant. Something had…shifted. Without meaning to, without any memory of how he had done it, somehow he had surrendered. Stopped fighting, and came back to the one place he had told himself that he wanted least to be.
The place he had known, or thought he’d known, he could never belong to again.
But he wasn’t a prisoner here, a captive. He was let to live and roam like anyone else. They called him ‘prince’ and ‘son’ and ‘brother’. They let him call this place ‘home’.
Home. Such a simple word, and yet it struck him in the chest like a bolt. Spread throughout his system like a sickness, making his heart ache and his breath come short, and his head feel tired and lost and oh-so heavy.
He slept often these days. He supposed he had a lot of catching up to do - it had been a long year, that he’d spent feverishly hard at work and rarely taking proper care of himself. He passed the nights and sometimes part of the days in his own bed and read his books from the shelves in his room and spent a lot of time just…sitting, looking out the widow and watching the world go by. Just being still.
Thor had gone back to his adventures on Midgard. The king and queen (Father and Mother) gave him his space. For the most part Loki was left alone.
His world had become silent. Sitting in the shadows, walking empty hallways, unable to bear anything that was too bright, too crowded, too loud, too cheerful.
And for the most part he preferred it that way. He needed time, space, to be with his thoughts and feelings. To perhaps be able to decide, at some point, what they actually were.
Am I happy? he asked of himself. I suppose that I must be. I certainly don’t feel angry, or sad. But all the same, I’m not sure. I seem so…empty.
It was entirely possible that it had been so long since he’d last been happy, really happy, that he couldn’t remember what it felt like at all.
He hadn’t seen Darcy in months.
He hadn’t been able to visit her since their time together on Halloween. He had spoken to her once since then (magic could be at times a wonderful, useful thing) but it had been briefly, very briefly; and not entirely pleasant. He supposed it’d even be fair to say they had argued.
He didn’t imagine she was still angry at him. But he realized that he missed her.
But it was a very long time before Loki felt like talking to anyone again, especially her.
It was the dead of winter when Jane Foster felt comfortable enough to use her mortal-fashioned simile of the Bifrost to visit Thor in his home on Asgard, instead of the other way around. And of course she brought her lab assistant with her.
Loki wasn’t there waiting for them when they arrived. He couldn’t stand there out on the golden road before Heimdall, holding a place amidst Lady Sif and the Warriors Three. He couldn’t bear it.
Instead he was half a city away, on the far side of the palace, sitting cross-legged in one of the quiet nooks he’d made for himself, hidden up high in one of the corners of the great library. Unable to fully resist curiosity he gathered his magic to him for a small scrying spell, holding a glowing orb of mist in his hands.
He saw the two women arrive, along with Erik Selvig. He saw Thor’s face split wide in a cheery eager grin at their appearance. He saw the three humans blinking, dazed, and the color drain from the man’s face as he looked up at what was above him. He saw Jane Foster’s eyes alight with wonder, and then he saw Darcy, still in a haze, start to take one stumbling step off to the side of the platform and have to be grabbed at the arm by the other woman to stop her.
He heard the Asgardians laughing merrily, welcoming, and then saw them start to rush forward in a gang to greet them.
Loki could watch no more. He ended his spell, banishing the image away, and curled up on his side in a ball, his pulse racing.
It was much later that he and Darcy finally saw each other once more. He had gone for a long slow walk out on the grounds, letting the sights and sounds of the palace drift far away from him. And Darcy came and found him.
They approached each other quietly, her smiling, him completely still.
“Hey, you,” Darcy greeted him affectionately.
“Hello,” he returned in a gentle even voice, almost a sigh.
She hugged him, and he held her in place, returning the gesture without committing to it more animatedly. “It sure has been awhile.”
“It certainly has,” he agreed.
He could think of nothing else to say. A recurring problem for him, of late. Darcy pulled away and looked up at him, and he waited for her to start querying and hassling him, wanting to know why he was acting this way. But she didn’t. She asked nothing.
Maybe Thor had already told her, that these days he was much subdued. Or maybe, in light of all that had happened, she had gathered it for herself.
