Darcy and Loki collapse through the doorway.

Darcy watches the doorway fade into a starfield of green light against black, then vanish completely, leaving only smooth, clear wall. Only then does she allow herself to relax against Loki. His body is held tense, one arm wrapped, defensive, around her body. His other hand is wrapped gently around the arm that Hel broke.

She looks down. Beneath his fingers, black bruises bloom around her elbow, the skin swollen in places where blood has clotted thick beneath the skin. Her skin itself looks fragile, the tracery of veins too vivid, her pulse beating too hard.

She remembers Hel's fingers digging deep into her marrow, splintering bone, and winces.

"Can she…can she get us here?" Darcy asks, looking up at the wall again. It is apparently whole, inviolable. "Like before."

Loki's arm tightens around her, a living shield, though when he speaks, his voice is even. "I have strengthened the boundaries of this place. Taken it further aside from the physical plane of Midgard. Hel cannot reach us here."

"What about when I go back?"

Loki turns her to face him. The purple bruises around his eye sockets intensify the green of his irises. "I will ensure your safety, Darcy. If it is the last thing I do."

She shifts her weight slightly; Loki does not loosen his grip around her body, though he does take his hand away from her arm. His fingers whisper over the bruised skin. "I have healed what I can. It will be fragile for a time, but it should hold. So long as you don't go flinging yourself out of any more windows."

"I seem to recall that I didn't actually volunteer for any defenestration," Darcy says dryly.

"Why do you Midgardians have a word for that?" Loki asks. "It is a strange thing."

"So is having someone poke their nails into your bone marrow," Darcy says. She pokes her arm. It feels sore, like the kind of tenderness you get after a long bout with fever. The black marks are still there, each one spiralling more than inch into the surrounding skin. Sickness twists in her stomach. "I see you got my doorway turned the right way up at least."

Loki pulls himself to his feet, helps Darcy up. His movements are hesitant, and she wonders how much energy he's been burning over the last day. Too much, by the look of him.

"I did consider leaving it," he says, leading the way into the main room. The fire is burning low, barely more than glowing coals, and it is cold. "A little mark of Darcy, if you like. The refinements I was forced to make did not allow for such a…quirk, however."

He collapses into one of the chairs by the fire. His skin is damp, and his breath comes fast and shallow.

Darcy sits down opposite him. "You should have just left my arm," she says. "You're pushing yourself too much."

"The injuries inflicted by Hel affected your physical body, also. And you have not the resources to fight her. It is possible that you would not wake."

He delivers the words with something almost like indifference, his eyes on the embers in the fireplace. But Darcy sees the tightness in the muscles of his shoulders, the way his fingers are held tight as claws.

"The cameras will have seen you, won't they?" Darcy asks softly. "Even though this is a projection, they'll have seen you."

"Perhaps no one was watching," Loki says, though there is no conviction in his words.

"With Hel smashing supposedly shatterproof glass, I think everyone will have been watching." Darcy pulls her legs up to her chest, laces her hands around her knees. "And even if no one was, there's always J.A.R.V.I.S."

"Stark's sentient servant?"

Darcy chokes back a laugh. "Oh, I'd love to see you tell Tony that one. Stark is missing. Pepper and Jane are both confined to their quarters. Pepper thinks that even J.A.R.V.I.S. has been compromised."

Loki's lips press into a line, that crease forming between his eyebrows as he thinks.

"So, won't they be beating down the walls of your cell right now?" Darcy asks. "Blackwood seemed extremely eager to test out his toys on you, find out if you're actually immortal."

"Asgardians are not immortal," Loki says, almost absently. His eyes are still on the embers, orange light flickering in his pupils. "Merely long-lived in comparison to Midgardians."

"That's great and all, but shouldn't we be doing something?" Darcy asks. "Your physical body dies, and so does the projection, right?"

"One of the modifications I made essentially takes this place out of the Midgardian time stream. We have stepped aside from it."

Darcy blinks. "So the world's on pause?"

"I suppose that is a way to term it."

"And as soon as I step back through there, bam, everything starts up again? What good is that?"

Loki's eyes shift back to her. His pupils are dilated. "It gives us time."

"So we party while the world is ending?" Darcy stands, begins stalking back and forth across the room. "What fucking good does that do? The world still ends, Hel still wins. You…you still die."

"I assure you, my flesh will not die quite as easily as Daniel Blackwood hopes," Loki says, watching her. "I am somewhat more stubborn."

