Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Darcy’s life is looking more and more like a series of unfortunate events. Her unfortunate internship in New Mexico led to the unfortunate encounter with a Norse god. That led to an unfortunate transfer of property not agreed to by both parts, which led to an unfortunate lack of music for a couple of very stress-filled weeks.

(The whole Norse god thing later led to a whole other series of unfortunate events in which she was not directly involved, because she was fortunately (albeit unexpectedly) shipped off to Norway.)

Whether or not the move to London was unfortunate… Well, the jury is still out on that one.  What does seem absolutely most definitely unfortunate is the way that a wall in this abandoned warehouse has just sucked Jane and herself into some Mary-Poppin’s-handbag-like room which is much much bigger than should have been possible. It’s either that, or they’re in another dimension. Darcy scrambles on the ground, nails grating against coarse stone.

“What the…?” says Jane.

“Ouch, I think I broke my nail,” says Darcy.

“Where are we?”

Darcy looks up at where the ceiling should have been but isn’t. “I’m not– holy shit, stay away from the edge!”

“What is that?” Jane is walking towards a huge block of black stone.

“It kind of looks like that monolith thing in Planet of the Apes,” says Darcy, getting to her feet.

“Look! Right here. It looks alive.”

Darcy stares at the rock. “No, what am I talking about?” she says absentmindedly. “Planet of the Apes? I meant 2001.”

“This can’t be. It’s… This defies the laws of physics. This thing is floating…”

She can see that Jane is right. It is floating, and it’s freaking her out. “It’s because it had the apes,” she babbles. “Or neanderthal. Whatever. Hey, Jane. Don’t touch that.”

“I’m not touching it,” says Jane, even though she’s clearly reaching out for it.

“Yeah, but it looks super creepy and you’re getting really, really–,”

“I’m just looking!”

“I can see fine from here… Jane, no!”

And for the fraction of a second it takes her to reach out and pull Jane away, she comes too close, and the swirling mass of what looks like oily, dark blood leaps out at her, latches onto her arm, crawls up her sleeve, worms its way towards her armpit. She claws, Jane screams, and the world goes dark.

And then they’re pulled into the void, Darcy clutching, clawing at her arms, wanting to scream, unable to breathe, until they land on concrete again. They hug and then they inspect Darcy’s arm. It looks normal. Getting the fuck out of here and never coming back is very high on the list of things Darcy wants to happen right now, but Jane is somehow still talking about science stuff. Darcy only listens with half an ear, trying her best to focus on something normal. The brick buildings around them are red, and chills creep down her spine. She looks at the ground instead.

As they reach the car and realize the keys are missing, thunder rolls overhead.

“Where’s my intern?” asks Darcy.

“Oh my god,” says Jane.

“Don’t worry, it’s only Ian after all.”

But Jane is walking away, and as Darcy follows her with her gaze, she spots him. Somehow, Thor picks today of all days to show up. As usual, Weather follows. She pulls her coat around her and lets them have their moment. Looking up at the rainy sky, she grumbles. Then she frowns. Somewhere behind that dense, even mass of London clouds, the sun has wandered. Far. Much farther than possible in the few minutes they spent in the warehouse. She looks back at Jane who’s talking so quickly that the words blur, and with every passing second, Thor's frown deepens. The he comes over.

"How do you feel, Darcy?" he says.

"What?" She hadn't realized they were talking about her. “Hey, what took you so long?”

Thor takes her hand, turns it this way and that, runs his fingers up her arm, tracing her veins. His touch tingles. Then a crow caws nearby, and the noise makes her jump in fright, and just like that, he’s flying, propelled through the air by some force, and the force is coming from her. Jane gasps. Darcy whimpers. Thor crashes into a dumpster some thirty yards away. To her infinite relief, he’s back on his legs in an instant.

"You must come with me to Asgard," he says once he's dusted himself off. "You and Jane both."

Darcy stares at her hand, at her skin. It still looks normal, but her pulse is frantic with the fear of accidentally blowing something up.

Traveling by Bifrost is not a pleasant experience. Thor holds on to Jane, but Darcy is left to her own devices as they are sucked through space with such impossible speed that it squeezes the air from her lungs, and when she lands... Woah Toto, we’re not in Kensington anymore.

The man who greets them is definitive proof that space Vikings are by and large hotter than the average Earthling, and his smile leaves her lost for words. Jane, on the other hand, is babbling. Darcy catches stray sentences as they walk up the rainbow bridge towards what can only be Asgard. 

“…wormhole…inter-dimensional…anomalies…”

But Jane’s words are soon drowned out by her own; star-scattered, glowing, immense, golden, beautiful, alien. Her blood surges unexpectedly, and she remembers to be afraid again.

Asgard is surprisingly hostile. She's seen by a medic of some sort who flicks her hands in an almost aggressive manner while turning a 3D-version of Darcy's vascular system around in the air. She's answering Jane's questions with snappy, single-syllable words. Mostly, Darcy has no idea what they're talking about.

"It's a of disease of sorts," Thor tells her once they're left alone. Jane is sitting at a table, scratching away at parchment.

"Is there a cure?" asks Darcy. Thor doesn't answer, and she feels her stomach clench. "Is it dangerous?" she asks, the words blurting out against her will.

"It will destroy you," comes a voice. "Eventually. It is in the nature of humanity."

She snaps her head around. A man and a woman are standing in the doorway. He older, looking stern and testy. She strong and sad.

