There's a God Under My Bed

Sigyn sighed, enjoying the flowery aroma of the new summer air.

It was a beautiful day on Asgard and she could hardly believe that it had been over a year since Darcy was proclaimed Loki’s advisor.

At first, she didn’t think it would affect her quite so much, but within the first season of Darcy’s new occupation, it was apparent that she was going to see more of her friend.

Darcy spent most weekends on Asgard and nearly every evening. She was there for the evening meal and then several meetings with Lord This or Lady That and in the first few months, Sigyn worried that her friend was spreading herself a bit thin.

Loki was always after her. Sigyn swore, whenever Darcy was hurting, Loki hurt with her.

Sigyn decided they would make a cute couple. Though she also suspected that Darcy had never been considered a high enough class to be worthy of a prince’s hand. It was the only explanation she could find as to why Loki had gone after Sigyn’s favor rather than Darcy’s.

Then again, she and Loki had been getting on rather well as of late. He was beginning to do more courtly things with her, like walks in the garden, lunch by the lake. They laughed and talked and Sigyn valued their time together. Loki was kind and polite, though she did not have as much fun with him as she did with Sif.

Sif was just fantastic. She was teaching her how to use a bow. Sigyn had seen accidents happen on the training field with axes and daggers and quite frankly, being in such close proximity to a person while they bled made Sigyn queasy. So, she went for a weapon with distance. Sif had told her that it was good to know some kind of defense lest she was ever attacked.

Sigyn loved their lessons.

Sif would stand behind her, adjusting her fingers on the string, pressing on her shoulder to relax her muscles. Sometimes it was windy and their hair would blow together, the blonde and black strands mixing in the wind. Sigyn liked how it looked.

The warrior made Sigyn feel special.

As a lady growing up, Sigyn had been told constantly that she was beautiful. No boy looking for a dance nor Lord searching for a young lady for his son to court, could ever think of anything more original to call her than ‘beautiful’ or ‘gorgeous’. It was nice to know that they felt that way about her appearance, but it meant nothing to her. For so long she had been no more than someone beautiful to call on when a man required a prize.

Of course, becoming acquainted with Loki had been her first introduction to what it felt like to be more than just ‘beautiful’. She could tell that he liked her for what her mind had to offer and he was very gracious in telling her so. But that was it about Loki; he was far too refined.

She knew he had a streak of mischief and chaotic tendencies that Darcy would tell her of in their time together. Just recently, Darcy said they had gone into the city for a public address speech and Loki nearly caused an uproar in turning the visiting Lord Erlend’s armor green before his speech. He was forced to give his entire argument to Loki’s case while wearing the young prince’s colors. It was confusing for the public and Loki was very smug about it.

Sigyn never saw this side of Loki when they were together. Their walks and conversations, however light-hearted, lacked any of the mischievous hilarity that Loki showed around Darcy.

Nevertheless, Sigyn liked him. She liked how he looked and how he talked and he had the most pleasant smile. She would be a fool to say that his face was not slowly becoming a work of art in itself. She was a woman; she could admit that Prince Loki was a pleasing sight even if other ladies did not share her opinion.

Today was much like any of their recent outings. It was bright and sunny and she was holding onto his arm while they walked. If she asked, he would tell her the name of every flower they passed and what it meant.

“Loki?” she began, as their walk had been quite silent thus far.

“Yes, Sigyn?” Loki replied, leading them through an archway towards a particularly beautiful bunch of rose bushes.

She bent down to sniff the buds, speaking as her nose brushed over the soft red petals, still wet with dew from the night. “When is Darcy coming? She was not here last night when the Ambassadors from Alfheim arrived. I did think she was eager to meet them or at least be a part of their conferences.”

“She will be here soon I should think. I am going to visit her this afternoon. There was an urgent matter she could not get away from.” Loki said, giving her a warm smile as she took his arm again, the leather of his sleeve soft under her fingers.

Sigyn nodded, her curiosity piqued. Darcy, unlike many young ladies of the court, did not live inside the palace. She spoke of her parents occasionally, but not enough for Sigyn to know who they were. Because of this, Sigyn believed Darcy was not born into wealth. She did not act it and she did not look it. There was an air amongst women who lived in luxury. They were hardened, carved women. Sculpted into marble brides in exchange for power. Sigyn was embittered in remembering that stone, no matter how beautifully cut, could hold no puissance.

Darcy could scarcely be called ‘hardened’. She was toned, but no part of her that Sigyn had seen could she compare to the other ladies. She was soft and was more developed as a woman than Sigyn ever planned to be in her life. The stuff Darcy was made of conformed to no mold and would not flake at the touch of a chisel.

It pleased Sigyn that a lady such as this was assisting in governing the realm she calls home.

The two continued on their way, enjoying the day and chatting about what Loki knew of archery. They smiled at each other and exchanged stories about rogue bow experiences. Loki claimed that Thor almost shot him with a flaming arrow at one point and Sigyn admitted to missing her target, her arrow landing in a wall not a hair’s breadth from the face of an Einherjar.

When Loki laughed, it made her want to hug him. Being friends with Loki always felt like that. It wasn’t the excited, energetic friendship she had with Darcy where everything that moved was made for merriment. Nor was it anything like her cheek-warming, heart-racing friendship with Sif.

It was subtler. Loki seemed a bit like safety to her. Like a harbor for a longship, she could idle at his side, heavy with the weight of guards returning from their shifts. She would relieve them there and her harbor would grant her reprieve. He was someone who she could be quiet with, who wanted to be with her in a peaceful relationship. This thought reminded her once again that if she were to marry any man, she would want him to be Loki.

Walking through the gardens was almost dream-like and she giggled when he pulled them down a less traveled route to an arbor whose presence was nearly obscured by a web of precious little blue flowers. Loki stopped them beneath it, beaming down at her.

“Sigyn,” he said, his tone turning serious.

“Loki,” she returned, letting him take her hands.

His smile was polite and very princely, though the pink on his cheeks did not go unnoticed by her. “I have a present for you.”

Sigyn raised her brows, delight flowing through her. “A present? For me?”

Loki lifted one of her hands, balancing her fingers on the tips of his. “May I?” he asked politely, insinuating that he wished to do magic.

She nodded her consent, awaiting the wonders that he was to conjure. In a series of small golden sparks and a bit of green light, Sigyn’s hand was decorated with a glove in her favorite shade of blue.  It was supportive in some places, offering both flexibility and strength to her hand. She stared at it for a moment, noticing the threading was gold and the fabric was embroidered with golden replications of the flowers that coated the arbor they stood under presently.

She gasped, looking up to the prince. “Oh Loki, it is beautiful.”

He grinned and kissed her knuckles. “It is a gift to help with your archery. I hope it will alleviate some of the pain.”

Sigyn let her eyes dip down to examine Loki’s work. She could tell it was magically done, but his stitching would have made some of the Queen’s Ladies jealous.

“Loki, thank you,” she told him meaningfully, wondering if she should take him into a hug as Darcy did. She thought better of it, for she was not Darcy and her cheeks warmed at the thought of stepping closer to him.

He dipped his head, a few black locks falling forwards. “Tis nothing, My Lady,” he told her, continuing to speak using very formal tongue. “Lady Sigyn, it is not only a gift, but also an offering, in hope that you will accept my proposition.”

Sigyn’s eyes widened. “What might this proposition be, My Prince?”

His smile threatened to turn mischievous and Sigyn could tell he was trying to restrain his teasing mirth. “The proposition is that you might consider official courtship with me.”

This was it, Sigyn thought. This was what her parents wanted from her, what she trained to be for so long: Partner to a Prince.

Her answer came without uncertainty and she held his hands a little tighter. “It would be my honor, Prince Loki, to be courted by you.”

He bowed his head again. “The honor is mine, Lady Sigyn.”

She smiled at the ground and felt her cheeks grow warm standing in such close proximity to her suitor. As Sigyn said before, she was not blind to Loki’s beauty nor was she impervious to his charm. Her palms, which were still being held by the fair prince, began to dampen as her heart increased in tempo.

Timidly, Sigyn looked up at him through her lashes, her eyes falling on his lips. They looked very nice. Loki had kissed her on a few occasions, and though he did not grant her first kiss, he was the best she had ever experienced at presenting such affection. When she was younger, boys like Fandrall would sweep her away to dance and take quick liberties with her lips. It was never much, just a peck of annoyance. She accepted it, granted them permission. But she never wanted to kiss them.

Sif had nice lips as well and she would admit to staring at them in a similar fashion. Like Loki's, the woman warrior's lips were pink and often pressed into a hard line. But Sif's were softer looking, plumper, more flesh there that imperiled any who kissed her to fall prey to getting lost amongst the profundity of her touch. Sigyn feared for any kiss between Sif and a man, for he would not know the care to expend when demonstrating their fondness.

Loki’s lips pulled up in the tiniest of smirks and Sigyn felt her face turn particularly hot. She very much wished to look away from her prince, but they were closer now and she wanted him to kiss her.

Was that a bad thing, she wondered. Was it bad for a lady to want a kiss? Or was this temptation left till marriage and the bed chamber as some of the older ladies told her?

She had not taken her eyes off Loki’s lips and she watched them move as he asked her a question of his own. “My Lady, might I borrow from you a kiss?”

Sigyn nodded, tilting her head back a little to force her attention to his eyes. There was humor there, but also a stirring of timorous uncertainty. “Only borrow?” she queried, amusing him with her words. “Not steal?”

Loki’s grin was fascinating as he entwined their fingers. “Oh no, I intend to return your kiss, Lady Sigyn.”

Sigyn did not ever think herself to be the kind of lady that swooned and sighed over men. She did not particularly like them enough to do so. But Loki’s mouth was such a silvertongued and magical thing that she was tempted to fall into a puddle on the ground and titter until the sun went down. His words were smoother than silk and his kisses were sweeter than honey.

When he finally touched her lips with his, she knew this kiss was not the same as their past ones. It began like she remembered, tender and soft. But it did not end as the others had. It kept going. It was warm, comfortable, and very nice.

“Sigyn!? Lady Asta wants to know if—oh…”

Instantly, Sigyn jerked her lips away from Loki’s, turning hastily to see who interrupted them. Lady Lorelei stood, red in the face, stammering out an apology. “Prince Loki…Lady Sigyn….I-I was just—“

Loki held up a hand to silence her, seeming not to care that they had been seen interacting in such an affectionate way. “My sincerest apologies, Lady Lorelei. I believe I’ve indulged in Lady Sigyn’s company for long enough.”

Sigyn felt hot. Whether from the sun or embarrassment, she was unsure. Lorelei curtsied, letting out a small giggle that told Sigyn her kiss with Loki would be the talk of the palace by this evening. Perfect.

“It is no trouble, Prince Loki. Lady Sigyn, Lady Asta would like to see you when you have the chance.” Lorelei addressed her, dropping into another curtsy before departing.

Loki then turned to her, looking just as embarrassed as she. “It has been good to see you, Sigyn.”

“Likewise, Loki,” Sigyn said, realizing that they were still holding hands. “I believe we both have duties to tend to.”

“Indeed,” he agreed, offering her a gentle smile. “I do hope we might be able to take another outing soon.”

Sigyn liked the sound of that and nodded almost bashfully. “I hope so as well.”

“Then I shall make it so,” Loki promised, bending his head to drop a kiss on the back of her hand. “Farewell, My Lady.”

Sigyn watched him walk away from the palace, towards the stables, Jörmungandr appearing from behind a bush to follow him. With a sigh, she turned towards the palace, sincerely wishing that Sif would not catch word of her endeavors from the ladies’ gossip. Who knows what they could be saying?

                                                               ***

Loki was having a truly excellent day.

Sigyn accepted his offer for courtship and they kissed, which was also very nice. He enjoyed it and he believed she did as well.

But that was not why he was so ecstatic.

He was going to go see Darcy while she was on her school trip in Washington D.C.

Traveling to Midgard would be quicker if he teleported straight from Darcy’s bedroom to her hotel in The United States’ capital city. He would meet her in the lobby of the address she’d given him a week ago, two days before she left.

The past year had been productive to say the very least. Having Darcy as his advisor was more helpful than he could have ever known. As an official member of the court, she was permitted to do just about anything that Loki was allowed to do and held her own responsibilities. It was stunning how efficiently she worked. Not only did she balance her school life with what most would consider full time employment, but she did so while also staying active with her soccer team and training with the Allmother.

Of course, it was very busy for the both of them. Loki understood her desires to stay on Midgard for now. But he was still searching for Idun and her garden. He was convinced that he would be able to get her an apple sometime during her twenties. Any time after that and people might begin to recognize her aging, hence breaking her Asgardian masquerade.

It was difficult to search for Idun, as she was magically concealed. Though, any skilled sorcerer would know the trace of a magical cover. The problem was knowing where to look for one. Asgard was nearly three times the size of Midgard and with twice as much empty, unpopulated space. It would be logical to assume that Idun would set her garden in the middle of nowhere, far removed from any city in particular. However, it also held true that Idun grew the most magical crop in the entire nine realms. Maintaining regular harvest would require her being some place where she had access to the things she needed to cultivate.

Of course, places like Nornheim wouldn’t have such things, would they? Magical material is nearly banned entirely there. It would make sense that Idun was situated somewhere between provinces. Possibly Ringsfjord. Probably Nastrond or Jolena.

All of his leads were assumption based and so far, he had no evidence to show for. Anyone who found Idun would have to be a genius, far more skilled than himself.

Jörmungandr took that moment to wind himself around one of Hel’s ribs, letting his tongue loll out while they rode so it flapped in the wind.

Loki sighed disapprovingly, shaking his head at the snake.

With a smile, he thought to all of the opportunities Darcy’s position had given him.

Power was a fickle thing, executing plays differently when given to certain people. Darcy seemed to be made for power. It suited her. Loki could only guess why.

Who was Darcy Lewis to uphold such a position? Who was she to do a job so thoroughly? She was a mortal. A brilliant little mortal with far more passion than one being should be capable of holding. Her mind impressed him. Her brain was impregnable to the idea of ‘impossible’ and Loki liked to watch her think.