"So I die. And what's the fucking point? Why are we even here when we should be out there doing something?" Darcy realises that she's weeping now, tears streaming down her face, freezing into tiny icicles that make cold music when they fall onto the floor. "People are dying. Innocent people are dying because of me. Because I was too weak to carry a bit of bullshit pain with me. People live through wars, through living nightmares, and they keep going. And the first chance I get, I just hand it all over to the fucking goddess of death."

Her legs give way suddenly, and she crumples to the floor between the two chairs. She lets herself fall, curls up in a foetal position. She's still crying, but the tears remain liquid now, the room suddenly warmer as the fire flares into life.

"We make choices to avoid pain," Loki says. He comes and lies down behind her, curving his body against hers. Gently moves her hair aside so he can kiss the back of her neck; continues talking with his lips against her skin. "In every moment, we endeavour to do what we think is best, using the tools that we have at our disposal. Once, I sought to save the realm I was born to from what I considered a foolish king, and began a series of events which only created more pain for everyone. Myself, more than anyone else. You sought to be free of a burden that had held you confined all of your life. It is natural. It is human."

"It is weak," Darcy says. "Jane wouldn't have done it. Pepper, either. Black Widow would have kicked Hel in the nuts. Metaphorical nuts, anyway. Everyone else fights."

"Not everyone is a warrior, Darcy."

Darcy pulls away from him, sits up again, arms locked around her legs again. Her mind is whirling. She wipes away her tears, scrubs her hands dry on her shirt. "How much magic do you still have? Like, what can you actually do?"

"In the bounds of these rooms, mostly illusions." Loki unfurls his fingers, and three crystal spheres are balanced on his fingers. He spins them easily for a moment, and then lets them dissolve into a shower of light.

"But you had enough magic to change the boundaries. To change the way time moves here."

"That was…unexpectedly easy. My mother left me doorways, windows. Half finished things that only took a twist, a slight change."

Darcy rubs her fingers together. Here, her blackened hand has some feeling, as though only the very surface of her skin is numb. "Frigga said that she gave you windows in the cell, too. Windows. More than one. Maybe she left you something there, too."

Loki is on his feet immediately, forcing Darcy to scramble to catch up to him. He moves with energy and purpose, and Darcy thinks that another person would assume that he was recovered. She glances at him as he walks, sees the blueish pallor to his skin, and knows that he is simply burning more of himself. Burning down to the bone.

Loki presses his hands against the wall. Green light flares from his fingers, and the doorway appears. It flickers into life in the same fashion as the other door had faded, cycling through the green starfield before forming completely.

Darcy turns away. She doesn't want to see that cell again. She knows that she has to.

She turns around slowly. Loki is standing to one side of the doorway. His face is set, the muscles in his jaw tight.

Darcy approaches the doorway slowly, stretches out the moments until she has to see what lies beyond.

Loki's physical body is still curled in the corner, in exactly the same position that it had been the last time she had seen it. The cell is still destroyed around him.

The ice and snow have gone. Instead, the ceiling glows with dull red light, the air filled with enough heat shimmer that she knows that the heat from the ceiling is intense.

An image rises unbidden in her mind. A photograph she saw once, of Hiroshima after the bomb was dropped. The silhouette of a person burned forever onto a wall. The heat from the nuclear explosion so intense that it blasted the person to ash, but left their shadow etched forever on the world.

She looks closer at the metal frame of the privacy screen. Sees where the metal has softened and bent, a single silver droplet beading on the lowest point.

She's shaking as she moves across the doorway so she can see the transparent wall of the cell. Knows who she will see there before she sets eyes on him.

Daniel Blackwood.

The floor beneath his mirror-shined shoes is still black with her dried blood. He does not appear to notice, his attention on the tablet in his hands, his fingers on the screen presumably controlling his torture device. In contrast to the heat, he looks cool and calm, dressed in a tailored suit the equal of any Tony Stark might wear, his hair slicked back from his face.

Darcy's skin crawls, that feeling of something creeping beneath her Hel-blackened flesh intensifying as she looks into Blackwood's eyes.

"How do you torture a frost giant?" she asks softly. "With heat." She turns to Loki, who is standing now with his back pressed against the wall, his hands fisted by his sides. "How does he know to use heat?"

"A lucky guess, perhaps."

Darcy rubs at her right arm. The skin feels loose, as though it will slough away from her bones. "A very lucky guess."

"There is something about Blackwood," Loki says. "Something I cannot unravel without confronting him in the flesh."

"And as soon as you step through that door, you return to your physical body. And…" Darcy's stomach twists, and she cannot finish the sentence.