"Don't frighten the child," says the woman.

"Hey, I'm a legal adult," says Darcy. "Even if I don't always act it."

The man ignores her, and strides inside the room. The woman smiles at Darcy. It makes her look even sadder.

"My parents," says Thor. "Odin, All-Father, and Queen Frigga."

Darcy immediately reevaluates the meaning of the word "child". Jane gets all flustered and stands up so quickly her chair topples over backward with a loud crash. Odin barely glances at her.

"They don't belong here," he says to Thor, and a hushed argument follows.

Frigga doesn't join them, but drifts over to Darcy's side. Darcy gets up and bows awkwardly, and the Queen seemes amused. Then she turns serious, looking closely at her. Her eyes flicker back and forth between Darcy's, and it’s as if she's searching for some answer.

"What happened to you?" she asks.

Darcy tells her, and Frigga's expression becomes more closed, more guarded. As Darcy falls quiet again, Frigga almost reaches out, but the hand is left hanging in the air, uncertainly. Then Odin pushes past Thor and calls the Queen to his side. Frigga's hand drops again, and she joins her husband, glancing at Darcy over her shoulder.

"Take them to Heimdall," Odin calls to the guards on the way out. "Midgard must care for their own."

When they go for Jane, she protests violently, and Thor looks like he might morph into an actual thundercloud. He reaches for Mjölnir, and this is rapidly turning into a really shitty situation. Without really knowing why, Darcy raises her hand, and a burst of energy shoots from her palm, knocking the guard aside. She stares at her hand, at the man sprawled on the floor.

"I didn't mean to," she says, turning to Thor. He looks afraid, she thinks. She begins backing away. “I didn’t mean to,” she says again. “I didn’t.”

Then she bumps into cold marble, and she can’t back away any further. Odin is striding towards her now, gripping his spear with determination. Glancing aside, she can see an alcove, shrouded in shadows. She can feel some urge, some instinct calling to her from that dark little hollow. Quickly, she steps over to the alcove and slips into the shadow.

Into it.

She can feel it slither over her skin, slippery and cold like a sequined dress. And then, she’s on the inside. In the shadows, the sounds seem to at once echo and muffle. The walls bend; inky, matte planes that curve and fall and topple without ever touching her. She can see exits. Rooms in the palace where a corner in shadow becomes an open window. There are other exits as well, leading outside to fantastic landscapes. Darcy is frozen. She doesn’t dare move, not even to try to go back. Then she feels something at her feet. Looking down, she can see dark tendrils, reaching out of the depths of this space, sliding slowly up her legs. Without thinking, she throws herself at the nearest exit, and falls onto the floor of an unfamiliar room. Then she sleeps.

In her dream, she sees a pale figure. He desires her. This feeling of want is so overwhelming that it's almost electric. She feels afraid and flattered and enticed. There is a wall between them, a wall through which he cannot reach. Something inside her makes her yearn for him, makes her stretch her arms out and turn her palms up. Something strains against her wrists, and suddenly she knows that this something inside her is really inside her. It's not her. It's something in her bloodstream, something, something.

When she wakes, she’s freezing cold. She snaps her eyes open, and sees Frigga.

"Child," she says.

"Yes?" Her lips are parched and her voice cracked.

"It was only a dream."

Frigga places her hand on her brow, and warmth flows through her. The dream seems to slip away, like a thin sheet of ice, folded back from her feet to her head, draining through the roots of her hair and into the Queen's fingertips.

"What happened?"

“You stepped into the shadow realm. A highly advanced form of magic, and very dangerous. Don’t do it again.”

“I won’t,” says Darcy quickly. She means it, and Frigga smiles briefly. “Where’s Jane?” she asks, remembering the scene that had triggered the whole thing.

“In the library.”

Darcy nods. “Okay. That makes sense. So, are we not getting thrown out of Asgard then?”

“Not you, at any rate,” says Frigga. Then, lightly, “I expect you are hungry?”

As though triggered in some base, Pavlovian way, the mere mention of the word 'hungry' makes her stomach ache and growl. Frigga had been prepared it seemed, showing Darcy to a table set for one. A hearty stew with tender chunks of meat and veg wasn't what she had expected, but as soon as she starts shoveling it in by the spoonful she realizes she’s still freezing. The food helps. Then there’s a knock on the door, and Darcy feels her pulse speed up as Frigga goes to answer it. To her infinite relief, it’s Jane, accompanied by an Asgardian guardsman. She bursts inside, pausing for half a second to bow stiffly at the Queen, then hurrying over to where Darcy is sitting.

"Are you okay?" Jane almost reaches for Darcy, but then seems to stop herself mid-movement. 

"I'm fine," says Darcy automatically. Then, "No. What the hell am I saying? Of course I'm not." She feels the panic creeping up her spine. There are so many things she wants to tell her, about that dark, shadowy place, about the dream, about those inky tendrils and the pale face. The two mingle together now, the border between dream and reality blending and blurring. She says nothing, and now Jane is babbling.

"...I'll fix this, I promise you. I'll think of a solution. I'm close as it is with the books I can bring and with Thor's help, and.... And I know Erik was on to something as well. I'll be back as soon as-,"

"Back?" Darcy interrupts her, snapping out of her reverie. "Where are you going?"

"London!" says Jane impatiently. She frowns. "Are you even listening to me? Anyway, I have to go. One more farmyard animal comment from Odin and Thor'll commit patricide."

