Fic: built from hair and bone
Title: built from hair and bone
Author: ms_smilla
Rating: PG-13 / 15 / T
Disclaimer: Not for profit, but for fun, these are not mine.
Warnings: Borderline dub-con kissing and relevant trigger warnings. Couple of Adult things mentioned.
Summary: In the dark, where she arrives, this is where Darcy Lewis disappears.
Author's notes: So this is a sort of love-quadrangle with strong shades of the Illyria storyline from Angel. So, yeah, it’s not going to be fluffy.
++
built from hair and bone
++
It's not so terrible she tells me,
not like you think, all darkness
and silence.
- Death Comes to Me Again, A Girl. Dorianne Laux.
here is the deepest secret nobody knows
[...]
i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart)
- I Carry Your Heart. e e cummings.
++
“Listen” she tells Darcy, “to the voices of the living. I like it.” she says, shaking the dust from her hair. She’s beautiful; elegant and strong and dignified.
In the dark, where she arrives, this is where Darcy Lewis disappears.
++
She looks small and fragile. Her hair is tangled up in a medusa’s riot of electrodes. The hospital bed seems too large for her. The electroencephalogram flickers and it hurts his eyes. There’s a liquid feeling between his ribs, something hot and acidic pooling there. He can feel the pressure in his jaw, his teeth grinding slowly together.
Steve Rogers stands next to her in a bedside vigil, arms crossed, tension in every muscle. The Captain hasn’t punched him yet, but Loki is beginning to wish that someone will challenge him to combat. He wants to stop seeing how brittle and mortal Darcy looks. He wants to snap bone beneath his fingertips.
Jane Foster leans over and tucks the bed sheet around Darcy’s shoulders, brushing some hair from her forehead. A bruise is surfacing above her eyes.
Loki wasn’t fast enough when she fell.
Loki hears the door rattle as Fury strides into the hospital room followed by Banner. He turns to face them. They stop, just inside the room. If possible, the two armed guards posted to watch him stand up even straighter, pointing their guns directly at him rather than the floor.
“The footage corroborates your story.” Fury tells him, but he doesn’t tell the guards to lower their weapons. “Did you have any idea of what the artifact might do when you threw it at her?”
Behind him, he can feel Rogers shift position. “No.” Loki snipes back at Fury, trying to resist the urge to snap his vertebrae. “Did you?”
Something shutters behind Fury’s eyes. “Lewis had a very low security clearance. We only gave her items that were cleared as benign for cataloguing.”
Loki’s fingers begin to itch.
“So, you threw her the artifact, so she could have a closer look and it exploded on contact.” Banner interrupts. “What happened next?”
“You’ve seen the footage.” Loki tells him. Banner has crossed over to the electroencephalogram and is frowning at it.
“I’d like to hear it from you,” Banner asks him, sounding almost as if he cares. “Please.”
Loki turns to look at Darcy, instinctively. The way he has looked at her for the past three months. “She was covered in dust. She fell.” He tells them, “She hit her head before I could catch her properly. She was unconscious for a moment. Then she woke briefly before her seizure.”
“The footage doesn’t show a seizure.” Fury says. The liquid feeling beneath Loki’s ribs flares white-hot briefly. “It shows you talking to Lewis, before she punches you and then tries to tear the lab apart.”
Next to Darcy, Rogers has shifted to watch Loki. He looms over Darcy like a form of overprotective mutt. Loki is resisting the urge to snarl at him.
“When she woke, what did she say?” Fury demands. They are all looking at him now, Jane Foster, Banner, Rogers, Fury and the guards. The only person who isn’t eyeing him is Darcy. She is so still and pale and small in her hospital bed.
“She said ‘it’s you.’” Loki informs them. “Then she kissed me.”
Rogers jerks, as if Loki’s hit him, and Loki feels a glow of pleasure at his response.
“Then, as you said, she punched me and tried to hurt herself. I held her to try and stop her.” Loki looks at her skin, at the bruises and scratches on her forearms. “She was strong. Too strong. Almost as strong as myself.”
Everyone shifts at that, Fury in particular looking discomforted.
“We’ve had to induce a coma.” Banner tells Fury, “Darcy is currently suffering from Status Epilepticus, which basically means that her brain is in a state of near conscious seizure. What’s worrying me, is that despite the treatment, we’re still getting electrical activity.”
Loki notices that Jane’s eyes are puffy are red. She’s holding Darcy’s hand and stroking her thumb repeatedly across Darcy’s palm. “What sort of electrical activity?” Jane asks.
Banner taps the monitor. “Something seems to be eating its way through her brain, short circuiting tissue as it goes. I’d expect to see general electrical activity, a brain-wide overload. But this is all being generated from the hippocampus, almost selectively.”
“What’s the hippocampus?” Rogers asks, looking between Banner and Foster, his voice low and rough.
“In most basic terms, the memory centre.” Banner replies. “What’s also concerning me, is that Darcy’s EEG is showing nearly two hundred percent of the normal electrical stimulus.”
Loki watches as Banner turns to face Fury, looking almost nervous. “As I’m beginning to sort through the data I’m starting to see what looks like two distinct cognitive patterns.”