"My body can withstand heat," Loki says. His voice is flat, but his hands are moving over his body, fingers pressing against his ribs, touching his teeth, his temples. "I do not wish to repeat the experience, however." He blinks, focuses on his hands. Fists them again by his sides. "You see, you are not the only one who avoids pain."

"So you can't go back there. And as soon as I go back through the other doorway, Hel gets me. And I suspect she's going to be pretty pissed off." Darcy moves back from the doorway. "So what do we do? What can we do?"

"We use the weapons we have at our disposal." Loki waves a hand, and the doorway fades. "The tools my mother left. What magic I have. Our minds."

"If we're relying on my mind, the world is screwed." Darcy grins; the expression feels brittle.

"You tased my brother once. There are few who can claim to have bested Thor."

"Anyone could have done it. And it would be great, if I had a taser, at least." She pauses. "Wait, can you make me a magic taser? Some kind of Asgardian version?"

Some of the tension fades from Loki, and he begins to smile. "Darcy Lewis, you may just be a genius."

#

Darcy pulls the linen shirt over her head, rolls up the sleeves. The fabric is soft, and smells faintly of clean sunshine. Her skin is still damp from her bath, and the shirt clings to her hips and breasts. She doesn't care, because she's clean and the shirt is clean. And more importantly, the shirt is not a set of scrubs.

She kicks the scrubs she discarded on the floor, just for good measure. Wonders briefly if she should toss them into the fire. Decides that they're so horrible that they probably would even burn, settles for kicking them again.

The shirt is one of Loki's, an open-necked tunic that she lifted from his wardrobe. Also in the wardrobe was a rack of gowns in what she assumes is an Asgardian style. Lots of velvet and silk, embroidery and what looked suspiciously like real jewels. All of them in Loki's colours - greens, gold and black - and all looking to be perfectly her size. Darcy had considered them briefly before turning and choosing Loki's shirt instead.

Loki has been working at the long bench in the main room for long enough for the clock he conjured to spin through a full revolution of its thirteen hours, and begin again. Earlier, he had conjured food, ostensibly for both of them, but he had done little more than pick at some bread before settling to his work. Darcy had eaten until she had felt stuffed, just because she could. She didn't know if the conjured food would actually provide any real nutrition, but it had tasted good.

So, she had eaten, then napped for a while. Finding Loki still working when she woke, she had poked through his library for a while. Lots of what she presumed were Asgardian texts, more Midgardian texts in languages she only barely recognised. A full, leather-bound set of Shakespeare, poetry, philosophy. And tucked away in a corner, a set of hardcover Harry Potter books. Darcy had smiled, then, trying to imagine Loki's reaction to the boy wizard and his magic world. She had attempted to read the first book for a while, but her attention kept wandering, and she had eventually set the book down, deciding to make use of his bath instead. She had invited Loki to join her, but he hadn't even looked up from his work.

She wanders back into the main room. The long workbench is cluttered with instruments and components, all of which are completely unrecognisable to her. Flashes of light come from Loki's fingers as he manipulates a small object hovering before him. The scent of ozone rises in the room, bright and sharp. Despite the metal, leather and God-only-knows-what strewn about the bench, the object Loki is working on appears to be made entirely of white light. It is around the size of an orange, its surface made from what looks like thousands of interlocking parts, all in constant motion.

Loki picks up what looks like a copper spiral no larger than his thumbnail, inserts it into the light sphere. There's a flash of emerald light, and the surface becomes more dense, writhes.

"I will be finished soon," he says to Darcy without turning. "You should rest. Eat."

"I have rested. And unlike some people, I have eaten." She's aware of the irritated edge in her voice as she speaks. She's never done well with being unoccupied. Being useless.

Loki picks up a curved piece of gold, inserts it into the sphere. This time, there's a popping sound, and a curl of black smoke rises. He mutters beneath his breath.

"I get it," Darcy says. "Making myself scarce pronto."

He turns then. Blinks once, then twice. "There are gowns for you in the wardrobe, you know."

Darcy twitches the hem of the shirt, deliberately raising it up several inches. "Not really a gown kind of girl."

The corner of his mouth twitches in something that suspiciously resembles a suppressed smile.

"It's okay," Darcy says. She drops a quick kiss on Loki's forehead. "Let me know when you're finished."

She pours two goblets of wine, sets one down near Loki, takes the other through into the antechamber. She settles into a corner of the windowsill with her wine, her legs folded beneath her, and watches the facsimile of Asgard outside. She watches for long enough that she realises that the scene is actually a long repeating loop. It's long enough that most people wouldn't realise, though she suspects that Loki would probably have known within a few seconds. Then again, Loki can probably see the skein of magic used to make the scene in the first place.