"Farmyard...?"

But Jane has already turned away, walking with that sleuthish determination Darcy knows so well. There is a guard waiting at the doors. He tries to grab her shoulder, but she swats at his hand, and he ends up trailing lamely behind her.

"She would make a fine queen," says Frigga, who has been standing quietly, watching.

Darcy huffs a laugh, unable to stop herself, in spite of everything. "Jane? I'm not sure she knows how to even zip up a dress."

"We have maids for that," says Frigga with a smile, and Darcy realizes just what Jane actually has a chance to become queen of. "Now then," she says. "While you were sleeping, we were reading."

Frigga tells her of another people, another realm. Their leader is called Malekith, and he is looking for the thing inside Darcy. It had been locked away for millennia, and by some strange chance, she and Jane happened upon the hidden world where it was kept. The Aether, she calls it. She shows Darcy a book, and as she turns the page to an illustration, Darcy's blood chills.

“That’s him,” she says, pointing to the silver-and-black drawing of the pale man. “I saw him in my dreams.”

“You saw a Dark Elf in your dream?” asks Frigga.

“That’s a Dark Elf?”

“Yes.”

“Then yeah. Is that him? Malekith?”

“No. But I have no doubt it was he you saw in your dream.” Frigga passes a hand across her brow. “I thought we had more time, but…”

“Time for what?”

She is quiet for a while, a slender finger tapping against the wooden armrests of her chair. Then she stands, suddenly.

"Take my hand," says Frigga, and Darcy obeys, standing up in front of the Queen. "Now, what we are going to do is similar to when you stepped through shadow, but this time, I want you to leave yourself behind."

"Leave myself...?"

"Your mind will travel, while your body will remain here. Safe."

Darcy looks at her. "Safe? Are we going somewhere dangerous?"

"Arguably the most dangerous place on Asgard," says Frigga, but there is a strange lilt to her tone. "Now, step outside yourself."

It's much easier than it sounds, and it takes little more than gentle tug from the Queen before she's standing opposite herself. It’s crazy, she thinks. She knows it’s crazy, knows that that’s what she’s supposed to think, but somehow she doesn’t quite feel it.

"Sit your body down in the chair," says Frigga, as if she was asking her to pass the ketchup.

This is harder, but she manages it. Her body sits staring into space, blank as an essay draft at midnight the day before it's due. Experimentally, she shifts her focus to the body in the chair. Now she looks at the copy, standing open-mouthed and frozen. She laughs, and the copy smiles dumbly.

"Don't play with it, dear," says Frigga. The Queen is watching her thoughtfully. "We have work to do."

Frigga leads her shade through the shadows of Asgard. Deeper and deeper they go, stealing from darkness to darkness. Images of rooms, hidden and plain, pass in a blur, and between them there’s something else, some other space that she can’t define, until she takes them down a long, pitch-black path. Even though she's not physically there, she strains her eyes to try and see better. Then they suddenly step into a glaring light, and she squeezes her eyes shut.

"Have you lost your wits, mother?"

The hushed voice makes her snap her head up and brave the brightness. They’re standing in a sizable but sparsely decorated room. From a narrow bed, a tall, lean man is rising. She hasn't seen him with her own eyes before, but to her knowledge, there is only one guy aside from Thor who would call Frigga 'mother'. Her whole being tenses at the presence of Loki, but despite his track record with humans, he seems to have little interest in killing, enslaving or otherwise harming her. Indeed, he barely looks at her.

"Who is the mortal and why have you brought her?" he asks, brushing past - no, through - her on his way to Frigga. Darcy suddenly remembers her body - bones, flesh, hormones, fluids and all - is back in Frigga’s chambers, and wonders why she still feels angry.

“You have studied the convergence,” says Frigga. “So has she.”

“What? Why?” He turns to her. “Who are you?”

“Go fuck yourself,” she says. She’s been wanting to say that for a very long time. It feels satisfying.

“How helpful.”

Frigga steps in. “She is a friend of Thor’s. Of Jane Foster’s. Her name is Darcy.”

“Oh, that one,” says Loki, and Darcy’s not sure whether he means Jane or her, though she holds it unlikely that anyone would have mentioned her to Loki before. “And you’ve studied the convergence, have you? To what end?”

Darcy’s hasn’t used the word convergence in relation to their research before, but she’s smart enough to put two and two together. “When you have anti-gravitational fields and portals popping up all over the place, it’s sort of worth investigating,” she says.

“A few days of blundering around blindly before it passes,” says Loki. “I’m surprised you managed to stumble across it at all. An amazing stroke of luck. Good luck making anything of it.”

“We did not stumble,” says Darcy hotly, even though it’s true that their little trip to The Unknown Depths wasn’t exactly planned. “We’ve been working on this for over a year. We’ve built our own equipment, we made do with pot noodles and beans on toast two months in a row, we stayed up until stupid in the morning because Jane got some random spike on her weird-shit-o-meter… Okay, that’s not technically its name, but–,”

“Now is not the time for this,” Frigga interrupts calmly. Loki looks desperate to get the last word, but a stern glance from his mother keeps him quiet. “Darcy, I believe you need Loki’s help. Please tell my son what happened to you.”

Every fibre of her non-existent body protests at this thought. If Frigga had told her they were going to see Loki for help, she would have refused. Which, of course, is why she didn’t tell her. The half-god looks at her with a lopsided smile. It’s a look that says he doesn’t believe what she has to say is even worth listening to. That tips the scales, and she starts telling him the same story she’s told three times today already. At the mention of the blood-like liquid, his lazy grin freezes. By the time she’s finished, he’s watching her curiously, almost greedily.

