Post Avengers – instead of returning to Asgard or wherever, Loki is imprisoned at SHIELD while Thor pleads for mercy for him and Fury and the Avengers try to decide what to do with /Darcy and Thor/Jane (rating may change as updated).

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CHAPTER 1

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The afternoon was winding down to evening as Darcy Lewis made her way past the security guards at the entrance and down into the lower levels of the SHIELD base currently set up in New Mexico. Their little temporary stake-out had become permanent with Thor and Loki's recent return to their realm—something they were trying to desperately keep under wraps from the human population, hence the base in the middle of the desert.

At first, it had been kindof charming, but after so long the heat was getting to her. She missed her home back north, where they had proper winters complete with plenty of snow. Here even mid-December, the faintest chill to the air was the only tangible hint of the change in seasons.

"Darcy, thank you so much!" Jane greeted her with a warm hug as she took over some of the stack of papers Darcy'd been bringing down to her. She'd become much more lively, affectionate and happy since Thor's return. It was wonderful to see, though a tiny part of Darcy didn't want to admit it made her feel jealous, and a little bit lonely.

What she wouldn't give for her own perfect man to just fall out of the sky into her lap.

Oh well. As it was, she couldn't really complain. Jane's research was going well, and the two of them were working so closely with SHIELD that Darcy had even managed to get a pay raise and a shiny new security clearance badge.

Of course, it meant she couldn't tell anyone in the outside world what it was that she did, but no one would care anyways. The stuff that fascinated Jane was enough to put most normal Earth mortals to sleep. Darcy had even had trouble with it at first, but Jane's infectious excitement and dedication to her goals had helped to get Darcy to join her cause. A little bit.

"Miss Lewis, you are too kind." Thor, ever the polite gentleman, stepped over behind Jane and pulled the pile of papers out of her fingers effortlessly in one hand, wrapping his free arm around her waist and pulling her close.

Darcy rolled her eyes as the two got wrapped up in yet another kiss. She'd never figured Jane to be so open with her affections, but then she supposed finding the most perfect man ever would make any woman want to shout it from the rooftops.

Darcy stepped away, pulling her backpack closer to her chest as she moved down the metal steps into the lab and office they'd set up for the two of them.

After the near-apocalypse that Thor's brother had caused, they'd designed an ultra-new fancy, escape proof glass pod that they'd decided to lock him away in until they decided what could be done with him. They might have killed him outright if Thor hadn't pleaded so insistently for his brother's life.

Even now, Thor had moved into living quarters on the base with Jane, so he could be closer to his brother and help to find some sort of resolution to the situation. Darcy wasn't sure such a thing was possible, but it wasn't her department. She had other things on her mind.

Setting up on her computer, she pulled up her thesis and messed with the latest sentence she'd typed into the word document. She'd changed her focus from political science to include international relations. The subject was fascinating in practice but so dull in theory that finishing up her paper was like pulling teeth.

Knowing she wouldn't get very far today, yet again, she glanced up just as Jane moved over to her.

"If you have the time, could you put this into the program? I did some extra calculations late last night that I think could help if we can get it all to come together just right."

"Not a problem."

"You're a gem."

"I'll remember that next time I forget to bring you coffee."

"Mmhmm." She grinned before returning to her notes, her mind obviously running a mile a minute as she worked on new calculations for the Einstein-Rosen bridge. Despite Thor having rejoined her, she was still desperate to figure it out. A scientist faced with a mystery, she just had to unravel it and understand it.

Darcy smiled and returned to her work.

After several hours of mulling around, adding two paragraphs and then deleting one, she pushed away from her computer in frustration and glanced at the clock. Just about lunchtime.

Just as she had that thought, Thor burst into the room with an absurdly large platter of food, carrying it over to Jane and motioning Darcy over with a wave. Steve, Natasha and Clint followed in his wake, the latter two looking bored but still moving in to grab some of the food he'd nabbed from the kitchens.

"Hey Darce, how's the writing going?"

Steve sat down next to her, sneaking a peek at her laptop before she slammed it closed.

When they'd first met, she'd nearly scared him off with her appreciation of his man-parts, her sexy nicknames for him and her utter straightforwardness. Something the man from the past had never learned how to deal with.

