Chapter 11
Darcy awoke to the creak of a door. Stilling in fright at the unfamiliar room, it took a moment before she remembered she was in an Asgardian suite ‘befitting her status’ according to Frigga. Apparently her status meant animal pelts, silks, and a sunken fire pit. She hoped the latter came with all of the visiting royals suites and wasn’t just a jab at her whole Princess of Hell thing. Frigga didn’t strike her as the type to be cruel.
She was relieved to discover it was only Jane creeping ineptly across the room, Jane’s familiar energy washing over her.
“You know Thor’s room is down the hall, right?”
Her question nearly startled Jane into the roasting embers of the aforementioned pit. “Jesus Christ, you scared me!”
Darcy sat up, squinting without her glasses. “I’m not the one breaking and entering, boss.”
Jane made it to the bed safely, taking a running leap to hoist herself up and clawing her way through the furs. “I’m not breaking and entering, you butt. I’m checking on you. I tried to get away earlier, but Odin really loves to hear himself talk.” She made a gagging noise.
“You can’t talk about your future father-in-law like that,” Darcy yawned.
“Yes, I can. He made you cry, so I hate him. It’s the rule.”
“Like how I hate your ex, Donald, even though I’ve never met him and all of his facebook albums are of his Doctors Without Borders missions?”
“Yes,” Jane nodded sagely, “Exactly like that. We are excellent rule followers. But back to my point: making sure you’re okay. Although, I have to admit that you seem better than I expected you would be…”
Darcy recognized the statement for the question it was and answered accordingly.
“I’m not okay. But I’m pretty sure that I cried out all the saline in my body. Embarrassingly, I cried it all out on Frigga. We may hate your future father-in-law, but we kind of idolize your future mother-in-law.”
“How did that happen?” Jane settled into the bed, rolling on her stomach.
“She got me tipsy on Asgardian mead.”
“What?” Jane sounded shocked, “Thor said that stuff was way too strong for humans, that we couldn’t handle it.”
Darcy looked down at her lap, playing with the fur. “Well, Janie, I’m not human, remember?” she huffed.
Jane was there in an instant, pulling Darcy into her lap.
“You listen to me. You’re human, Darcy Lewis. Just because you found out that Me…” Jane felt her tense at the name, but kept on, “that Mephisto gave you some chromosomes doesn’t make you any different than who you were before you knew. You’re still you, and you’re still human; you’ve just got a little extra.”
“The devil is my dad, Jane. What does that say about me?” Darcy cried.
“Nothing,” Jane pet her hair, “It doesn’t say a damn thing about you. You’re a good person. A good person who keeps me sane, who raced to save a stranger from an assassin, who went toe to toe with the King of Asgard to help her friend.”
“To help my best friend,” Darcy corrected, hugging Jane.
“Best friend,” Jane agreed.
They enjoyed the silence until she ruined it with an “I’m kind of awesome, huh?”.
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Darcy wasn’t thrilled at having twenty four hour protection again, especially since it was really Odin keeping tabs on her, but at least the guards could tell her how to get to the Bifrost. After a night’s rest and a clearer head, it was apparent that an apology was owed to Heimdall. Following the yellow brick road, or in this case the rainbow glass bridge, it struck Darcy that she was truly on an alien planet.
It had been a whirlwind since she stepped through that portal after Jane between worrying over her friend and identity challenging revelations, there hadn’t been a chance to process the enormity of her situation. She was a twenty four year old mostly human girl on a totally different world.
As light glinted off the spirals of the city and water rushed over the cliff into an abyss (Was Asgard flat? She’d have to ask Thor), she let out an incredulous giggle.
It was so cool.
Her giggling caught the attention of Heimdall who was standing sentry in the observatory, hand resting lightly on his sword.
Darcy should also ask Thor about getting herself a sword.
“Your highness,” Heimdall greeted her with a small bow. It was hard to tell because of their strange color, but his eyes seemed amused.
She played along, gave a silly curtsy back, and said “So I owe you an apology.”
Heimdall abandoned his post to stand with her on the bridge in the sunshine. “No, my lady, it is I who should apologize. I had not realized that your abilities were a secret. If I had known, I would have shown more discretion.”
“Don’t worry about it, my man. You were just being a friendly person, and I totally spazzed out.”
“Thor mentioned that you had an entertaining way with language,” he laughed, “I am glad to find he was not exaggerating.”
Darcy decided to make herself comfortable and sat down on the ledge of the bridge, dangling her feet over the crashing waves. She heard a horrified gasp from a guard, but Heimdall simply joined her, his long legs swaying in the breeze next to hers.