“Excuse me?” Jane Foster asks, her voice scratchy and incredulous, her hand tightening around Darcy’s unresponsive fingers.
Loki feels cold. His own, empty fingers itching. His jaw still tingling where Darcy’s fist had connected as she scrambled to get away from him, clawing at her skin.
“It’s a half-baked theory,” Banner tells them, “but I’m starting to think that Darcy’s not alone in there.”
++
They pull him back out of solitary confinement two days later.
Considering Loki was trusted to be left alone with Darcy Lewis for months before the artifact exploded, Fury’s exile of him, back into confinement, feels vindictive.
Or like a distraction. Because Loki knows when someone is lying. It’s instinctive.
And while Loki sits through the cycles of the lights switching on and off in a parody of daylight, it’s not only his fingers that itch but his teeth too.
Steve Rogers is the one who comes to escort him out. The Captain looks like he hasn’t slept. He obviously hasn’t combed his hair in days. A muscle in his jaw twitches every time he looks at Loki, and he wonders if Rogers is aware of how his fingers clench and unclench into fists whenever Loki looks back.
“She’s asking for you.” The Captain tells him, in a rough, tight voice.
++
Loki feels something twist inside him when he walks into the observation room. Darcy is in his old place, behind three inches of hulk-proofed glass, standing just where he used to watch her when she’d first been assigned to babysit him. Watching the way she’d twist her hair around her fingers. Nibble on pens. Stick bits of paper to her fingers. Crack the spines of heavy books.
The delight on Darcy’s face when she sees him is incandescent. His ribs hurt; it feels like he can barely draw breath.
It’s not Darcy Lewis though. Loki knows almost instantaneously. Something else is sitting behind her flesh, looking at him with her eyes.
“Hello Loptr.” It greets him, grinning mischievously. And it hurts him to see Darcy’s smile being worn like a costume. He burns with anger, his skin itching with rage.
“You look so young.” It tells him. The voice is too musical, too sweet: it is not Darcy’s.
“Who are you?” He demands. He can hear the buzz and click of the cameras as they focus and refocus on him and it. He can almost feel the anticipation of those who are watching, can see the greedy desire of both Fury and Rogers. He’s acutely aware of the walls between them and this thing that wears Darcy’s skin but will only speak to him.
Almost too quickly for the human flesh to respond, the expression on Darcy’s face changes from delight to complete shock. “Don’t you know me?” it asks, its voice breaking.
He refuses to be affected. He folds his arms behind him calmly. “Should I?” He replies.
It staggers as if he’s hit it. It stumbles towards the glass between them, pressing Darcy’s fingers against it as if reaching for him. “I’m Sigyn.” it tells him. “You must remember me, Loptr.”
The expression on Darcy’s face is frantic; where her hands press against the glass, hairline cracks begin to appear. Somewhere, deep in the building, Loki can hear an alarm begin to sound.
“I know no Sigyn.” He tells her, his voice careful and controlled, trying not to snarl at this thing wearing Darcy.
“Don’t you remember me?” it cries, its voice getting louder and sharper, “Don’t you?”
“Calm down,” He orders it, “or they will sedate you.”
It relaxes immediately, moving rapidly away from the glass. Its movements are too quick and too strong to be human. “I’m sorry.” It tells him. “It is intense. This body is so fresh, so alive.”
Loki suddenly feels intensely cold. “Her name is Darcy Lewis.”
The thing - Sigyn - wearing Darcy’s skin nods. “She’s very...vibrant.” It muses. “I have such difficulty with her. Her memories won’t stay in the past. The emotions are so strong, everything is doubled, amplified, I can barely separate my feelings from hers sometimes.”
Loki can feel how shallow his breath has become. “Is she still present?” he asks.
In the cell, Darcy’s body frowns. Her jaw clenches. “She’s being hollowed out.” Sigyn tells him.
Loki is furious, he can barely contain himself. He stalks over to the glass, moving as close as possible without touching it.
“Don’t trick me and don’t lie to me.” He hisses. “I am the god of lies.”
“Loptr,” it begs, pressing Darcy’s hands against the glass, as if it wants to touch his face. “Loptr, please-”
“Let me speak to her.” He demands.
“Loptr-why-”
He loses control. “LET ME SPEAK TO HER!” He roars. Sigyn cowers away from him, pressing stolen hands to Darcy’s throat.
Sigyn looks at him, full of accusation. “Very well.” it tells him, and closes her eyes.
And when they open again it’s Darcy looking at him, looking tired and angry and scared.
“Hello.” He breathes.
“Loki-” she hisses, “-What the HELL is going on?-”
“Darcy, listen to me!” Loki interrupts, burning with urgency, with the glorious victory that she’s still there. “Use your training: I need observations. Information. Quickly.”
Darcy almost snarls at him in frustration. “She’s got me pressed down. It feels like I’m being squished inside my own brain.”
“For what purpose?” He demands.
But before she can answer, behind him, with a crash, Rogers come barrelling into the observation room. And Darcy’s eyes snap to him, and the delight on her face makes Loki’s jaw clench.
Rogers is sweeping over to her, like a caricature of a hero; a dumb child posing as a saviour. “Hey.” He sighs, sounding like a fool. “Are you okay?”
