InsaneJournal

Who: Darcy, Loki
What: a moment of quiet/getting ready to go home.
When/Where: after talking to Thor Stark's penthouse, after the order was lifted.
Rating: Green

Her morning was amazing, her early afternoon even better thanks to Loki. What wasn't great was seeing that evening news report on aliens being a threat. Especially since she was bonded to an alien and some of her friends where aliens as well. All it did was make her blood boil. Still, she remained calm. Even as she worked to get the proper case made to have Thor and Asgard be acknowledged within Earth and given diplomatic immunity. So she worked, on the bed with a poptart in her mouth and her headset in her ears.

After his talk with his brother, Loki entered the room he had been sharing with Darcy. His expression was not one of anger, but of intense contemplation. His eyes were keen but thoughtful as he approached the bed, stopping near the side to look down at her.

When she didn't acknowledge his presence at all, he leaned down and plucked one of the earbuds out of her ear.

"Stop." Although it was a command, it was not said unkindly. It was softly spoken, gently chiding.

Darcy grumbled, "Why..."

"We are overworked and weary from lack of sleep, after what has transpired. I have spoken to Thor. We are taking things one step at a time when he is ready to proceed. Now is a bad time to proceed."

Darcy sighed.

Loki ignored her sighing. "He is King. He has acknowledged me as his second. We must rest. He wishes to take things one step at a time, especially where I am concerned. He will let us know when he is ready to act."

"Darcy," he added in a voice that was so quiet that it was almost hard to hear. "You have not taken even a full day without seeing to some task or helping with the needs of others. After all you have been through, you too need time to contemplate and recover. Otherwise, you are merely ignoring basic needs with temporary distractions."

Another sigh escaped her lips as she listened to Loki.

"People keep attacking my friends and family..." She said as she came to lay back into the sheets and pillows of the bed. Blue eyes staring up at the ceiling for the moment. "I feel like none of us have time to recover anymore." She sat up on her elbows as she stared at Loki.

"Time does not stop for anyone to catch up," he pointed out. "More so in times of conflict. Or death."

He did not have the heart to tell Darcy that the 'friends and family' she was trying to protect found some of the things she did or said to be off-putting. Friends and family were one in the same to her. Yet she was dealing with a vastly foreign royal court that was quagmired in thousands of years of protocol. An entirely different race of people, while she had only her own frame of reference and he hadn't explained their ways in finer detail. In ways that also weren't in the middle of their quarreling.

Waiting to say that they found her disconcerting was but one way of sparing her during a time when she was feeling emotionally fragile. She had fallen into another bout of depression she kept trying to hide...as many had as of late. Thus he was exercising the same quiet caution he would have, hundreds of years ago. Before he became warped inside by jealousy.

Loki sat down on the edge of the bed, facing her and holding out one hand for her to take. As he did so, he spoke.

"If we are to lessen our incessant arguing, to find any moment of peace in the midst of turmoil? We will need take time to get our wits about us. Distracting yourself with other pursuits will offer you little to no time to recover. Now. Tell me. What has you feeling so aggrieved?"

She wasn't fully aware of how her friends and family were feeling towards her. Minus Thor, he made his view very clear. 'She was going to make things worse' stung more than she'd realize it would. But if she knew everyone had an opinion on her lately, it'd most likely be hard for her to recover from. When he came to hold out his hand, she took it and moved to rest her head on his shoulder for the time being.

"This stupid news special. All that report is doing is setting us up for a lynch mob."

Darcy was tired, even with the rest she took today, that moment of semi-rest was gone once she turned on the news to see the report about it being okay to leave their shelters but with caution. And then the special. Her hand came up and over her face as she exhaled annoyed at this point.

"Can't we go back to Coney Island?" She said softly. That was a good day, she liked that day. She was very carefree and falling in love. Now? She was madly in love, but always tired.

He too was tired, although he was accustomed to the feeling. Despite being fed grapes, he was constantly on guard and vigilant against revealing himself. Thus nothing in the past few years had been restful. Everything was in a perpetual state of chaotic flux around him, even when he thought there would be a moment's quiet. Every word went wrong, every slight cut deep, and every deed became gravely regrettable in the end. Even in his restless dreams.

"Yes, of course. I think we can spare an hour or two to engage in something normal now that things have settled, then focus back on our tasks."

As he held her hand in his own, Loki's brow was furrowed. He hadn't heard about the news special, hadn't had time to check the network.

"Who is us and what is this lynch mob you speak of?" he asked.

She did say 'us' didn't she? Damn her and her rambling.

"...you guys...I meant you guys. All the aliens that have come here lately." She said as she exhaled once more. "I want something normal. Hell I'd take a foot rub at this point if it was normal," she added as she brushed her hair back for the moment. That little braid with his hair braided into it peeking out as she came to toy with it a bit.

"A lynch mob is a group of people coming after you because you're different." She shifted slightly to place a kiss on his cheek. "I know you're trying to help me, and I love you for that."

Loki tended to seize onto words and meanings, since he was so adept at weaving them for his own purposes. Even more so, he was always looking for a hidden agenda, as he was wont to do after countless years of noting palace intrigues and nobles squabbling. Even with the nobles from other realms.

There wasn't any squabbling now. He tipped his chin down and smiled at her, his expression softened rather than the cunning and keen one he normally wore in public.