She trained with his mother twice a week, every week. She told him that the training involved a lot of thinking and a lot of staring at objects and people. ‘Attention to Detail’ Darcy called it. She introduced bits of what his mother was teaching her and it seemed to be no more than quick analysis of what’s going on. Like how he taught her to fight.

Look at who you’re battling, find their weakness, use your strengths to destroy them.

Although his mother’s methods were slightly different and on a much larger scale.

Because, unlike Loki, she wasn’t instructing Darcy how to destroy her enemies. She was only teaching her to watch them. And Loki found that unnerving.

Nevertheless, the effects of her studies shone in the Asgardian population’s households. If his more menial financial meetings were anything to go by, Asgard’s overall happiness was at an all-time high, not that Asgard was economically unstable to begin with. Odin did a fine job of that. Darcy had ensured a certain satiability that had not gone unnoticed by anyone.

But she wasn’t proud or humbled by the experience. In fact, Loki didn’t think Darcy felt anything at all about it. Improving Asgard was her job, she told him that it was entertaining for her and good practice if she was ever going to become president of Midgard. Even so, he knew which parts of it she found exhilarating.

He could see it in her face.

He could see it in that little spark in her eye when someone went to prove her wrong, in the way she crossed her arms while giving the honest truth in a tone dripping with saccharin brutality, or when she realized her reason had fault  and accepted it without even blinking an eye.

She liked feeling accomplished. Loki could understand that. He envied that feeling because while Darcy found joy in her groupings of accomplishments for Asgard, Loki was much harder to satisfy.

Unlike his friend, Loki did not find politics quite so enticing. In fact, they were boring and excruciatingly so. The humdrum of papers and notes and meetings and announcements was miserable to him. No matter how many treaties he convinced someone to sign or how many petitions he agreed to pass through, there was no gratification for him. He knew just around the bend there was something else waiting. There would always be some new trouble to worry about, something that would keep him awake when Darcy wasn’t there, something to brood over while people made messes of the realm he’d just worked so hard to clean up.

It wasn’t entertaining to him.

So, every now and then he liked to cause a little mischief. Cast a little magic to stir up trouble. Not a lot, just enough to make Darcy give him that sideways look. Teasing Darcy was entertaining. He didn’t play many of his tricks on her as he would not fare well against the repercussions of Darcy’s wrath. Any vengeance she took would be far too vicious for him to endure. Plus, she slept beside him quite often and Darcy’s bed was one place he felt fully comfortable dispatching his princely exterior to be none but Loki in the bond of friendship

Still, there were benefits to his dissatisfaction with politics. These benefits came in the form of magic and six mysterious stones scattered throughout the galaxy.

His and Darcy’s search had become rampant. They were relentless in their studies and chaotically so. While Darcy spent most of her time working or going through with politics and training with his mother, he was becoming more adept at magic. He realized, truly realized, his potential as a sorcerer. It was astonishing how much he could do if he set his mind to it.

Magic was interesting. And coupled with its Midgardian counterpart ‘science’ it was like balancing the world on your fingertips. Magic turned everything into clay, malleable in his hands.

Well, there were exceptions of course.

Ideas, for one, were quite inflexible. The map was an idea all laid out in the art of language. And of course art would just have to be one of those things better left up to interpretation. Magic and science were decidedly not so open to such construal elucidation.

The map was, at least in the Midgardian portion, illegible. He couldn’t read it. He doubted anyone could. Language on Midgard evolved too fast and changed in far too many places. Finding the Tesseract had once again become a sort of distant aspiration. A hope. A folly. A lure for fools.

And what a fool he was. Darcy had full faith in the idea that the Tesseract was in fact on Midgard. Unfortunately for him, he could understand her logic and was desperate enough for mental stimulation that he allowed himself to become infatuated. Together they began searching through history.

Loki believed it was possible, arguably probable, for the Allfather to leave the Tesseract on Midgard. The problem was that they had no idea when he brought it down.

Obviously, there were some clues that indicated towards the age of Vikings, the time when the so called ‘myths’ were created and passed around. He and Darcy had deduced that these myths and fairytales had been told by Asgardians who could predict the future. They had come to Midgard and scattered around their predictions as storytellers and prophets of truth.

Of course, stories were altered and the humans had morphed him into some kind of miscreant who gave birth to horses and brought light to the true definition of ‘Chaos’.

The problem with these stories is that they existed before the attack of the Frost Giants. Odin could not have delivered the Tesseract to Midgard before the Frost Giants attacked. He would have done it sometime after the war. The question was: at what point after the war?

Darcy and Loki scoured through textbooks of literature, art, history. They researched everything before the fourteenth century and found nothing.

It was extremely frustrating. There was no word of Odin or any strange magical power sources. There was myth, yes. Pointless traditional folk-tales preached by lowly peasants of all kinds. Fables and stories passed along by mouth, finally written down by someone with the decency to keep track of such things.

But none of them fit. None of it made any sense.

They narrowed it down based on historical culture.

Their first belief was that Odin left it somewhere in Western Europe. Somewhere familiar where the people already heard of myths pertaining to him and his greatness. They would guard his treasures with their lives because they were too ignorant to do anything different.

Next, was that he went further south and left it somewhere in Northern India and Nepal, somewhere Hinduism would have been practiced regularly. Darcy believed that there were parallels that shouldn’t be ignored and that Indian culture was far richer in history than any place they’d studied on Midgard. He agreed in that respect. They most certainly had more content to look at there, though it was not all as relevant as he would like.

Lastly there was the possibility that Odin had dropped the Tesseract into the ocean, never to be seen again by anyone because he was, to use Darcy’s words, ‘an old coot who hates us and wants us to suffer forever researching how to properly sacrifice a goat’.

So far, they were more focused on the first two options.

It was arduous work, searching for something that didn’t exist to most people in the modern galaxy. Mostly, they were just poking at small oddities in the course of history, blips and mistakes that looked like magical intervention.

There was nothing.

That’s why Loki was going to see her on her last day in Washington DC. According to her, the place was rich with museums and official historians who spent their short Midgardian lifetimes researching specific things. Loki imagined he had done the same as them a couple hundred times over when refining his own skills through the years.

His and Darcy’s plan was simple and required effort of both their parts.

He would ride Hel to the passage that led under Darcy’s bed. From her room, he would teleport to the address she gave him for her school’s hotel in the capital. They decided he would not use a direct portal to Washington DC because it would be too obvious and he was unsure if one existed.

Darcy would feign sickness on her last day and she would not be permitted to go out because of this. Both of them agreed that it would be ill advised to have duplicates of the same person in such close proximity. It would greatly confuse the public if she was seen or caught on those pesky surveillance cameras that Midgardians kept around.

That week Darcy was supposed to have come up with a list of places they would go and at what times to avoid any kind of contact with her group. It was decided that he would meet her in the lobby after her group departed.

They had also decided to leave Jörmungandr and Fenrir at home, which is something they’d never considered before. However, they both agreed that having their pets would draw attention and not all animals were allowed into certain museums and libraries. It made Loki rather sad to think that their friends would not be able to tag along. Perhaps he could give them time together on Asgard and ask Hel to look after them. She might do it if he asked her to.

They arrived at the clearing, just before the portal to Midgard and Loki smiled at the surrounding forest. He had no need to ride Hel to the portal anymore as he could easily teleport there. But he enjoyed spending time with Hel. There was something immensely soothing about her presence.

Being a prince required that he occasionally travel to different provinces or cities, and when he did so, he would ride Hel. Darcy was permitted to go with him and she did when the circumstances suited her. Being his advisor meant that she could have her own horse if she requested one.

Well, one day she had because it had been a longer journey and she did not want to hurt Hel under both their weight. Darcy had been preparing to mount a steed when Hel drove herself between the two, making a point to bump Darcy with her nose. The message was quite clear that Hel was Darcy’s just as much as she was Loki’s.

He dismounted, landing in the grass alongside Jörmungandr. Debating his options, he looked to Hel pleadingly. “Hel?”

She turned her attention to him, bumping the bony side of her jaw against his cheek. Affectionately, he rubbed her neck. “Would you mind looking after Fenrir and Jörmungandr today?”

Hel stared at him blankly, snorting a puff of air over his face.

He sighed, preparing to negotiate with her. “Alright, I know they are…energetic at times—“

He was interrupted by Jörmungandr making a whining sound while dangling by his mouth from a tree branch. Loki could sense the exasperation seeping from his horse and he offered her his most desperate expression. ”Dearest Hel, please will you do this for Darcy and I? If they are hurt or captured on Midgard we might never see them again. I know you care for them and would not want them to be lost to us in such a way.”

Her bones clicked as she turned her black gaze upon him. He could smell an easy victory. “Darcy would be very pleased to know that they are in such capable hooves. Besides, they will look after you as well. Jörmungandr would rather eat his tail than see harm come to you or Fenrir.”

Up in the tree, Jörmungandr hissed a bark while he spinning around the tree trunk, happily chasing the scaly tip of his tail. Loki and Hel looked at one another and Loki smiled innocently, giving a quick nuzzle to the bony side of her face. It was rough and felt a bit strange, but Loki knew that not everyone would give that side of her attention.

She gave in and nuzzled him back, huffing bitterly. “Thank you, Hel. I will fetch Fenrir and then the three of you can be off.”

He faced the cave, preparing to enter when he heard a bark that sounded all too much like a hiss. He had just enough time to be surprised before Fenrir leapt from the portal in a flash of rainbow light. In mere seconds, Loki was pinned to the ground by a very excited dog, soon to be joined by an equally enthused snake, and of course Hel did not like to be left out of anything, so her nose was also added to the mix.

Loki rolled around, gently pushing away noses and tongues until he could sit up.

Fenrir had travelled by himself through a portal? Loki thought this was most interesting, though he was not entirely shocked. Both Fenrir and Jörmungandr had been showing signs of magical enhancement. Mostly subtle things like transporting themselves around.

Just this morning Loki told Jörmungandr not to follow him on his outing with Sigyn because, as nice company as he was, the snake liked to cuddle when he got excited. And Loki did not want to cuddle Jörmungandr while kissing Sigyn.

“Fenrir. Jörmungandr.” Loki called to them. They looked up from greeting one another to give him their full attention. He smiled, getting down on one knee to rub their backs while he talked. “Darcy and I are going to explore some things on Midgard today and it’s too dangerous for you to come.”

Disappointment was so clear on their faces that he could feel his heart breaking a bit. “No, do not give me those looks. Fenrir, you are not a puppy, stop whining like one. Jörmungandr, get your tail out of your mouth.” They did so and he continued. “Hel is going to look after you while we’re away. It won’t be any longer than a day. I will be back by tonight, but Darcy isn’t coming back until tomorrow at noon.”

Loki was pretty sure the two had stopped listening after he declared they were spending the day with Hel as they had begun chasing each other around her legs. Hel just stared at him with a cold, steady glare. He smothered a grin because in spite of her resentful behavior, Loki knew that Hel was also very possessive of the two little animals.

“Stay out of trouble!” he hollered after them as the three began to trot into the forest. “Hel, don’t let them eat anything that looks suspicious! And for mine and Darcy’s sakes, do not get lost!”

They didn’t pay him any mind as they continued on their way into the forest. Loki debated calling them back for a moment and taking them to DC with him.

Then he decided against it. Fenrir and Jörmungandr in a big city would not go well. He would have to keep faith in Hel.

Taking a deep breath, Loki went through the portal, gearing his thoughts towards his day with Darcy.

                                                               ***

Darcy was sitting in the hotel lobby, feeling quite proud of herself.

She’d faked being sick that morning and had absolutely no trouble convincing her teacher to let her stay in the hotel room all day long.

After her classmates had left for a day of sightseeing, Darcy got dressed in her jeans and plain t-shirt then went to wait for Loki to arrive. With her she carried her backpack that was filled with anything they might need for their day of research.

She stared intently at the automatic doors, waiting for the familiar form of her best friend to walk through.

Darcy was glad that she and Loki had the opportunity to take this break together. Being advisor to royalty was both a mentally stimulating and tiring occupation. She absolutely loved it.

Not only was she finally respected as an actual member of the court, she was learning while she was at it.

Frigga was becoming one of Darcy’s favorite people. Even after a whole year, she was still an enigma to her. Their time together was always interesting. One day, Darcy was staring into the scrying pool chatting about distinctive qualities in dirt with a dwarf woman and the next she was sitting with a committee for feast-planning, seeing how quickly she could count the number of jewels on a certain woman’s head-dress.

Everything Frigga had her do was very obscure and Darcy did question it on occasion.

A few months ago, the Queen had given her a strange sort of task, which was saying a lot because most of the things Frigga had her do were very odd.

This task was to take Odin’s horse, Sleipnir.

That was all the instruction she received.

Take the horse.

Darcy was at a loss when the Queen refused to elaborate. Was she supposed to steal it? Or was she just supposed to ride it? Unlike any of her previous assignments, she had no plan of how to go about it. She could not see the purpose of the exercise, nor the Queen’s intentions.

Nevertheless, Darcy had proceeded with much thought and consideration.

If she had been Loki, she would have used magic to turn herself invisible and guide the horse away, or perhaps just teleport them to a new location.

But Darcy was not Loki. She did not have magic and she did not intend to steal the horse for good. She also couldn’t go to Loki for help. It was one of Frigga’s rules that Darcy could not consult Loki unless given explicit permission to do so.

With that in mind, Darcy made up her mind on what to do.

Looking to gain acquiescence from Odin over borrowing his horse would have been trivial. As Loki’s advisor, Darcy occasionally had private meetings with Odin and a few other members of the court and she always worked her best at those times. Darcy would admit to herself that she was rather decent at her job and she fought to retain her good reputation.

Somehow, Darcy believed that Odin was suspicious, or even resentful of her. He was always cutting her off in the middle of her reports and was begrudging in accepting any of her proposals. It was quite damaging to her pride, especially since she worked so hard on everything she did. She assured herself that perhaps it was because of her age that he did not respect her as much.