Both Loki and Darcy snort at that, and Loki feels delight when she smirks at him, almost conspiratorially, and then almost instantaneously sick as she turns to share the moment with Rogers. “Silly question.” She teases him.
Loki wants to interrupt them, burst their little hideously domestic bubble, but before he can, Darcy glares at him. She knows him so well. He feels full of heat, pleasure that she still reacts to his rhythms, his impulses.
“Right, you need intel, I get it! She’s trying to force me out, okay?” Darcy tells them. “She wants my body vacated. Seems to think this is standard procedure for an Asynjur, whatever that is.” Loki tenses, involuntarily, at the title, and Darcy squints at him, suspicious. “It’s not comfortable, I keep screaming at her, but she’s trying to ignore me. She keeps saying I’ll be gone in a few days and I should just shut up and take it lying down. Not gonna happen.”
Rogers presses his hands against the glass. “How many days, Darcy?” He looks pale, weak with worry. Loki wants to push him away; this feebleness is not what Darcy needs, this alternating posturing and hand-wringing.
Loki watches her. Darcy looks up, pursing her lips. “She’s not so specific about that.”
“What’s it-she-here for?” Loki asks, watching the way her blue eyes focus on him.
So he sees it, the moment she disappears. And it’s horrifying to watch. Everything about Darcy Lewis becomes weaker, more fluid. All her fire turns cold.
“For you.” It tells him, voice beautiful and sincere and truthful.
Loki snarls, slamming a hand against the glass. It-Sigyn-flinches, but doesn’t step back this time. It just scowls.
Next to him, he can hear Rogers’ breath hitch, and he sighs out a plea. Her name, just once, like a prayer, and Loki wants desperately to tear Captain America’s jaw off.
++
Thor is waiting in the briefing room.
Thor is looking at him with that same considerate, expectant look he always wears, waiting for the day when Loki comes back to him on bended knee. When they can be brothers again.
Loki barely feels anything at the sight of him. There is hollowness, an emptiness where his affection used to warm him. He tries to feel anger, searching for the burn of rage he also used to feel, but all there is now is an unpleasant taste in his mouth and the sick, grinding feeling of worry for the mortal that waits two floors down, trapped in her body.
All the Avengers are present. Even Banner, who Loki knows hasn’t slept since this began, spending his time pouring over medical reports and neurological research, and thus is dancing on the knife-edge of safety. Stark looks angry, Romanov and Barton refuse to acknowledge him, Fury is cagey and Rogers looks exhausted.
“The artifact was of Asgard.” Thor tells them. “It was stolen many centuries ago. Heimdall was charged with searching for it and has looked for it everyday since its theft, but did not see it, or the power it contains until it opened for the Lady Darcy. The Allfather is gravely concerned.”
Thor sighs, folding his arms across his chest. “Many millennia ago, before Odin’s birth, the Realm Eternal was tearing itself apart in civil strife. Many Aesir and Asynjur vied for rule of Asgard and many were determined to achieve supremacy, no matter the cost.”
Loki is trying to suppress the urge to laugh. Everyone, bar Thor, is trying not to look at him; so ridiculously unsubtle in their subtlety. He wants to pinch Darcy, twist the fabric of her shirt between his fingertips to draw her attention to the stupidity. She’d appreciate it. He may even make her smile by doing so. His fingers itch with her absence.
“Some were so dangerous that they were bound and confined lest they bring about Ragnarök.”
Loki cannot help it, he jerks at the word, and Thor sees. Thor notices, and Loki can do nothing about it. Loki grins at him. “That’s my prophecy.” He reminds Thor, and he’s rewarded when Thor flinches.
“Just to be completely clear,” Stark interrupts, “That’s the end of the world, the pantheons and all time as we know it Ragnarok, right?”
“That is correct.” Thor tells him.
“So, I’m going to hypothesise that that little cube was a cell for a dangerous - your word, not mine - deity, with the potential to end the world. Somehow, this deity managed to sneak a jailbreak around the all-powerful Heimdall and Odin, and this deity is now using Darcy Lewis as some sort of incubator.” Stark’s lips are twisted into a sneer.
“Does this deity actually have the potential to end the world?” Fury asks. His voice cold and arms crossed.
“The Allfather has told me that if Darcy Lewis becomes a vessel for Sigyn, then Sigyn will bring about Ragnarök.”
Next to Stark, Steve Rogers is pale. Loki watches as his jaw clenches and unclenches, his skin bloodless and his eyes shadowed. “We’ve got no clear idea of how long Darcy can hold on.” He tells Thor, and his voice is low and rough. “How do we fix this, and how long will it take?”
“There is a place, at the roots of Yggdrasil, the Well of Mímir. It is a journey of two Midgard days. There are many, many perils involved in travelling to Mímisbrunnr, but the means by which Sigyn can be bound will be found there.” Loki watches as Thor looks to each of the Avenger’s in turn, but not at him. “My friends, I am willing to undertake such a quest, but I must ask for your assistance. No one from Asgard can help while the Bifrost is broken, and I will need to rely on your strength and skills if I am to succeed.”
++
Rogers comes to him a few hours after he has been escorted back to solitary confinement.
