The final chapter! I hope everyone has enjoyed reading this story, and thanks so much to everyone who has given feedback – you're all amazing and I treasure every word you write. It's been great fun writing this, and I can't believe there aren't more unusual AUs for this pairing out there.

I hope the ending lives up to your expectations!

Darcy was roughly awoken by the tinny shriek of her phone's morning alarm going off.

Groaning to herself, she tried to twist sideways to hit snooze but, to her surprise, found herself held in place. A long arm had snuck around her waist and was holding her quite securely, pressed up against a long body beside her.

Memories from last night flooding back, Darcy couldn't help but smile, even as the tinny alarm started to make her head pound.

"Loki," She murmured, "I need to move to turn the alarm off."

He didn't respond. Somehow, the git was still deeply asleep.

Rolling her eyes, Darcy tried to pry Loki's arm off her body, but he wouldn't budge. Even in sleep he was ridiculously strong. That strength had been a wonderful attribute last night...

Resigning herself to her fate, Darcy pressed her face into the pillow to try and drown out the noise. In a minute, the alarm would automatically set itself for a ten minute snooze. She always made her first alarm go off twenty minutes early anyway, so it wasn't that big a deal.

She must have drifted off again, because the next thing she knew someone was crawling over her to hit the 'off' button for her alarm.

"Loki?" She asked sleepily.

"Your alarm is a menace." Damn. His voice was sexy in the mornings. All gruff and scratchy.

"Mmm." Darcy rubbed her eyes, trying to wake herself up. "What time is it?"

"Too early."

"Helpful." Darcy struggled to inject appropriate sarcasm into her tone this early in the morning. She sat up, pulling the covers up with her. It was lovely and warm in bed – outside it was probably freezing.

Loki was perched on the end of the bed, his pale chest almost glowing in the dim light. Darcy could see a hickey on his chest from last night. She smiled inwardly.

"I should probably go." She commented sadly. "Astro needs grooming and I have to sort his tack out. Jane's probably panicking over the final horse inspection."

Loki nodded slowly, his face unreadable. "Of course. I'm afraid I can't remember where all your clothes went."

Darcy let out a short laugh. Neither could she.

Ten minutes later, she had scrounged up most of her (horribly wrinkled)clothes and looked decent enough to step outside. She ran her fingers through her hair, unknotting it. Loki was still perched topless on the end of the bed.

"I don't suppose you have a comb?" Darcy asked.

Loki gestured towards a plain door at the back of the room. "Bathroom."

Smiling in thanks, Darcy wandered into the bathroom and quickly found a nice black comb (one of the expensive, imported ones made of horn, as opposed to her cheap plastic one) and some deodorant that, while for men, still made her smell slightly more acceptable.

Emerging looking a little less thoroughly-shagged, she found Loki collecting a towel from a pile by the door. He seemed a little off, but Darcy couldn't put her finger on why.

"Well, I'm sure I'll see you later. Good luck for today! Give Sleipnir and Chitauri carrots from me." Darcy tried to inject extra enthusiasm into her voice, going onto her tiptoes to press a light kiss to Loki's lips.

He relaxed a little under her touch, but he still seemed unusually tense, and he barely kissed back. "I will."

Darcy remained looking into Loki's eyes for a moment, trying to decipher the emotions hidden there. Then she shrugged, and with a wave exited the room and made her way back towards Jane's horsebox.

This early, the grounds were still quiet, although some of the other grooms were carrying grooming kits and rugs looking about as awake as Darcy felt. Pepper gave her a wave as she walked past with a headcollar, and Maria and Bucky sent grins her way from where they were sat together cleaning tack.

Reaching the horsebox, Darcy unlocked the side door and clambered in, pulling the curtain on the window shut before yanking off her shirt. Glancing around, she found a clean polo top in her suitcase and pulled it on, instantly feeling better. Now it was a bit less obvious that she had spent the night with someone else.