Needless to say, Darcy did not ask the Allfather for permission.

Instead, she strolled into the stables as casually as possible, mounted Sleipnir and rode him away without even stopping to check her surroundings. She thought that maybe, if she acted like she was supposed to be taking Sleipnir, then no one would question her.

And they didn’t. She rode around for a while, having a friendly conversation with Odin’s horse, who didn’t seem to care much for pleasantries, before trotting back up to the stables to find Hel staring at her like she’d been betrayed.

Darcy spent the next ten minutes consoling the poor horse, convincing her that it was a task from the Allmother and it was completed now. Eventually, Hel forgave her and Darcy took the time to brush her mane before the Allmother came to find her and congratulate her on her execution of her assignment.

On their way back to the palace, Darcy had asked Queen Frigga why she hadn’t wanted Loki to accompany her on that specific job. Her answer was surprising coming from the Queen, though painstakingly obvious in Darcy’s eyes. She had said, “You and Loki are two entirely different people. There may come a time when your methods will work better than his or his better than yours. Independence is an important quality in partnership.”

Darcy had to agree with the Queen on that.

Sighing, she slumped back in her chair, staring at the door. “Oh my gods, hurry up, Loki.”

“Are we rushing? I couldn’t tell by how complacently you’ve been lounging about.”

Speak of the devil and he shall appear.

Darcy nearly fell from her seat at the sound of his voice. “Loki!”

He threw his head back in laughter while Darcy stood up to shove his chest. “You’re horrible.”

His responding grin lit up the entire room. She knew being a trickster made him happy. Never before had his title been so fitting.  She pouted anyways and his smile turned kind as he pulled her into a hug. “I know. It is good to see you.”

Darcy squished her face against his shoulder, subconsciously inhaling his scent. “It’s been a week, Loki.”

“A long week,” he added and she noticed he had switched to Midgardian clothes. He didn’t do so often, but when he did, he always put a lot of care into what he wore. Something told her that if she checked the label on his green t-shirt, it would be a designer brand.

She squeezed his middle a bit tighter, while he told her of Frank and Fenrir’s situation for the day. She listened, mentally plotting revenge for him sneaking up on her. She was in the perfect position to give him an awe-inspiring wedgie, so she went with that plan. While Loki neared the end of his explanation, Darcy slipped her hands under the hem of his t-shirt, searching for the waistband of his underwear.  When she didn’t find it, she wiggled her fingers below his belt in order to find them. Still, the only thing she found was smooth skin.

Loki cleared his throat, “Darcy, not to sound rude, but what the Hel are you doing?”

She tore her arms away from him irritably. “Are you seriously not wearing any underwear?”

He raised a long black brow and Darcy felt her face go red when she realized her dreadful mistake. She had not meant to do that. Oh boy, she had really not meant to do that. “Well, surely you know the answer to that question now.”

She buried her face in her hands. “Dude! You’re supposed to tell me that before I go trying to give you a wedgie! And why aren’t you wearing underwear anyways?!”

Loki shrugged, sporting a humored grin. “I find it uncomfortable.”

Darcy sighed, slapping a hand over her eyes and tilting her head back in distress. “You’re never going to let me live this down, are you?”

“Not at all,” he replied. “This is right at the top of the list along with your need for clarification on intercourse.”

Darcy kept her eyes firmly shut, shaking her head. “Just shut up, Loki.”

“Or perhaps last month when you spilled wine on—“

“Loki, I swear to Frigga, you’ll be the death of me,” she grumbled, taking his hand and pulling them from the hotel. “We’re going to go museum hopping now. If you say anything else, I will sew your mouth shut.”

He squeezed her hand in return, making the wise choice not to say anything while Darcy walked them to the bus stop.

As it turned out, museum hopping wasn’t the easiest thing to do without consistent transportation. Darcy had sixty American dollars, twenty of those dollars they reserved for bus fare though she claimed they wouldn’t need all of it.

Loki decided he did not like public transportation very much. Sure, electric busses, as far as Midgardian standards went, were cheaper, better for the environment and a good idea in theory. But he did not like that Darcy was so close to strangers. He ushered her in to sit by the window while he took his place closer to the aisle.

On the way, Darcy took out a notebook whose pages were filled with her notes. On a clean sheet, she had a list of libraries and historical settings that might be worth looking at.

They had ruled out The United States as any place Odin would have left the Tesseract. Loki doubted Odin would have dropped it anytime after the fifteenth century at the latest and he most certainly wouldn’t have waited until western culture had spread to the Americas.

Even if he had left it somewhere in the North American continent before Europeans came, the Tesseract would have been left in the hands of a Native American tribe and most of those were destroyed by the racist hands of those who constructed the nation that stood today.

If the Tesseract had fallen into their hands, Loki and Darcy had reason to believe that the capitalists of U.S. history would not have allowed such an object to go unused.

Therefore, most American history was rather useless to them.

Even so, Darcy insisted that they inspect a few of the art museums, claiming that art could sometimes hold secrets and mysteries of the past.

Loki agreed that this was indeed true and he went with her to three different types of art museums. By the time they were halfway through the third it was two in the afternoon and he could tell Darcy was getting frustrated.

She stared at an ornate Ming vase with the kind of contempt one typically reserved for their rivals.

He moved to stand beside her, gently bringing a hand to the junction between her neck and shoulder in order to massage some of the tension from her muscles. She sighed, leaning into his touch. “This shouldn’t be so hard.”

Loki frowned, rubbing his thumbs in circles at the base of her neck, waiting for her body to relax. “Well, it shouldn’t exactly be easy, should it?”

“It just doesn’t make sense,” she groaned, turning her back to his chest and slumping against him. “The Tesseract should have been found! There’s years and years and years of myths and stories and magic…but they’re all so obscure!”

Loki wrapped his arms around her middle, settling his chin on her shoulder, staring at the vase. An intricate blue dragon swirled around the body, the surrounding pattern creeping up the neck of the vase. “Magic and gods were explanations for everything Darcy.”

She snorted. “I know that. But it doesn’t stop it from being any less frustrating. All these traditions and beliefs…they have to stop somewhere…there has to be a defining point where someone…anyone realized that there was something more than just God that made the world spin.”

“I think the word you are searching for is science.” Loki teased, “And that didn’t truly evolve until the twentieth century.”

Darcy let out a gust of air from puffed cheeks. “And of course that’s when governments started keeping things from the people and getting more discreet. Even if something did happen it wouldn’t have been shared publicly or been reported by the media…” she stopped talking, slowly coming to make sense of her own words.

A slow smile formed on Loki’s face as he too came to the realization of this possibility. “Darcy—“

“Loki!” she gasped, breaking away from his embrace and turning to him. Her face split into an unfeasibly wide grin. “It makes sense!”

“Of course it does," he agreed, rubbing his chin in thought. “Odin might have left it sooner, but if it was discovered again…it would have been researched in the name of science rather than magic.”

“And obviously the government isn’t going to want an entire country to know about the top secret artifact they found, so they won’t tell anyone about it, especially when there were so many wars happening.”

Both of them began to pace in opposite directions, necks bent in serious thought. “Yes. But which war? The twentieth century was quite possibly the most progressive and evolutionary time-span in all of Yggdrasil. Things moved too fast. Technology advanced…”

Darcy made a frustrated sound in the back of her throat. “I don’t think it would have been World War I. I mean, weapons technology advanced, but it wasn’t nearly what it could have been. No one was quite so desperate at the beginning of that war either. It was made from military tension and short little political battles in the past century.”

“The Vietnam War?” Loki suggested, remembering the so called ‘Pentagon Papers’ that had been a mystery to the entire public until released. The documents revealed plans of attack that had been kept from not only the people of the United States, but much of the congress as well. It was an excellent show of how much the government kept from its people.

Darcy shook her head. “That’s a bit late, I think. Modern development and land usage would have found wherever the Tesseract was by then. Vietnam and the Cold War were both…well…I don’t know. They don’t seem desperate enough to me. Not to keep something like the Tesseract a secret. It’s science. Science and magic. If it had been discovered that late in the twentieth century there would have been millions of papers published on it.”

Loki agreed with a nod. “World War II then?”

She shrugged her pace increasing in speed. “It makes more sense to me.”

“Indeed,” he muttered, running a hand through his hair. “Where is the nearest World War II museum?”

Darcy’s head snapped up and she pulled her backpack off, procuring her map. “Uhh…let’s see...Oh! Right across the street! My group went there yesterday. I think they wanted to come back today though because we didn’t get to see all of it.”

Loki pressed his lips together. “Would it be possible for us to go anyways?”

“Duh. We just have to avoid being seen. Which is why, yesterday, I bought us these.” She pulled from her bag two baseball caps. One of them was navy blue and the other was black.

He made a face when she handed him the navy blue hat. “It does not go with my outfit.”

Darcy pinched the bridge of her nose in exasperation. “Loki, just put it on.”

He pouted. “Can I at least have the black one?”

They traded and he begrudgingly put on the baseball cap, sneaking a glance at himself on a bit of reflective glass they passed on their way out. “Darcy, I look ridiculous.”

“Says the guy with the ostentatiously horny helm. Just wear the damn hat,” Darcy demanded, taking his hand and pulling him behind her as they walked towards the largest museum he’d seen all day.

Darcy paid for their admission and they explored the exhibits. Despite their frantic search, Loki was rather engaged with the things on display. The aircrafts were impressive. While Asgardian longships had similar motors, they were magically advanced. It was amazing what Midgardian achieved without the aid of magic. He doubted all of them would be able to learn the fundamentals of magic as it related to their sciences as well as Darcy had. She was extraordinary in her abilities to gain knowledge of anything she set her mind to.

They kept their heads low, reading plaques along the way. Loki noticed that Darcy was paying special attention to her surroundings.

At one point, they stopped at a display featuring weaponry in the Navy. Loki was reading about the different battleships and Darcy made a face.

“What is the matter?” he asked, turning to her.

The face she was making intensified and Loki identified it as a cross between irritation and disgust. “Nothing.”

He rolled his eyes, glancing around the room. There were not many people. A security guard stood watching, a heavy-set man in khaki shorts admired a few of the navy suits, and a few girls were seated on a bench holding brochures.

“Nothing?” he questioned suspiciously. “You’re a terrible liar.”

She smirked, “Yeah. I know.” The look on her face softened and she lowered her voice. “The girl in the white shirt has been staring at us since we walked in.” She cast a sideways glance over her shoulder. “Well, not really 'us'. She’s been staring at you.”

Loki cocked a brow, turning to look at the girl. She was indeed staring at him. He caught her eye and she looked away quickly. He frowned down at his friend. “Do you think it is the hat? I told you I look ridiculous.”

Darcy took in a deep breath through her nose, letting it out through her mouth. “Loki, I love you, but you’re so thick. Come on, let’s keep moving.”

Loki shot one last glance at the girl who was peeking up at him through her lashes. He offered her a shy smile, hoping that she realized his atrocious headgear did not define his otherwise charming personality.

He was out of the room before she could return the smile.

After about five minutes of seemingly aimless wandering, he addressed his friend. “Have you found anything yet?”

She sighed, shaking her head. “No. There’s nothing. No political scandals in the U.S. that I haven’t heard of before. Nothing that seems distinctly out of place…”

Loki pressed his lips together, staring ahead at an advertisement for the ‘Captain America Exhibit’. A thought struck him. “Darcy, what if it wasn’t America that had anything to do with it?”

A little crease appeared between her eyebrows and she pushed up her glasses. “Well, yeah. We agreed it was probably some European nation that had it first…why?”

He took her hand, tugging her towards the newfound exhibit, talking fast. “Right before the war, a great deal of German scientists came over to the United States so they would not have to work under Hitler, yes?”

“Yeah…”

“Well…” he began obviously as they entered the darker exhibition area. “Germany! It makes more sense that Odin would have left it in Germany a few years after the war with Jotunheim. Of course it wouldn’t have been Germany back then. But, still, they would have kept it safe for a long period of time.”

“What does that have to do with German scientists?” Darcy asked as he pulled her around a rather large image of Captain America. Darcy was mildly disappointed that she didn’t get to appreciate the spectacle that is America’s most renowned old-timey hero.

Loki made an irritated sound. “What doesn’t it have to do with German scientists? They fled, Darcy! They fled. Someone must have known about it, or someone must have been mad enough to find it. Now…” he pulled them into a corner and took out their map while Darcy looked around the room.

It was probably the busiest exhibit they’d been in thus far, though she paid special attention to a man in a formal suit and tie talking to a security guard. “…the full set. They’re vintage too. I always keep them close.”

The security guard didn’t seem too impressed with the man’s trading cards. “Oh yeah? Where do you keep ‘em, your gym locker?”

The suited man clasped his hands behind his back, turning his attention towards a display of sniper rifles that once belonged to one of Captain America’s Howling Commandos. “Maybe.”

Loki poked the map, looking up to point at a large information board. “There. Darcy, name one of the most accomplished German scientists of that time.”

“Albert Einstein,” she guessed.

Loki looked personally offended and Darcy had the urge to laugh. Darcy liked science, but Loki was, to be honest, a nerd. He swooned over past scientists and their works. He read their biographies and studied their fields. “Darcy, really! We are standing in the middle of an exhibit that wouldn’t have been possible without his genius!” he gestured again to the info board. “Doctor Abraham Erskine? Creator of the formula that turned Steve Rogers into Captain America?”

Memory of Doctor Erskine’s accomplishments rushed back to her and she nodded enthusiastically. “Riiight! This guy. Sorry, I remember now. He moved to America because he felt threatened by that one guy who went rogue from Hitler and had this whole other secret organization called—“

“—Hydra.” Loki breathed, turning her by the shoulders so they faced a smallish table with a brief description of the organization and their leader, :”Johann Schmidt.”