“I’m going.” He tells Loki, and Loki frowns in shock. He’d expected Rogers to stay behind. To indulge in some maudlin display, with his hands pressed against the glass of her cell, tears, plea bargaining and begging.
“I need to do this. I need to fight for her. And I need you to look after her while I’m gone.”
“What?” Loki asks, his tongue heavy and slow in his mouth.
“I know that she means something to you.” Rogers tells him, his mouth twisting at the admission. “I know that if they’d let you, you’d be going to the Well too.”
Loki burns with anger. “Don’t presume to know my desires or understand my motivations.” He snarls at the captain.
Rogers doesn’t move. “Please.” He begs. “SHIELD will destroy her. They will try to kill Darcy rather than let Sigyn control her. Don’t let them until we’ve had a chance to save her. Please, Loki.”
Loki looks at him. At the creases around his eyes. The dry skin of his lips. The tension across his shoulder blades. Rogers is in pain. Excruciating pain. The pain of having someone you care for wither away while you are powerless to help them.
“I can’t protect her from in here.” Loki tells him.
++
He’s locked in the cell with her. Sigyn watches him, her eyes like ice. They are so different from Darcy’s eyes. When Darcy looks at him he sees nothing but the blue sky, open and hot and inviting and limitless.
“You're trying to kill me.” Sigyn tells him. She is curled up in a corner, across from where he sits.
“You’re trying to kill Darcy.” He responds.
Her eyes widen, and she unfolds her body slightly. She leans towards him, cautiously. Every movement judged and careful. “I love you.” Sigyn tells him. “I have loved you for millennia. I will always love you, Lop-Loki.”
He makes sure every muscle is still. He regulates his breathing, his blinking. He sits, quiet and unresponsive.
She comes nearer, moving Darcy’s body closer and closer to him until she touches his knee, lightly, with her fingertips. “They parted us, Loki. They tore me away from you and they trapped me and I was compressed by cold stone. I tore at the stone. It tasted like blood and I screamed for you until the echoes made me deaf.”
Heat from her palm eases its way through the cloth of his trousers and onto his skin. “I knew they would keep you from me. I knew that they would torture you again. I wasn’t going to let them. I was going to save you.” Her grasp on his knee is stronger, more insistent. “I will always love you and I will always find a way to be with you, Loki.”
Her hand is so warm in his. It takes his brain a moment to recognise that he has moved without conscious thought. He has taken her hand in his. He strokes his fingers across her palm, feeling the whorls and the dips of Darcy’s flesh. He leans forward, bringing them face to face. “This is not the way.” He tells Sigyn. He keeps his voice soft, honeyed. “Darcy Lewis is mine. She is under my protection. I will be her tutelary until Ragnarök. She will not be your vessel, she will not die, I won’t let her.”
Sigyn stands, trying to pull away from him, but Loki rises with her, keeping their hands linked, aware of the delicate bones between his fingers. “Leave her. Leave this body.” He demands. “You cannot steal from me what I own.”
“I cannot!” Sigyn hisses, twisting Darcy’s hand until Loki has to let go, lest he damage her. She moves back into the corner of the cell, folding Darcy’s arms protectively around her. “You must let her go, Loptr.”
He has to hold himself back. Stop himself from advancing on her. He forces his fingers to grip the back of his chair rather than her fragile skin. “You claim to love me, prove it.” He demands. “Leave her. Do not destroy her.”
“I am bound to her, body and mind.” Sigyn tells him, and she sounds like she almost regrets it. “You cannot save her now. I will burn her through until she is hollow, and there is nothing you can do to prevent it. I love you, Loki, and I will be with you. They cannot stop me.”
++
That’s the last time she speaks to him.
They watch each other from opposite sides of the cell. He sits on his chair and she sits on the cot.
Loki asks her questions: Who imprisoned you? Why do you claim you know me? What do you want? Why this body? What do you hope to gain from me?
Jane Foster deigns to visit them. She stands on the other side of the glass and asks to speak with Darcy. Sigyn doesn’t respond, doesn’t even look at her. Foster cries a little, begs a little and ignores Loki completely.
She leaves and she doesn’t come back.
Sigyn just sits, looking at him. She doesn’t answer any of his questions. Her eyes accuse him. And Loki itches with anger.
Her gaze is broken only once. SHEILD’s doctors enter the cell, and Loki stands between them and her until they swear to him that they only want to draw some blood, take her temperature, check how Darcy’s body is handling the possession.
She sits there throughout their tests, quiet and unresponsive. Their needles snap against her skin. The thermometer and blood-pressure cuffs’ alarms are triggered. The doctors scowl and mutter and pack-up their instruments.
When he asks, they tell Loki that Darcy’s skin is hardening, that her internal organs are cooking slowly. That she’s being hollowed out. That her body will survive no more than two days.
Two days to the Well and two days back. They won’t return in time.
He feels pain. Every muscle in his chest aches, his lungs burn. And the doctors look at him in horror, at the expression on his face. They flee from the room.
They lock the door behind them as they leave. He throws the chair at it. He’s screaming, his throat raw, his skin too tight against his body.
And she sits there, and she doesn’t respond at all.
++
So he stares back.
He feels like someone’s hollowed him out; it’s the moment of realisation all over again. There he is, in front of the casket, and all he can feel is the horror, the emptiness as everything falls away from him.