“The Aether, mother? Do you really think it possible?”

“I do.”

“Why has it not destroyed her?”

Darcy jumps slightly at this, but her own curiosity is greater than the urge to freak out, so she simply listens.

“It needs a vessel and humans are stronger than you know, Loki.”

“Evidently.” 

“How can we draw it from her?”

Loki looks Darcy up and down critically, as if inspecting a half finished piece of IKEA furniture where a couple of screws are missing from the package. “I have one or two ideas. Nothing conclusive.”

“I don’t know either,” says Frigga. “Your father doesn’t know. We know of only one who could.”

“Malekith,” says Loki. “We mustn’t let it fall into his hands. I will think of some way. Some way to…” he trails off and looks at Darcy again.

“There is no time,” says Frigga. “He is on his way here. It draws him.”

“What happens if he makes it here?” asks Darcy. Both Frigga and Loki turn to her, and she can tell from the looks on their faces it won’t be good.

“It would mean war,” says Loki, “and the prize would be you.”

She swallows hard. “What happens if he wins?”

“He will put out the stars. The universe as we know it will be destroyed.”

Suddenly, she can feel her body again, the weight of it against the floor of the prison cell, the sweat beading and trailing down her back. Horror grips her, and she grasps Loki’s arm.

“Make it go away,” she says. “Take it out of me. Take it out.”

Frigga and Loki both are staring at her hands. They’re digging into the cloth of Loki’s shirt. “Darcy,” says the Queen sharply. “Move your body back to my chambers. Now.”

The command is like a whip, and Darcy snaps back, mind and matter both. She’s in the chair where she left herself behind, and Frigga is sitting by a loom, weaving. “What the hell?” says Darcy. After a few seconds of calmly passing the shuttle back and forth, Frigga drops it to the floor, stands up and quickly moves to her side.

“You are much too untrained in magic to move without guidance,” she says, cheeks high in color. She reminds Darcy of her chemistry teacher from high school, that time she started experimenting with the bunsen burner.

“I didn’t even realize I was doing anything!” protests Darcy.

“Precisely,” says Frigga. “Now stay here and rest. Do not go to sleep.”

“Where are you going?”

“To speak with my husband.”

Frigga is gone a long time. While she waits, Darcy eats. Despite the two bowls of stew she had earlier, she’s ravenous and pours herself another serving, and then another. She finishes the whole pot. Then she thinks. She turns the facts she knows over in her head, and time and time again, she reaches the same conclusion. When the Queen returns, she looks grave.

“We must brace for an attack,” she says. “Asgard is the only place strong enough to withstand an invasion.”

“And is it?” asks Darcy. “Is it strong enough.”

“The All-Father deems it so.” She doesn’t sound convinced.

Darcy bites her lip, then throws it out there. ”What if I could hide? Somewhere else I mean. In... In the shadows."

"You can't stay in the shadow, only run. He will find you. The Aether itself pulls him, and the convergence..."

"...Opens random portals yes, but can he control them?"

Frigga hesitates. “Not easily, no,” she says. 

"And I can. I'll be several steps ahead of him."

"The convergence lasts for days. And when it reaches its peak..."

"But Jane is working on that.” 

"Your body is too frail. We don't know how long it will hold up."

"Well, do you have a better idea?"

This leaves the Queen quiet. She paces back and forth across the lush carpet, the hem of her gown whispering against the soft bristles with each step. Finally she stops. "You will need a guide," she says.

Just then, a low rumble shakes the palace floor. Frigga gives her a frightened look, then becomes distant for a few seconds. "The dungeons," she says when she focuses on Darcy again.

Darcy doesn’t mind jumping to conclusions. ”Loki?” she asks.

“No,” she says with a quick smile. “Not this time. But now is our chance."

The corridors are filled with guards, shouting and running. Some nod respectfully towards the Queen before hurrying on, but most of them don't even notice Frigga and Darcy. Soon, they start hearing the distant sounds of fighting. The Queen strides on, and Darcy has to run a few steps now and then to keep up. 

Walking in the flesh to the dungeons takes a long time, and twice Frigga pulls her into the shadows to let unfriendly forces pass them by. Then, in the brightly lit stairs leading to the dungeons, they're cornered. Two massive, man-like, creatures are approaching and Darcy isn't sure this is how they normally appear, or if the fighting has brought out the snarls, malicious chuckles and spitting. She raises her hands, for the first time knowing exactly what she will do with the help of the aether. The power surges up through her arms. To her own surprise, she's not afraid. She's exhilarated.

"Darcy, no," says the Queen then, holding her back firmly. "Save your strength."

Even as she speaks, she reaches behind her and pulls out a long, slender dagger, the carved handle looking so much a part of her girdle that Darcy hasn’t spotted it before. She moves fast, gracefully, almost as if dancing. But it's a deadly dance, and before Darcy can fully register what's happening, one of the oafs keels over, clutching at his stomach. She can see bits of things squirming out between his fingers and feels the blood drain from her face. Snapping her head around, she faces away to keep herself from gagging. A moment later, a muffled groan and a wet gurgling tells her Frigga just sliced the throat of the other man. The sweet smell of blood is sickening, but the Queen drags her along by the hand.

"Quickly now," she says.