“I’m a little scared that Thor has been telling stories about me. The first time we met wasn’t exactly my best moment.”
“The way he tells it, you bested him with his own element. There could be no greater accolade from the Prince.”
She should have guessed that warriors would see it that way.
“Is that how you knew who I was? Or what I was, I mean. Thor told you?”
“No, he did not tell me that you were anything but a Midgardian. Thor would not divulge the secrets of a friend,” Heimdall frowned, “I knew you for what you were from the moment I saw you. Those of us who are able to pierce the walls between worlds are… distinctive.”
Darcy leaned back on her hands, considering. She tilted her face up to the sun. “What do you mean by ‘those of us’? Is there a club or something?”
“No. There are not enough of us to form any sort of guild. But we all can traverse the worlds in different ways. For example, I can see all, no matter the distance. I still need the Bifrost to travel to other worlds, though.”
Darcy thought of MSS and of floating through space with an unconscious Jane.
“I can…” she swallowed, trying to order her thoughts, “I scream or hum. When I do that, I either see visions or I ...teleport, I guess? I don’t know. I just end up in another place. Usually, it’s a dark, foggy place that I call MSS. Yesterday, though, I took Jane and me back to Earth from wherever we found the Aether. I didn’t even know I could do that.”
Heimdall looked thoughtful. “This place, MSS, could you show me? I don’t recall ever seeing such a place.”
“Um,” she blinked, “Sure? I mean, if you think it will work from Asgard.”
“I think you’ll find that which world will make little difference to you, Lady Darcy,” he smiled.
“Ok, gimme your hand.”
He obliged, and there, holding hands with the Guardian of Asgard, she screamed.
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Heimdall had never seen anything like it, and for someone who had lived as long as he had and had eyes like his, that was an unprecedented event. He slowly circled, taking in as much of the realm as he could with those same eyes.
The young princess stood to the side, chewing on her lip and wringing her hands.
“My lady,” he began, still in awe, “Do you understand what your MSS is?”
“No,” she said, as serious as he had yet seen her, “I really do not.”
It was a marvel to Heimdall that someone with so much power could be so unaware of the strength they possessed.
“This is the realm between the living and the dead. There are ancient tales of it, tales older than even Asgard’s long history, of the shadows the dead must pass through to reach the afterlife. It is thought that only the dead could reach it and yet...” he ran a hand through the mist surrounding them, stunned, “I do not understand why or how you can access this place, for what connection could you have with the dead?”
Lady Darcy knit her brows at him before snorting like an angered bilgesnipe. “Oh, right I didn’t explain the visions! My bad! I see dead people and like, how they die and stuff. Forgot to mention that part,” she said with a shrug.
Heimdall gaped.
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One of the best acquisitions Mephisto had ever made was around two thousand years ago, give or take a century, in what was now China. The man was a famed physician of the time, due to the healing abilities Mephisto had bestowed upon him in exchange for his soul. The physician was especially known for the miracles he could work on aching muscles and joints with his massages.
It is a little known fact that being the King of Hell was almost more stress than it was worth. What with all the souls to be ruled and the demons to be ordered about and don’t even get him started on the constant touring for more deals to make. Mephisto may seem like a carefree devil, but stress was the enemy of every man. It was this stress, and the knots it gave him, that made the physician so invaluable. His massages kept Mephisto limber as a Romanian competing for gymnastic gold.
For his massage time to be disturbed, hell truly had to be frozen over. Mephisto had been very clear about this which is why it was so troubling when an urgent knocking interrupted his appointment.
He sent his masseuse away.
The arbitrator of this massage disruption entered the room nervously. Mephisto didn’t bother getting up from his table and waited. The small demon gulped and began with a stutter, “M-My Lord, Darcy Lewis is no longer on Earth.”
“She’s my daughter,” Mephisto huffed irritably, “and likely can travel between worlds as freely as I can. I’d imagine she’s frequently not on Earth.”
“Yes, Lord, but it’s where she is that’s important,” the servant said.
That gave Mephisto pause. “Are you going to make me guess?” he drawled, lighting a ring of fire around the lesser demon, letting the flames lick his heels.
“Ah, no, sir,” the servant spluttered, “Our sources have her in Asgard! She’s staying at the palace!”
Mephisto saw red.
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Darcy was playing with her new dagger, a beautiful little thing that she and Thor had compromised on after he refused her request for a sword (something about being untrained), when Frigga and Jane burst through the door.
Frigga grabbed her by the arm and dragged her with Jane to a small hidden room.
“What’s going on?” Darcy warily asked.