She drinks her wine slowly, watches Asgard. After a while, it becomes soothing, knowing that the scene was going to repeat. Knowing what tiny changes were going to happen before they do. The world reduced to predicability.

She's half asleep when Loki finally appears. He's holding his goblet of wine - still full, or newly filled - and his skin is leaning towards that bluish pallor again, but there is satisfaction in his eyes.

"Magic taser?" Darcy asks.

"Complete as it can be without testing." Loki settles into the window opposite her, stretches his legs out.

"You can't test it here?"

"It is designed for a single use only." He gazes out at Asgard, his eyes far away.

"As long as it blasts Hel to smithereens, I'm all good with it."

He smiles grimly. "It will return her to her realm, seal the breach made into Midgard. Release those bound by her."

Darcy runs her hand lightly across her blackened arm. The feeling has been bleeding back into her skin the longer she's been here, protected from Hel's influence. "Am I going to be left with some gnarly scars after this? Or will my arm like fall off or something?"

Loki looks puzzled. "Gnarly?"

"Gross. Horrible. Ugly."

He reaches out and trails his fingers up her arm, skips up to the side of her neck. Coolness follows his touch, and feeling returns completely to her skin. "You could never be anything of the kind."

Darcy can't help herself. She pulls the most twistest, ugliest face she can manage, one that had even impressed her brothers when they were young. To her delight, Loki grins, and then laughs, almost falling off the windowsill in a display of gracelessness that she can only attribute to his tiredness. Darcy grabs his arm and prevents him from falling.

"I think you need to rest now," she says. She makes another face, this one involuntary. "And I think you should make use of the tub. I don't know what you put into the magic taser, but it smells like ass."

He raises an eyebrow. "Are you ordering me, Ms Lewis?"

She grins. " I am."

"Well, then." He half-falls, half-tumbles off the windowsill, falls into a low bow. "If my lady commands."

He dodges the kick Darcy aims at him. Just barely.

#

Darcy pauses in the doorway of the bathroom. Smiles to herself.

Loki is stretched out full length in the tub, which has shifted shape again so that he rests in shallower water. His head is cradled against a folded towel, his damp hair trailing water onto the cotton. Next to the towel, the remnants of the fruit, bread and wine she made him eat earlier. His eyes are closed, his lips parted, and he is snoring lightly. Darcy is tempted to just leave him there, he's so exhausted, but she knows that she has to wake him up and get him into bed, at least.

She kneels down, shakes his shoulder lightly. He is immediately awake, his hand tight around her wrist, his other arm up in a defensive posture. As soon as he sees that its Darcy, he relaxes, smiles.

"You fell asleep," she says. "And I don't know about you, but I know that I'd rather sleep in a bed than a bathtub."

"I can think of better things to do in a bed than sleep," Loki says.

She doesn't even have time to react before his arms close around her, pull her into the water. He magics the tub at the same time, the water now deep enough for them both. Darcy makes a noise of mock protest, splashes him, and is rewarded by his laughter. The tension seems gone from him suddenly, the weight that had always dragged him down gone.

Loki lifts Darcy from the tub, peels the now-wet shirt from her, kissing the curve of her hip, the swell of her stomach, between her breasts. He pulls the shirt over her head, and they stand before each other, naked. They stand far enough away that none of their skin touches. Darcy looks up at Loki, feeling almost shy, and the look in his eyes sets her heart racing.

He lifts a hand, cups her cheek. His fingers are trembling, and she knows that his heart is beating as fast as her own. She lifts her own hand to cover his. For a long moment they stand like that, just seeing and be seen, then Darcy raises herself up on her toes, presses her lips to his. He kisses her back lightly, and then his lips curve against hers.

"I believe," he says, drawing back from her slightly. "I believe that this time, you were the be the one in control."

The sheer need in his voice sends an unexpected bolt through her. In those words, so much: a willingness to trust, a longing to be cherished. To be loved.

She curls her fingers around his hand, turns her head so she can press her lips to his palm. "This isn't going to be all whips and chains is it?"

There's a twinkle of mischief in his eyes when he answers. "It is whatever you wish it to be, my Lady."

"Oh." Of course, he can magic anything she wants. Her throat is suddenly dry. "I don't really know how to do any of…this."

"I believe our previous nights would make a lie of that statement," Loki says.

Darcy feels herself flush. Remembers Loki's reaction when she had curled her fingers into his hair and pulled. "So, you do what I say, then?"

