The Avengers, "The Flip Side" Darcy/Loki || Chapter Two
Title: The Flip Side
Author: paynesgrey
Artist: zephre
Beta: psyco_chick32
Rating: R/M
Word Count: 23,665
Type: Het(mostly), Romance, Comedy, Adventure
Characters/Pairings: Darcy Lewis, Loki, Thor, Jane Foster, Clint Barton, ensemble || Darcy/Loki, Darcy/Clint, Clint/Loki, Jane/Thor
Notes/Spoilers: Avengers AU-compliant. There are no spoilers for the Avengers movie. Written for avengers_bang.
Warnings: gore, dubious consent, possession, manipulation, sexual situations
Summary: In punishment for his crimes, Odin destroys Loki's body to imprison his soul. After a narrow escape, Loki comes to Midgard and plans his revenge by taking over the body of Jane's assistant, Darcy Lewis. The girl who loves tasers, however, does not make things easy for him.
Chapter Two: A Change of Plans
In this situation, Loki was reminded of a simple, emphatic phrase that he picked up on Midgard, and as the sorcerer’s held him down by magic and the guards strung him up with snakes against a huge boulder, Loki sighed and met his father’s eyes warily, using the phrase. “Really?”
Odin’s steely stare seemed to stab through him. “It is little more than you deserve, my son.”
“You would tie me to this rock and let these snakes devour me? Or would you kill me and send me to Valhalla?” Loki snapped at him.
“No, I will not leave you on this rock, Loki, for it is certain you would eventually find a way out. And in Valhalla you would only find another secret way to come back and create more destruction. If I am going to truly punish you so that justice may be done, I will have to separate your body and your soul,” Odin said, and Loki’s eyes widened as if he did not believe what he was hearing.
“Separate my soul...? Are you mad?” he hissed at him.
“Yes. We will destroy your body, and with their spell and my power, it will take two thousand years for your body to become whole again, and your consciousness will be trapped here,” he said, pointing to a new staff that he held in his large hands. Loki glared at it, annoyed that he did not notice Odin carrying his usual staff with him instead of this one, a slender scepter with a dark red jewel already humming with his power.
“You...will imprison me in that? Until my body has healed itself and come back?” Loki roared. “What kind of punishment is that?”
“A fitting one, and while you’re trapped inside this scepter, you will have ample time to reflect on your crimes and someday strive to be a better son, a better man,” Odin said.
Loki struggled against his bindings, the snakes’ fangs digging deeper in his flesh the more he thrashed. “No, no, you can’t do this,” he said, pleading quickly, but his father did not bat an eye to his terror. He felt scared for once, but invigorated with survival instincts. He would not go like this. He would not be encased in a jewel for hundreds of years. He would not... Odin wouldn’t get away with this.
In his frenzy, Loki realized what the snakes were for. Their venom, acidic in make-up, began to eat away at his skin. Not even Loki’s magic could stop his flesh from burning off his bones due to the venom of these highly magical creatures. He screamed from the pain, his skin turning black before the white of his bones shined through.
“No....” And he closed his eyes. Feeling his magic pool into a spinning orb in his mind, he gathered all his strength, all his knowledge, all the life force he could muster and pooled it all into one final incantation.
“His body is almost completely gone,” Odin said, and Loki began fighting through the excruciating pain, meditating all his magic and thoughts into one final act. He was barely a skeleton, his eyes already melting out of his sockets as he glared up at his father.
“Start the spell,” Odin said, barking orders to his sorcerers. Loki paid them no mind, not even with a scathing thought to their weak magic. He spoke the words as his lips burned off his teeth, the spell barely a breeze through his deteriorating throat.
His ears completely caved as he heard Odin’s thunderous roar.
He felt a snap like a taut willow cracking against the wind, and then he was free. He could sense the air of disappointment in his Father’s aura as his consciousness lifted like a ghost above and caught onto a westerly breeze of the wind.
His father had successfully destroyed his body to nothing more than a skeleton in his punishment, but his enchanters had failed to muster the kind of power to contain him, despite Odin’s confidence in them. Loki thought he would smile if he had lips, but instead he headed down the repaired Bifrost toward his secret pockets in space that took him to Midgard.
Then, he would find a temporary body so he could figure out how to get his original body back, which he assumed his father would keep imprisoned as slowly his immortality would revive him, even against Odin’s spell.
