Cruel Vengeance

Avengers Tower

November 2011

Darcy cruised into the lab, scanning for her best friend.

Instead, her eyes fell first on Loki. Shirtless.

He was facing away from her, electrodes taped to his arms and chest and back. Jane bustled around him, predictably not acknowledging Darcy’s presence, adjusting the connections. Loki started to turn but Jane prodded him. “Sit still,” she ordered, reaching for a bundle of cords. “The connection is extremely delicate.”

Darcy meandered closer, taking the time to appreciate the view. She had to admit Loki was one of the most attractive people she’d ever met. Asgardian genes were awesome. He was muscular and perfectly built to her taste, with strong shoulders tapering to narrow hips. There were a few freckles and spots on his back. It was oddly comforting to realize even Asgardians had flaws.

Darcy shook her head. She needed to get out more. It’d been awhile since she was with anyone; Hannah had trust issues and after her, John got ridiculously clingy. And, of course, Marya. Two bad breakups and then the grief of losing Marya had scared her off of dating seriously for a bit, and it hadn’t helped that everyone she met was either vapid or completely devoid of ambition. You’d think admiring the view on both sides of the fence would make it easier to find someone, but apparently not.

It was probably time to start dating if she was looking at Loki.

Darcy couldn’t lie to herself; it wasn’t like she’d never wondered what sleeping with him would be like. Probably fantastic. But it was a bad idea. A catastrophically bad idea. Don’t mix work and pleasure, that was her motto. Don’t sleep with the boss, don’t sleep with the girl who works for you, and definitely don’t sleep with deposed immortal space princes. She’d made the first two mistakes and had no intention of making the third.

Although it couldn’t hurt to look. And she was glad he’d been spending slightly more time with the rest of the team.

“Darcy,” Jane said with a quick smile.

“That’s new, you noticed me while Sciencing,” Darcy said with a grin. She didn’t try to hug Jane. Neither of them was a hugger. “Quelle surprise.”

“Your French is terrible,” Jane said.

“My French is fabulous, thanks very much,” Darcy said. “I was being funny.”

“Oh yeah, your language thing,” Jane said absently.

Darcy rolled her eyes and walked around Loki, standing to the side of the table Jane had him sitting on. She watched Jane working, distractedly noting the formulas and notes Jane scribbled on scraps of paper in between flurried bouts of typing or fiddling with the guts of the various scanners she had hooked up to Loki. It was a habit. Darcy used to follow behind Jane and collect those scraps so they didn’t get lost. She’d probably do a little bit of that today.

“What language thing?” Loki asked.

Darcy switched her attention to him. “I like languages. Took a lot of intensives in college, taught myself a couple with free online stuff in high school.”

“In how many tongues are you fluent?” Loki said.

“Uh.” Darcy counted. “Five. French, Spanish, Russian, obviously English, and German. I can get by with Mandarin in a conversation but I’m shit at reading and writing the characters. And my Arabic is passable. Still working on that one.”

Loki blinked. He almost looked… impressed.

Then the expression was gone. Darcy knew she hadn’t imagined it. She kept the warm glow of pride she felt from showing on her face.

“Why do you concern yourself with learning these languages?” he asked.

Darcy shrugged. “I’ve always wanted to travel. It’s no fun to go to China or Tai Pei or Moscow or Paris if you don’t speak at least one language you’re likely to find there. And no one expects little old me to understand Mandarin. You wouldn’t believe the things people say in their native language when they don’t think anyone else can understand them. It’s hilarious.”

Loki smiled. “You are quite interesting, Miss Lewis.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment,” she said drily.

He lowered his voice. “It was intended as one.”

Darcy couldn’t think of a retort, so she raised a cool eyebrow in his direction and switched her focus back to Jane. “Yo, how much longer are you gonna be? Tony and Stevie are convening the war council. They want all hands on deck.”

“Two different metaphors in three sentences,” Jane said absently. “Nice. Um. I’m almost done, actually. Just need…” She spent thirty more seconds twiddling wires. “Okay. Loki, go.”

Loki tilted his head. A look of concentration came over his face.

He teleported three feet away.

Darcy jumped. “What the fu–”

“Brilliant!” Jane actually clapped her hands. Darcy glanced over, settling her heart rate, and watched numbers accumulate on Jane’s main screen from her various sensors and scanners and things with long acronymic names Darcy could never remember. “You are using quantum tunneling, but it’s a controlled effect-”

“I’m guessing you’d rather stay down here than join the war council,” Darcy said drily.

