Title: Worth My While

Author: readbycandlelight

Summary: It started with an argument about whether or not there was anything worthwhile on Earth…and ended with, uh, dirty pictures. One-shot. *Complete*

Rating: NC-17

Author's Note: …I need Loki's number. *cough*

Worth My While

Darcy awoke from a deep sleep to the sound of her Starkphone beeping. She rolled over with a groan, reaching out to the edge of her nightstand, swiping the phone up and cursing when she saw that it is was 2:39 AM. She had a new text message. She contemplated leaving the text for the morning and rolling back over and going back to sleep, figuring it was probably just a little blurb from Jane or Tony (both of whom were just as much insomniacs as they were science brainiacs), but she already had the phone in her hand so…

She sleepily flopped back down into her pillows on her back and clicked on the text message icon.

Her eyes just about bugged out of her head when she saw the name at the top of her text message center… Her newest text was from Loki Laufeyson.

She hesitated for a moment, feeling a foreboding feeling - she'd never gotten a text from Loki before… Taking a deep breath, she pressed on his name and the text window popped open.

It wasn't a text.

It was a picture.

She let out a gasp. "Oh my God," she said, quickly fishing her glasses off the nightstand so that she could get a better look. Her glasses settled onto the bridge of her nose and everything came into sharp focus.

It was a picture of his naked torso. He was pale and flawless against a backdrop of silky black sheets. She bit her lip. She'd never seen his body without clothing before. Usually he was always in something formal like his expensive black suits and neck scarves or his infamous Asgardian armor… His body was totally drool-worthy. He wasn't broad like Thor, he was leaner, but she found his compact frame and tight stomach muscles every bit as godly as his older brother's. Her eyes traced from the shallow groove of his bellybutton down to the V-cut of his pelvic bones…leading down to the unknown, where the image cut off. Unbidden, an image of him laying in his own bed in his apartment in the Avengers Tower, taking pictures of himself with his Starkphone, came to mind. Was he naked?

A text message suddenly popped up directly under the picture. It read:

"Show me that Midgard has something worth my while."

Darcy felt a shiver of nervousness and excitement tickle down into her belly. She shook her head, a disbelieving smile creeping onto her plush lips. She could hardly believe it…he was calling her out on an argument they'd been having earlier that day.

It had been a Thursday evening, and she, the practically invisible assistant, and he, the unwanted pariah, had been the only ones in the Avengers common room. She had been settled all comfy on her end of the couch while he was sprawled out, taking up the rest of it with his long limbs like he was king of the castle (which was no surprise, really, because he had a major case of superiority complex). She had been trying to watch her fix of reality TV, but his insufferable sighs of deep loathing had finally taken their toll on her and they'd gotten into a heated debate once he'd accused her of having poor taste in television…which had then led to him declaring that television itself was a mindless waste…and then that had led him to the topic of how there wasn't a thing on Midgard "worthwhile."

She'd made it her mission to prove him wrong (she hadn't been a Poli Sci major for nothing), citing all on the things worthwhile on her planet, like Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter and Poptarts and Nutella. But everything she said left him completely unmoved - that is, until she'd triumphantly announced: "I know something that your precious Asgard doesn't have! Dirty pictures and sexting!"

At first he'd looked at her as if she'd sprouted another head, until she explained…

"Ok, so taking dirty pictures and sexting is basically Dating 101 here on Midgard." Darcy had frowned when she had found herself using his term for her planet. Shaking her head, she had amended, "I mean Earth," before an impish smile had fallen into place, while Loki had listened, looking deceptively bored but also having a major spark of interest hiding within those emerald green eyes of his. "So, like, when you find someone attractive, you exchange phone numbers with them… And then that's when the foreplay begins," she said with a waggle of her eyebrows. He had looked at her dryly, one of his own inky black eyebrows lifting as if to say 'Get on with it, minion, I haven't all day.' "You can either start out with a naughty text or a picture," she went on explaining, "but basically the point you're getting across to the person is that you want them. If they sext you back or send a naughty picture of their own, the game is on and you both sext and send naughty pictures until you can't stand it any longer, and then you decide whose gonna come over to whose place and then you bang each other on every available surface, moaning loudly while inwardly praising the Sext Gods… That sound like something worth your while, Mr. Humbug?" she'd asked, a smug smile forming on her lips, as if she'd won the argument.