He kisses her knuckles gently, then steps back, drops into a bow. Manages somehow to breathe out in the midst of the action, cool air sliding between her thighs. Her naked thighs. Somehow Loki naked still manages to look regal, as though he's clothed (or unclothed) the correct way, and it is the rest of the clothed world is wrong. Darcy always just feels awkward, as though she needs to be covered.

Loki pulls himself back up. Drops her hand, lowers his own hands by his sides. Waits, his eyes on her.

Darcy can't help but flick a glance downwards. Loki is clearly enjoying this. He doesn't miss her glance, because when she looks back up, he quickly smooths a smile from his face.

"Um." Darcy shifts her weight from foot to foot. Her hair, still wet from her dunking in the bath, drips cold water down her spine. Loki's hair is as wet, but beginning to dry into loose curls. "We could both do with being dry, I guess?"

Loki quirks an eyebrow. "Is that an order, my Lady?"

Darcy flicks another glance over him. This time checking for that blueish pallor. His skin seems a healthy enough colour - Asgardian enough colour, she corrects herself, which means that he has enough energy to maintain that illusion, but she can still see where his body had burned muscle.

"Are you sure we should be doing this?" she asks. "You should probably be resting, you've been doing so much magic. Not to mention being tortured. And there's kind of the whole end of the world queen of darkness thing happening."

Loki blinks, a faintly confused look on his face. "Everything outside these rooms is, essentially, frozen in time. It waits."

"And what about you?"

An echo of that old mask of bravado forms on his face. "I hardly matter in - as you put it - the face of the 'whole end of the world' thing."

"Do you still really believe that?" Darcy closes the space between them, takes his face in her hands. "Right now, you are the only thing that matters. And if my saying that isn't enough, look around you. Your mother made all of this for you because you matter so much to her. Your brother would tear the universe apart to have you at his side, and happy."

Loki looks away. "He is not-"

"Thor is your brother. He was raised as your brother and he loves you, and at the end of the day, that's what matters. Family isn't only the people who happen to be related by blood to." And sometimes it isn't even that, a small voice whispers in her mind.

When Loki looks back at her, she sees that young version of him again, his features softer, not sharpened with pain. "And you?"

Darcy looks into his eyes for a long time before she answers. "You matter more to me than anything I have ever known."

His arms close around her, his embrace so tight that it's almost crushing. He falls to his knees, presses his face into the upper swell of her breasts. She feels dampness against her skin and knows that he is weeping. Says nothing, just holds him for as long as he needs.

When he pulls away, his eyes are dry. He pulls himself to standing again, arms at his sides. "I believe my Lady requires her hair to be dried?"

Darcy runs a hand through her hair. It's mostly dry now, though she winces when her fingers catch in a tangle. "Maybe a comb?"

She expects him to hand her a comb, but instead he moves behind her, begins running his fingers through her hair. His movements are slow and languid, and he pauses occasionally to rub his fingertips into her scalp. He rubs rose-scented oil through the strands, and a coolness tingling over her skin tells her of the use of his magic to ease out the worst of the knots. By the time he's finished, she's practically purring.

"Man, you want a full-time job?" she asks as he circles around in front of her again.

He falls into that bow again, doing that trick with his breath again, cool air sliding between her thighs. This time, she feels a cool tingling sliding across the folds between her legs, too.

"Hey, cheating!" she says as he straightens.

He just raises an eyebrow.

Darcy chews her lip. With the look in his eye, a whip is suddenly sounding like a mighty fine idea. More, she knows that he would like it. Maybe next time, she says to herself. She doesn't want this to be about pain, even welcome pain.

She realises that she's thinking about next time as though it's a solid and real thing. Even with the chaos waiting outside these rooms, she trusts completely that Loki will save everything. That things will be okay.

"I think it's time for bed, don't you?" she asks, arching an eyebrow.

He inclines his head. "As my Lady commands."

Loki sweeps her up into his arms, carries her to the bed. When he lowers her to the mattress, she feels rose petals between her skin and the silk coverlet. The weight of her body crushes the petals, releasing their fragrance.

"Nice touch," she says. She grabs Loki's wrist and pulls him down beside her. "Better touch," she adds as he stretched out beside her.

She rolls him over onto his back. He moves easily beneath her touch, arches his throat up to her, eyes slitted. His pulse is visible beneath his skin, beating the frantic tattoo of his heartbeat. Darcy smiles to herself, then lifts his wrists, arranging his arms above his head, the way he had hers. His breath catches in his throat, his pupils dilating.