Jane looked at her guiltily. “Yes.”

Darcy laughed. “I figured as much, it’s cool. Loki, you wanna sit it on it?”

“I would prefer to,” he said, carefully peeling an electrode away from his forehead. “How imminently will it begin?”

“I’d head up there,” Darcy said. “I’ll be right behind you.”

Loki raised an eyebrow at her. “Mmm.” He tugged a cotton T-shirt on and then a button-down over the top of it. He’d adopted a business semiformal style of Earth clothes. Darcy was trying to get him to wear jeans but he flat-out refused, sticking to khakis and slacks. “I shall see you up there, in that case.”

“Yup.” Darcy watched him walk away, eyes narrowed for a hint of the green light that came with his illusions. None came, and when the door shut behind him, she let out a breath and turned back to Jane.

“How’s the science?” she asked. It was how she always checked up on Jane’s progress in the lab. Their little greeting.

“Good.” Jane tore her eyes away from the data still being processed and added to the display. “I mean… interesting. Loki’s interesting. And interested. In you.”

“Huh?” Darcy’s train of thought crashed and burned. Spectacularly.

Jane grinned. “He thought I wouldn’t notice. I mean, technically it did take me a week or two to catch on, but he keeps asking questions about you, mostly how we met and what your life was like before the Avengers.”

Darcy stiffened.

“Don’t worry, I didn’t tell him,” Jane said hurriedly. “That’s what tipped me off, actually. He started asking casually about your family. Where you grew up. Things I knew you wouldn’t want me to pass on.”

Darcy blew out a breath. “Thank you.”

Jane touched her shoulder lightly. Darcy let herself relax a little more. A lot of people, when they learned Darcy was bi, would get awkward about touching her. Like it would rub off on them or they were afraid it would be unintentionally flirtatious. Which, like, she kind of got not wanting to accidentally flirt, that could get awkward with anyone regardless of who they liked, but at the same time it was ridiculous and annoying as fuck. Jane had never been like that. She didn’t care. She liked guys. Darcy would respect that and not hit on her. They were best friends and Jane was cool with casual physical contact. The end.

Sometimes Darcy found herself hating all the people who wouldn’t have been able to handle this situation. Who hadn’t, in reality, and who’d drifted away. It’s not like Darcy kept it a secret that she was bi.

After a moment, Jane withdrew her hand. “Have you heard from him?”

She didn’t mean Loki. Darcy shook her head. “Don’t even know where he is.”

“Probably better that way,” Jane said.

“Yeah.” Darcy’s hands inadvertently made fists. Definitely better that way. Otherwise the likelihood of her getting brought up on assault charges went through the fucking roof.

She took a deep breath and redirected the conversation. Some things should stay in the past. “How are you? Beyond the science. Like.” She paused. “Got a guy?”

Jane snorted. “As if. I never leave the lab, and Tony’s kind of a one-woman kind of guy.”

“Bruce though,” Darcy said.

“We’re just friends.”

“Okay, okay, if you’re sure.” Darcy wondered if maybe Jane still wasn’t able to move beyond Thor. “We haven’t been able to talk for a while; you’re always down here and I’m always busy with psychotic reporters and our buddy Ross. Are you going to slap Thor again when he comes back? Because if so, let me know so I can be there with a video camera. I need to record that moment for posterity. And Loki.”

“Ha,” Jane said. “No. I am taking the high road. I’m also working with Tony to design a suit that renders you immune to his lightning. Completely sealed and nonconductive. Tony’s designing thermosuits already; Sam and Natasha were wearing them in the Hydra assault last month, and we’re building the anti-lightning bit into it.”

Okay, so she didn’t want to talk about it. Message received. Jane didn’t necessarily dislike emotions, she just forgot they existed and would prefer to ignore that she had them. Darcy let her off the hook. “What about… the other thing we discussed?”

Jane ran a hand over her hair. “Done. Tony knows it better than I do, really, I’m not a very good engineer. I taught him what it had to do on a quantum level and he designed the actual thing.”

“Good.” Darcy sighed. “Steve still doesn’t know.”

“He wouldn’t agree?”

Darcy snorted. “You can’t see why?”

“I’m not good with people,” Jane said. “You know that.”