There was no way he, Loki, would wait two thousand years for his body to grow back either, and in all his magical knowledge, he was certain he could find some kind of loop hole or way to become whole again in a much shorter time.
.xxxxx.
As a floating consciousness, Loki learned a lot by observation. He was on the hunt for a temporary body, and he knew well enough that he’d have to snag a body that not only didn’t reject him but also was useful in his revenge against Odin so he could get his rightful body back.
His choice would have to be strategical, and within those thoughts, he headed straight for Nick Fury’s S.H.I.E.L.D base and spied on the hive of drone workers under Fury’s command. He found them boring and unhelpful, and when he spotted Iron Man, he got an idea. Following him, he listened on to his conversation.
It was about women, naturally, and Loki was well aware of the “playboy” reputation Tony Stark had made for himself. He was proud of it, and though he was sure most Midgardians found it admirable, Loki found it maudlin and predictable.
However, Tony’s salacious story about whatever female he was bedding at the time gave the Trickster God an idea.
Women were very seductive creatures in this age. They played all sorts of games, had more charms than a magician, and had often gotten their way by playing the victim or weakling. Some women were weak; Loki did not deny that, but some of them used that to their advantage.
Some of them were tricksters, and in that he could admire them.
It would be better, he resolved finally, if his temporary body were that of a woman. As a woman, Loki could needle and manipulate his way into any situation and get whatever he wanted.
She’d have to be highly attractive and have a certain appeal, but since time was sensitive, this woman would also have to have some sort of access to S.H.I.E.L.D and the Avengers, but not so much that anyone would notice her. She had to be inadvertently stealthy, almost invisible but without the ability to raise suspicions.
He thought of Natasha Romanoff first. The Black Widow was very influential in the Avengers and S.H.I.E.L.D, and men drooled over her, so much that it was almost embarrassing. She was well aware of how attractive and powerful she was too, and she was the type of human woman that used it to her advantage, and then discarded unwanted people aside when she was done with them.
Yes, she would be perfect, and Loki, of course, could observe her personality enough to mimic it without anyone knowing Natasha was being possessed. He’d play his part and act as Natasha perfectly, and then, he would find a way to use her and her resources to get what he wanted.
He just needed a physical body to do magic and research to undo this spell on his body and use a new power to regenerate it faster, once it was within his possession. Which meant he’d have to find some way to get to Asgard from here, in this human’s body. As his brother Thor worked with the Avengers, Loki was sure he’d have no problem using a colleague to gain his brother’s trust and somehow use him to get him back to Asgard.
He followed Natasha throughout the day, studying her mannerisms and speech patterns. He took notes of what she liked to eat, what she liked to wear, and how she carried herself around specific people. When he followed her back to Stark Tower, he noticed her approach another female calling herself Darcy Lewis, and the Widow’s usual cool and aloof demeanor suddenly softened. She smiled at Darcy and it wasn’t forced.
The girl was ready at the door for Natasha with a Midgardian drink known as a martini. “For you,” Darcy said with a grin, and Natasha smiled gently before taking it. She handed Darcy her computer and bags, and the short, odd woman followed her toward her room in the tower, chatting with her on how she “totally missed a perfect day to lay with Darcy poolside and gossip about Clint’s obvious and pathetic attempt at a soul patch.”
Whatever that was, Loki thought.
Curiously, Loki watched the two women talk, and as Natasha relaxed around the ordinary girl, Loki was surprised that someone of Natasha’s reputation and prowess could show such an obvious weakness to someone so ordinary.
Loki learned more about Darcy as the girl sparked his curiosity. For a day, he abandoned shadowing the Black Widow around in favor of Darcy Lewis, who surprised him by her access to S.H.I.E.L.D as well as her obvious invisibility as a low-ranking gopher. Most of the time S.H.I.E.L.D operatives barely noticed her, and though it was apparent her access to S.H.I.E.L.D’s records were limited, he supposed if she had gotten the access no one would even notice her.
Of course, given Darcy’s low rank and status, Loki assumed no one would even think Darcy could gain access to any secure files in the S.H.I.E.L.D computer system. Overall, Loki got the sense that everyone at S.H.I.E.L.D underestimated Darcy Lewis and would never expect her at all to do anything remotely traitorous or covert. She was a wide-eyed, open-minded girl with her own saucy attitude, and wore her heart and anger on her sleeve. She was obvious in her feelings, and after a rather juvenile scene with Nick Fury, Loki realized that Darcy Lewis was also a terrible liar and the whole of S.H.I.E.L.D and the Avengers were aware of this as well.