The dungeons are in disorder, but mostly deserted. They see a few guards running the other way, but all the cells are empty - open and empty. All but one. Loki looks alert but relaxed and smiles politely at Darcy when he spots them. Darcy politely gives him the finger. Frigga touches some special spot on the wall and a glittering hologram appears before her. She deftly weaves a pattern with the golden threads, and seconds later, the glass of the prison walls shimmers and disappears. Loki doesn’t step outside immediately. Instead, he speaks to Frigga in a language Darcy can’t understand.

“Rude,” she mutters.

Their voices rise and fall in an unfamiliar melody, and as with all languages you don’t know, it sounds like they’re speaking at 200 miles per hour. Finally, Loki steps out from his cell; he’s reluctant, tense, catlike.

“Tell Odin I took her,” he says, and now she can understand him again.

Took her? “Excuse me?” says Darcy, but he ignores her.

“Why?” asks Frigga.

“He won’t hesitate to tell Malekith that the Frost Giant is to blame, and all the better. Might as well spare what we can of the palace, don’t you think?”

“Loki, your father…”

“Don’t,” he says, voice dangerously low.

“Hello?” says Darcy. “What are you talking about? What are we doing here?” She can hear the panic creep into her voice. She has a pretty good guess why Frigga freed Loki, but if she’s right…

“You cannot walk through shadow alone,” says Frigga.

“So you’ll come with me, right?” says Darcy. Loki snorts and turns away, shaking his head.

“No,” says the Queen.

Darcy stares at her, then at Loki. “You can’t be serious.”

A low rumble is heard overhead, and dust shakes down from the ceiling. 

“They’re here,” says Frigga. Then she pulls Darcy into a tight embrace. She whispers into her ear. “Don’t be afraid of him, Darcy. Your powers are greater than his, and they will defend you. Don’t trust a word that he says, but trust him with your life if you must. We will meet again when this is over.” 

She sounds so certain, so hopeful. When Darcy meets Loki’s eyes, she wishes she could feel the same.

Chapter Text

Moving through shadow together with Loki is different. He walks with purpose, and the darkness bends away from him to fit his needs. Darcy has to follow him closely to avoid the velvet walls collapsing over her. He walks swiftly, too, and it’s not long before she breaks into a sweat, stumbling along behind him, huffing in her effort to keep up.

“Stop,” she says finally.

“Why?” he asks, turning around to face her. Then he furrows his brow, grabs her arm and pulls her out of the shadow realm. 

They find themselves in broad daylight, on a rolling plain of soft, green grass. It must be morning, she judges by the sun, and what they stepped from was little more than a shady hillside. She slumps to the ground. 

“Exhausted,” she manages between wheezing breaths.

“You’re weak,” says Loki, kneeling next to her. Then he grins. “Of course. No one has told you not to spend it all at once.” He grabs her wrists roughly, and quick as lighting straddles her.

Darcy struggles for a second, and then everything explodes.

When she comes to, it's darker. The sky is aflame with the sunset, washing billowing clouds in pink and blood. She sits up, feels her back covered in damp from lying in the grass. Loki is sitting some way away. Whatever anger she felt as he attacked her has seeped away with sleep, and now she's unsure what to do, what to say.

"We need to move," Loki says without turning around. "We've lingered here far too long. Malekith is coming."

Darcy hugs her legs. "I don't need your help."

"Yes you do," says Loki, standing up. He walks over to her.

"Don't touch me," she says, leaning away. Being close to him makes her alert again. Alert and afraid.

"After what happened earlier? Do you take me for a fool? Come now."

"You were supposed to help me!" she says hotly. 

"And just think how helpful it would have been, had I been able to wrest the aether from you," says Loki.

"That was not the plan!"

"It doesn't matter now. We need to leave." He turns on his heel and walks away.

The ground begins shaking. At first, it's a faint rumble, and because there's no one else to turn to, Darcy gets to her feet and follows Loki. The tremors grow worse, and when she throws a glance over her shoulder, the air shimmers ominously. They reach the shadow side of the nearest hill, and Loki turns to her.

"You need to harness the power of the aether," he says. "Hold it firmly in your grip, and use only what you must."

It sounds like an impossible task, but then again, she’s done any number of impossible things these last twenty-four hours. ”How?”

"What does it feel like?" he asks. 

"What do you mean?"

"Its nature," he says impatiently. "Hot? Cold? Solid? Soft?"

Oh. "It's in my blood," she says, raising her voice. The rumble is quickly turning into a roar. "Liquid!"

Loki's eyes flash greedily for a second. "Control it," he yells. "Tighten your veins. Let it trickle slowly!"

He takes out a knife, and slashes at the air. The blade tears along the seams of the shades, creating a gaping hole looking into the shadow realm. Somehow, Darcy knows what she must do. She steps towards the rift, feels the rush of power down her arms as she pries the hole open wider. 

"Go!" shouts Loki, and as she throws herself into the darkness, she catches a glimpse of an enormous vessel, a spaceship of some kind, breaking through the fabric of another reality and into theirs. Then the shadows swallow them.

The silence inside is deafening. Darcy can hear her own panicked breathing, and the rush of blood in her ears. Loki moves beside her, and then a green fire flares up, a glowing, flickering orb in his hand. It looks pitifully small, the darkness seeming to press in to quench it. This place feels somehow deeper and more dense than before. She can see no exits here, no windows looking out onto other worlds.