Eventually though, he'd figured out she was playing with him, and she'd grown on him. She had a habit of doing that to people.

"It's going well enough not to worry about it."

"Pie?"

Thor handed her a plate piled high with food, obviously under the misguided notion that she hadn't eaten in weeks considering the amount of food present. Atop it all was a whole pie. Not a slice. A whole pie.

"Are you crazy?"

"He means well." Jane smiled and nodded. Clint and Natasha disappeared as quickly as they came. Steve leaned in to give her a hug before backing to the door.

"Would love to stay, but they've got us in training all day."

"Beat 'em all up for me."

"Will do."

Jane and Thor came to sit near her and start on their lunch just as the phone rang. Jane's expression went all business-like in a way Darcy instantly recognized. A call from Nick Fury, or one of his SHIELD operatives sending her another batch of orders as they were wont to do.

Thor frowned and Darcy rolled her eyes, knowing she'd wrap herself up in whatever they told her to do and probably forget about lunch entirely.

Needing a break, Darcy grabbed a little bread bun, cheese and grapes and headed out of the room to find a quiet place to sit and eat. Her trusty ipod was in her jeans pocket with all her favorite play lists loaded up. All she needed was space and quiet. Which was harder than you'd think to find around this base.

Outside of the spartan corridors and long winding stairwells that led down into the base, there were a few control rooms, doors that were locked to Darcy, a kitchen, a couple of common rooms and the downstairs gym where most of the Avengers got their workout in for the day.

Darcy avoided all those, the sound of weapons crashing and fists pounding audible even from one floor above. Instead, she took a little side stairwell she'd never been down before, figuring now was as good a time as any to explore. While she didn't have a security guard on her back telling her to keep to "her clearance area". Ugh.

The base was much bigger than it looked from the outside. She'd been getting lost wondering around it since it was set up nearly a month ago, and she'd still seen only a third of it all.

Her little ballet flats made a clanging sound as she descended the metal steps into what looked like another control room. Several suits glanced up at her with stern expressions.

"Sorry, wrong room, just leaving now…" Before they could usher her out, she backed away down another hallway, already lost in the winding corridor. Maintaining a sense of direction when every hallway looked exactly the same was proving to be difficult.

Several flat metal doors without handles lined this hallway, electronic pads near them indicating the need for a special badge to gain access. Moving beyond them, she pulled up to a smaller door that looked like it was a closet.

Curious, she pulled it open only to find another winding set of stairs down into a dark room.

No lights were on, and when she looked for a switch on the wall, her fingers found nothing but smooth steel. The place felt eerie somehow. When she stepped in, lights automatically flickered on above her to illuminate another long hallway, this one made from plain, solid concrete that led out onto a balcony. She couldn't see what it looked out onto, but it was quiet, and there was a bench.

Decided, she made her way down and onto the balcony as a large room opened up to her left. The floor was several floors below her, and the ceiling extended one or two floors higher. The glass balcony looked down onto a tall, circular pod of glass—the ruffling of clothing and his voice came in time with the realization that went off like alarm bells in her head.

"Midgardian."

Loki's prison.

Trust her to find this of all places.

She'd accidentally stumbled upon some strange viewing area looking out onto his glass cage. Around the cage was thin air, a drop of fifty feet or more with only a single platform connecting him to an area just below her.

When she took a moment to pull her eyes away from his stern expression, she noticed the blinking lights of security cameras, panes of glass from a control room opposite him and more security equipment. They weren't taking any risks.

"Come to taunt me?"

A shiver ran down her spine at the coldness in his eyes. Her immediate reaction was to back away and leave the way she'd come in. But that would make her seem weak. He'd think she was afraid. So she did the opposite.

"Not really." She tried to keep her voice as casual as she could while she sat on the bench overlooking him. His deep, vibrant green eyes never left her, and she prayed he wouldn't be able to notice the way her hands were shaking.

Big bad god with a brother complex who nearly wiped out her entire planet? No big deal.

"Just having lunch."

She pulled out her ipod, laid her food out across her lap and tried to push away thoughts of where she was with her 90s pop music.