"I think," Darcy says, kneeling back and surveying her work. His pale skin fairly glows against the emerald silk and deep red rose petals. "I think that you need to keep your hands there until I say otherwise."

He laces his fingers together, hard enough that his knuckles pale.

Darcy lets her gaze move down his body, amazed all over again at how damn beautiful he is. Long and lean, and even with the loss of muscle, she can see the strength in his muscles. He's strong enough that he could overpower her easily, both physically and with magic. And yet he's here lying before her naked, willingly completely vulnerable to her. Completely trusting. That thought sends an unexpected surge of lust through her, starts a throbbing between her thighs.

"I think I'm thirsty." Darcy slides off the bed, makes a show of swaying her hips as she crosses the room. "I think I need some more wine."

As she walks through the doorway, she hears Loki make a sound deep in his throat, half moan, half sigh. She smiles in satisfaction.

When she returns, goblet in hand, he hasn't moved at all. Only his eyes move, following her as she crosses the room again, climbs up onto the bed.

"I never used to like wine much," she says, sipping. "More of a beer girl. But this is good." She drinks deeply; Loki licks his lips. She tilts her head to the side. "Would you like some?"

He nods, and she lifts up his head, holds the goblet so he can drink. Deliberately tips the goblet a little too much, spilling the wine. The dark red liquid flows down his chin, drips onto his neck and chest, pools in the hollow of his throat.

"Oops." Darcy sets the goblet aside, and, with a grin, begins to lick the wine from him. She lingers on the place where his shoulder dips towards his collarbones, nips at his skin lightly.

She slides a hand down his side, fingers tracing the curve of his hipbone, moving to dance lightly over the plane of his stomach. He's started to shift restlessly beneath her touch, and she dips her fingers lower, almost but not quite touching dark curls. He makes a small sound of frustration when she moves her hand higher again, and she smiles against his skin, returns to exploring him with her lips and tongue. When she finds one of his nipples with her teeth, he gasps and arches beneath her. She sits up, surveying the results of her work with a satisfied grin. He is fully hard, a drop of precome already gleaming at the end of him.

Darcy can't help herself. She leans over, licks it away, tasting the salt of him. His hips jerk, and she moves quickly away, making a show of licking her lips.

Loki has his fingers interlaced so tightly that his nails have paled to white, and his breathing is rapid and shallow.

Darcy briefly considers making another trip for wine or food, but she doesn't know if she can make herself stop touching Loki right now. There's a headiness to this that she never imagined was possible, just knowing that she's doing this to him, that just a few touches are enough to send him close to the edge.

She trails her hand down his hip again, continuing the long, light stroking down the outside of his thigh. Slides her fingers inside his leg, trails them up slowly until she just brushes the edge of those dark curls again. Locks her eyes with his, holding her hand there for a moment, then grins and skips over to his other leg, echoing the teasing he'd done to her. He bites his lip hard, his pupils so wide now that she can barely see the green of his irises.

She repeats that teasing touch once, twice, then removes her hands. Her eyes still on his, she lifts her hair off her neck and shoulders, arches her back. His eyes move down, and damn if she doesn't feel that almost as a physical touch as a cold tingling moving over her breasts, her stomach, dipping between her legs…

"Hey," she says. "I do believe that using magic is cheating."

He just looks at her, a look of creamy satisfaction in his eyes, lips curving into a smirk. The tingling between her thighs intensifies.

Darcy narrows her eyes. Looks down, sees another drop of precome beading on the tip of him. It's her turn to smirk then, before she leans down, licks a long stripe down the length of him, closing her lips and sucking for a moment, swirling her tongue over the head of him before she pulls back.

The cold tingling is gone, leaving her with a deep ache inside her. She says nothing, just arches an eyebrow at him.

Loki bares his teeth and growls, a sound that goes straight to that ache between her legs.

There's no thought, no finesse in what she does next. She straddles him, but holds herself high enough that none of their skin actually touches. Runs her hands up his sides, up his arms to where his hands are clenched. Leans down and kisses him.

Loki kisses her back, hungrily, but surprisingly tender. When she pulls back from the kiss, she can see tears gleaming in his eyes.

"I think-" Her voice is husky, and she clears her throat before she continues. "I think you can move your hands now. If you want to."

He immediately clasps the back of her neck, pulling her down into another kiss. Darcy melts into it, presses her body against his. His skin is warm, almost feverish. The skin on skin contact is almost overwhelming, and Darcy finds her body moving automatically, her hips rocking back and forth against him, his hips thrusting up in a rhythm that seems almost desperate.