"Are we safe?" she asks. Her voice gives no echo; it’s simply swallowed up by the oppressing nothingness.

"From Malekith, yes," says Loki. "But here, he would be the least of our worries."

"So we can't stay?"

Loki holds up a hand, then presses a finger against his lips. Darcy holds her breath, and somewhere nearby, she can make out a noise. It's a soft, slithering sound, like a snake sliding over a stone floor. It passes right by them; she can make out something on her left, and whatever that something is, it must be blind, because Loki doesn't attempt to hide the fire. The eerie light glints off something that looks like scales, and she fights an urge to scream, to bolt and run. Once it's passed, they stay still for several more minutes, listening. 

"We'll be staying permanently if we don't move soon," whispers Loki finally. "Remember what I told you about control?"

"Yes," she says, trying hard to slow her pulse, to let the power trickle forth little by little, a whisper with each heartbeat.

Loki stalks ahead carefully, taking some unknown path that seems to lead upward. Soon, the shadows seem to grow less oppressive, and they pick up the pace. Darcy finds it's much easier going now; instead of tiring, she seems to feed off the aether. After a while she begins feeling more confident, and experiments with the metaphorical power tap, allowing a little more magic flow through her legs to aid her muscles. It works, and with just a small extra kick, she walks with a spring in her step. It's a heady experience, and she can't help but flash a grin.

"Overconfidence has been the downfall of many a promising magician," says Loki warningly, but the look he gives her is approving.

Worryingly, she soon begins to feel worse again. This time, it’s a different sort of exhaustion, her limbs aching dully and her head swimming. Loki glances at her.

“Not long now,” he says, and true enough, after a few more minutes of leading the way with the ghostly light, he once again takes out his knife to cut through the shadow.

They emerge in the delicate, spindly shade of a moonlit tree. There are trees all around them, of roughly the same shape and size, and spaced evenly. The air smells warm and sweet, like an August evening in a New England back yard.

"An orchard," says Darcy.

"Don't touch the fruit," says Loki.

"I wasn't going to," she says testily, but when she glances up between the branches, she can understand his warning. Dotted among the gnarly limbs of the tree, large golden apples are hanging, glinting in the pale moonlight. They're irresistibly beautiful, and Darcy has to stop herself from reaching up to grab one.

Loki leads her to a graveled path cutting straight through the orchard, and her shoes grate against the pebbles as she forces herself to keep going. She feels so tired, and her body hurts all over. More than anything, she misses her home now. Up ahead, she can glimpse lit the lit windows of a house. The yellow light is welcoming, and she allows herself to wish for a few hours’ rest.

"Who lives there?" she asks.

"Idunn," says Loki. 

“Friend of yours?”

Loki snorts. ”She won't like seeing me here."

"So why have you come?" comes a voice from between the trees.

Chapter Text

Idunn is her usual welcoming self, leading the way towards the cottage with her shoulders high and tense. She hates men, and Loki more than most, at least nowadays. Best then to let the mortal do the talking. Most of it, anyway.

“My mother–,” he begins.

“I know,” says Idunn, glancing upward.

There, on the thatched roof, a raven is perched. Hugin or Munin; he doesn’t know which, and he doesn’t care. They’re Odin’s tattlers, serving Asgard and its throne, yet never Loki. 

“I see,” he says. 

“I will not help you, Loki Liesmith,” she says as they stop in front of her door. “But I will help her.”

Whether she means Frigga or Darcy Lewis remains unclear, and Loki remains uninvited. Next to the house is a wooden bench, smooth by centuries of wear, and Loki sits down, leans his back against the wall and closes his eyes. He may as well rest while he can. For now, he pushes away thoughts of the future, emptying his mind and slowing his breathing. Time passes and the silence is broken only by the sound of the raven taking flight, wings beating hard as he makes for Asgard again. Good riddance, thinks Loki, looking toward the sound. But the moon has gone to rest already, and the bird is little more than a dark spot among the stars. Then the door opens, golden glow spilling out over the steps to the house. From inside, he can hear the unmistakable sounds of running water before Idunn shuts the door again. In the dim light from the windows, she looks a lot like his mother when she was younger.

"Your quest is doomed," she says. She stays standing, towering over him as though he were still a young boy, about to earn a clout across the ear for pinching an apple.

"Perhaps," he says. 

"She knows what you want from her, but it could never be hers to give.”

He ignores that. "Do you see how weakened she is?" he asks. "Give her a quarter. A slice, something. Her body needs to remain strong, or we are doomed indeed.”

"And you?"

"I've managed well enough the past few years," he says. 

She smirks. It doesn’t become her. Older than him by who knows how many years, yet her face is as fresh as a rosebud. Loki glances down on his hands. The fine mesh of lines across his knuckles tells an unforgiving tale.

"Then manage," she says, and walks back inside.

An hour or so later, Darcy Lewis comes out. She's dressed in ranger gear, and Idunn has braided her hair to match. At a glance, she might almost be taken for an Asgardian, but as soon as she takes a step, or pulls the sleeves down over her arms against the cooling night, her mortality betrays her. There is no raw strength in those limbs, no hard-earned grace to her movements. She is all softness; a curiously weak vessel for such mighty power. When she sits down next to him, he can smell soap and damp hair. Eyes flitting over her frame, he spots a bulge in her pocket, and sure enough, she soon pulls out one of Idunn's precious fruit. A whole apple. Not a slice, not a quarter, but an entire year's worth of godly sustenance. From the way she absentmindedly digs her teeth into it, he can tell she has no idea how valuable this gift is. He has to clench his jaw to keep himself from begging for a taste, and tears away his gaze as she takes another bite.