“He’d say it’s below the belt or something. He’ll get over it.”

Jane was typing, but she paused. “What about Loki?”

“I’m not actually worried about him,” Darcy said. “He’ll understand why we did it.”

Jane shrugged. “Okay. You should probably get up there, they’ll want you in on this.”

“I’m not the military strategist,” Darcy said. “But okay, I see how it is.”

“No, not like–I like having you here,” Jane said, jerking up. “I just meant–”

Darcy started laughing. “It’s cool, I was just teasing. I’ll be back later, ‘kay?”

“Definitely.” Jane’s face lit up. “Tony found a new element, and I tried beaming light through it in a computer simulation, and it could lead to some fascinating new discoveries about the nature of photons.”

“I’d love to hear more about the lightbender element later,” Darcy said solemnly, a smile tugging on her lips. “Have fun crunching numbers.”

“Always,” Jane said.

Darcy paused and watched her friend instantly immerse herself into the world of formulas and physics, unbearable fondness washing over her. Sometimes she wished she could be like Jane, and love the clear-cut world of science, dodge all the mess and stress of people. But she just wasn’t made that way.

Darcy idly thought about the possibility of taking a trip down to D.C. tomorrow. The DNI’s people had been bugging her for a few weeks and she should probably clear some things up in person. It’d be a nice gesture of respect to go herself; maybe she could convince Steve to come with her. Not Tony; he sucked ass at playing nice to people in power. And then there was the search the CIA and NSA and FBI were running for Fury; they’d set up a joint task force and apparently there was some friction between the task force and Stark’s people, some of whom were ex-SHIELD. Tony wouldn’t be any help smoothing that over, though maybe if she could get him to make some talk about how he really appreciated all their help and wanted to do everything in his power to cooperate and find Fury, et cetera, et cetera…

She was so lost in thought that she didn’t notice she wasn’t alone in the hall until Loki stepped right in her path.

Darcy snapped harshly back into reality. Her heart sped up.

“Didn’t realize this hallway was more interesting than Tony’s new intel,” she said slowly.

Loki angled his head. He wasn’t in her space, but challenge was written in every line of his body. “The hallway isn’t, no.”

When he said nothing more, she prodded, “Okay, so you’re still here… why exactly?”

“I’d like to ask you a question, Miss Lewis.”

“And I’d like Ross to suddenly think we’re the best thing since sliced bread.”

Loki raised an eyebrow.

“I thought we were both listing things that aren’t going to happen right now,” Darcy said, an edge to her voice. “Loki, I need to join the rest of the team.”

“I am not going to hurt you,” he said. “Darcy.”

She liked how her name sounded when he said it like that. Mentally slapped herself. “I know.”

“Really?” He stepped closer. Still not really in her space, but starting to push the bubble. “Because you seem rather… nervous.”

“You’re physically intimidating,” Darcy retorted. “It’s subconscious. You think I’d spend so much time alone with you if I thought you would hurt me? The Avengers would rain holy hell on you.”

“Is that the only thing you believe is holding me back?” he asked. Darcy looked closer. The hallway was not well lit, but she almost thought he looked hurt.

Did she really think that?

He took her hesitation as an answer and stepped back. “Shall we join the war council, Miss Lewis?” Loki’s tone had taken on a faintly mocking edge, and the curl to his lips was cruel.

She recognized a defense mechanism when she saw one.

“No,” Darcy said quietly.

He blinked. “Now you do not wish to join them?”

“Ass,” she snapped. “No. I don’t think you’d just randomly snap my neck or something if you were freed from your bargain.”

“You hesitated,” he said, but at least the cruelty was gone from his face.

She threw her hands up. “You threw a loaded question at me with no warning, what did you think I was gonna do, just spit out an answer without thinking about it? I’ve known enough abusive dickweeds to say you’re not one.”

Loki narrowed his eyes. “You have?”

“Pass,” Darcy said. “Okay, seriously, do you actually have something to say or were you just trying to unnerve me by ambushing me in a dark corridor? And don’t tell me you didn’t realize how it’d come across, I’m not an idiot and neither are you.”

Loki shrugged. “I didn’t have a particular question. I was curious whether… whether you are afraid of me.”

“Good, we’ve cleared up that I’m not,” she said. “Can we go now?”

“Indeed,” he said with a small smile, a genuine one this time, and led the way into the elevator.