Darcy pulls back, lines him up with her, and sinks down, unable to hold back any more. For a long moment, she just stays still, looking down at Loki's face, feeling him inside her. Feeling how well he fits inside her, how right he feels. Loki, in turn, moves his hands to her hips. He rests his hands there lightly, but she can feel tension in him, as though he's ready to grab her if she tries to go anywhere.

Darcy presses her forehead to his. "I'm not going anywhere."

He closes his eyes for a moment, his forehead creaking as if in pain. A single tear drops from his lashes.

"Loki? Are you okay?" Darcy asks. "Did I do something wrong?"

When he opens his eyes, she finds that she cannot read his expression. Fear? Worry? Sorrow? He gives her only a moment before he pushes himself up, keeping himself inside her. When he is still again, he is seated, Darcy in his lap. His hands return to her hips, resting there lightly again.

"At your command, my Lady," he whispers, his eyes on hers.

Darcy slides her hands up his arms, absurdly grateful that she has feeling in her Hel-blackened skin. If she doesn't look at the marked places, she can almost pretend that her skin is untouched. That the world isn't ending outside of these rooms.

It's okay. Loki's going to fix everything. His magic taser is going to blast Hel back where she belongs, and everything will be okay. Better than its even been before.

She presses a light kiss to Loki's forehead. His skin tastes like salt and smoke.

Darcy begins to move. Loki's hands tighten on her hips, but otherwise he lets her set the pace, his own hips rocking in counterpoint to her own. He says nothing, just looks at her, his eyes roaming over her face as though he wants to commit every contour and angle to memory.

Darcy moves faster and faster, her hands roaming over Loki's shoulders, sliding into his hair. She fists her fingers in his hair, pulls lightly, and is rewarded with a gasp, his hips rocking up hard into hers. She does it again, and he moans, long and low, throws his head back and exposes his throat. Darcy kisses the skin over his pulse, feels the rhythm of his heart against her lips. She bites lightly, then harder, and rakes her fingernails down his back.

Loki loses control then, thrusting hard and fast into her. Knowing that he's close, Darcy slides her hand down between then, circles her clit. It doesn't take long before she comes apart. Loki follows soon after, his groans of release vibrating down through her spine and bringing her a fresh wave of ecstasy.

Afterwards, he holds her for a long time, hands moving up and down her body, tracing the curves of her hips over and over, skimming her spine. Darcy curls into him, enjoying the sensation of him softening inside her. She presses her face into his neck, breathes deep of the scent that is him: musk and leather, a tang of bright ozone. Her muscles are soft and loose, and she feels herself sliding slowly into sleep.

She's aware of Loki lowering her to the bed, the scent of roses rising around them as he settles her weight. Curves himself behind her, presses a kiss to the back of her neck as he wraps an arm around her body, pulls her close. He murmurs something against her skin, his voice pitched too low for her to make out what he says, and then she is falling into a deep sleep.

#

Darcy is locked in a cell below the ground, everything white.

Darcy is burning.

Darcy is falling.

Darcy is listening to a man who is not her father tell her the truth of who she is.

Darcy is in a frozen land, watching as her skin turns blue.

Darcy is lost in shadows.

Darcy is.

Darcy is.

Darcy is not Darcy.

Darcy is Loki.

And Darcy is dreaming.

The series of images stops with that realisation, like a film that has been paused.

A moment of black, and then they begin again. This series of images is different, drained of colour, more nebulous. Darcy knows that these are things that have not happened yet. Plans that have not yet become action.

Darcy is Loki.

Loki is waking, looking down at Darcy lying curled on the bed, her body still in the shape that had fit his own so perfectly. Rose petals are tangled in her hair, and one of her hands is flung out, as though reaching for something. Loki presses a kiss to the tips of his fingers, touches them gently to her lips.

He dresses, donning his full Asgardian armour. Weariness drags at him as he fumbles with straps and buckles, lifts the weight of his helmet onto his head. It fells like donning an old, outgrown skin, too heavy and restrictive.

He longs to return to the bed, to spend forever just lying there in Darcy's arms. The longing is so great that he does not even allow himself a single glance at her as he moves past the bed and past into the main room. He does not let himself look out at the illusion of Asgard. If he looks, he will falter. And he must not. He cannot.

This is the price he must pay.

The sphere waits on the workbench. It is calm now, its surface still. When he touches it, emerald light flares, and the surface of the sphere begins to crawl, undulating and rotating.