"Messy eater, right?” she says, still chewing. “Not sorry.” She smacks loudly and gives an appreciative ‘hmm’, and Loki wonders if she knows after all. When she has finished, she sits quietly, the core still between her thumb and finger. “So, where to now?” she asks eventually.

“Sökvabäck,” he says. “The Halls of the Deep.”

“And we can stay there?”

Suddenly he is furious with this witless human. He wants to grab her shoulders and shake her, but instead takes a deep breath, then lets it out slowly. “Have you not listened? We cannot stay. Not until the convergence has passed, and even then, Malekith will look for you. Always. Until you are rid of the aether. And until we are rid of him.”

She nods. “And how will we do that? This… This thing.” she looks down at her hands, turning them up to expose her wrists where her veins are visible, faint but dark beneath her skin. “It wants to be with him, not with me, yes?”

“Yes.”

“Right.” Darcy clenches her fists, a determined look on her face. “I want to know the plan.”

Truth be told, he isn’t certain about more than the next step or two. Because he knows of well laid plans and what happens to them, Loki prefers to have a dozen half-laid ones. “We need to lure him into a good spot,” he tells her, which is true. “But the convergence will last for several more days, making it too risky to confront him now.”

“So we let him chase us around a bit?”

“Yes,” he says. “Besides, I will need to gather some items to aid us later.”

“Later,” she says in a flat voice, and Loki knows he has said too much. “Why?” she asks then.

“Why what?”

“Why do you want it?”

He snorts loudly. The question is so ridiculous he can’t answer her straight away. “The power–,” he begins.

“Yeah, okay,” she interrupts him, “but what do you want to do with it?”

“Why should I tell you?”

“You might as well,” she says, sitting back and crossing her arms defiantly. “It’s a purely hypothetical question after all. You tried once and saw what happened. I just want to know, that’s all. How evil you really are.”

He looks at her, sees her tense brow and her flushed cheeks. “Nothing I say will give you a satisfactory explanation,” he says. “You couldn’t possibly understand.”

She meets his gaze. “No, I guess I couldn’t.”

“Not yet,” he says, and her eyes flicker nervously for a second, then look away.

“Idunn said I could rest here as long as it’s safe,” she says, and stands up. “How long do we have? I could do with some sleep.”

“A few hours. I will wake you.”

Darcy Lewis gives a short nod, then disappears into the cottage again. On the bench where she sat, the apple core lies forgotten. Loki picks it up and eats it, seeds, stem and all. 

Chapter Text

"Wake up."

The pale man is coming. She knows she should have a name for him now, but it eludes her. His yearning is the same as ever, and her heart answers in turn by beating wildly, and her blood rushes as it tries to find somewhere to escape. 

"Wake up."

Wait. Some part of her resists this intrusion. The aether chose her. When she asked it to aid her, it did. I am not the enemy, she thinks. He is. And her heart stills a little, hesitates.

"Wake up!"

Her eyes flutter open. Loki is standing in the doorway. The light is grey, and although it feels as if she only just laid her head down on the pillow, she knows hours must have passed.

"It's time," he says, then walks out into Idunn's kitchen. The two of them speak quietly, and somehow, Darcy is pleased that they seem to have made some sort of peace.

Idunn packs a satchel for them to bring along with food and drink, but when Darcy asks if they may have some apples, the goddess simply looks at her, then to Loki, and then draws the bag shut.

Mournfully, she leaves her clothes behind, but she's soon grateful for her borrowed boots; the grass is gray with a damp that would have ruined her own shoes. Even though she only had a few hours of sleep, she feels stronger than ever, and distressingly enough she's itching for a chance use the aether, to try her hand at some magic other than the subtle whispering of shadow stepping. 

Come dawn they find themselves in a forest, tall pines mixed with slender birches. There, where a new day brings new life, the curiosity grows too great. All around her, she can feel it; sap flowing beneath smooth, white bark, the dew rising from moss and grass as a fine mist, the petals of flowers unfurling in the new light. There, in a meadow where birds trill and chirp at the rising sun, she stops. Carefully, she listens to the heart of the forest, to the slow, steady beat of life. Then she joins her heart with hers, and after letting her mind drift for a while, she finds something down in the black dirt beneath her feet. It's a seed, and she nurses it with warmth, then coaxes a white stalk from the casing, gently pulling it up and up until it breaks through the earthy crust. Quickly, it grows green and strong, pushing ever up towards the light. One inch, two, three. She lets it grow until she can see a bud, ready to burst, and when she spreads her fingers it cracks open to reveal a bright red flower; a drop of blood in a sea of green.

Her chest feels like it will explode with emotion and excitement, but when she looks up again, Loki is staring at her. 

"You can't do that," he says.

Darcy can hardly believe her ears. She gives a little laugh, stuck somewhere between confusion and defiance. "Well clearly I can, because I just did, so..." she says.

“No, you cannot. Every single sentient being with the slightest bit of magic in them will have heard you, from here to Nidavellir!”

“What are you talking about?” she asks, even though she could probably hazard a guess. She can feel her palms go sweaty, and her mouth tastes sour.

“Spells resonate,” he snaps, “and an unskilled magician is generally loud.”

“Are you saying you can hear it?”