Darcy read the plaque aloud. “HYDRA was originally a branch of Nazi Germany’s deep science division. They researched new ways to create weapons that would ultimately change the war. However, the leader of this division, Johann Schmidt, drove HYDRA into the ground after experimenting on himself with a replica of Dr. Abraham Erskine’s earlier formulas. Schmidt, with the assistance of scientist Armin Zola, was able to set up new weapons laboratories and factories across western Europe that were later taken down by Captain America and his team, the Howling Commandos.”

Loki smiled in a way that Darcy had learned meant trouble and a night full of nothing but textbooks and note-taking. “What do you think?”

But Darcy was drawn to this now. It made sense. “I think it fits. Are there any other descriptions of HYDRA? What they did? How they did it? I know they manufactured advanced weaponry, but there are no elaborations.”

Loki scanned the room. “I don’t see anything. I don’t think there are.”

Darcy’s heart was beating out of her chest and she could feel the energy surging through her. “Loki…oh my gods…Loki this…is it possible? Could the Tesseract be harnessed to create weapons? I mean, I know it’s powerful, but taking that energy? Manipulating it that way? Is it possible?”

Loki read over the plaque again, green eyes burning with intensity. “I think so. It would be difficult. This person, Armin Zola, would have had to have some basic idea of magic to be able to accomplish such a task. And he would have had to do it without the help of an Asgardian. It would have created another branch of scientific study entirely…” he trailed off and he got that starry look in his eye when a scientist did something especially admirable.

Darcy snapped her fingers in front of his face. “Stay with me, Lokes. This is serious. Secret evil weapons manufacturers. Did Schmidt really use one of Erskine’s formulas?”

Loki nodded, thinking back to what he’d read on Erskine. “Yes. Though, it did not have the same effect. Apparently, it turned him insane. After Erskine realized that Schmidt was a monster, he came to America and started working for the government.”

She looked at him curiously. “What branch of the government? I don’t remember reading anything about that.”

Loki pulled down his cap, leading them further away from the crowd of people. “It was very difficult to find the answer to that question. He worked for a group called SHIELD. They were the supporting foundation for Captain Amer—“

"What?"

Loki frowned at her, "What do you mean, 'What'?"

Her blue eyes became unfocused for a moment as she thought. "I haven't heard of SHIELD. Loki, government are my things. Why don't I know about it?"

Shifting uncomfortably, Loki debated telling Darcy a lie. Admittedly, he had done some 'exploring' on Midgard without her. Not far, just poking around here and there, getting more closely acquainted with the mortals. They were quite a lively bunch and much more culturally diverse than Asgardians. They were not the primitive people Aesir believed them to be. Darcy knew of his lonely excursions that he took while she was at school and agreed to them only because he had only ventured out on his own twice. 

The first time, he had sought to find better books. Naturally, he wanted first edition copies of ancient texts. He wanted old things that held clues as to where the Tesseract could be. To do this, he traveled to several wealthy Midgardian universities, many of which held texts worth considerable amounts of money that the public was unable to see. Loki, as it happened, was not part of the average Midgardian public and magically found his way to the books undetected. Unfortunately, his efforts had been wasted. There was nothing that could help him there. 

The second time was an errand he originally meant to run for Darcy. She wanted to know more about 'gamma radiation', claiming that it was possible the tesseract could give off some sort of trace with these. Well, little did his dear friend know that there were not many places that just left gamma rays laying about. He didn't know how they worked. Sure he knew 'in theory' but he was a sorcerer. Sorcerers never accomplished anything with theory. The word made him cringe. He discovered a facility that housed such an interesting device somewhere in New Mexico that had taken him a full two hours to find and teleport to. Sadly, once he got there, he realized the facility had long since been destroyed and there was no such ray there for him to investigate. 

Because teleporting across the United States was not easy work, Loki choose to bide his time and build up his strength. He scouted the remains of what used to be the lab, keeping an eye out for anything entertaining or an indication as to what had eradicated such a structure. In fact, he was so caught up in his explorations that he did not notice the approaching of a black car until it was nearly too late. He turned himself invisible and waited for the occupants of the car to step into the light. They did and Loki searched their minds quickly. 

On most occasions, Loki tended to steer clear of flicking through the thoughts of others. But when danger threatened on the horizon...well, he did promise Darcy that he would figure out how to explain gamma radiation to her. The minds of those men had proved to be quite informative. Upon quick but thorough search through their brains, it was clear they worked of a covert organization named SHIELD. He hadn't been too concerned with that and he immediately made the connection to his current favorite scientist, Dr. Abraham Erskine. What he found interesting was the fact that one of them had memories of a gamma ray. He was not in the practice of extricating memories from a person and he overexerted himself. Hours later, he woke up in the sand. Drained, but had enough magic in him to teleport back to Darcy's room and faint in her bed. He didn't wake up until the next morning, at which point Darcy was already pushing him for information about gamma radiation. He told her what he could and the memory of SHIELD stayed with him as an unimportant detail. 

He knew they were secret, but he did not know they were so discreet to go undiscovered by the keen eye of Darcy Lewis. 

"Loki..." Darcy brought him back from his memories with her challenging tone. 

Holding up his hands, he sought to set her at ease. "Let me explain..." the truth flowed from him like water and Darcy gave him a disbelieving look. 

"Why didn't you tell me this sooner?" she asked. 

He shrugged, "It seemed unimportant."

She sighed, "Well, maybe if you had told me sooner, I would know who these 'SHIELD' people are. I have no idea!"

Loki licked his lips in thought, "I believe their earlier name, used around the time of Dr. Erskine and Captain America was the Strategic Scientific Reserve? The S-"

“Peggy Carter!” Darcy nearly shouted and Loki had to put his hands on her shoulders to stop her incessant bouncing.

“What?”

Darcy looked like she could beat him with Captain America’s shield. “Loki…Loki come on. Peggy Freaking Carter? She was, like, one of the founding members of the SSR. Of course I know what SHIELD is! You do realize that Peggy Carter is my hero. She was...is...the absolute best. I don’t know a whole lot about her younger years, there isn’t a whole lot of information about that other than the fact that she was Captain America’s go-to lady when it came to figuring out strategy.

“That and she pretty much created the SSR. And she was one of the most powerful women in the world at one point. She didn’t take anything from anybody!” Darcy sighed and turned to stare at a large, blown up image of Peggy Carter. “Isn’t she beautiful?”

Loki nodded in agreement. “She is a very accomplished woman. How much information is there about her and SHIELD?”

Darcy shook her head. “Not a whole lot. There’s hardly anything actually.”

“That is unusual, I think." Loki said, staring vacantly at Captain America's motorcycle. "The SSR did not bother to hide their work with Steve Rogers after he became Captain America. Well, at the very least, they did not hide their existence from the public."

“Obviously they changed their priorities at some point,” Darcy muttered, taking his hand and leading them to a dark area, reminiscent of a theatre. A few short benches were splayed out, though none of them were occupied.

A short movie about Captain America was playing and showing videos of his USO tour before he became the legendary hero mortals recognized him as today.

They sat through the film watching interviews of Captain Steve Rogers. In many of the takes he was accompanied by a slightly shorter man with brown hair and an incredibly cocky grin. And by the looks he was giving Captain Rogers and the familiar way the two interacted, Loki would have to guess they were a bit more than just childhood friends.

Darcy leaned her head on his shoulder and the rim of her hat poked his chin. He didn’t mind. “James Barnes. That’s his friend.”

Loki smirked. “His special friend.”

Darcy pursed her lips. “Seriously?”

He shrugged, wrapping his arm around her shoulders. “It looks like it. They seem incredibly close and it is never uncommon for men at war to become involved.”

“But…Peggy Carter,” Darcy replied.

Mirth filled his eyes. “Yes, I think he liked her as well.”

Darcy couldn’t help but laugh. “Okay, sure. Why not? They both seem pretty amazing. I’d take both.”

“Really?” Loki questioned, considering Captain Rogers’ partners. “He most certainly was partial, wasn’t he?”

“Partial?” Darcy snorted, blinking the admiration from her eyes in order to see past the magnificence of Peggy Carter. “Loki, please tell me you aren’t talking about figure types.”

“Darcy, you cannot deny, both James Barnes and Peggy Carter had very muscled thighs.” He defended his point as the three of them started laughing on screen. It wasn’t outright hysteria, and their faces adhered to a certain seriousness that Loki assumed came with war. But it was a splash of happiness, a hint at an inside joke that the rest of the world may never know.

Darcy watched the film for a few more seconds before responding. “I guess so. But he would have liked them more than just their thighs. Maybe he just really liked sassy brunettes.”

James Barnes donned a settled kind of look as he watched Captain America talk. The words being said weren’t especially important. He was only giving words of encouragement about the armies’ accomplishments, none of his own or of SHIELD’s. James Barnes was expressive in ways he had probably been unaware of. It made him seem younger to Loki, like he could truly identify with the soldier.

Because Loki knew that James Barnes was giving Steve Rogers the same look he gave Darcy on a daily basis. She was a little person who regularly endangered herself if he didn’t look after her constantly.

Then she would prance around with her big, innocent, easy-to-read eyes and act like she hadn’t just gotten them in heaps of trouble. Or just herself. Like that one time, on Jotunheim when she openly offended a monstrous Frost Giant.

Or perhaps that other time when she—

“Darcy?” he glanced to the empty seat next to him, then around the rest of the theatre. The film was over and he had somehow lost Darcy. “Odin smite me,” he muttered, hurrying out of the dark room.

He scanned the exhibit, panic starting to settle in, when he spotted her absurd hat near the edge of the room. Breathing a sigh of relief, he approached her, acknowledging that she had sprung up conversation with one of the museum employees. He was currently speaking to her in a lighthearted tone, “Oh no, we don’t have any of that kind of information. But I’m sure if you go to one of the libraries around here, you should be able to find something more on HYDRA and SHIELD. You know the Triskelion is their headquarters and that’s here in DC. The libraries are sure to have one thing or another.”

Darcy nodded, offering the worker a kind smile. “Thank you, Sir.”

“No problem, young lady,” he sighed. “Good to see kids so interested in their history.”

She grabbed Loki's hand, eagerly tugging him away. Once they were out of the museum she let out a distressed groan. “Ugh! That man knew nothing! Did he really just think that we could walk into a library and pull out a book on SHIELD? Like I haven’t tried that! There. Is. Nothing,” she sniffed, plopping face down on the grass in defeat. “And I’m hungry.”

Loki sighed, getting down onto his knees beside his friend and opening her backpack. After shuffling around, he found her cell phone and checked the time. “We’ve missed lunch.”

“I have granola bars,” she mumbled into the earth.

Rooting around some more, his fingers came in contact with the plastic wrapper of a granola bar. She sat up and split the snack with him. “This is miserable.”

“Why?” he asked, taking a bite of his granola. It was sweet and he wondered if he could discreetly get away with conjuring a bottle of water.

“Because!” Darcy yelled, ripping off her hat and shoving it in her bag. “SHIELD probably has all of their important information either in the Triskelion or inside one of their databases, which we wouldn’t be allowed access to anyways.”

Loki thought over her last statement while slowly chewing the last of his granola bar. “Why would we need permission?”

Darcy blinked at him. “I never said we did. I just said we weren’t allowed.”

Mischief overcame his features and Darcy had an urge to shield that look from the public. Anyone who saw his face would know he was up to something. “Loki…”

“Come.” He said, standing up and tearing off his hat. “Let’s go to the library. I have a plan.”

                                                               ***

“No.” Darcy said shaking her head and turning away from the computer. “No. Nope. Nopity. Nope. No.”

“Darcy,” Loki said in a reasoning tone. “It makes sense.”

She made a frustrated noise in the back of her throat. “Yeah, it makes sense, but it’s also illegal. You might not have to live in this country, but I do.”

Loki desperately wanted to point out that she was always free to come and live on Asgard, but he refrained from doing so. It would not help him get his way. “You will not get caught. Besides, it will be completely unidentifiable how I did it or who did it. They will only know that it was routed through this computer.” He gestured to the library’s thick hard drive.

Darcy lowered her voice to an angry whisper. “Hacking into SHIELD’s database with magic is really not the most secretive we can be.”

He leaned forwards on his elbows, “Do you have any other options? Please, do share them.” She said nothing and so he continued in a pleadingly logical manner. “Darcy, it is the simple matter of obtaining information. We aren’t trying to do them any damage, we are only working to gain knowledge about a certain lost artifact.”

She sighed, letting her forehead fall against his. “Don’t use that Silvertongue on me, Loki. If we do this, there are going to be consequences. You can open it up easy enough, but SHIELD is likely to have a really great firewall. Do you know enough to keep them from detecting us?”

Loki thought back to all he had learned of computers. Really, he found them fascinating and it gave him hope that Midgardians knew a bit more about magic than he was first led to believe. He discovered a while back that he could easily manipulate code using the same sort of mathematical transference he did to relate magic to science.

Though he was very good at this, he’d never really hacked anything before. The prospect seemed fun. This was the perfect opportunity to test out what he knew while gaining them possible knowledge about the location of the Tesseract.

He referred to Darcy’s question thoughtfully. How long could he keep SHIELD from detecting them? He could sense Darcy’s impatience and he took her hand. “One moment. I need to think.”

She nodded, siding up to him and voicing her thoughts. “If you’re going to use this computer as our main-frame, we won’t go undetected for long.”

Loki agreed, thinking things through rather quickly. Magic and science were so closely related that they had become one in the same for Loki. Discerning one from the other seemed nonsensical at best. Computer science, as Loki understood it, offered more of a connecting support between the two fields. What could be done with programming was so very close to magic. It was just the mechanics that created the dividing barrier.

That and the technology was not advanced enough.

He had a theory that in the upcoming future Midgardian technology would progress to the point where it could sustain his magic entirely. The machines and his energy would be able to work harmoniously. The technology was dough and Loki had the power to knead it however he liked.

The only problem was his dough was not quite so put together yet. It was too sticky and too wet and if he tried to make bread, surely its consumers would sense something’s amiss.

Using the library computer as a conduit for his magic would be acceptable, but not flawless. He would be able to use it to get through SHIELD’s firewall, but only for a limited time frame.