"It is because I love you that I try to help. Even if that ends with you shrieking at me. My delightful harpy," he teased with such fondness that it almost outweighed the sarcasm. "Who and why is there this....lynch mob...being organized? My mother has kept quiet. The Valkyrie has not announced herself. I am in hiding. Thor is the only one targetable. And I have put a spell over Gamora to hide her true color."

"I'm pretty sure their blaming the...incident as some form of alien doing. And she doesn't specifically say a name just alien. And what alien is here on Earth? Thor. It'll make it harder to show the Government he's on our side," she said as she exhaled deeply once again.

"You're still a creeper mantis," she suddenly said with a soft smirk as she locked her fingers with his for the moment. "What normalcy can you give me right now?" she was asking with pleading eyes. She'd already decided she wasn't going to leave the room since everyone was on high tension and she didn't want to really see Thor either.

This talk of aliens sounded rather unfavorable. He would have to look into this report. If it was that vile woman, Christine Everhart (a most inaccurate surname if ever there was one), he might pull a harmless prank like causing her coffee to taste of vinegar. If she actually made any for herself. No use having poor barista recieve a berating from an factual Midgardian harpy.

"The matter will not be settled overnight, nor on the 'morrow," he pointed out, looking upward and then off to one side as he thought out loud, his tone steadily growing more and more teasing. "I can think of a few rather inappropriate things we could do? But we've already reaffirmed the fact that we are happy to be alive this morn. We likely will again when are back in our own bed, this eve."

Just as well. After people turned to dust, dying before their very eyes, he didn't want Darcy going out into the city overly much. She had nightmares about the event, even before it happened here. Remnants of her very last memories from another universe, entirely. It scared her, and he often tried to help by weaving a dreamless sleep into her with his seidr. Her will was so stubborn, so set firmly in place, that it didn't adhere well. It never had, not even before. Only the strongest spells worked. The most inescapable ones such as a geas spell to bind one from ever again speaking a secret, unless it was removed by the one who cast it. A performance he would not be repeating.

"Perhaps I can interest you in some food and drink," he offered, as a sudden solution. "None of this...mcgriddle you had me go forth and fetch hours ago, along with burgers and buckets of fries. These burgers you requested seem rather flat and lackluster."

The fries were fine. He liked salt. Although not nearly as much as he liked sugar.

She nudged her shoulder against his.

"Like that's ever stopped us... Seriously, I think we have sex about maybe two to three times a day," she said laughing softly as she came to make a face. "Hey, no shit talking McDonalds," she added as she poked at his side suddenly. But her tone and her actions were both very playful. Something Darcy hadn't been much of the past few days.

"I like the idea of food and a movie. Can we make it a date?" She asked as she looked up at him for a moment. Sure they were still in Tony's house but that didn't mean this little moment he was offering her couldn't be a date.

He laughed a little and nodded, all while rolling his eyes. That they were rather active was a given. They were also prone to argue but tended to make amends quickly, both verbally and physically. There was a good reason he put a silencing ward on the inside of any rooms they stayed in. It spared everyone else from having their ears bleed, followed by desperately begging for amnesia to set in.

"I believe we've imposed enough on Stark's generosity during this troubling time," he pointed out, raising her hand up to press a kiss against it. "We can do this at home. Thor has bid me make arrangements for you, me, and the All-mother to depart. We are all weary and I am to watch over things. Mother has lost Nicolas Fury. I am sure she is fond enough of him to want some quiet, to contemplate his passing."

She adored his laugh, more than anything because it almost felt like it was just for her. "Then let's go home and have a movie date night." She replied softly as she came to bring her hand up to the side of his face and brush his hair out her view. She watched him. A smile was given as she turned his face to look at her.

"Jeg elsker deg," she said softly, before leaning in to kiss him sweetly.

When they weren't arguing their relationship was pretty sickeningly sweet. It would probably put Jane and Thor's relationship to shame. She smiled, liking that thought for the moment.

Shh! It is their secret. No one could know that Loki had anything resembling a heart of gold underneath a ton of tarnish. It would ruin his carefully fostered dastardly reputation. One that he had actually earned by being a highly mercurial individual, with occasional forays into world domination and usurping thrones.

Darcy did have a laugh reserved for her. Oh, Loki did laugh otherwise? Sometimes at highly inappropriate times. He laughed with his mother as they traded secrets or spells, and he used to laugh with his brother before envy robbed them of that. He laughed when pulling malicious jokes or harmless pranks. Yet he never laughed as hard as he did with Darcy. She was the first person to ever get him to laugh at that stupid sex-with-a-horse tale that a drunken Fandral and Volstagg started. She left him laughing to the point of tears, and more so during the times she laughed herself right off the edge of a bed or a chair, and fell onto the floor with an audible thunk.

He wasn't laughing as the kiss lingered on and on. Finally he pulled away just enough to murmur, "Jeg elsker deg, min Darcy."

He straightened up a little, his hair swept back thanks to her hands and a playful smirk on his lips.

"Now then. Gather your things. You should dwell upon which movie you would like, and I shall tell mother we are all leaving." he said. "We three shall all depart as soon as possible."

As he left the room, Loki decided he would leave some of the ore he gathered from Midgard's moon for Stark. It wouldn't mend the man's troubled soul, but it might be one way of repaying his brother's ally for his aid and generosity to Asgard.