Round 4
Round 4 is now closed.
Welcome to norsekink .
Keep up the awesome, folks.
Attention: Spoiler policy is now in place. For more information, go here.
NOTE: We've noticed that some of the prompts being posted have Thor characters only making cameos or not featured at all. We realize that Thor is closely involved in the Avengers, but we're requesting that any ( Read more... )
Welcome to norsekink .
Keep up the awesome, folks.
Attention: Spoiler policy is now in place. For more information, go here.
NOTE: We've noticed that some of the prompts being posted have Thor characters only making cameos or not featured at all. We realize that Thor is closely involved in the Avengers, but we're requesting that any ( Read more... )
Face it: it’s a miracle that it’s taken the internet this long to come up with the Avengers RPS sites.
Darcy just counts herself lucky that the Avengers themselves are still blissfully unaware of the community’s existence. Sure, the fiction (and the fanart. Oh, yeah, the fanart) is always very complimentary, but even the diehard fans like Darcy have to admit that it’s a bit creepy the way some shippers insist it’s all true. She knows Iron Man and the Cap are friends, sure, and affectionate in public, but she doesn't ever want to see Captain Rogers’ face if he finds out that half the internet is convinced they’re going at it like bunnies. (He wouldn't be angry, she thinks, just hurt. Anyone who knows Steve Rogers doesn’t want to hurt Steve Rogers.) And if Agent Coulson ever sees some of the things they write about him, Darcy can see a sudden rash of computers being seized by the government. That’s just how the men in black roll.
So, even though Darcy is all over this situation right here, she’s careful about how she does it. Doesn’t mention it to anyone at work, always clears her browser history before letting anyone touch her netbook. And she sticks to the safer areas of the fandom. The anon meme, for example. Anonymity is a good thing.
Except... well, it feels kind of skeezy to do everything anonymously. Unfriendly, at least. So, when she prompts (and she does prompt), she does it through her actual LJ account, with a cheerful looking icon, see how approachable I am? And no one ever notices that her prompts are sometimes a little over familiar with their subject matter. It’s just totally cathartic how, after a day when Clint makes one too many comments about her being the Avengers’ official coffee girl, she can go home and ask the internet to draw pictures of him in a French Maid outfit. And the internet will.
But. Even if she can prompt under her real name (internet real, not real-real), there is no way in hell she's risking getting caught filling prompts. It’s just a coincidence that posting her fills anonymously means no one can get mad at her when she loses interest halfway through.
Tonight, though, Darcy Lewis is not prompting or filling. She’s just browsing, blowing off steam. Today’s favourite offering is Loki-centric, and mythic as hell. The fandom seem to love him, and despite how much Darcy hates the RL Loki, and would totally wet herself if she ever had to be in the same room as him, she can’t help but agree. RPS!Loki is less evil than he is the misunderstood bad boy of Norse legend, and when the right author anon combines the fake-Loki from RPS with the fake-Loki from old stories? It’s a guilty pleasure, Darcy knows, but she likes to be reminded that Loki is a God. And that her favourite piece of blonde-and-tanned beefcake is as well. It makes her feel better that she doesn’t understand this whole Cain-Abel clusterfuck that is Thor and Loki - you’re not supposed to understand the gods.
And she just likes the floaty feeling of reading about people she knows in such poetic language. This fic describes Loki as a man in flight. Loki Sky Traveller, Loki swifter-than-the-wind, fleet footed and caught. Ooh. Yeah, that gives Darcy the right kind of shiver.
She bookmarks the thread. The author said it was a mini-fill, but there are already anons demanding a sequel, so who can say.
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She was supposed to spend the day doing make-work for Jane, but Agent Coulson had commandeered her to help corral some SHIELD scientists on a separate project. Just more running around asking people if they’d collated their after-action reports, stuff like that. Darcy can do that stuff in her sleep, even if she has no idea what these particular scientists are supposed to be studying.
If she’d known they were studying supervillain bait, she would never have agreed. This isn’t even in her job description.
Darcy can see her purse from across the room, and in it, her taser. She can also see the tall-dark-and-terrifying Norse god prowling the room in between her and it. She presses herself back against the benchtop and tries to look invisible as every other hostage in the room does exactly the same.
Because Loki’s looking for a victim. She knows that look on his face, she’s seen it in a hundred AARs, and she kind of hates her life that she should recognise the mischievous smirk and lighted eyes of a God who wants to find someone to torment while he waits. He’s swanning around from one huddled group of frightened eggheads to the next, making cutting remarks and laughing at his own jokes. Darcy grips the bench and wishes she was braver and keeps her eyes on the ground.
If... when she gets home, she’s prompting pole dancing Loki fics for the rest of her life. Or pregnant Loki. Or Loki/Hulk slash.