“You’re right,” he said, letting his gaze rest on Darcy’s face. “I can get us ten minutes. Exactly ten minutes.”

Darcy pressed her lips together, taking out her notebook. “We need to find some way to organize this. If we only have ten minutes to search through SHIELD’s main hard drive, we have to pick our viewing content ahead of time. We have to know what we’re looking for.”

“HYDRA.” Loki answered her unspoken question. “Write down only the important things.”

“We need to be more specific than just HYDRA.” She sighed, removing her glasses in frustration. “Alright. I’ll time us. We’ll have two minutes to figure out the organization of the database. Once we know that, we should be able to find anything we need.”

“Very well,” Loki agreed, pressing his palms to the hard drive. “I await your word.”

She looked to the clock, counting down the seconds till the minute hand hit the twelve. “Five…four…three…two…one.” The clock struck four and Loki channeled his magic into the computer.

It felt sluggish. Getting past the inner workings of such complex science through such rudimentary technology was like being a modern engineer and only having the wheel to work with.

It was a miserable three seconds before SHIELD’s firewall was breached. “We’re in.”

The screen lit up with file upon file of data and Darcy moved through it with her fingers trembling from adrenaline. Loki read the screen, and picking up Darcy’s notebook. “What have we got?”

Darcy shook her head. “Everything is stored under this firewall. Every single person’s file, salary. Any money that was ever spent. Every penny given to SHIELD is open to us. I haven’t found any way to search it.”

Loki pushed the notebook into her lap, his hands taking place of hers on the keyboard. “Sometimes I wonder,” he began, typing in a few commands and giving them a magical boost, “how Midgardians do anything without magic.”

The screen blurred for a moment before a file labeled ‘Unknown’ popped up. “Start reading,” Loki instructed and Darcy did so, her hand flying across the sheet faster than he could read the words, which was saying something.

He skimmed through, searching for mention of HYDRA. He was surprised about how very little there was. Why was there so little?

One precious minute passed before he found something. “Here, Darcy.” He indicated to the lines of text before reading them aloud. “It is unclear what powered the HYDRA weapons. Doctor Armin Zola, SHIELD’s main source of information about HYDRA and its leader, Johann Schmidt, claims that he does not know. The source of power was a mystery even to him. Several HYDRA weapons are in SHIELD custody and have been studied. Their power source is unknown to SHIELD.”

Darcy groaned, slamming her pen down. “Find what they have on the HYDRA weapons. Or this ‘Armin Zola’ guy. He didn’t just work for Johann Schmidt and not know what powered the weapons he helped invent.”

Loki searched the database again, taking ten seconds to read over Darcy’s notes. “Why did you write that down?”

“Write what down?” Darcy asked, eyes trained on the computer screen.

Loki squinted to read her tiny handwriting. “The disappearance of Peter Quill?”

She shrugged. “It had a reason for being in SHIELD’s unknown file. They wouldn’t just keep a document of any missing kid.”

Loki agreed, but he didn’t think it would be all that useful if they were searching for infinity stones. Finally, he booted up an image of the HYDRA weapons, accompanied by a report of their functions.

Darcy read through it, taking notes, and sketching a quick drawing of the weapon. “It’s mechanical.”

“What?” Loki asked distractedly.

“The functions on it are mechanical, but not combustible,” Darcy pointed out. “Whatever it was that made HYDRA’s weapons so dangerous, it was in the ammunition.”

“And they haven’t got any of that,” he muttered, eyes flicking over the screen.

Five minutes left.

“Find Armin Zola.”

Loki did so, and a few seconds later, the screen was filled with everything SHIELD knew about the doctor. “He turned over to SHIELD after being captured.”

Darcy hummed, the tip of her pen flying. “Is it safe to assume he wasn’t really on their side?”

“Yes,” Loki affirmed. “Apparently, even SHIELD didn’t think he was on their side. He gave away a lot of Schmidt’s plans, but not important ones. All of them lead to dead ends. He discovered that he had a terminal illness and spent the next few years on an unknown project. It doesn’t say he did a lot to help SHIELD actually.”

Darcy wrote down what she could on the page and shook her head. “The secret to this isn’t Armin Zola. He died a faithful HYDRA member, even if he didn’t get a chance to spread the idea around.  We need something more substantial. We need the location.”

She looked at the clock.

Three minutes remained.

“Okay, we can assume, for the time being, that it was the Tesseract that was the key power source in making these weapons.” Darcy reasoned, subconsciously making little marks on the paper with her pen. “But if the powerful part of the weapon was in the ammunition, they would have had to find some way to either harness the power or use the Tesseract to get the power from some other place.”

Loki thought with all his might, clamping a hand over his eyes. “The Tesseract would have been extremely unstable no matter what they did with it. The infinity stones…I am not sure but I believe they are almost sentient. It would have been extremely docile for a very long time. Perhaps it would have been more cooperative towards their efforts if it meant having something to do.”

She groaned, pressing her palms over her eyes. “Who was that guy?”

“Be more specific Darcy. There are quite a lot of ‘guys’ in history.”

She made frantic hand gestures as the seconds ticked by. “The inventor guy with all the money that pretty much took over independent weapons manufacturing after WWII. The face of freaking Capitalism. He had a son…Like, ‘Birdie’ or something?”

Loki shook his head. “Stark. Howard Stark.”

Darcy snapped her fingers. “Yes. Him. He led a search, didn’t he? To find Captain America and the HYDRA ship he crashed. Did he find anything?”

Quickly, Loki pulled up Howard Stark’s file and skimmed through it, shaking his head. “No. He didn’t find anything of use. Well…maybe. There’s something noted as ‘strange wreckage’ but there isn’t anything else…” his eye caught something. “Wait a minute…”

“What?” Darcy asked, picking up her pen again.

“On Captain America’s first unofficial mission into a HYDRA base, he brought something back with him. Howard Stark did experiments with it. They didn’t get very far because the samples of the weapons they had were too unstable. Everything kept exploding. They didn’t have the proper technology to analyze it.”

Darcy made a panicked sound.

One minute left.

“So, since none of this was ever figured out, we can assume that SHIELD does not have the Tesseract and it is somewhere under the sea?”

Loki made an oblivious gesture. “If it went down with Steve Rogers, then yes. But it could have been moved to another place. Johann Schmidt could have left it somewhere.”

Darcy stabbed her noted with her pen. “But where the hell did he find it?”

“I don’t know.”

“Agh!” Darcy screamed, far too loudly for a library. “Look up churches!”

Loki gave her a sideways glace, “Darcy…”

“Loki, we are talking about the death of all things religious and the rise and evolution of science. There is a very small, practically miniscule chance that a church has an answer. Churches were preserved and treasured and restored because people cared about tradition. If anything precious and powerful was being kept in Western Europe before WWII, it would have been kept in a church because people called science ‘divine intervention’! Search the damn churches!”

Loki searched the damn churches. “Fine! There they are, what do you need from them?”

“Look for ones that were weird. Ones that were destroyed ones that—“

The screen went dark. Their time had run out.

“Shit,” Darcy swore and Loki glared at her disapprovingly.

She crossed her arms. “Don’t look at me like that. This is a shitty situation.”

He sighed. “You are not wrong.” Carefully, he withdrew his magic from the hard drive. “We need to leave here. No doubt SHIELD has tracked where the breach came from. My magic is unidentifiable, but they will know that it was this computer that was used.”

Darcy gathered up their stuff, shoving her glasses back on her face. She picked up the notebook. “Can you put this in my bedroom? Like, magically? I don’t want to lose it.”

“Of course,” he said, taking the book and magicking it away.

Once Darcy’s bag was on her back, they hurried from the library, heads bent in conversation.

“Loki, how is your magic untraceable, yet the computer is?” she inquired as they rounded a corner.

He spoke in a low voice, loud enough for only her to hear. “Midgardian technology is extremely behind what it could be, though I expect it to advance in the next few years. Nevertheless, what I did was seemingly impossible by Midgardian standards. It was like a set of gears. In order to make SHIELD’s gear turn clockwise, I had to turn the gear at the library turn counter-clockwise. If the technology had been more advanced, I would have been able to separate SHIELD entirely and make it go any which way I wanted,” he explained. “I have a book. I’ll lend it to you.”

Darcy sighed, running a hand through her hair. “I feel like I’m really behind on science. Being an advisor is really time consuming.”

Loki shook his head, wrapping an arm around her shoulders. “Darcy, you are in no way behind. You have extended your studies towards political science, as it interests you and is far more beneficial to you.”

“Technically speaking,” Darcy said, leaning into his side, “Political Science would be better for you to learn as well. If you’re going to be king someday…”

Loki pressed his lips together. “If I am to be king…. Darcy, I am not even sure I wish to be King of Asgard.”

She smiled like this wasn’t a surprise to her. “Really? I had no idea.”

“Was that sarcasm?” he asked, causing her to laugh.

“Oh, come on, Loki,” she teased, elbowing him in the ribs. “I know you better than that. You’d be bored as King of Asgard. You’d hate every second of ruling except for the parts where you could cause trouble.”

“That is very true,” he admitted, giving his friend a sad smile. “But it isn’t up to me and I do not know who the Allfather would prefer to make King.”

Darcy opened her pouty mouth to respond when something caught her eye on the other side of the street they were walking on. The sidewalk was less crowded now, though still full of people as it was only a bit passed four.

There was a very distinct looking man in a suit, and he was looking right at them. Darcy recovered her smile and physically urged him to keep moving forwards.

He gave her a full smile, questioning her suspicion through his teeth. “What have you seen?”

Darcy shrugged out from under his arm, taking his hand was they walked. In the process, she managed a quick glance over their shoulders. “We’re being followed,” she said keeping a steady grin. “Two men behind us, three across the street, one walking towards us from a block away. Do you see?”

Loki did see, eventually. “How did you catch that so fast?”

Darcy giggled falsely, pointing towards a building, indicating that they should turn the corner. Loki did so and he imagined that they might look like a couple rather than friends. He found that idea strangely funny and he wondered how Darcy felt about it. Now was not the time to ask. “Loki, attention to detail is basically my life. Seriously, it’s my job. Oh my god.”

Her face slacked for a moment and Loki fought the urge to roll his eyes. Darcy was good at seeing things, but her face always revealed the truth. He feigned concern, covering her blunder by bringing the back of her hand to his lips, pretending that she’d hurt it.

She smirked at him as he kissed her knuckles. “There are more up there. We won’t be able to get out of this. How did they know it was us so quickly?”

Loki shook his head, keeping his eyes away from the throng of people. “We were the only ones in the library. They had ten minutes to figure out where it came from. The Triskelion is only half of a mile west from where we stand.”

Darcy let her forehead fall against Loki’s chest. “I didn’t really want to be arrested today. I actually like being alive, did you know that?”

Patting her back reassuringly, Loki suppressed a laugh. “Quit being dramatic, Darcy. The man approaching us from my right, your left, is SHIELD, he has a badge and is pulling it out of his coat, no doubt preparing to show it to us if need be. They have no proof that we did anything. They have no reason to take us but suspicion. You have no reason to tell them anything.”

She snorted. “As if I didn’t know my own rights.”

“Excuse me, children.” Interrupted a cool male voice. “I’m going to have to ask you to come with us for some questioning.”

Loki shot Darcy a warning look that clearly said, ‘Do not kill the man for referring to us as children.’

Thankfully, Darcy got the message and was looking up at the man with wide, seemingly innocent eyes. “I don’t want to be kidnapped.”

The man pulled out his card as Loki had predicted and showed it to Darcy. “I’m one of the good guys. We just want to ask you a few questions.”

Loki thought this would be a rather fantastic opportunity. Being questioned always entailed that someone had to communicate with them. And if it was someone who knew something, Loki was sure they could wean out some information.

Darcy’s mouth clearly had other plans as it was finding a way, once again, to ruin everything in just a few short words. “Why don’t you just ask me here?”

The man answered calmly, but it was obvious that he was losing his patience quickly. “Because the questions we have to ask are very important.” A sleek black SUV pulled up to the curb and the man opened the car door, gesturing for them to get inside.

Darcy frowned. “I’ve been warned about kidnapping. And this looks like kidnapping. Why do you want to question us?”

Loki squeezed her hand, not speaking. Not yet. While he was rather wonderful at getting his way through words, part of the magic in speaking was making your words important enough to be heard. He could not establish himself as Darcy’s negotiator immediately.

She would be the resilient annoying one. Any questions they gave Darcy would be turned away with a ridiculous amount of sass. And when they had enough, anything he could say to them would be a blessing.

Darcy looked up at him to see the plan brewing in his eyes, his face neatly composed to the rest of the public. She turned to the now irritated man holding the car door open. “One moment please.”

Loki turned them around so their backs were to the men. Darcy spoke in a voice low enough so they wouldn’t be able to tell that she had switched dialects. She scolded him in the language of the Light Elves. “Loki, I am not lying to government officials!”

“Good. You’re a terrible liar,” he responded in kind. “I will do the lying. Do what you can with the truth. Avoid answering if you can.”

She snorted and the SHIELD agent behind them cleared his throat. “Break up your little conversation. If you don’t come now, I won’t ask nicely again. Get your asses in the car.”

Darcy glowered up at the man. “Do you kiss your mom with that mouth?”

Loki elbowed her in the ribs. He’d like to make it to the Triskelion without fighting off trained men with guns.

Before the man could say anything, Darcy sighed, getting in the car and throwing her hands in the air.  “Fine. We’ll go, but only if I get candy, food, or puppies. I’m not getting kidnapped without one of the three.”

                                                                  ***

Hel had been following the two pesky little animals for hours.

She had been following them for hours because they had not stopped running/slithering at full speed for hours.

Which meant that she, Hel, horse to Lady Darcy and her Prince Loki, must follow around these two tiny creatures just to make sure they did not get themselves hurt.