“I’m practically deaf after your little display. And now–,”

“We need to move. I know.” 

They spend a long time in the shadow realm, Loki pressing on relentlessly and without saying a word. Darcy keeps herself busy with controlling the aether, determined to avoid making even the slightest mistake. When they finally emerge from the darkness, it's on a beach. It stretches to either side of them, wind whipping at the waves, and the skies above are heavy and grey. Dunes of sand have piled up, hiding the land beyond from view, but it must be very flat, she gathers from the lack of hills or trees in the distance. There's no horizon beyond the sand, only a thick cover of clouds. Loki seems to be looking for something, gazing along the beach in either direction and then he takes off walking again.

"You know I didn't know," she says as she hurries after him.

"You knew enough," he says. "Enough not to tamper with it. To try and become friends with it."

That shuts her up for a second. She hadn't thought of it like that, but she knows he's got a point. She wants to get rid of it, right? Of course she does. It's going to destroy her. Somehow, though, she can't help but feel that it won’t.

“Sour grapes,” she says, lifting her chin, as if it would help keep the blush off her cheeks.

Loki looks at her with a frown. “Grapes?”

“You know, the fox and the grapes?” says Darcy. The stare he gives her is blank, so she tells him the fable as they walk along the beach.

“Ah yes,” he says when she’s finished the short story. “My mother told my Thor and me the same tale when we were boys. Only our version had rowanberries.”

“That makes no sense,” says Darcy. “Rowanberries are always sour.”

“Well,” he says, and for the first time since she met him, she can see the hint of a smile, “I’ve never known a fox to eat grapes.”

Their exchange leaves her feeling torn. She doesn’t want to know about his childhood, about his mother telling him stories. There is love there, she knows, from his side and Frigga’s both. It makes her wonder why he is the way he is, and thoughts like that are dangerous.

As they keep walking, the tide slowly turns, leaving more and more of the beach exposed. The sand close to the shoreline is wet and packed, and easy to tread. After a few minutes, Loki stops and gazes out to sea.

“Now we must wait,” he says.

“What for?”

“The tide.”

They sit down in the relative shelter of the dunes, and Darcy is once again glad for the sturdy clothes Idunn provided her with. The wind is stiff, and the sand cold, even a little damp from sea spray. Loki hands her bread and cheese from their pack, uncorks the wine and takes a swig before passing the bottle to her. She’s left holding it for a few seconds in disbelief at the sudden intimacy before she realizes that he sees this not as a friendly picnic on the beach, but as sharing provisions with a fellow traveler. The wine is spicy and lukewarm and strong, but she drinks it with ease, and feels it spread its heat through her chest.

“You are a scholar, correct?” asks Loki. “Like Jane Foster.”

Darcy frowns. “That’s a weird choice of words, but yeah, I guess you could say I am. Jane’s not, though. She’s a scientist.”

“A researcher,” Loki agrees.

“Yeah, but… I’m nothing like that. I’m a student. Or at least I was.”

“But in the same field, surely.”

“No, not at all,” she says. “Although I guess I’ve learnt almost as much about astrophysics now as I did about politics in college. I… I don’t really know anymore.” It’s strange and a little painful to be thinking back to her old life, but Loki looks at her expectantly, so she goes on. “I was in the first year of my masters when I met Jane and Erik. For reasons that we absolutely don’t have to go into now, I hadn’t done an internship during my bachelor. And getting your first internship as a grad student is so late. So late. I guess that’s why I got stuck with them, you know?”

Loki draws a breath as if to say something, then stops himself. “Hm,” he says after a few moments of awkward silence. “So you have pursued studies in one field - politics, correct?” She nods. “And because you failed to do this… Internship?”

“Like work experience.”

“I see. You failed to do this early in your studies, which is why you were sent to Jane Foster.”

“Pretty much. Astrophysics sounded like it at least might bring some money in, but…” She snorts and shakes her head.

“So,” says Loki with a smirk. “An unsuccessful scholar with a useless apprentice. Trust Thor to have so much faith in someone so utterly incompetent.”

“Excuse you,” says Darcy, glaring angrily at him. “The only reason why no one gives Jane funding is because people are too stupid to even realize what she’s doing. She’s the only one who’s anywhere near understanding all of this. The people at SHIELD know some, yeah. Of course they do. They have a fuckton of cash and they’re willing to spend exactly none of it on Jane’s research. Not because she’s not good at it, and for your information she’s the best there is, but because she’s a pain in their ass who won’t do it on their terms.”

“I think you overestimate your own importance, Lady Darcy,” says Loki in a way that tells her he sees her as nothing of the sort. “SHIELD is a powerful organization. Why would they let her continue unless her efforts were misdirected?”

She stares at him. “I thought you were supposed to be the clever one. Why the fuck do you think?”

The expression on his face as realization dawns is priceless. He goes from smug via horrified to fuming in a matter of seconds. “I should have guessed,” he says.

“Believe it or not, you’re not the only Asgardian to make government officials a little jumpy. Jesus, don’t you two ever talk?”

He doesn’t answer her, but looks away with a stiff smile. They’re quiet after that, Darcy tying knot after knot on a yellowed blade of grass, and Loki staring into the distance. After what feels like hours, he rises.

“There it is,” he says, pointing down at the sea.

Darcy looks, and sees two stakes in the water, only just peeking up above the surface in the receding tide. “What is it?” she asks.

“The stairs to Saga’s halls. The Halls of the Deep.”