He opens himself to the magic, and when he cups the sphere between his hands, it comes apart, the light liquifying. It seeps into the pores of his skin, through his veins, his nerves, his bones. Cold roils within him, the magic in constant motion, desiring only to be released, to be allowed to become.

A wave of his hand opens the doorway to his cell.

He steps through.

Heat flashes across his skin as he reconnects with the part of himself that has been resident in the cell. He pushes the sensation away even as he feels his skin blistering, a horribly familiar sensation. He forces his flesh to hold together with sheer will.

Outside the cell, Blackwood. One of his arms is raised slightly, the sleeve of his shirt pushed back. From the angle Loki is at, he can see black crawling along the man's skin. So, Blackwood is another of Hel's minions.

Loki wishes there were time to place his hands around the man's neck, squeeze the life from him, make him pay. The unstable magic within him does not allow him that luxury. He turns his attention from Blackwood, searches the cell for the doorway that Frigga - that his mother - left him. He finds it, and steps through, out of Stark Tower.

The world outside is dark, but for the tree.

As soon as Loki sees it, he knows it for a branch of Yggdrasil. One stolen somehow from Asgard, corrupted by this goddess to form a twisted pathway between Helheim and Midgard, between death and life. The magic within him hums, presses out against his skin. He contains it, pain fracturing through him as the effort strains his blistered skin.

Just a moment longer, he says to the magic, speaking as calmly as though he were trying to soothe a fractious child. An image blossoms in his mind unbidden: Darcy, holding a newborn babe, her face luminous as she smiles at him. He pushes it away, focuses on the twisting thing inside him. This is the only child he will ever have. The only one he deserves to have. Just a moment more, and then you and I both will burn. Together, we will return Hel to her realm, seal the breach. And I will pay for what I have done.

Loki closes his eyes. I am sorry that I could not say goodbye, Darcy. That I could not thank you for what you have done. For what you have been. I give you the only gift I can: freedom. I do this for you, my love.

He opens his eyes, begins walking to where Hel is waiting.

#

Darcy awakes, her heart hammering against her ribs.

Beside her, Loki is sleeping deeply, his head pillowed on one arm. His other arm is still wrapped loosely around her waist, fingers relaxed. The images from her dream are still vivid in her mind. More vivid than any dream she has ever had.

Except for the dreams which she previously shared with Loki.

She looks down at Loki. His body is curved in the shape complementary to how hers had been in the dream. Rose petals are tangled in his hair, and it is he who is reaching out.

And she knows that he, the God of Lies, has lied to her.

The magic sphere is nothing like a taser. It will not blast Hel back into her realm.

It is a bomb. A bomb designed to be contained in human flesh, where is will be undetectable to the goddess of death. That flesh will be sacrificed in order to heal the breach between worlds, to send Hel back to Helheim.

Loki is planning on being that flesh.

Loki is planning on sacrificing himself.

Darcy smooths Loki's hair back from his face. He is sleeping so deeply that he does not stir.

This, she knows, he did not plan on. That he would be so exhausted, sleep so deeply that Darcy would wake before him. He did not plan on their sharing a last dream. He did not plan on Darcy knowing.

"Did you do this, Frigga?" Darcy asks the empty room. "To save him?" She runs her hand over her blackened arm. The Hel-touched skin has grown numb again; she feels that numbness extending up to her jaw, curving over her shoulder and down her spine. If it growing this quickly on her skin, how much time do any of the ones around the tree have?

Darcy kisses the tips of her fingers, presses them to Loki's lips. "None of this is your fault. You're not the one who brought Hel through. You're not the one who has to pay."

She slides from the bed, pulls on the shirt that Loki discarded on the floor earlier. She can smell him on her skin as she walks through the room to where the sphere waits.

She cups her hands around the sphere, opens herself the way Loki had in the dream.

The magic burns like fire against her blackened skin, and she grits her teeth as it sinks in, twists through her bones and flesh. In Loki's body, it had felt like a contained explosion, a star a moment before it goes supernova. In her human flesh, it feels like liquid flame, searing her from within. It batters at her from within, and she fears that she cannot contain it. Then she thinks of Loki, of the desperate way he had made love to her, of everything he has already suffered, and she grits her teeth,forces the magic to stay within her.

She walks through the rooms to the library. Each step is like walking on smouldering coals. The door appears as she approaches it, its edges flickering and uncertain.

Outside that door, Hel waits.

Outside that door, her death waits.

"It's my fault," Darcy says. "I'm the one who let Hel through. I'm the one who has to pay."

She steps through the doorway.