Her mind in the kink meme, Darcy has almost tuned out Loki’s gentle mocking monologue. He’s just talking in this mild, bored-sounding voice, and he has his hands on someone’s lab coat, a balding man with tiny glasses who didn’t bother to introduce himself when Darcy spoke to him an hour ago. And whatever Loki is saying to him snaps back into focus as he smirks, “...there’s a reason why they call me Loki swifter-than-the-wind.”
And because Darcy apparently left all her impulse control at home today, she finds herself saying, aloud, “Fleet footed and caught!”
Loki glances over, and so does his hapless victim, and Darcy can feel her face start to flush. She swallows and ignores the fuck out of that, because there’s no way supervillains can be any scarier than the time Director Fury caught her bypassing the SHIELD online security system to buy DVDs. “Loki swifter-than-the-wind, fleet footed and caught,” she repeats, as if that’s supposed to clarify anything. “Wasn’t that reference deliberate?” Yeah, Darcy. Well done. It was totally deliberate, because Loki - RL Loki, not even RPS Loki - is totally familiar with fics that were only posted on the kink meme yesterday.
He cocks his head and lifts an eyebrow at her, and Darcy starts to really wish she hadn’t spoken up. Then he asks, “Heaven in Your Eyes, by Rosie-underscore-Lea?” and she blinks.
“Uh, no,” she says, not thinking until it’s too late about how dumb it is to contradict a god-cum-supervillain. “Heaven in Your Eyes was that epic Cold War AU, no gods in it at all.”
“Oh, of course.” Loki frowns and taps his fingertips against the corner of his mouth. “So where did I steal that line from?” He leans in to the scientist whose coat lapels are still creased in his hand and whispers into his ear, “Congratulations. You’re off the hook.” Then he drops the man without a second thought and slides grinning onto the bench where Darcy is sitting.
And that’s how Darcy Lewis comes out as a totally inappropriate RPS enthusiast. To Loki. Who is in exactly the same boat.
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It’s definitely the most surreal thing that’s ever happened to her, and all Darcy can do, really, is act the way she always acts in RL when she meets someone from the internet. Ignore the ‘normal’ people staring, and flirt like a demon. She’s already sitting next to him on the benchtop, with her legs crossed towards him and her glasses tipped down before she remembers that he’s Loki, and he’s probably definitely going to kill her. And yet her mouth won’t stop talking.
“The real question, mister swifter-than-the-wind,” she asks him, “is do you prompt, or do you fill?”
Loki raises an eyebrow at the question and, oh god, she’s in high school. This is high school all over again, and guys as hot as Loki don’t want the girl who wears glasses and has dumb hair. This is just like high school, except with more potential to get murdered.
But Loki seems pleased to ignore her minor breakdown in favour of leaning in and grinning, “Ms Lewis, I prompt and I fill.” The look in his eyes is just wicked.
Which means that, holy shitballs, he’s flirting back. And she knows it’s a terrible idea, but she can’t quite stop herself from saying, “Whoa, you swing both ways?” and mirroring his body language and tone, “Me too.”
Because, what the fuck. He is hot. He’s got the whole lean, dark and intense enough to burn thing going on. And she totally gets why the meme likes to fantasise about him. Something to do with his pretty eyes and long fingered hands and the way he licks his lips like he’s just totally licked his lips right here, and Darcy’s brain checks out for a second to think about that.
Loki either doesn’t notice or pretends not to notice as he tries to puzzle out where he read that swifter than the wind line. She’s watching for it, so she can fully appreciate the quick progression of realisation-to-shock-to-total-disdain on his face when he remembers. “Oh,” he says flatly. “It was a Thor/Loki shipping fic, wasn’t it?”
Darcy puts on her most commiserating voice. “Yeah,” she says, “It totally shipped you with your brother.” The look Loki shoots her lets her know she wasn’t quite successful at hiding the laughter, but Loki’s lips are quirking too, so that’s probably okay.
“You know,” he says, letting the rueful smile loose, “even though I do love the malicious little kick to be had in prompting Thor/Coulson non-con... I can’t stand the Thor/Loki ship. Oh.” He looks suddenly horrified when a thought occurs to him. “Oh, you don’t think there’s a portmanteau couple name for us, is there?” The horror melts to a grimace. “Thorki sounds like the kind of name you’d give to a pet you didn’t love very much.”
Darcy can’t help the snort of laughter, or quite resist pretending to mask it with a fake cough. “Sorry, dude. Thorki. It’s terrible, but fandom moves in mysterious ways.” Loki is glaring, but somehow this one is nowhere near as scary as it should be. “I swear, people only ship Clint and Natasha because they get to call the pairing Black Hawk.”
“No, no-no, they ship Black Hawk because it makes sense!” Loki waves a hand to illustrate just how much sense it made shipping the only gay member of the team (as far as Darcy can tell - and, okay, she’s just guessing Clint is gay) in practically the only het pairing in the fandom. “Those two are the only unenhanced humans in the Avengers.”