It was a trying task. One might think that a dog would have enough common sense not to bark at a bilgesnipe four times its size. One might also think that an infinite serpent would have enough instinctual knowledge not to provoke said bilgesnipe (and its friends) further. But no. They disturbed a herd of bilgesnipe.

They could not settle for a singular bilgesnipe; what a silly notion. No, they had to go and incite the entire herd.

Idiots.

She should have let them be eaten. She really should have. Fenrir and Frank could have had a frolicking time, chasing, and being chased by, smelly beasts around the Asgardian country side. But she didn’t let them. No, Hel was a worthy horse to a prince and she was not going to disrespect him or his lady by letting wild animals eat their pets.

That, and, though she hated to admit it, she did care a great deal for these ridiculous little things. She would hate for them to be gone from her.

Hel huffed, galloping bitterly after the two scoundrels. They were running through a field now. A very large, very empty field. It was strange to Hel that a field such as this could be as empty as it was. The ground was fertile and the water nearby was rich with minerals. She sensed about her being, an air of magic.

Hel thought this was strange until she realized where they were. Based on the location of the nearest mountain range and the position of the rising moons, she decided they were near the border of Nornheim.

It made sense to her now, why there would be no inhabitants of the field. Norns hated magic. Well, most Norns anyways.

Her bones clicked as the ground beneath her hooves became more solid. A short distance ahead of her, Frank threw himself into a thicket of trees.

Hel was about to be furious. If she had to follow both of these outrageous little cretins through another obstacle, she was going to bite them in two.

Fenrir’s tongue lolled in a way that meant there was either food or trouble awaiting him. Hel was prepared to think it was the latter.

Flicking her tail, she gathered her pride. She was Hel. She could do anything. Anything included looking after these miserable diminutive beasts and dealing with their…shenanigans.

She would take them by their scruffs and drag them through the shadows if she had to, but she wasn’t going to let them bother anymore peaceful animals. The nine realms were at rest there was no need to disturb them.

She stomped through the thicket after the two brainless fools, preparing to root her way around wet mud and twining undergrowth. Instead, her hooves found grass.

Hel loved grass. It was soft and comfortable to lie on. The field near the passage to Darcy’s home was her favorite spot. The grass there was the freshest she’d come across. It was safe there and few came to that place.

This grass was very much like that grass. It was damp and clean and was greener than her little prince’s eyes. She was about to bend her neck and taste some of the fine vegetation beneath her when she heard a voice.

It was not the screeching cry of an enraged griffin or the thundering snort of a bilgesnipe. It was a woman’s voice and a very familiar woman’s voice at that.

“Oh! My little wolf! And little serpent! Look at how big you’ve gotten my friends! Oh, come here, let me hold you!”

Hel would recognize that voice anywhere. It was the Apple Lady.

Quickly, she lifted her head from the lovely grass, aware now that she would never put anything from this cursed orchard in her mouth. She looked around, searching for her little animals. She could tell, both by looking at them and the speed at which they ran, that neither were purely just animals any longer. Clearly, magic had played its part on them. Yet, they had seemed to be in good health, so she did not question it.

Now she had no need for her inquiry. Any potential questions she had were answered by their familiarity with the Apple Lady.

She saw them, sitting in the arms of her.

That Apple Lady had an old soul. Hel could see her age like none other. After all, she was the grower of eternity, the distributer of eternal youth. Hel had seen souls age without their bodies and this Apple Lady offended her with her choice to influence fear of death.

A fruit that makes you live forever all in exchange for a price of her asking.

And who would want to die when they could live forever?

Hel did not like those who feared death. She found them weak. Cowardice. Death was no more to fear than life, especially since the two had so very much to do with each other.

That’s why she liked Darcy and Loki. Neither feared death. Neither feared life. They had taken both under their wings and accepted them as friends. Lady Darcy and her prince were the only kind of people that Hel thought should treat themselves to one of the Apple Lady’s disastrous fruits.

She saw from a distance the foretold orchard that consisted of three trees set in a field of sweet grass. Golden apples swung alluringly from the delicate branches of their trees. They were round and budding from the dying petals of their past blossoms. It warmed Hel to know that something as natural as time and proper aging was the only thing to make those magic fruits ripen. From budding seed to luscious blossom, the fruit would come in time.

In the back of the orchard, settled amongst the trees was a white house, crafted from fine stone and earthen metals. It looked very much like a glorified Asgardian farm house. Sitting on the stairs leading up to a wide balcony on the second floor was the Apple Lady looking as youthful as ever she was with her black hair, magical aura, and elderly soul.

Cradled in her arms were the troublemakers that Hel was convinced had no brains. Frank and Fenrir had only lust for life and no thoughts of death, primal or otherwise. They were strange to Hel. They thought not of their own lives, but rather their happiness and what pleased them. And more often than not, they demonstrated their care for Loki and his Darcy was greater than anything.

It was endearing to Hel how they forgot themselves. As frustrating as they were to look after, she could never hate them. Their immortality meant nothing to them but the ability to run faster. She wondered what it would be like if everyone were to live without that kind of fear.

Hel timidly approached the orchard, stepping beneath the trees. She had come often to spy upon the Apple Lady in order to see what would influence someone to avoid death at such a cost.

In this tiny woman’s case, it was loneliness. Hel found this rather amusing, for it was her creation of the fruit and her experiments that drove her to isolation, and because of it she was forever alone, safeguarding the golden fruits that had become an Asgardian trademark.

Frank and Fenrir were never ones to leave anyone feeling lonely no matter how silly their decisions were.

Silently, she knelt in the grass, folding her legs beneath her and getting comfortable in the shade of the trees. It was evening, and the setting sun was just visible over the roof of the Apple Lady’s house. She would let Frank and Fenrir visit for a while before she returned them home. The Apple Lady was their friend and she would watch over them from the shadows. An orchard of fear was no place for a horse such as herself.

                                                               ***

“What have we got?” Coulson asked, pacing quickly down one of SHIELD’s many corridors.

It had been a fairly unproductive day. So unproductive that he’d been able to take a lunch break down at the WWII museum. He’d come back, done what needed to be done and was preparing to meet the Director in New York for an update on their most recent security protocols when everything started going downhill.

SHIELD had just faced their largest security breach of all time.

Their main database had been exposed ten minutes before they were able to shut it down. The best they could do in terms of discovering the identity of the culprit was trace the source to a library computer a few blocks from the Triskelion, a library which only three people occupied. The computer used was a public one, linked to a public server. A couple minutes after they shut down the breech, two of the occupants left the library.

Agent Sitwell walked in his wake, answering eagerly. “Two kids. One girl. One boy. They’re in interrogation cell 12.”

Coulson maintained composure. “Children?” He knew it wasn’t uncommon for criminal organizations and SHIELD threats to train children as assets, but setting them in a public library seemed far too risky. Not unless they wanted to be caught.

“Bring around extra security. Clear all personnel under level 5 to the main floor,” he told Sitwell, making a right turn into the interrogation sector of the Triskelion.

Sitwell repeated the instruction urgently into his headpiece and Coulson stepped inside the observation room for interrogation cell 12.

Laptops lined the back wall, each being tended to by an agent. The front of the room was clear, leaving the wide viewing window into the interrogation cell visually clear and accessible.

Each interrogation cell was installed with soundproof walls, a two-way mirror, a plain metal table and two chairs, one for the interrogator and one for the patron.

A third chair had been added for the sake of the two children.

Coulson stared through the observer’s side of the two-way mirror and decided that the two ‘children’ looked more like adolescents.

He noticed the girl first, mainly because she was the one talking. Blue eyes. Brown hair. Height…around 158 centimeters. There was no interrogator and the boy didn’t seem to be paying her any mind, but she was talking sulkily, none the less, about what kind of puppies she expected her ‘kidnappers’ to give her. It was a strange behavior. She didn’t seem scared in the least, just very…very irritated. It was almost cute. It was a puzzling reaction from anyone taken into SHIELD custody.

The boy was just as enigmatic. Green eyes. Black hair. Height…roughly 170 centimeters. He was slouching, though it did not look entirely improper. If anyone were to ask Coulson to describe the boy’s demeanor, he might have used the word regal because of how proud he looked. He was staring straight at the mirror, thin lips turned up in a positively mischievous smirk.

Coulson was not easily unnerved and he especially wasn’t unnerved by children. But that smirk made him want to order Sitwell to clear out everyone under level 7.

In the next second, the smirk was gone. The boy’s face was as blank and as pale as it probably had ever been.

Sitwell was explaining their situation. “So far, he hasn’t said anything. The girl has done all the talking, but she isn’t saying much.”

“Names?”

Sitwell shook his head. “She adamantly refused to give away any personal information. We confiscated her backpack and everything they had on them. No school ID. No passports. No credit cards. No cellular devices.”

“Did you find any kind of identifying material?” Coulson asked. “Where are their parents?”

“No parents nearby. It’s possible they’re part of a school group, but we don’t know for sure.” Sitwell walked to the center of the room where an empty purple backpack laid, its contents spilled over the table. Three empty snack wrappers, a collection of crumpled museum brochures, a folder, a few creased twenty dollar bills and a glasses case.

Coulson picked up the folder, opening it and finding a sheet of paper that looked like it was torn from a notebook. On it, written in purple ink was a list of museums. He handed the list to Sitwell. “Have someone pull up the security footage from these museums. See what you can find. Has someone run an identity check on these two?”

“Sir, systems are down.” Sitwell informed him again. “We had enough time to ring up a DNA check with the girl. A bit of hair was caught in her glasses.” He picked up the glasses case, opening it to reveal a pair of black rimmed spectacles. “We couldn’t find anything. But that isn’t uncommon with children. They could be anyone.”

Coulson spoke evenly, mentally running through his options. “Get me the footage from these museums. Go to the buildings and ask them in person if you have to.” He looked to the three people in the back of the room who were typing furiously at the computers, trying to get systems up and running. “The priority right now is to figure out how are firewall was breached, who breached it and why.”

There was a flurry of busy sounds while agents hurried to fulfill his orders.

“Agent Sohil.” Coulson addressed the tall dark haired woman in the corner of the room. She was leaning over another agent’s shoulder, rapidly whispering instruction.

“Sir,” she replied, standing up straight.

He folded his hands in front of him. “You are head of Interrogation. Get someone to question them.”

Agent Sohil nodded, stepping forwards. “I thought I might do it, Agent Coulson. They’re children. The rest of the interrogators I have in state are men.”

Coulson gave her a questioning glance.

She held her hands up defensively. “It’s nothing personal. It’s proven that children are more willing to cooperate when faced with women rather than men. Scare tactics would seem…immoral with children.”

He nodded his consent. He was no stranger to interrogations. High pressure situations called for someone who could wean information from the toughest of mouths while maintaining as much patience as possible. He had little experience with adolescents and these ones seemed especially tricky.

So, he and the rest of the SHIELD agents of Interrogation cell 12’s observation room stood by while Agent Sohil stepped into the room.

Coulson watched them through the mirror; their voices were projected through a speaker in the ceiling.

“Can you tell me your name, sweetheart?” Agent Sohil asked kindly.

The girl scowled at being referred to as such. “Can you tell me your name, Woman-who-did-not-bring-me-a-puppy?”

Agent Grey smiled in good humor. “I am Agent Hamida Sohil.”

The girl crossed her arms. “How do I know you’re not lying? This place is full of liars. You look like a liar. And believe me I know what a liar looks like when I see one.”

Agent Sohil kept her face complacent, showing the girl her SHIELD ID card. Coulson noted that the boy was not even paying attention to the conversation. He simply sat in his chair, staring thoughtfully at his reflection in the two sided mirror.

The girl smiled at the card. “Ooo, look at you. Level 5. That must be nice. The guy that picked us up was only a level 2. He was a tool.”

Agent Sohil offered a friendly laugh, one the girl seemed to take personal offense to. “What made him qualify as a tool?”

The girl tapped her chin in mock-confusion, cocking her head to the side. “Gee, I don’t know. Maybe it was the part where he kidnapped me and then put me in this room with no food, candies, or puppies!”

She huffed, propping her chin on her hand, her lips forming a rather charming pout. Coulson had no doubts that she was a teenager. Sarcasm was hardly used by anyone under the age of ten.

The conversation went on like that for a while. Sohil would ask a question, the girl would answer with a complaint about her lack of food, candies, and puppies and the boy would say nothing.

Coulson was about to call Sohil back inside when Agent Hill entered the room, gaze focused. “Agent Coulson.”

“Agent Hill,” he greeted tersely. “Any word from Fury?”

“He wants to know what happened.”

He gritted his teeth. They didn’t have much to show for yet. “I don’t have much to report yet.”

Just then, Sitwell spoke up. “Agent Coulson, sir. The guys on floor ten have just discovered something.” He stepped closer once he had Coulson and Hill’s attention. “There’s a third party. Whoever hacked SHIELD, they only used that library computer as a passage. The source was from another location altogether.”

That changed things. It made these children either very valuable or a complete waste of time. It was possible they were working for someone, hired to sit by the library computer to make sure the security breach was executed properly. Or they could have just coincidentally been in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Hill focused her attention on the children being interrogated. “They aren’t scared. She’s going on about being kidnapped, but she isn’t scared.”

“She’s been that way since they brought her in,” Coulson explained. “She’s either very brave or very stupid.”

“Or very smart,” Hill muttered. “It could be a defensive technique. Flippancy. Sarcasm. It’s all deflection.”

Coulson noted this, keeping a point system in his head over who these adolescents could be. Lack of fear vouched for them being part of a SHIELD threat. Lack of control and overall absurdity went to ‘just kids’.

Hill held her chin in one hand, gesturing between the two children with her other. “What’s their relationship?”

“I’m assuming friends,” Coulson said. “The Agents that brought them in said that they were talking before they picked them up. They seemed pretty close. They said it was possible they’re romantically involved, but they seem a bit young for that.”

Hill shrugged. “Kids are dating younger nowadays.”

“Yes, but not this young. They can’t be any older than twelve or thirteen,” he guessed, judging by their height and general pubescent looks.