Loki watched as Nick Fury caught Darcy and pulled her aside in the kitchen, and he crossed his arms tightly and stared at her in exasperation with his one beady eye, admonishing her about using company time to log onto Facebook and look at “cat macros” whatever they were. Darcy’s eyes were wide, and her skin went as pale as frost. Loki could feel the fear rolling off her. She didn’t want to lose her job, and despite her quips and cheeky remarks, she was actually afraid of Nick Fury, to some degree. More than anything, she was afraid of him canning her and losing her chance to have the best job in the world.
Or, so she told Natasha one time when they were three martinis in and Natasha was gently scolding her to not flirt with the eligible male S.H.I.E.L.D operatives.
Apparently, Darcy’s outwardly less-than average looks and awkward mystique intrigued many of the males in the S.H.I.E.L.D and Avengers teams. Loki couldn’t understand it, but he certainly found the power of it intriguing.
Darcy Lewis was that unassuming, that vulnerable and clueless in some regards, yet spry and mouthy in other ways that painted a mixture of strange quirks about her which made her more appealing than she outwardly appeared.
Loki had snooped even more about her, knowing if Darcy gave herself more credit and polished her looks a bit as other Midgard females did, she could probably do even better, get even more responses, and have influences that would confound and debilitate men, bending them to her will.
Loki smirked. She was exactly who he needed. Natasha Romanoff had definitely been too obvious a choice; Darcy Lewis, with her untapped potential and strange charms, would definitely be the best fit for a host.
Floating in the ether, Loki’s attention perked as the S.H.I.E.L.D agent named as Hawkeye sprinted toward Darcy after a meeting, grinned at her and invited her out to drinks. Loki knew this was his chance.
With alcohol consumption and inebriation, the girl’s consciousness would be easier to fight, and then he could move in and take over her body.
Darcy walked cheerfully along with Clint, and Loki followed, waiting and hovering for that perfect moment when the unassuming girl would be his.
All his.
Chapter Three
Author: paynesgrey
Artist: zephre
Beta: psyco_chick32
Rating: R/M
Word Count: 23,665
Type: Het(mostly), Romance, Comedy, Adventure
Characters/Pairings: Darcy Lewis, Loki, Thor, Jane Foster, Clint Barton, ensemble || Darcy/Loki, Darcy/Clint, Clint/Loki, Jane/Thor
Notes/Spoilers: Avengers AU-compliant. There are no spoilers for the Avengers movie. Written for avengers_bang.
Warnings: gore, dubious consent, possession, manipulation, sexual situations
Summary: In punishment for his crimes, Odin destroys Loki's body to imprison his soul. After a narrow escape, Loki comes to Midgard and plans his revenge by taking over the body of Jane's assistant, Darcy Lewis. The girl who loves tasers, however, does not make things easy for him.
Chapter Two: A Change of Plans
In this situation, Loki was reminded of a simple, emphatic phrase that he picked up on Midgard, and as the sorcerer’s held him down by magic and the guards strung him up with snakes against a huge boulder, Loki sighed and met his father’s eyes warily, using the phrase. “Really?”
Odin’s steely stare seemed to stab through him. “It is little more than you deserve, my son.”
“You would tie me to this rock and let these snakes devour me? Or would you kill me and send me to Valhalla?” Loki snapped at him.
“No, I will not leave you on this rock, Loki, for it is certain you would eventually find a way out. And in Valhalla you would only find another secret way to come back and create more destruction. If I am going to truly punish you so that justice may be done, I will have to separate your body and your soul,” Odin said, and Loki’s eyes widened as if he did not believe what he was hearing.
“Separate my soul...? Are you mad?” he hissed at him.
“Yes. We will destroy your body, and with their spell and my power, it will take two thousand years for your body to become whole again, and your consciousness will be trapped here,” he said, pointing to a new staff that he held in his large hands. Loki glared at it, annoyed that he did not notice Odin carrying his usual staff with him instead of this one, a slender scepter with a dark red jewel already humming with his power.
“You...will imprison me in that? Until my body has healed itself and come back?” Loki roared. “What kind of punishment is that?”