An emotionless mask had settled over his sharp features. He gave a shrug that was somehow elegant because he was the one doing it. "I cannot give a definitive answer to that one until I have experienced it for myself, I suspect," he said succisently. His intense eyes had slowly taken her in, as if he'd realized for the first time that she actually had a body under those ever-present bulky sweaters of hers. "And you…take part in these activities?" he'd asked with the ghost of a wicked grin crooking the edge of his lips. His eyes had narrowed in interest.

"Sure do," she said in the same way that she'd admitted to tasing Thor all that time ago…but now she felt a sense of bravado behind her words while she was under the scrutiny of the God of Mischief's intense gaze. It was much like being a fluffy little woodland creature under the glittering gaze of the big bad wolf. She'd cleared her throat, changing the subject. "What about tea? You kinda sound sorta British - and British people love tea! Eh?" she'd added with a mega-watt smile, egging him on to agree with her.

The intensity had slowly dissipated from his irises and he had rolled his eyes. "Your logic is ridiculously flawed," he'd droned. "And, no - that insipid mortal beverage is pathetically weak. The herbs here are bland and lack any modicum of magic," he'd said with a shudder.

"A simple 'no' would've sufficed," she had said, but a small smile played at her lips - she secretly found it entertaining how he pulled out all of these big and colorful words from out of nowhere. He was like a walking thesaurus…with a cape.

The remainder of their evening had gone like this with the back-and-forth of her suggesting an awesome thing on Earth and him shooting it down. He'd even said that he didn't care for iPods, that he didn't even have an iPod! She'd looked him dead in the eye and had said in all seriousness, "Dude, we're so getting you an iPod, and I shall fill it with the music of my people. You'll love it."

She'd gotten up to go to bed at that point…so she hadn't seen the smallest, tiniest, honest-to-goodness smile that had formed on his lips as he'd watched her leave the room.

And now here she was, at well passed two in the morning, staring at a picture of Loki's naked chest. Suddenly she wasn't at all tired anymore. In fact, she was buzzing with energy. She read the text again.

"Show me that Midgard has something worth my while."

Darcy chewed pensively on her lower lip… He wanted her to show him something worth his while? As in, he wanted a dirty picture of her? A quelling of feelings poured through her, and she hugged her phone to her chest as she stared at the ceiling. She went from nervously biting her lip to grinning to nervously biting her lip again.

Should she do it? Did she…want to do it?

She lifted the screen up and stared at the image of his chest again. Her thighs squeezed together as a heated pressure below made itself known. Her body certainly wanted to.

She had to think about this logically. He'd, you know…tried to take over her planet two years ago. But since then he'd been punished in Asgard for his crimes and had come back to Earth with Thor, and had even been a huge help in defeating Thanos. So he was a hero in his own right - or maybe more like an anti-hero - because he still didn't seem to like Earth very much…but then, she could sorta understand why he was so antagonistic: the people here treated him like shit. They were either outright hostile towards him, like Agent Barton and Dr Selvig were, or they ignored him completely, like pretty much the rest of the Avengers team did. And it's not like he didn't deserve it, because he pretty much did…but he was trying to make amends in his own Loki way (which, you know, was kind of holier-than-thou, but whatevs). So maybe it would be ok if he had at least one person on his side, rooting him on and showing him that there were things worth his while here…

Maybe that someone could be her.

(The rest of this fic is rated NC-17 and can be located on my blog. Please visit my profile for the link.)