When he stands up he can feel the spin of the earth, fast and unsteady beneath his feet, and it makes him sick.
So he sits. He avoids looking into the icy blue of Sigyn’s eyes; instead he looks at the line of Darcy’s jaw, the softness of her lips, the dip of her Philtrum, the curve of her Ala. Her counts her eyelashes. He counts the moles on her cheek.
He tries not to see the ways her cheeks become more prominent as the flesh wastes away, or the shadows under her eyes. Every time he glimpses them, everything in his chest is wrenched away.
Sigyn lasts a day and a half under his scrutiny. It is the afternoon of the second day when she moves, almost too quickly for him to see, and she is in his space, pressing her face close to his. “Stop it.” She hisses. “Stop looking for her. Stop pretending you don’t know me. Stop pretending you don’t remember Loki Liesmith.”
She is furious, her fingers twitching, Darcy’s body shaking. The whites of her eyes are red with burst blood vessels, she is covered in a sheen of sweat. She looks hollow, burning and hungry.
He stands, catching her wrists in his hands. “Lie down.” He tells her, trying to guide her back to the cot, trying not to notice how hot her skin is under his touch. “You’ll hurt her.”
“NO!” she screeches, as she twists her arms out of his grip and shoves at him. She’s so strong, he stumbles back, falling against the wall of the cell.
She stands, looking at him, her teeth bared in a snarl, her arms so tense and thin the veins stand out starkly, her fingers curled into claws. “You love her.” Sigyn spits. “You love this human, this mortal. You want to be more than her tutelary; you want to be her lover. You want her to own, to keep, and to possess.”
She advances on him, Darcy’s body shaking in her rage. He can’t reply, the words to deny her stick in his throat. He tastes iron and acid.
“She hates you.” Sigyn hisses, and Loki’s ears echo with the words. “She despises you. She loves Steve Rogers. She dreams about him. Over and over, while I try to silence her. All she thinks about is him, she clings on to him and him alone.”
Loki feels icy cold, his entire body numb. His ears ring with Sigyn’s words. He can’t move, can’t think.
“He’s possessed her, not you. He’s had her body.” She tells him, and her voice is so loud it hurts. “She dreams about his touch, the warmth of his skin against hers, the taste of his sweat, the way he felt inside her, the way he called her name.”
“Stop it.” He commands, but all the breath has left his lungs and the words come out no louder than a whisper.
“She wants him and not you! She’ll never love you! SHE’LL NEVER LOVE YOU!” She screams, and then she’s falling, collapsing.
He catches her, his heart in his throat, feeling the burn of her in his arms, the tremors in her muscles. He lowers her to the ground, so that he can sit, cradling her. Darcy is so thin, her body becoming fragile as Sigyn consumes her.
Sigyn’s voice continues. She won’t stop talking. “I love you.” She tells him, pleading with him. “This body will love you.” She raises her hand to his face, pressing her palm against his jaw. “Please, Loki, it will be everything you want.”
“It won’t.” He tells her, and his voice catches. He aches, he feels raw and empty. “It won’t be her.”
“Don’t try to stop me.” She hisses, but she’s too weak to move. All she can do is clutch at his arms. “Don’t. They won’t come back in time to save her. If you do, if she is hollowed out when they return and they imprison me again, then all you will have left is an empty shell.”
She pulls herself up, until her head is cradled against his neck. The feel of Darcy’s body against his makes his heart race; the feel of her breath on his skin warms him. “You can’t love a hollow shell Loki.” Sigyn whispers. “But I can love you. And you will grow to love me again, like we used to. Remember?”
She presses her lips against his throat, his chin, the corner of his mouth. His breath hitches. He can taste salt. He feels the pressure of tears behind his eyes. He tries not to feel the softness of her lips against his skin. He tries to resist, but he can’t: he turns his head just enough so that he’s kissing her.
With his eyes closed he can almost lie to himself. She is warm and soft and healthy in his arms. And this is Darcy kissing him. Darcy, who knows him, who feels the ebb and flow of him and understands that she should worship him. Worship him, because he worships her. Darcy, who loves him.
He can’t lie to himself convincingly. He pulls away, gently, because it’s still Darcy’s body, even though she’s not in control of it. He catches his breath, keeping his eyes closed, feeling the illusion slip away with every beat of his pounding heart.
“Loki?” She whispers, but it’s not Sigyn’s voice.
It’s Darcy’s, the sounds lower and rougher. His eyes open and he looks at her. Seeing the dark blue of Darcy’s eyes instead of Sigyn’s ice. He burns suddenly, fiercely with joy. His arms tighten around her.
“Did you just kiss me?” She asks, struggling until she can sit up, independent of him. She scowls.
Then she punches him. It is weak, no more than a glancing blow off his jaw, but he is delighted. He laughs: the sound bubbling up, uncontrollable and shaky and jubilant.
++
A few moments later Darcy starts shaking, violently. Her muscles are in spasm and she can’t relax. Her skin is white, almost grey and she’s sweating. She can barely focus on him.