“A fitting one, and while you’re trapped inside this scepter, you will have ample time to reflect on your crimes and someday strive to be a better son, a better man,” Odin said.
Loki struggled against his bindings, the snakes’ fangs digging deeper in his flesh the more he thrashed. “No, no, you can’t do this,” he said, pleading quickly, but his father did not bat an eye to his terror. He felt scared for once, but invigorated with survival instincts. He would not go like this. He would not be encased in a jewel for hundreds of years. He would not... Odin wouldn’t get away with this.
In his frenzy, Loki realized what the snakes were for. Their venom, acidic in make-up, began to eat away at his skin. Not even Loki’s magic could stop his flesh from burning off his bones due to the venom of these highly magical creatures. He screamed from the pain, his skin turning black before the white of his bones shined through.
“No....” And he closed his eyes. Feeling his magic pool into a spinning orb in his mind, he gathered all his strength, all his knowledge, all the life force he could muster and pooled it all into one final incantation.
“His body is almost completely gone,” Odin said, and Loki began fighting through the excruciating pain, meditating all his magic and thoughts into one final act. He was barely a skeleton, his eyes already melting out of his sockets as he glared up at his father.
“Start the spell,” Odin said, barking orders to his sorcerers. Loki paid them no mind, not even with a scathing thought to their weak magic. He spoke the words as his lips burned off his teeth, the spell barely a breeze through his deteriorating throat.
His ears completely caved as he heard Odin’s thunderous roar.
He felt a snap like a taut willow cracking against the wind, and then he was free. He could sense the air of disappointment in his Father’s aura as his consciousness lifted like a ghost above and caught onto a westerly breeze of the wind.
His father had successfully destroyed his body to nothing more than a skeleton in his punishment, but his enchanters had failed to muster the kind of power to contain him, despite Odin’s confidence in them. Loki thought he would smile if he had lips, but instead he headed down the repaired Bifrost toward his secret pockets in space that took him to Midgard.
Then, he would find a temporary body so he could figure out how to get his original body back, which he assumed his father would keep imprisoned as slowly his immortality would revive him, even against Odin’s spell.
There was no way he, Loki, would wait two thousand years for his body to grow back either, and in all his magical knowledge, he was certain he could find some kind of loop hole or way to become whole again in a much shorter time.
.xxxxx.
As a floating consciousness, Loki learned a lot by observation. He was on the hunt for a temporary body, and he knew well enough that he’d have to snag a body that not only didn’t reject him but also was useful in his revenge against Odin so he could get his rightful body back.
His choice would have to be strategical, and within those thoughts, he headed straight for Nick Fury’s S.H.I.E.L.D base and spied on the hive of drone workers under Fury’s command. He found them boring and unhelpful, and when he spotted Iron Man, he got an idea. Following him, he listened on to his conversation.
It was about women, naturally, and Loki was well aware of the “playboy” reputation Tony Stark had made for himself. He was proud of it, and though he was sure most Midgardians found it admirable, Loki found it maudlin and predictable.
However, Tony’s salacious story about whatever female he was bedding at the time gave the Trickster God an idea.
Women were very seductive creatures in this age. They played all sorts of games, had more charms than a magician, and had often gotten their way by playing the victim or weakling. Some women were weak; Loki did not deny that, but some of them used that to their advantage.
Some of them were tricksters, and in that he could admire them.
It would be better, he resolved finally, if his temporary body were that of a woman. As a woman, Loki could needle and manipulate his way into any situation and get whatever he wanted.
She’d have to be highly attractive and have a certain appeal, but since time was sensitive, this woman would also have to have some sort of access to S.H.I.E.L.D and the Avengers, but not so much that anyone would notice her. She had to be inadvertently stealthy, almost invisible but without the ability to raise suspicions.
He thought of Natasha Romanoff first. The Black Widow was very influential in the Avengers and S.H.I.E.L.D, and men drooled over her, so much that it was almost embarrassing. She was well aware of how attractive and powerful she was too, and she was the type of human woman that used it to her advantage, and then discarded unwanted people aside when she was done with them.
Yes, she would be perfect, and Loki, of course, could observe her personality enough to mimic it without anyone knowing Natasha was being possessed. He’d play his part and act as Natasha perfectly, and then, he would find a way to use her and her resources to get what he wanted.