“Alright. We’ll go with friends for now,” Hill agreed, narrowing her eyes as the girl commented on the dust in the air and how she needed her inhaler. “She’s asthmatic?”

Coulson considered it for a moment. “What asthmatic kid goes walking around outside in the spring without their inhaler?”

“One who forgets their inhaler?” Hill suggested obviously.

Coulson narrowed his eyes watching as the boy’s gaze flicked from the mirror to Agent Sohil. “No. They’re communicating. He didn’t stop staring at the mirror until she said that.” He turned to the other agents in the room. “Have there been any repairs on interrogation cell 12? Any repairs anywhere in the Triskelion?”

Sitwell nodded. “A new research facility was installed three floors up. But she wouldn’t be able to smell dust from down here, would she?”

“She wouldn’t need to,” he said, mostly to himself. He consulted the members of the observation room. “Has Agent Sohil been to the research facilitation floors today?”

One of the Agents spoke up. “She has a friend on that floor. Agent Davis. They eat lunch together.”

Hill raised a brow. “You think she’s onto something?”

“I know she’s onto something, whether she realizes she is or not,” he answered, listening as Agent Sohil underestimated her snarky occupant.

“…SHIELD doesn’t kidnap children—“

The girl snorted loudly, bursting into a fit of laughter that turned her pale cheeks bright pink. “That’s a good one!”

Agent Sohil repressed a sigh. “As I was saying, SHIELD does not kidnap children. It is our job to protect—“

The girl groaned. “Yeah yeah yeah, like I care. You and your creepy white interrogation rooms. This metal chair that makes my butt hurt. What’s next? Creepy research labs with frog brains floating around in little test tubes? Or do you use the brains of all the kids you kidnap!?”

Agent Sohil manage to contain her growing impatience. “Our research labs focus strictly on biochemical solutions to impending threats. We—“

“Gross! I don’t want to know about your bio-kamikaze whatever. That sounds like science. And math. Nasty. Sheesh. Besides, in a place like this, I bet the only thing you really research are new ways to kill all of your kidnapped children. What is it? Ray-guns? Lasers? Super secret underground torture chambers? Do you have frozen people in your basement? I bet you do!” the girl accused, backing her chair away from the table and looking at Agent Sohil with repugnance. “You can’t freeze me in SHIELD’s basements! Or use me to test your super charge weapons!”

Agent Sohil stared at her for a moment, wide eyed, speech halted. She swallowed after a moment, regaining her speech. “Do you even know what SHIELD is?”

“Duh. Of course!” the girl answered snootily, her tone not far from humored.

Agent Sohil didn’t even begin to look hopeful. “Do you know what SHIELD does?”

The girl shifted in her seat so she was sitting on an ankle. “I think everyone knows what a shield does.”

“Not ‘a’ shield. SHIELD—“

“Like Captain America’s shield!” She exclaimed, disposition changing from moody to enthusiastic in a matter of seconds. She smiled widely, as if struck with a new idea and jumped up to stand on her chair. “When Captain America throws his mighty shield, All those who choose to oppose his shield must yield! If he’s dead to a fight and a duel is due, Then the red and the white and the blue’ll come through! When Captain America throws his mighty shield!” The girl sang loud, clear and very off key.

Coulson flinched at the sound, though felt an extreme amount of satisfaction in knowing kids still looked to Captain America as their hero. Or, at least, knew of him enough to learn his theme song. “Get Sohil out of there. They definitely know more than they’re letting on.”

Sitwell spoke into his headpiece, telling Agent Sohil to report back to the observation room. She excused herself, walking back into the room. She frowned at Coulson. “I don’t think scare tactics would work on these two. I could call someone in. That didn’t go nearly as well as I’d hoped.”

Coulson adjusted his tie. “No need. I’m going to speak with them. Hill, observe what you can, fill me in on any incoming reports.”

“Will do.”

Coulson walked into the interrogation cell considering the boy rather than the girl. She was the mouthpiece, and a great one at that. She was fairly good at extracting information. But the fact that she was relaying it to the boy meant something. It meant he had a different skill set than her.

But what was it? What did they know?

Coulson reviewed his options.

He could ask the girl first and foremost where she got her training, who she worked for, what she did. But Agent Sohil had already asked the straightforward questions and got played like a deck of cards. No, he was going to have to keep up with this girl.

Taking even steps, he made his way to the side of the table, his back to the mirror, his gaze focused on the adolescents. “You’ve caused quite a bit of trouble for us.”

The girl looked relieved and she exhaled deeply. “Oh good. I didn’t want this to be one of those easy kidnappings.”

Coulson ignored her. “My name is Agent Coulson. I’m a level 7 agent at SHIELD.”

The girl looked up at him and cocked her head to the side, a few locks of hair falling over the boy’s shoulder. He didn’t seem to care. “A level 7? Wow. I feel special.”

“I wanted to know, Miss…?”

“You can call me SQ and this is my trusty comrade, HP.”

Coulson didn’t miss a beat. “…Miss SQ…what do you think about equality?”

He doubted SQ and HP were any real names, but it was better to refer to them as that than ‘boy’ and ‘girl’. HP scowled at the mirror and SQ repressed a giggle. “Sorry, Agent Coulson. I think equality is in short supply.”

Coulson continued on, well aware the only reason she was being more cooperative with him was because he was a level 7. He knew more, she was going to get that out of him. And he hadn’t treated her like a child yet.

He pulled up the chair, sitting across from the two of them. “Well, that’s good that you think that because I wanted to offer you a chance at equality between the two of us.”

SQ’s eyebrows shot up into her hairline. “Equality between the kidnapper and the kidnappee. A strange turn of events, lady and gentleman!” She gestured around the room excitedly, nearly hitting HP in the face. “What kind of equality we talking about here? It better not be that lame ‘I answer one question, you answer one question’ thing.”

Coulson gave her a small smile. “Miss SQ that is exactly the kind of equality I was hoping to establish.”

“Oh God….”

“You are a more than capable young lady. I see no reason why we can’t just exchange a few simple questions,” he said calmly.

For the first time since the interrogation began, SQ began to look the slightest bit worried. Coulson made a mental note. She had relied on being underestimated.

She looked him in the eye and scowled. “Stop assuming things about me. I hate it when people do that. You all get the same look. Like you think you know something.” She made a frustrated sound. “Fine. I’ll play your dumb question game. But before we start, we should make some rules.”

“Rules?”

SQ’s blue eyes looked at him incredulously. “Yeah. Rules. You work for the government. You should know what the rules are no matter how many people you kidnap. I like rules. Let’s use them.”

He shrugged his shoulders. “Alright. Rules. What do you think they should be?”

She tapped her fingers on the table. “No super personal questions. I don’t know if we’re safe right now or if you want to lock us up in a scary laboratory and feed our limbs to giant spiders.”

“That’s graphic,” Coulson commented and SQ grimaced. “Fine. No personal questions. Anything else?”

She tapped her chin thoughtfully. “Are you carrying a weapon?”

He smiled respectfully. “Yes. I am carrying a gun.”

SQ’s eyes got a little wider and she swallowed hard. “Uh…Can you not be?” She cleared her throat. “Carrying a gun I mean. It’s…threatening.”

Coulson shook his head. “It’s meant to be a threat. I will keep my gun.”

She sighed, crossing her legs. “Fine. Will you show it to me, at least?”

Coulson thought about this for a second before lifting his gun from its holster and holding it up where she could see it. SQ squinted, her lips moving especially fast. He was fairly skilled at lip reading, but he couldn’t decipher what she was mouthing. His gaze flicked to HP who was watching SQ’s reflection.

He kept his suspicion secret, waiting a few more seconds before storing his weapon. “Are you ready now, Miss SQ?”

“One sec,” she told him, tapping her toe on the ground, the rubber of her shoe making rapid slapping noises that echoed in the silent room. “What if we lie?”

Coulson folded his hands on the table, wristwatch pressing into the skin of his arm. “I suppose we’ll just have to trust that the other is being honest.”

This time, SQ shot a glance at HP. HP didn’t pay her any mind, continuing to stare straight ahead. Though Coulson did notice a tiny shift in weight so HP was angled slightly more towards SQ. He was comforting her.

“Ladies first.” Coulson nodded for her to start, smiling politely.

SQ mimicked his position, folding her hands on the table. “I’m not a lady right now. I’m just a kid. Ask me a question.”

Her words held more depth and he wondered what they meant. She implied that she was a lady sometimes. That she wasn’t always ‘just a kid’. Coulson believed they were part of an outside organization now. They had let themselves get captured in attempt to gain more information about SHIELD.

“Why were you in DC today, Miss SQ?”

She stared at him. “To visit museums. Why were you in DC today, Agent Coulson?”

“I had work to do here. Checking up on security protocols before heading out on a mission.” He answered this one truthfully, gauging her reaction. She didn’t seem to care much about that, keeping her steely eyes on him. “What are your favorite subjects in school?”

She made a face. “I don’t like any subjects in school. Gross. Ask a better question than that. You get to go again because of how bad a question that was.”

He pressed his lips together. “Do you attend school regularly?”

She rolled her eyes. “Kidnapper Dude numero uno would seriously be better at questioning me than you, Level 7. I just said that I hated every subject. Yes, I attend school regularly. I get two turns now since yours were so lame.”

Coulson decided she wasn’t lying. No matter how sarcastic and brash she was, there were no signs of her being dishonest. That set him back. He assumed she would have had to lie about that. If she attended school regularly it meant she was either homeschooled, which could be done at any point and location, or she attended school at a set location. Either way, she was not the type of asset a criminal organization might have going against SHIELD.

She licked her bottom lip, squinting at him. “Jeez, I’m blind without my glasses. Alright, Agent, time for the big question that your goonies wouldn’t answer: Why are we being questioned?”

SHIELD compromises weren’t something that Coulson typically told the public. And if these kids turned out to be just a part of the public, he couldn’t tell them why. But if they were working for someone, then they knew why they were being questioned.

There were too many variables. He decided to play it safe. “There was a threat that happened near you. We have reason to believe you could be a part of it.”

“You’re all dirty liars,” she slumped heavily in her chair, scrutinizing him through narrowed eyes. After a couple more seconds of this, she threw her hands over her face. She groaned, muttering something under her breath. He couldn’t pick it up, but the microphones around the room were sensitive enough to have discerned it.

“What was that?” he said quietly, touching his earpiece to ask Sitwell.

Hill answered. “We don’t know. It wasn’t English.”

SQ peeked at him from between her fingers. “What was what?”

Coulson felt a bit hopeful at that. Finally they were getting somewhere. “What language was that you were using?” he asked. She would have to lie about this or risk telling him something essential about herself.

She stared at him. “Umm what?”

“The language, you were using, SQ? It wasn’t English.”

She looked panicked for a moment, swallowing her confusion. Coulson acknowledged the fact that she had done this mouthing subconsciously. It was possible English wasn’t her first language. Immediately, his thoughts jumped to Russia. Perhaps the red-room was training them differently now.

“Uh…English?” she said uncertainly.

It was a lie. Coulson saw it now. HP was tensing up as well. He was aware that his friend couldn’t lie. Coulson wondered if HP could speak English well enough to understand their conversation.

He shifted his weight in the metal chair. “It is your turn for a question, SQ.”

She began swinging her legs back and forth, tapping her chin. Coulson took both these actions as ways to give off excess energy. “Did you notice the mistake I made in singing the Captain America theme song?”

That question took him by surprise and it did for her as well. “What makes you ask that?”

She tapped her fingers on the table, sitting kicking the leg of her chair with her heel. She was nervous now. She wasn’t cool and deflective. She wasn’t going on about kidnappers. He could see it. The truth was welling there in her blue eyes. They were far too open for her own good. “Well, I messed up the song. It goes ‘if he’s lead to a fight and a duel is due’.  I said ‘If he’s dead to a fight and a duel is due.’ Which doesn’t make much sense if you think about it. I don’t know why I said it that way. “

She paused for a beat and Coulson’s silence seemed to pop the tab on her secret keeping lid.

SQ banged her hands on the table. “Alright, so I know why I said it. It’s because I figured someone around here must know the Captain America theme song. I mean, come on, he’s Captain America and this is SHIELD and the two have a lot in common. And I made that mistake on purpose! I wanted someone to correct me, but no one did. Which I’m a little disappointed in. That line made no sense. Someone should have corrected me, at least for bad grammar.

“But nooo! We just have to send in this baddie!” She gestured wildly to Coulson. “And so, I figured that you must totally know something about Captain America. And then I realized that, of course you would know something about Captain America! You have a vintage set of Captain America trading cards in your gym locker and everyth—“

She stopped talking. She stopped moving. Her face froze. She was the visual description of the phrase, ‘oh shit’.

Coulson thought fast. She knew about his Captain America trading cards? His vintage Captain America trading cards? What else did she know about? Who were these people and why did they know anything about his full set of Captain America trading cards? Furthermore, how did she know that he kept his full set of Captain America vintage trading cards in his gym locker? Did everyone know that he kept them in his gym locker? He was going to move them somewhere else. Like his regular locker. Or he could get a new gym locker…

He prepared to ask SQ another question while she was still shocked. Her walls had been knocked down; it was the perfect time to get everything from her. That’s when a cool, level voice spoke to him.

“Enough. I tire of this ‘game’.”

Coulson turned his attention to HP and SQ visibly relaxed.

The boy no longer looked quite so bored. In fact, he seemed intrigued. His green eyes set on Coulson with near impish inquiry.

“You speak English.” Coulson addressed him unperturbed. “I was beginning to wonder.”

HP smirked and Coulson saw once again that he was prideful and arrogant. But like his friend, he was not an idiot. And something told Coulson that HP was a much better liar than a deflector. Different skill sets.

“I do not care what goes on inside your head except that which permits us to leave. You have had your fun questioning us. Allow me to remind you, Agent Coulson, that you are holding two minors in custody with no warrant and for no reason other than speculation. My friend and I agreed to answer your questions under the prospect that we would receive nourishment, reward, or some form of entertainment.”