He takes her back into his arms. She tenses for a moment, before relaxing against him. “That’s the second time now.” She tells him. “No more taking advantage of me while I’m not in control. I don’t care what she wants. If anything happens, I’ve got to be the one saying yes, okay?”
He smiles at her, brushing strands of hair back from her face. “Yes. Of course.” He teases. “I want you in control and saying yes to me.”
“Stop it.” She scolds. “I’m being serious.”
“I know.” Loki tells her, making sure he is leaning close enough so that she can focus on him, see the sincerity on his face. “I promise, I will make sure nothing else happens. I will not kiss you again.”
He tries to hide the emptiness he feels at making that promise. She will never love him. She has never belonged to him. He hurts at the thought. She’s still scowling up at him, dissatisfied.
“Loki-” she sighs, before wrapping a hand around his neck and pulling him down.
Darcy is kissing him. Her lips are hot against his. Slowly, her body stops shaking in his arms. Her tongue flicks gently at his lips until he opens them. She tastes of salt and sleep. She sucks on his tongue and heat floods though him. He moans into her mouth and at the sound she pulls herself closer to him, pressing her body into his. She runs a hand though his hair, down his back, along his vertebrae. His flesh sparks with sensation everywhere she touches.
She is everything he has desired. “Darcy-” he gasps.
“Don’t say you won’t kiss me.” She whispers against his lips. “I burn for you. I want you. It’s me saying these things. I’m saying yes.” Her hands are hot, working their way under his t-shirt, pressing against his skin, pulling him closer.
He looks at her, at the dark blue of her eyes, and he sees Darcy, open and inviting and limitless.
“No.” He tells her. He pushes her away, gently, detangling her arms from around him. Loki still cradles her body in his arm but holds her wrists with his right hand so that she cannot touch him.
She writhes against him, gently. “Loki, what-” She looks at him, confused. “Loki, I want you.”
“No.” He tells her. “You’re wrong. She's in your head. You see everything she sees. You want everything she wants. You feel everything she feels.”
“I feel-” she whispers, straining to reach his lips again, pushing against his arms.
“Darcy, it’s not you. You don’t want me,” he says, the words cloying in his throat. He has to swallow before he can speak again. “Everything in your mind is doubled, amplified. It's like mirrors reflecting light. It grows more focused. Everything, do you understand? Fear, happiness, hurt, hatred, love.”
“Love,” she repeats.
“Yes.” He gasps. “Do you see?”
“Yes.” She breathes, and she looks stricken. “Loki-” she whispers, reaching up to brush her fingertips across his cheeks. “Don’t cry. Please.”
He is shaking.
++
They sit quietly for a while. With his arms wrapped around her he can feel her ribcage expanding and contracting, count her inhalations and exhalations. She doesn’t try to kiss him again.
“She really loves you.” Darcy says, apropos of nothing. He tenses, every muscle rigid and unyielding. “Like you said, I hear her. And she loves you, so fiercely. She remembers you so vividly: You were tied down and there was venom, dripping onto you and she tried to stop it, catch it in a bowl, but she couldn’t always and you would scream-” Darcy shudders against him.
“It wasn’t me.” He tells her, running his hand soothingly through her hair. “I’ve never met a Sigyn. No-one with that name has ever lived in Asgard. The poison, the memory, it’s false; it’s never happened. It’s a story, a Midgardian tale. She’s never done that-”
“It’s so real!” She protests, her eyes wide and blue, “You’re in so much pain, and it’s unbearable. I see it. And when they separated you, she couldn’t endure it. Everything hurt. She wants to be with you. She loves you.”
He looks at Darcy, at her earnest expression, at her skin stretched tight and thin across her bones. “If she truly loved me,” he tells her, “she would leave your body. She would leave you healthy and whole. She wouldn’t harm you. She wouldn’t be taking you away from me.”
“You love me.” Darcy states, and her voice is emotionless. She blinks at him, surprise stealing across her features slowly. And then she says it again, this time, with realisation and astonishment, “You love me.”
“I think so.” He confesses to her, feeling the weight of her cradled in his arms. “I would see the world burn rather than lose you.”
“Loki.” She sighs. Her body tenses against his, fine tremors running though her muscles. His grip tightens around her. “I don’t know which of us is pleased and which of us is angry about that fact.” She is grimacing at him. “It’s all beginning to blur.” Her fingers dig into his arms, her breath becoming shallow and fast. “I think she’s winning. I think I’ll be gone soon.”
Loki can’t draw breath. He feels like he’s been hit with Mjölnir. “Don’t.” He commands her. “Don’t you dare give up. I promised Rogers I’d give him time to save you. Remember him? She says he’s all you think about.”
She hums, noncommittally.
Her eyes are closing, like she’s falling asleep. “Stay awake!” He orders her, shaking her once, so that her eyes open in shock. “Remember Steve Rogers, Darcy. You love him.” The words feel like bile in his mouth. Her eyelids are closing again. He’s desperate. “Remember, she told me, remember what you dream about: his touch, the warmth of his skin, the taste of his sweat, the way he says your name. Hold on to that. Hold on for him.”
Her head slumps onto his shoulder, her fingers loosen from around his arms, her eyes close.
“Darcy,” he breathes her name like a devotion, pleading with her, “Darcy-”
When her eyes open, they are ice blue.