He just needed a physical body to do magic and research to undo this spell on his body and use a new power to regenerate it faster, once it was within his possession. Which meant he’d have to find some way to get to Asgard from here, in this human’s body. As his brother Thor worked with the Avengers, Loki was sure he’d have no problem using a colleague to gain his brother’s trust and somehow use him to get him back to Asgard.
He followed Natasha throughout the day, studying her mannerisms and speech patterns. He took notes of what she liked to eat, what she liked to wear, and how she carried herself around specific people. When he followed her back to Stark Tower, he noticed her approach another female calling herself Darcy Lewis, and the Widow’s usual cool and aloof demeanor suddenly softened. She smiled at Darcy and it wasn’t forced.
The girl was ready at the door for Natasha with a Midgardian drink known as a martini. “For you,” Darcy said with a grin, and Natasha smiled gently before taking it. She handed Darcy her computer and bags, and the short, odd woman followed her toward her room in the tower, chatting with her on how she “totally missed a perfect day to lay with Darcy poolside and gossip about Clint’s obvious and pathetic attempt at a soul patch.”
Whatever that was, Loki thought.
Curiously, Loki watched the two women talk, and as Natasha relaxed around the ordinary girl, Loki was surprised that someone of Natasha’s reputation and prowess could show such an obvious weakness to someone so ordinary.
Loki learned more about Darcy as the girl sparked his curiosity. For a day, he abandoned shadowing the Black Widow around in favor of Darcy Lewis, who surprised him by her access to S.H.I.E.L.D as well as her obvious invisibility as a low-ranking gopher. Most of the time S.H.I.E.L.D operatives barely noticed her, and though it was apparent her access to S.H.I.E.L.D’s records were limited, he supposed if she had gotten the access no one would even notice her.
Of course, given Darcy’s low rank and status, Loki assumed no one would even think Darcy could gain access to any secure files in the S.H.I.E.L.D computer system. Overall, Loki got the sense that everyone at S.H.I.E.L.D underestimated Darcy Lewis and would never expect her at all to do anything remotely traitorous or covert. She was a wide-eyed, open-minded girl with her own saucy attitude, and wore her heart and anger on her sleeve. She was obvious in her feelings, and after a rather juvenile scene with Nick Fury, Loki realized that Darcy Lewis was also a terrible liar and the whole of S.H.I.E.L.D and the Avengers were aware of this as well.
Loki watched as Nick Fury caught Darcy and pulled her aside in the kitchen, and he crossed his arms tightly and stared at her in exasperation with his one beady eye, admonishing her about using company time to log onto Facebook and look at “cat macros” whatever they were. Darcy’s eyes were wide, and her skin went as pale as frost. Loki could feel the fear rolling off her. She didn’t want to lose her job, and despite her quips and cheeky remarks, she was actually afraid of Nick Fury, to some degree. More than anything, she was afraid of him canning her and losing her chance to have the best job in the world.
Or, so she told Natasha one time when they were three martinis in and Natasha was gently scolding her to not flirt with the eligible male S.H.I.E.L.D operatives.
Apparently, Darcy’s outwardly less-than average looks and awkward mystique intrigued many of the males in the S.H.I.E.L.D and Avengers teams. Loki couldn’t understand it, but he certainly found the power of it intriguing.
Darcy Lewis was that unassuming, that vulnerable and clueless in some regards, yet spry and mouthy in other ways that painted a mixture of strange quirks about her which made her more appealing than she outwardly appeared.
Loki had snooped even more about her, knowing if Darcy gave herself more credit and polished her looks a bit as other Midgard females did, she could probably do even better, get even more responses, and have influences that would confound and debilitate men, bending them to her will.
Loki smirked. She was exactly who he needed. Natasha Romanoff had definitely been too obvious a choice; Darcy Lewis, with her untapped potential and strange charms, would definitely be the best fit for a host.
Floating in the ether, Loki’s attention perked as the S.H.I.E.L.D agent named as Hawkeye sprinted toward Darcy after a meeting, grinned at her and invited her out to drinks. Loki knew this was his chance.
With alcohol consumption and inebriation, the girl’s consciousness would be easier to fight, and then he could move in and take over her body.
Darcy walked cheerfully along with Clint, and Loki followed, waiting and hovering for that perfect moment when the unassuming girl would be his.
All his.
Chapter Three