They walked. Loki led her on one of the more beautiful paths around the lawn and gardens, pointing things out to her without making much in the way of gestures, without ever saying a word. They stood close by each other, shoulders and arms occasionally brushing.
“How do you find Asgard so far, Lady Darcy?” he asked her at length, geniality at last bringing some warmth into his tone.
“It’s good,” she answered. “I mean, there’s still a ton to see. But I like what I’ve been shown so far. Although,” she shook herself, “it’s colder than I expected. The way Thor goes on I was thinking the place must be just one big ball of gold, made entirely out of shooting stars and sunshine. The weather’s a little chilly. Though not nearly as much as it is on Earth right now, I guess.”
“Oh no,” Loki told her, voice adamant and drawling, “you don’t understand. This is an abnormally cold winter for Asgard. If you look you will find many of the courtiers grumbling, and wrapped in furs. A few have started complaining that it’s a sign of the end times, that Ragnarok will surely be upon us. Why, there’s even a chance this year that we might get an actual cover of snow on the ground, instead of the few scattered falls that usually visit us.”
Darcy turned to look at him, and she eyed his face searchingly for a few seconds before she replied.
“Was that a joke?” she said at last. “Did you just make a joke? I couldn’t really tell, but I was starting to worry.”
“Worry about what?” he asked her with an anxious smile.
“That they did something to you,” she told him flatly. “Like your personality had been removed. Or they loaded you up on whatever the Viking equivalent is of Diazepam. You’re so…I don’t know. Mellow.”
He gave a sad chuckle.
“I know. I’m sorry. I just…I have much on my mind these days.” He stood there rubbing his hands together, looking down as he tried to apologize.
He doubted this empty version of him was what Darcy came to see. He only wished there was some way he could make up for her disappointment.
“Don’t be sorry,” she said, to his surprise. “I get it. I do. You’ve got a thing going on. It’ll be different when you feel better again, but right now…it’s quiet time. Hey, it happens.”
Loki gazed at her, not sure what to say. Between her understanding and her absolute, unthinking conviction that he would change again, that he would be better, he felt overwhelmed.
She put a hand on his shoulder, beaming hopefully at him.
“Besides - yeah, it’s a little weird, but even so. You do seem like you’re doing okay, underneath it all. That you’ve got something here you were missing before, back on Earth.”
“Do I?” Loki asked her in a murmur, earnest. He saw a stranger when he looked in the mirror these days; when he could bear to. He couldn’t read himself.
“Yeah. You do. I think,” she hesitated; “You seem happy. Maybe more, in a different way, than you ever were before. I mean I know we had good times together, and were laughing a lot of the time in the pictures from whenever you’d blow stuff up, but it always seemed like you could never just let go with it. Like there was this bitter, angry lump in you that was taking away from it, no matter what.”
She met his eyes, sincere; significant.
“You don’t seem angry like that anymore.”
He took that in.
“No,” he agreed, slowly, musingly. “You’re right. I am not.”
He felt hollow in some places, and it still hurt in some others, but that hungry awful fire in him had been extinguished. Had guttered and flickered and at last gone out, without his ever noticing.
And now that it was gone, suppose it left room for something else instead. Suppose it left room for new feelings, sensations that he’d been long denied, to grow.
Like contentment. Peace. Belonging. And yes, happiness, real happiness. The likes of which he hadn’t known in ages.
All at once Loki realized that as hard as his life was right now, it meant something else. It meant he had something to look forward to.
Things were changing, out of his control. But that didn’t mean that he had lost the fight.
In fact he might have won something, after.
Loki smiled at Darcy, the expression working its way across his face until it held every muscle, feeling unfamiliar but welcome.
“Come,” he said to her, “let me show you some of the sights of my home.”
“I’d love that,” she responded with a matching look of her own in reply.
And they walked along that quiet, cold, gray world together, his arm tight around her shoulder, hers snug around his waist.
Only two dear friends talking of nothing, laughing, sharing the same old jokes. Happy.