“Yeah, and you and Thor are the only two Gods in the fandom.” Loki looks pained.
“Maybe, but... do people just not know we’re brothers?”
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He rolls his eyes, and Darcy is about to favour him with an impish grin when he bursts into motion, sliding fluidly off the bench and he drags her to her feet by the front of her shirt. She stumbles, landing against his chest, and the jerking movement knocks all the air from her lungs. Darcy has one moment, one terrible, terrifying moment to realise that you’re adopted might not be the right thing to say to a supervillain with daddy issues, and that she is about to die before the door bursts open in a flurry of sound and light.
The cavalry turns out to be Clint (really?), Bruce and Steve with his beautiful, beautiful shield and Darcy reaches out a hand towards them. Loki just grins ear to ear, and his hands in her shirt lift her to the tips of her toes. “Oh,” he breathes, as if he was just interrupted doing a little light reading, “Hawkeye. Isn’t this one of yours?”
Loki’s ankle sweeps under hers, and he swings her in Clint’s general direction so hard that she leaves the ground completely. Then it’s all daring rescues and concussion and a lot of shouting, and Darcy manages to creep under one of the benches and stays there until it’s all over.
It’s only much, much later, when she’s avoided Coulson’s debriefing by pretending to be traumatised, that Darcy stops to wonder how much of that was deliberate on Loki’s part. Did he know there were superheroes right outside the door? It really would not have helped his reputation to be caught talking fanfic with Darcy.
Her shirt is ripped, and she’s pretty sure she got whiplash when he threw her at his enemy. As she heads for home at last, she’s composing pole dancing Loki prompts in her head for the whole drive.
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Not the OP, but that shouldn't stop me from loving you now should it?
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Here, have some <3 back!
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And Darcy should totally drag Loki off to a con to meet more fans...
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Also: Yay! New chapter! :-)
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I'm still imagining RPS-dedicated conventions, though, with Steve and Tony sitting behind a table looking mortified, and Loki disguised in the audience asking awful, awful questions. XD
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I love this!
Also, hah for Darcy prompting ridiculous things about her coworkers!
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Gah! Awesome.
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Loki in my head totally turned into Jensen Ackles for a second there.
Also, I love this fill and want to MARRY IT.
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BEST LINE EVER!!
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Okay, stay with me, nonnies she types, this is about to get totally meta... Loki discovers the kink meme.
She grins to herself. Loki wants to complain that people on the internet are getting things wrong? Wait til he sees this. Oh, bonuses... Bonus, he’s upset by how little Loki/Coulson there is? Bonus he starts writing Thor-centric fills? Gets addicted to fluff?
Bonuses if he is freaked out by the Thorki ship... because he hates the name “Thorki”. There. Do what you want with that, shippers. Darcy snickers as she shuts the laptop screen. She can come back to that in the morning, see if anyone’s picked it up in eight hours’ time.
She then goes to bed early, and does not think about how close she came to gruesome death today.
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Darcy almost forgets to check in the morning, but her dumb body clock wakes her up an hour before her alarm, and while she’s idling under the covers (why is her bed always so much more comfortable in the morning?) she recalls her prompt. The wonderful thing about having a netbook instead of a desktop PC is that she doesn’t even have to get up, not properly, not any more than it takes to stretch the entire top half of her body out to reach the outlet where she left it charging.
There are three replies in her inbox - a “+1, do want”, a “Want this like burning, hahaha”... and a fill.
It’s posted anonymously, but Darcy doesn’t exactly need a username to figure out who wrote this - not when the fic is a perfect account of what happened yesterday, down to the word-for-word dialogue, told from Loki’s point of view. A horrified laugh catches in her throat and turns into fascination as she reads. The writing is good, tight and witty, and sprinkled with little catty asides - about Thor, about the other Avengers, about Darcy’s fashion choices (and Darcy takes these in her stride - she knows she looks hot). Even the ending is told in a way that makes Darcy laugh, even though she was there, and she remembers it being totally terrifying.
It also includes Loki’s version of what he was doing there in the first place and a sketch of his next nefarious plan, but Darcy doesn’t know whether she can trust that to be true. She imagines taking this in front Agent Coulson, and the look he would give her if she did. Ah, well. The Avengers are used to dealing with Loki’s shit without any warning. If Darcy tried to tell them about this, they might get complacent, and that wouldn’t be good for anyone. Definitely better not tell.
Still grinning, she posted a reply, Can I have a fill from someone who isn’t secretly Loki, please?
By the time she gets back from showering, dressing and toasting pop tarts, there’s another reply, anonymous again, No. This one’s mine, I’ve claimed it :P
And now Darcy has seen a Norse god use an emoticon, and the experience is surreal enough to make her giddy. She thinks about posting back, not the way kink memes work, dude, but reading Loki’s fic has eaten up her spare hour of awake-ness, and she has to go.
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