After a moment she could feel herself relaxing. It was working. Digging in to the snacks she'd brought, she let her eyes fall shut as she enjoyed the music and leaned her back against the wall behind her.

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Loki was dragged out of his dark thoughts by the footsteps of the little Midgardian companion of Thor's woman. Immediately, the all-too-familiar hatred, at himself and at Thor, rose up inside him. He'd assumed she'd come to gloat, as some of the Avengers had. To inspect him in his cage like a creature under a looking glass, curious and emotionless.

"Just having lunch."

The words baffled him. He'd expected a snappy retort or an insult. Or perhaps even pity, the worst of them all.

Instead, she acted as though he wasn't even there. The moment she'd put those little things in her ears, she'd started tapping her foot to whatever music she was listening to as she made short work of the food she'd brought.

She'd come near his cell. To have lunch.

Perhaps this was her way of mocking him, acting as though he wasn't even worth paying attention to. The thought riled him, and he yelled loud enough to startle her above the sound of her music.

"Midgardian!"

She pulled out the little earbuds with a frustrated sigh then glared over at him with large, mesmerizing blue eyes.

"What? Just had to interrupt the perfect song."

His frustration and irritation mounted.

"And by the way, my name's not Midgardian. It's Darcy."

"Your name is irrelevant."

"Not if you plan on talking to me it isn't."

She put the little earpieces back into her ears and deliberately turned her face away from him with a pout.

The little Midgardian was ignoring him.

Ordinarily, he'd toss her out of the room with his powers, or encase her in ice to push her away, but in the little box they'd carefully crafted for him, he was powerless.

The rage simmered as he watched her, growing and falling in a languid crescendo. She was engrossed in another food item she'd brought. She unwrapped it from a shiny foil wrapper—revealing a bar of chocolate—and gazed at it longingly before she took a bite. Savoring it. The way she ate it slowly, lovingly, was almost sinful to look at.

She was quite pretty, for a Midgardian. The fact that he'd even noticed elevated his frustration further.

He thought of whether she could be of any use to him. He was intimately familiar with all the security measures they'd placed on his prison, and getting past them would not be an easy feat.

Thor's woman was clever and highly educated. If somehow he could persuade or manipulate her, he might have a chance. But this one…

He watched as she pulled a pen out of her pocket, at the same time spilling the rest of the pocket's contents all over the floor.

He rolled his eyes. She wouldn't be of any use.

Determined to ignore her as well, he turned and was faced with the familiar concrete walls, metallic frame and glass windows he'd been encased in since they'd taken him prisoner.

He was growing all too familiar with the switches on the wall, the ridges in the concrete, and the patterns of light on the ceiling.

If they didn't make up their minds about him soon, he might just expire of boredom.

The thought again had his head turning to look at the woman who'd begun humming to her music. Just when his eyes found her face, she glanced up at him. Their eyes locked, those clear blue eyes arresting. He frowned at her, hoping to frighten her again, but instead she tilted her head. Her mannerisms reminded him of a cat.

She held his gaze a moment longer, her expression unreadable before glancing away again. He thought of speaking to her, of trying to gain her confidence somehow and find a way out of his prison.

His plan fell away as he saw her gathering her things and getting up to leave.

Before she stepped out of his view and back into the hall she'd come from, he called out to her.

"Darcy."

She didn't speak, merely turning to him with an expectant expression on her face, brows raised in question.

"Why did you come here?"

She shrugged her shoulders. As though coming down to his prison cell wasn't anything out of the usual.

"I wanted some peace and quiet to relax."

And before he could fully process her comment, she turned and left him alone.

All his life, he'd been mired in chaos. As a youth, he'd gone on any and all adventures Thor had thought to drag him on, and had secretly gotten into plenty of trouble all his own on top of it all. Growing up things had only gotten worse, until children's fights had given way to more serious quarrels. Even before the calm of Asgard had been destroyed and Thor had been banished, nothing around him had ever been calm.

And this little Midgardian had come to him for peace?

When he could not find such a thing inside of himself no matter how hard he tried?

The rest of the day until his eyes fell shut in slumber, the concrete walls and the glimmer of lights on the wall across from him went unnoticed. The little female puzzle kept his mind occupied for long after she'd left.