SQ nodded in agreement. “That’s fancy talk for ‘food, candies, and puppies’.”

“I’m aware,” Coulson told her with near overbearing politeness. “HP—“

SQ snorted a laugh, motioning for him to keep talking. HP cast his ‘friend’ a wary sideways glance.

“—are you saying that we are keeping you here under false pretenses?”

“No,” HP said simply. “Though I did imply it. You have given no true reason why you are keeping us here other than the fact that there has been a threat. You have only said that you needed to see us for questioning. You have flashed your silly plastic cards, given us names, and locked us in a room for almost four hours now. You will forgive my friend for being defensive.”

“Defensive?” Coulson inquired lightly. “She has demonstrated knowledge that is far past the line of defense.”

“Has she?” HP questioned, one narrow black brow raised. It accentuated the sharp cut of his cheekbones, still slightly obscured by pre-adolescent chub. “Has she really? Or have those just been assumptions on your part?”

His words were very easy to listen to. They were smooth and very…nice. They were hard to describe, but Coulson wanted to believe what he was saying. Whatever it was, his voice made it sound appealing. The thought of SHIELD and the good of the world brought him back to his reasons for their ulterior motives. “She was deflecting, using defense mechanisms in order to encourage SHIELD agents to divulge information. She irritated one of our best interrogation officers to near breaking point and communicated with you using another language.”

HP scoffed. “Listen to yourself, Agent. Believe it or not, being kidnapped by government agencies is not the most pleasant experience. A defense mechanism would not be out of place in order to protect that which she holds dear. We do not know if you wish to hurt us. Your paranoia precedes your sense. As for berating Agent Sohil…well…being annoying is a natural born talent. You will have to forgive her.”

Coulson wanted to block his words. They made sense. But it was his job to be paranoid. He kept his face composed. He was unflappable, no matter the circumstance. “You didn’t explain the language.”

HP leaned forwards. “Agent Coulson, you are still not listening.” His green eyes flashed and there was something…inhuman about them. Something otherworldly. “We wish to leave now. We have nothing to tell you. We still do not know what you wanted from us. You have asked who we work for, and my friend has answered that we do not work for anyone.”

Sitwell’s voice sounded in his ear. “Sir, it’s your call. But you have to admit, the kid has a point.”

Coulson could feel there wasn’t something right. However, Sitwell was right. The kid did have a point. He couldn’t keep them much longer.

There was still one thing that bothered him though. “You haven’t denied anything.”

The corner of HP’s mouth came up in a smirk. “No. It was—“

“—Implied.” Coulson filled in for him. “But you never denied anything.”

SQ opened her mouth to say something, but her words were impeded by one of HP’s hands coming to rest on her arm. “Ask me a simple question, Agent. Ask me something you want to know in as basic a manner as possible and I will answer it in kind.”

Coulson stared at the boy for a long time. He was dangerous. His glare was a challenge and a threat all in one.

The agent sat up straighter in his chair. This is how it would be, then. “Did you play any part in hacking into SHIELD’s database?”

SQ’s eyes widened just a bit and she looked to her friend. For the first time since he entered the interrogation cell, HP looked dead-serious and answered one cold, meaningful word. “No.”

A moment of silence passed.

Then another.

No one in the observation room spoke.

No one needed to.

Finally, SQ stood up, clapping her hands together cheerily. “Ah, well, this has been fun, Agent C, but I think it’s high time we blow this popsicle stand.”

HP stood up as well, looking expectantly to Coulson.

“There’s one more thing…” The girl tapped her chin cynically. “Oh yeah, I expect at least five bucks for some Taco Bell since I didn’t even get a puppy out of this whole ordeal. Worst. Kidnappers. Ever.”

                                                               ***

Loki was on his sixth or seventh taco and he still didn’t know how he felt about this ‘Taco Bell’ establishment. Sure it tasted decent, but the quality was far from that of even Asgard’s stingiest taverns. Not that he would know. He tended not to seek entertainment from those parts. Perhaps he would try. Darcy took trips there on occasion to go and associate with the lower class. She said it helped her get a better idea of what laws needed to be amended.

She sat across from him now, giggling as she sipped her coke. “Loki, when did we get so cool?”

He set down his food, wiping his hands on a paper napkin. “When did you decide it was a good idea to use our ‘code names’ in this situation? I refuse to be ‘Horn Prince’ any longer. Prince, yes, that is acceptable. ‘Horns’ are a bit redolent.”

Darcy sniggered. “Fine. How about ‘Trickster Prince’? You could be TP.”

“Again, I wonder what cruel fate lead me to having you as my companion and have to tolerate such childish humor.” He sighed, unwrapping another taco and ripping open a condiment packet.

Darcy laughed again, sitting back in her booth and setting her feet up on the space beside him. “Easy on the tacos, TP. If your royal bowel is messed up tomorrow, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

He ignored her, continuing to eat. Midgardians were so puny sometimes. He used so much of his energy that he needed the extra calories to function. Mortals didn’t. Even exercising, Darcy didn’t use as much energy as he did practicing magic. Volstagg teased her often for how little she ate. Comparatively, one Asgardian serving was four or five times that of a Midgardian’s.

She yawned, patting her stomach. “Are you sure you wiped everything from their systems?”

He sneered at the spicy sauce he’d just covered his food in. “Yes, I am sure. Their surveillance didn’t get one good look at us. I made sure to clear us from the museum footage as well. They have nothing that will allow them to trace us.”

Darcy pursed her lips for a moment, opening her backpack and taking out her glasses. “Alright.” She relented. “You enjoyed yourself a bit too much in there.”

They shared a look of understanding while Loki slowed his chewing. She wasn’t wrong. Intimidating SHIELD agents, running his magic through their security, confusing them with Darcy at his side…it was quite possibly the most fun he’d ever had.

It was a challenge, but not so much of a challenge that he didn’t enjoy it. Darcy did what she did best, paying attention to detail. She managed to get quite a bit out of the first level 2 agents that interrogated them. It hadn’t been a true interrogation. They just asked for their names, where their parents were, if they knew why they were there, etc. etc.

Darcy spoke the entire time and she figured that the level 2 agents knew nothing about HYDRA or SHIELD. Then the level 5 agent came in. That is where the fun truly started. She was the next of many to underestimate Darcy Lewis.  And Darcy had talked and chattered and spat deduced suppositions at the poor woman until she could start relaying over the right information to Loki.

A new research lab three floors up. Past people she’d interviewed. What kind of threats SHIELD dealt with. For some reason she seemed to think that ‘frozen people in their basements’ was somehow plausible. He disagreed.

It was an effective method for Darcy, to play the agents as a loud, silly little girl who spoke everything that came into her head. He found that tactic strange for her. It was useful, but strange.

In court, Darcy was always so forward. Lords and Ladies would fail to take her seriously and she would prove them wrong as soon as she got her opportunity. Seeing her today was…different. She hadn’t lied, but she hadn’t been honest either. It was just enough mischief to cause a little mayhem.

“Darcy?”

“Sup?” she replied, not looking up from writing in her notebook that he had magically returned from her bedroom for her.

He finished his last taco and started on his drink. “When you said you weren’t going to lie, I expected you to be a bit less…” he searched for the right word, “…ambiguous.”

She licked her lips, setting down her pen, avoiding eye contact. “Yeah. Me too.”

Concern battered at his heart and he leaned across the table to take her hand. “Darcy? What is wrong?”

Finally, she looked up at him, a tinge of sauciness brewing in her eyes. “I’m trying to find an answer to your implied question.”

Worry abandoned him, rolling away in small waves. “And what was my implied question?”

She rubbed her eye with the hand he wasn’t holding. “Why I acted as I did.”

He nodded, releasing her hand as she slumped in her booth. “Frigga told me during one of our lessons that sometimes your methods would work better than mine and sometimes my methods would work better than yours. I think she was teaching me about the dangers of consistency or, at least, how to be effective in getting what I need.”

Loki gazed at her for a long moment. “Did it upset you? Using, as you put it, my methods?”

“No,” she answered immediately. “It didn’t."

Loki frowned. It should not bother him that Darcy lied. Why would it? She was clever and she had her rights to do whatever she saw fit. But her dumb facade had reminded him too strongly of those who belittled her in court. She would not back down to them because she was their equal. If Darcy planned to one day be a diplomatic leader of the United States, then he did not think it would be wise for her to lie as such. For they would one day be her colleagues and followers and they should not look down upon Darcy Lewis. He took her hand again, running his thumb over her knuckles. "It was a worthy plan, darcy. One that you executed perfectly." he paused. "But I do not think you should try it again. You are not the one who is called 'liar'."

Darcy considered this for a long moment, the dark crescents under her eyes adding intensity to her stare. “I suppose not.” she agreed at last, squeezing his hand in return.

He felt his lips tug into a smile. Sitting up straighter, he focused on what she was writing. “Let’s review what we have on the Tesseract before I take you back to the hotel. Your double is at rest, as is the rest of your class.”

She returned his grin, pushing up her glasses and reading her notes. “Coulson, level 7 SHIELD agent. It’s clear why he had his job. He was good.”

“A proper challenge,” Loki agreed, motioning for her to continue.

Darcy scratched her brow with the tip of her pen, leaving an inky scribble there. “I couldn’t tell much of anything about him. He didn’t even flinch at the mention of weapons. He had the same standard SHIELD issue gun as the level 2s.” She flipped back a couple pages. “I did get a good look at his hands though.”

Loki nodded, recalling what she had mouthed to him in his native tongue. “Yes, I remember. You said something about them being ‘too clean’.

“Yeah,” she said offhandedly, running a finger over her notes. While she had been thinking through everything about Agent Coulson, Loki had been making sure all of SHIELD’s systems stayed inactive while monitoring what was being said through their little communication devices. They were oblivious.

“His hands were too clean. They were dry across the back. I wouldn’t really think a lot on it, except that it isn’t winter. It’s summer, which means he washed his hands a lot today,” she said knowingly. “And his palms weren’t that dry which means he uses lotion. But non-scented lotion. I couldn’t smell anything.”

Loki shook his head. “Darcy, that has nothing to do with the Tesseract. What could that possibly have to do with the Tesseract?”

She shrugged, holding her hands up to indicate bewilderment.  “I have no freaking idea. But it has to mean something! Why were his hands so clean? The other agent’s hands weren’t that clean.”

“Darcy, that is too far off track. We cannot draw sensible conclusions from Agent Coulson having clean hands. Did you get anything else?”

She huffed, bitterly scratching down a few more things in the margins of a filled page. “Yeah. He can read lips well enough to tell that I hadn’t spoken to you in English. That takes practice.”

“Or it could have just been an assumption,” Loki argued, not seeing how any of this was relevant.

Darcy tapped her temple, glaring at him through mystified eyes. “No. It wouldn’t have been an assumption. I doubt Coulson would make that kind of accusation without having decent reasoning. He was a sharp guy, Loki. I know you like to think that no one in Yggdrasil could possibly be smarter than us, but just try for a second. Okay?”

He frowned and she continued. “Language is patterned, unlike gibberish which is plainly chaotic. Language has structure and he must have taken note of that.”

“Darcy Lewis, we are not trying to discover everything we can about Agent Coulson, we are trying to find an infinity stone,” Loki reminded her in a whisper.

She stuck her tongue out at him, balling up empty taco wrappings. “Fiiine. I’m just telling you what I got off of him.” Taking a sip of his drink, she turned her attention back to her notebook. “He’s a big fan of Captain America.”

Loki gave her a curious look. “I am still confused about this part. How did you know about his vintage Captain America trading cards?”

She shrugged. “I overheard him talking to a security guard about them at the Captain America exhibit earlier today. I didn’t think they were the same people. I mean, I suspected, but I didn’t think I was right or anything. The trading card thing just kinda spilled out.”

He pursed his lips. “You were speaking impulsively again.”

“Bad habit,” she sassed, sucking down the rest of his soda as revenge.

“You are going to have a difficult time sleeping now,” Loki commented. “Two drinks. You will be up half the night.”

She handed him back his cup. “Yeah, well, you’re going to be up with much worse than that, my friend. If I were you, I would invest in some baby wipes or a bidet.”

He sincerely doubted her. He was Asgardian. His digestive system was of a much stronger constitution than a mortal’s. He brought them back to the matter at hand. “So, Captain America?”

She stared at her notes for a few seconds, cupping her chin in her linked fingers. “I don’t think modern SHIELD knows anything.”

“Darcy—“

“They don’t!” Darcy insisted, gesturing to her notes. “I’m telling you, they don’t. They know there was a break in, but they weren’t concerned about what we looked at, they were only upset that someone had broken in. Coulson didn’t care that I messed up the Captain America theme song and I just don’t think they have anything to do with it. The level 5 agent was more helpful than the level 7 agent.”

He laid his hands flat on the cheap plastic table top in front of him. “Darcy, they must know something.”

She shook her head. “I really don’t think they do. It wasn’t in their database, I doubt it’s common knowledge amongst agents. But there was something weird about Agent Sohil. Did you see the sheer amount of dread on her face when I mentioned frozen people in the basement?”

Loki looked to her in disbelief. “No. No, I think you are confusing dread with annoyance.”

Her full lips pouted and Loki found her irritation rather endearing. “Loki, there’s a big possibility with the frozen people thing. Or at least some frozen things.”

“Now you are talking nonsense. Besides, she would have alerted Coulson or another agent if you had struck anything of importance to SHIELD.”

She looked like she was forming a rebuttal, and then changed her mind. “Yeah. You got me there.”

With heavy limbs, Darcy slid out of her booth. “Come on, Lokes. Let’s call it a night. I need sleep more than my double.”

Together, they threw away their trash, leaving the Taco Bell and walking down an empty alley. By the time they reached the end, Loki had teleported them back to Darcy’s hotel. He bid her goodbye at the door, promising to see her the next day at noon.

That night, he slept in Darcy’s bed without her, Jörmungandr and Fenrir curled up at his side. And Loki knew, as he struggled to sleep with his angrily churning gut, that this summer was going to be their most productive one yet.