Not that she really minded everyone else knowing. Hell, she kind of wanted them to know, just so she could brag about it. But she didn't know what Loki would think of that. He had seemed very closed this morning – it was possible that he had only wanted a secret one-night fling.

Pulling her hair back with a scrunchie, Darcy grabbed her favourite grooming kit and opened the horsebox door again, heading towards the stables. Her face fell when she noticed the state of Astro's mane.

"Aww man. Seriously? You had to try and rub your mane now? You just live to make my life difficult."

Resigning herself to some hard work making Astro presentable for the final horse inspection, Darcy went in search of a spare bucket so she could wash some of the more stubborn stains out of Astro's coat.

It wasn't long before the stable was waking up, a faint buzz of excitement going around. Yesterday, around 80 horses had been competing – but today, that number was down to below 35. A ridiculous number had been eliminated or retired yesterday due to the horrendously difficult weather combined with a tricky cross-country course. Even so, many of the grooms and riders who were no longer in the competition had turned up to wish everyone luck.

"Astro went well yesterday." Someone spoke behind Darcy, and she turned around to see Maria standing there.

"Yeah, Jane rode well. She was gutted about the refusal but hey-ho, these things happen. How's Nick doing?"

Maria shrugged. "He retired Patch, but then again they weren't that highly placed after dressage so I'm not surprised about that. SHIELD picked up one refusal but they're just about in the top twenty. I think he's glad to have completed."

"It was a horrible course." Darcy clicked at Astro to get the horse to pick up his off-hind hoof.

"You know Steve fell off Stars and Stripes?"

"He did?" Darcy was surprised. "I thought that was his better horse."

"Definitely – Bucky says he's quite upset. He completed on American Boy but with two refusals and a bucketload of time penalties. I doubt they'll place, but then again he can't be worse than 35th at this point."

Darcy twisted the hoof pick in her hand and finally got the rest of the mud out of Astro's hoof. She allowed him to set it down.

"Well, at least he wasn't injured."

Maria smiled. "That's the most important thing. Anyway, I have to go and find Erik, but tell Jane good luck."

"Erik?" Darcy raised an eyebrow. She hadn't heard of an Erik.

"Selvig? He's Loki's groom – you know, the hot new rider. He borrowed a curry-comb yesterday. I'll introduce you later." Maria vanished, and Darcy blinked.

It hadn't occurred to her that Loki would have a groom – which was stupid, all things considered. In fact, she had a feeling she had even heard him mention the name Erik before. Darcy wondered if she could persuade this Erik to tell her some more about Loki. There was certainly plenty of mystery around his past.

However, Darcy had no time to pursue that train of thought, because Jane appeared and suddenly Darcy was rushing around trying to finish preparing for the horse inspection. She applied a final coat of hoof oil and then Astro was being trotted up in front of Badminton House, being watched closely by a vet. Having passed the inspection, it was all hands on deck as Darcy scrubbed tack and tried to decide which bridle Jane would want to jump Astro in.

Finally, Darcy felt prepared enough to take a half-hour break and watch the first riders jump. The top twenty, which Jane was in, jumped later than everyone else, so there was plenty of time.

She was surprised to see a familiar tall figure already watching from the sidelines.

"Any good rounds so far?" She asked.

Loki didn't flinch, or seem surprised that she was there. It was unfair – he was always so good at sneaking up on her.

"No-one has gone clear yet. I believe that everyone is tired. Nick Fury knocked two poles on SHIELD, and Phil Coulson almost mowed down a fence on Fanboy. I'll be intrigued to see how Fandral Dashing does, he's competing next."

Loki didn't look at her while he was speaking, his eyes focused on the arena.

Darcy peered out and noticed a large, chestnut mare cantering into the ring.

"Fandral's Norwegian, right? I think I met him at Blenheim last year."

"He rides for Norway, but he spent much of his life in America." Loki spoke with familiarity – Darcy wondered if the two were friends.