Jane answered first, shifting from foot to foot. “We’re under attack.”
“It’ll be fine,” Frigga promised, “Just stay in here, stay hidden.”
Darcy didn’t love the implication that they would be alone. “What about you?”
Frigga smirked, eyes sharp and showing too many teeth. “You’re not the only one with magic, dear,” she crowed, while a perfect replica of Jane appeared out of thin air next to her. Darcy knew it wasn’t real, could sense that it was a lifeless copy, but it was impressive nonetheless.
“Um,” Jane squeaked.
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A few short minutes later, Darcy felt the familiar itch at the back of her throat. She let out a quiet hum and cursed at what she saw.
“Darcy?” Jane questioned.
“Stay here,” she took a step to the door, “I have to go.”
Jane stopped her before she could slip out. “I’m going with you!” she demanded.
“No, you aren’t,” Darcy knew what would happen if she did, still in that omniscient headspace, “Jane if they get the Aether, it’s game over for the whole universe. Trust me, you have to stay here.”
“Okay,” Jane cried, “Okay.”
Darcy ran.
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Frigga was being restrained by a white haired dude, the same one that had been haunting Darcy’s nightmares for months, while a towering, charred figure pulled back his blade to gut the queen.
Darcy was really not great at planning ahead. She never had been, always having been more of a roll with it kind of chick. Faced with evil space elves, she stayed true to herself and jumped in head first.
Well, dagger first.
She leapt at the bigger one’s back, driving her weapon into his neck and feeling the flesh give, followed quickly by all of her body weight slamming into him to knock him over. Sadly, UFC fighter Darcy was not, so she tumbled over with him.
From under her, the guy swatted away her dagger like a splinter with one hand and gripped her arm with the other. His fingers tightened on her elbow until Darcy felt it shatter, the bones crumbling under her skin. The pain ripped a scream from her, and the familiar, soothing dark of MSS loomed just outside her vision.
Except it never came.
Instead, a burning hand was wrapped around her neck, throttling until her voice cut out.
A lack of oxygen brought a burst of colors to her eyes, but the last ones she saw were the crimson of Thor’s cape and the gold of his hair.
She was thrown aside like a dirty rag, hitting a stone column with enough force that the crack of her ribs echoed. Collapsing in a heap, she recognized the still form of Frigga sprawled inelegantly next to her.
Then the pain overcame her.
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She thought she asked for Jane in the infirmary, but all she really remembered was that lady doctor telling her to drink something that glowed.
She didn’t remember anything after that.
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The next time she woke, it was to the dark and a numb body. She clumsily poked at herself to make sure she still had all of her parts and didn’t see Thor sitting at her bedside. When she finally noticed him, he smiled, but it was hollow.
Darcy blinked sluggishly, opening her mouth to try and speak, but not quite getting it right.
Pieces of recollections were coming back to her slowly, but it was hard to string two thoughts together. Her struggle must have read on her face because Thor leaned forward to grab a mug from a nearby table.
“The drought that sedated you was robust; they did not know how much you would require given your unique biology. I fear they were were too aggressive with their dosage,” he helped her sit up and held the mug to her mouth, “This should help clear your senses.”
It tasted like the horrible hangover cure with the raw egg in it that she had naively tried in college, but unlike that odious concoction, this brew sobered her right up.
The memory of the fight had Darcy clawing at her bedsheets to escape, but without the haze of whatever Asgardian morphine they’d had her on, her injuries made themselves known.
“Calm yourself, Darcy, you’re still wounded,” Thor tried to force her back down. Gently.
She searched for one of his hands to stop his pushing, “Thor, is Frigga… Is she…”
Thor let out a small sigh, looking over her shoulder at the far wall.
Darcy’s heart stopped.
“She’s not dead,” he finally said quietly, and Darcy’s heart restarted.
“That’s good, right?” she asked, cautious of his melancholy.
“Yes,” Thor smiled that sad facsimile again, “and I will be forever grateful to you, forever in your debt, that your actions and your bravery saved her from certain death. For she does live, but she was still grievously injured. She sleeps yet, but the healers are not certain that she will wake.”
Darcy went numb again. “I’m so sorry! I tried, I should have been faster or yelled louder, I should have saved your mom, Thor,” but he softly cut her off.
“You protected her when all else failed. You faced a villain who slew dozens of Asgardian soldiers, and you survived. You mustn’t blame yourself. it is only because of you that I still have a mother, that Asgard still has a queen. Believe me when I say that all of Asgard knows this and is thankful.”
A watery nod was the best she could offer in return, too overwhelmed with holding back flashes of getting a phone call in a bar and coming home to an empty house.