++
“Don't look at me like I've stolen her from you.” Sigyn begs him, her voice catching on her sobs.
He can barely bring himself to look at her. He can’t hold her. He can barely hold himself together.
“I love you. I am your wife. I love you, Loki.” She cries. “You loved me. You love me still. They’ve stolen you from me.”
“I don’t know you.” He grinds out. “I don’t know you-why do you insist that I do?”
“We grew up together. We loved each other. You wouldn’t let me go. You were such a part of me and I was such a part of you that I breathed what you breathed. I saw what you saw. I felt what you felt. You tricked Odin into marrying us. And we were never parted.” She is desperate; her fingers curved like claws, her eyes wide and wild.
It’s a lie. It was a foolish dream to think Darcy would ever have returned his affections. To see her body, her face, telling him he is loved is unbearable. It is false. He can only see the trickery. The illusion of being loved.
“Odin and Thor, they murdered our children. They bound you in our son’s entrails and they left us to suffer for all eternity. I watched you be tortured. I stayed with you. But you didn’t stay with me-” her voice rises and breaks on a sob. “You didn’t stay with me!”
“Is she dead?” He asks, the words burning like ash in his throat.
She crumples to the floor, curling up, folding her arms across her knees and burying her face in her arms. She rocks back and forth, sobbing.
Loki aches, his body heavy and dull. Sound is muffled and his skin itches.
“You’ve stolen her from the man who loves her.” He tells Sigyn, his tongue thick and clumsy in his mouth. “You’ve stolen her from then man she loved-Steve Rogers. She would have been happy with him. She would have balanced him; when he was angry or despairing she would have smiled, she would have chattered away until he smiled with her. When he was tired she would have noticed, she would have helped him find peace. They would have laughed together. She would have worshipped him as he worships her. You’ve destroyed her.”
He feels numb, completely empty.
++
Steve Rogers comes in to the cell. He is dusty, patches of his suit have been torn away and his cowl is pushed back to show a black eye.
In his hands he carries a plain stone cube, the same size as the artifact; unlike the artifact it has no carvings or runes.
“You’ve returned.” Sigyn spits at him, her voice hoarse from her sobs.
Steve pauses as he enters the room and looks at them. At Sigyn, curled up on the cot, at Loki slumped against the wall.
“Yes.” He confirms, his voice too loud for the confined space.
Loki can’t bring himself to make eye contact with him. Can’t bring himself to tell Steve that there is nothing left, just a shell.
He can hear Steve’s breathing catch. “Incantation Fetter.” He says, and Loki can hear the alarm in his voice. “I come to bind you, goddess of fidelity.”
Loki’s trying not to see. He can’t bear to watch this.
Sigyn looks at Steve. “Open it, then.” She instructs him.
He does. There is no flash of light, or loud noise, no explosions or whirlwind of magical energy. Instead there is the sound of exhalation, soft and warm in the quiet of the room, and Darcy’s body collapses.
Loki takes a step towards her, but Rogers is quicker, gathering her up and forcing a sliver of apple between her lips. Begging her to chew and swallow. To stay with him. Darcy is unresponsive. Still and quiet.
On the floor, next to them, the stone cube hums.
++
Loki is unpacking when Steve calls on him.
He’s spent a week in Java with a SHIELD research team looking at newly exposed subsurface carvings in Borobudur. The air was warm and humid, the work consuming, and after the first look at its brilliant blue hue he never again looked up at the sky.
“I thought you’d want to know how she was doing.” Steve tells him, standing awkwardly in the centre of Loki’s quarters, watching as Loki unpacks and sorts his clothes. Loki feels his heart stutter, his fingers become clumsy and uncoordinated.
“How is she?” He asks, hating the way his voice becomes just a bit lower, more rough.
“She’s almost back at work. Ithunn’s apple repaired all of the damage.” Steve tells him, and Loki can hear the strain in his voice, he’s trying to sound light and unconcerned.
“That’s good.” Loki replies, keeping his tone as neutral as possible.
“Yes.” Steve agrees, but he’s not in the least bit convincing. “Loki-” he begins, his voice dropping in pitch, becoming serious, “have you ever heard of Those Who Sit Above in Shadow?”
Loki feels his every hair on his body prickle with unease. “No.” He tells Steve. “Are they something I should be aware of?”
“I think so.” Steve tells him. Loki stops unpacking and turns to face him. “I don’t think this should be kept from you. Not everyone agrees with me.”
“Thor?” Loki asks, feeling a smirk twist his lips. It would be Thor.
“No. He thinks you should be told.” Loki feels his throat tighten in surprise. “It concerns you. We had an encounter with them on the return journey from Mimisbrunnr and they mentioned you and your role in Ragnarok.”
Loki shudders, his mouth dry and his skin itching. “What did they have to say?” He asks, his voice coming out as no more than a whisper.
Steve notices his discomfort and frowns, folding his arms across his chest. “They weren’t pleased that we were trying to imprison Sigyn; they want Ragnarok, and you and Sigyn have key roles to play, according to them.”
“There is a prophecy.” Loki tells him. The words stick in his mouth. Steve looks discomforted by Loki’s unease and shifts from foot to foot.