Fandral rode extravagantly, and Darcy remembered watching him do cross-country last year and being amused by how much he showed off. It looked like he was going to go clear until his horse clipped the second-to-last jump and the pole rolled off.

"Four jumping penalties, zero time penalties for Fandral Dashing on Asgardian. He remains in 32nd place. Into the arena now, Eric Lensherr on Magneto."

Darcy glanced up at Loki, taking in his calculating expression. He looked like he was sizing up the competition, cataloguing how everyone rode the course and the mistakes they made. She was somewhat surprised that he hadn't yet taken the opportunity to either tease her or mention last night.

"Are both your horses competing later?"

"Chitauri is in tenth and Sleipnir first, so yes." Loki still didn't look at her, his eyes following Magneto as he missed a stride between two jumps and consequently knocked a pole.

Darcy found herself wanting to make Loki meet her eyes. It might just be nerves, but he was acting strangely and she didn't like it.

"So, celebratory shag after you win?"

His eyes snapped to hers. Darcy's own eyes widened at the sudden darkness of his gaze.

"You wish last night to be more than a one-time occurrence?" His voice was jointly full of heat and curiosity.

"Loki, I'm not sure if you noticed, but you kind of gave me the best night of my life. So yeah, I want it to be more than a one-time thing. In fact, if you didn't seem to have some kind of emotion-phobia, I might even ask you out. You're an awesome guy when you're not being a dick. If that isn't cool, just tell me, and I'll back off. But you've been acting kind of strange today and I can't work out what you want." Darcy took a breath before she ended up going on a full-on rant. Sometimes she talked a bit too much.

"The best night?" Loki seemed smug. "Ahh, but that was only a teaser, Darcy. I can do much better than that." Darcy noticed that he was deliberately avoiding the comment about being scared of emotions.

"Alright, I'll make you a deal. Win Badminton, on either horse, and you get to show me just how much better you can make it. But, if you don't win, I get to show you just how creative I can be. Agreed?"

The smirk on Loki's face was devilish. "Agreed. Although, only having this deal for Badminton seems like a wasted opportunity. Is Jane not riding at Chatsworth next weekend?"

Darcy's heart skipped a beat. Now Loki wanted to continue this past this weekend?

Hell yes.

"She's definitely doing Houghton in two weeks time. But if you give me your number I can text you when I know?"

"Of course."

The day only improved from there. Darcy grinned as Jane clinched a clear round, aside from time penalties, on Astro and slid forward into eleventh place. She tried to contain her cheer as Chitauri retained his tenth position. When Loki rode into the arena on Sleipnir, he had two fences in hand, so could afford eight jumping penalties presuming he had no time faults.

He got three time penalties. But he also only got four jumping penalties.

Darcy had never packed away as quickly as she did that afternoon, ensuring that everything was ready for Jane to go whenever she was ready. Jane was staying until later to spend some time with Thor, so it was easy enough for Darcy to slip away. It took forever for Loki to finish giving interviews and accept his trophy at the award ceremony, but finally, after Darcy had almost died of impatience, he was done.

Considering they weren't in an official relationship, it might have been a bad idea to kiss him as soon as he left the awards podium. But Darcy didn't care. She had waited quite long enough.

Judging from the beaming smile on his face and the way he almost dragged her away, Loki didn't care either.

Yeah, OK, maybe it's a cliché happy ending. I don't care. We all need more fairytale endings in our lives.

However, while this story ends here, this universe is only just beginning... I will be writing a sequel! I don't know when it will appear, but I want to continue this universe. In the future, the scene that I missed out at the end of last chapter will be appearing as a one-shot for everyone who wants to read it, and I will also be continuing the adventures of Loki, Darcy and the others in another story revolving around a different Horse Trials. I might even go into some of Loki's backstory.

Thanks so much again for reading. Any feedback would be amazing!