“It is this debt that I and all of my kingdom owe you, and because of the esteem I hold for you as my friend, that makes what I must ask of you so difficult. But please trust that it is necessary.”
“What are you talking about?” she fearfully asked.
He was talking about, Darcy discovered, the elves levelling the palace; about how defenseless the Asgardians were to their attack; about Odin locking away Jane and closing the Bifrost in a fit of rage; about the Aether and how it was killing her best friend.
She absorbed it all, feeling the numbness spread, unsure where her breaking point was but thinking it was fast approaching. Gathering her courage and staving it off for just a little longer, she asked “So you want to take Jane off world?”
Thor nodded, but squirmed.
Darcy knew why. “But you can’t take me.”
“Not in your condition. I don’t know what we will face. You aren’t able to protect yourself like this, and I cannot protect you and save Jane at the same time.”
She was so sick of crying. “Can you save Jane?”
Thor cradled the hand of her unhurt arm and met her gaze head on. “I swear to you, Darcy Lewis, as your friend and as your Shield Brother, I will save Jane.”
She looked at their entwined hands and ordered, "Then go do it.”
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Thor had warned her to lie: say that she had no idea what he had been planning. Her alibi was solid. The things they were medicating her with would have dropped a fully grown gorilla, so if anyone asked her anything, she was pleading ‘too fucking stoned’.
It had been almost a full day with no visitors but the healers, so she had thought she was in the clear. Odin appearing in her doorway quashed that dream and had her shaking in her metaphorical boots.
Or it did until the image of him flickered in and out, momentarily replaced by a pale, slender man with oily, raven hair.
Odin came back into focus and stepped forward. Darcy might have attributed it to the meds if it wasn’t for the man’s energy not matching Odin’s either. If she squinted right behind her glasses, then she could see through the sinister green tint that was Odin to the real man beneath.
The palace had been relentless in their treatment of her many maladies, and what would have been a ruined elbow on Earth was slowly being mended; what were two fractured ribs were already fused back together though still fragile. Even with her miraculous recovery, Darcy was still weak. As the unknown man stalked towards her bed disguised as a king, she worked to not let her vulnerabilities show.
“Sup, bro?”
In hindsight, she may have gone in too strong with the nonchalance.
“I wanted to inform you that Thor has succeeded in stopping Malekith,” Faux-Odin smiled benevolently.
Forgetting that this was a precarious situation and desperate for news, Darcy eagerly asked, “And Jane?”
“Has survived, no worse for wear. I understand they had help from that SHIELD collective.”
For the first time in days, she could breathe easy. Jane was safe.
Darcy probably was not, but you can’t have it all.
“I thought you deserved to know,” he continued, “The simple mortal who saved the Queen of Asgard.”
Right then. Definitely an impostor. “Simple mortal, huh?”
“Yes?” he asked, confused.
“Yeah,” she was going to kick herself for this later or blame the drugs, but it couldn’t be good that someone was wearing an Odin suit, “You’re not the All-Father.”
“Whatever are you talking about?” he asked, but his shoulders straightened almost imperceptibly.
“I mean this whole glamor thing you’re doing. I don’t know why you went with Odin because that dude is way low on my list of people that I like, but I’m not even sure who you are beyond the fact that you need a good shampoo and some Vitamin D.”
He stood stunned only for a moment.
“I wanted to meet the Midgardian who stood down Malekith for Frigga. Thor neglected to mention…” he narrowed his eyes in a glower, but his features shifted almost immediately to glee, “Oh, you’re not what you appear, are you?”
“I could say the same about you.” Darcy refused to give an inch.
He giggled at that, and Odin faded from view, replaced by the man underneath. “This is fun!”
With longer than a nanosecond to look at him, he was easily recognizable from the broadcast of the Battle of New York.
“Loki?" she questioned, dread building.
“So you do know me,” he said with a flourish, bowing so low that his nose reached his knees, “Now, I am desperate to know who you are.”
“Nobody, really,” she hedged, wincing at the pull in her side as she tried to inch up the bed.
Loki reached out, hovering over her bandaged elbow. He tapped the joint decidedly, making her flinch with pain, before wrapping a sinewy hand around it.
“Now, now,” he trilled in a sing-song voice, “Don’t be shy!” He gave an experimental squeeze.
“Ok, hey, take it easy, Snivellus!” Darcy choked out.
He let go, appeased, and rocked back on his heels in maniacal anticipation. She blinked through the fog of her throbbing arm.
“You want to know who I am? Why don’t I show you.”
And she screamed in his stupid, smirking face.