“They mentioned Odin too.” Steve sounds very upset about revealing this. “They seem to think he’s the one that imprisoned Sigyn. Do you know anything-that is, did Sigyn mention anything about Odin to you?”
His whole body feels icy cold, his lungs ache. “No.” He lies.
Steve huffs and then chuckles, running a hand through his hair. “Yeah, Darcy said you’d say that.”
Loki’s teeth grind together. He is suddenly furious. His throat hurts and his heart hammers in his chest. “Did she?” he hisses, turning away and busying himself with his luggage again.
“She’s leaving.” Steve tells him, and he sounds broken. Loki freezes. “Just for a little while. I wanted to thank you, for being with her.” Loki listens as Steve nearly chokes on the words. “She's getting her bags. I think you should talk to her before she goes.”
“I’ll think about it.” Loki tells him, keeping his voice as emotionless as possible.
++
The delight on Darcy’s face when she sees him is muted; she also looks tired and conflicted. His ribs hurt; it feels like he can barely draw breath.
“I heard you’re going away.” He tells her. It hurts to speak.
“Yeah.” She tells him, gesturing to the suitcases on the bed. “All expenses paid, somewhere hot. Courtesy of Tony Stark.” She grins at him, mischievously, and his heart lifts. “I’m thinking I might go slightly off-map, a little bit AWOL, ignore his itinerary and really go exploring. Maybe Ta Prohm, or Angkor Thom, or Jaipur. I’m being a bit indecisive.”
He grins back at her automatically, without thought. Suddenly, she runs over to him and before he realises what’s going on, she’s hugging him, wrapping her arms around him tightly.
He can’t help it, he tenses under her touch. Her breath is warm against his chest, her hand strokes soothingly across his shoulder blades and all he can feel is the heat of her, the softness of her flesh and the strength of her bones and he burns. He burns. He wants to touch her, to tangle his hands in her hair, pull her against him, but instead he stands there, rigid, arms locked at his sides.
She feels the tenseness of his muscles, realises, and pulls away from him. Her eyes are wide when she looks up at him, and she appears worried. “It’s alright.” He whispers, reaching up to stroke her cheek, but he can’t bring himself to do it; his fingers hover just above her skin.
They stand there, feeling the currents of warmth between them, so close, but not touching. He breathes in the air that she exhales.
“Loki-” she hums, breaking the silence, and he jumps. He takes a step back, away from her, feeling the coolness of air rush in between them. She just watches him, her mouth twisting, caught somewhere between a smile and a grimace.
He hurts. Every part of him feels heavy and dull.
“I’m sorry.” She says, and she sounds so upset. “I’ve really messed it up, haven’t I?”
“Not you.” He whispers. Her eyes are filling with tears and his prickle in response. He can almost feel what she feels. Taste the salt in the back of his mouth. He takes a deep breath. “Darcy,” he begins, “Where the others were suspicious, even vindictive, you were kind and helpful. You were my friend. I am indebted to you.” He tells her. “I am sorry my behaviour of late has not been-” his lips twitch, briefly, “-has not been what it should be.”
She stands there, twisting the hem of her sweater between her fingers. Then she laughs, the sound mirthless and hollow, her hands coming up to cover her face. Something twists in his stomach in response.
She sighs, raggedly. “I can't figure out if it's her or me.” She tells him. “That’s the problem.” She sounds like she’s in pain, like every word is being dragged from her. He wants to stop her talking, ease her pain, but he’s paralysed. Terrified.
“I like you. I may even be falling for you.” She confesses. He feels sick, he feels ecstatic. He can’t move. He watches Darcy, standing across from him, her muscles shaking with fear, her blue eyes bright with unshed tears. “You were always there, Loki, under my skin. Before the artifact, before Sigyn. You were like an itch. Whenever I was with you I felt like I was orbiting around you, like you blazed next to me. I dreamt about you. I thought about you. You made me feel wonderful, like I was capable of anything.”
She laughs, the sound brittle in the air between them. “I’m sorry.” She gasps.
“I love you.” He whispers. He feels like he is floating. The world has become hazy and unreal. He is burning, every part of him igniting, like a falling star. He is drawn to her gravity, like she described, forced to orbit her. Falling and falling until she catches him.
“But I love him too, Loki. I love Steve.”
He has always known this. But it still feels like a knife to the heart, the pain of it bright and sharp and shocking. She steps towards him, as if she wants to hold him in her arms again, but he doesn’t think he could endure it. He staggers back, holding his hands outstretched, as if to ward her off. She stumbles to a halt, eyes widening as she looks at him.
“I’m so sorry,” she sniffs, tears falling, “I’m sorry. I didn’t want to hurt anyone. That’s why-I’m going away to figure it out.”
Her voice breaks, and she staggers back to sit on the bed, covering her face, curling up into herself.
He watches her, sobbing her heart out. He can’t bear it. He crosses to her and gathers her up into his arms. She clings to him, burying her face in his shoulder and he strokes her hair gently, trying to soothe her, murmuring nonsense into her skin, whispering to her that it will be fine.
And when he whispers to her he loves her, and that no matter what she chooses to do he will always love her, he is telling the truth.
They sit there, curled-up in each other, breathing-in the air that the other has breathed out.
++
End.