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Chapter Text

Loki surveyed his domain. It was odd and a bit chaotic, and really that was one of the reasons he loved it. As of 8:00 A.M., E.S.T., which was six in the morning, local time, everyone knew he was here. Darcy’s opinion piece would go into the Sunday edition of the New York Times in two days. The number of people who had thought of him with any great emphasis were well into the hundreds of millions. It was, at this point, a soothing background hum in his mind.

And now it was seven in the morning.

He looked at the group assembled around the established bifrost site. Everyone had come out for the morning’s activities. The dozen elite warriors who provided security to the entirely insecure construction area that was the Embassy at the moment were standing at their ease, joined by their families. The few support staff they’d hired so far, from the Institute’s business manager right down to the maintenance personnel were crowded in a clump near the contingent from Asgard. Even the architects who had arrived early for their meeting with Darcy had come to watch the spectacle. And then of course, there was his own household, so to speak. Darcy was in traditional dress and armor, as was Jane. Their respective attendants and associates were present and watchful. The bodyguards, at least, looked nearly relaxed, for however much he knew they truly weren’t.

All was in readiness.

Loki stepped back between Darcy and Jane, and offered his arm to his wife.

“You do like to put on a show, don’t you, babe?” she asked in the quiet of her mind, her eyes sliding to his, her head not moving much at all.

A quick laugh was his only response to her, because of course he liked putting on a show.

Loki looked up, because no matter where your planet was in its spin, nor even in its rotation, Heimdall had reported to him long ago when he was still but a curious lad asking many questions of many people, that he always heard you better if you looked up. So, Loki looked up into the sky and quietly spoke to the Keeper of the Bifrost.

“Heimdall, all is in readiness. You may send them, now.” He spoke in English, knowing Heimdall would understand regardless, but truly it was for the benefit of the more curious bystanders.

Only a moment later and in shining rainbow hues distinguishable from the base silver, the bridge between worlds was activated. When it receded, it left twelve stumbling apprentices, plus trunks, in its wake.

Loki spoke to them in the Common Tongue of Asgard. “Welcome to you, my new apprentices. You have arrived in the center of what will someday be a lovely compound, the retreat of all Asgardians on Midgard. I am Loki, your master for the next decade. At my side you see my wife, whom you will obey in all things. Here also next to me is the Doctor Foster, who will be your supervisor. You will also obey her in all things.

“This experience will be, in many respects, very different for you.” And here, Loki paused, laughed at something only he could hear, and duly noted the accelerating aspects of Chaos in his welcoming speech. “You will be asked to learn things no apprentice is asked to learn. You will be asked to think in ways no apprentice is asked to think. You will bear both power beyond your power and responsibility beyond what you may think you merit. You will be required to make more moral progress than is usually expected, and if you do not wish it to be so, you may return to your former mistresses with no punishment save your own.

“This experience will also be, in some respects, quite familiar to you. We have striven to create some familiarity in an entirely foreign place, and you may always inquire as to the points of difference. Indeed, we require your curiosity. It is one of the reasons you were all selected in the first place.

“You will have two days to become accustomed to your new home before your chores and studies will begin. Questions should be initially presented to the Doctor Foster, or her designates. Explore where you will and learn of your new home, and I will be present to you again on the morning of the third day.”

Loki continued on in English, knowing that all could now understand him, and indeed, his apprentices would understand that he was using no translation spell, but had actually learned the language. It would make it easier to swallow when he told them they would be doing the same thing.

“And with that, my new apprentices, I invite you right now to take up your trunks and step away from the center circle on which you stand. We have a visitor, a formidable warrior, and guardian of this realm who has just been alerted to my presence and wishes to ensure I mean no harm to his home.”

Loki could hear the sound of his flight now, but he had felt his chaos the moment his decision to come had been made.

Loki cast an illusion to make himself - only himself - look as innocuous as possible. Now it seemed he wore a plain dark green tee-shirt, a belted pair of dark jeans, and cowboy boots.

“Nice boots,” Darcy commented in his head. “Who’s coming to breakfast, exactly?”

You would have me ruin the surprise, my darling? he asked silently of his wife. He does so enjoy a dramatic entrance.

Darcy was quiet, but Loki could hear Romanov and Rooftop quietly palm their guns. Borghild silently lifted the hood that had been hanging down Darcy’s back, up over her head, its plain edge to rest elegantly just past her coronet, on her forehead. Thor did the same for Jane. The warriors across the circle shoed their families back and were just on the verge of doing the same for everyone else.

“You need not be afraid,” Loki said, addressing his remarks first to the apprentices, and then quite pointedly to the warriors. “He means no harm at present.”

After three heartbeats, and the sound getting louder and louder, Loki spoke again, amplifying his voice somewhat. “I present to you, ladies and gentlemen, warriors and apprentices, Mr. Tony Stark, the Iron Man.”

All eyes were on Mr. Stark as he landed with a hard thud on the packed earth.

This was a moment, Loki was sure, Tony would have preferred to have had a dramatic soundtrack rise to the fullness of its crescendo, but alas. He would have to make do with a rapt, if wary, audience. It was, Loki considered, better than nothing. He suppressed the smirk and instead arranged his features into that of calm inquiry.

“Good morning, Mr. Stark,” Loki said pleasantly and in a conversational tone, as if he weren’t in the middle of the desert surrounded by fifty or so witnesses and four teams of construction personnel beginning their day.

The desert went quiet as all of the heavy equipment around them was turned off and momentarily abandoned. This was, Loki considered further, the most interesting thing to happen in this desert in many a year.

Loki wondered for a brief moment, and not for the first time in the past six minutes, if he should continue to surf this chaos, altering it as little as possible, or weave the strands to his own ends? Decisions, decisions…

Without missing a beat, Loki continued. “Welcome to the Embassy of Asgard. Have you had breakfast?”

“No, but that’s not why I’m here,” Stark said, his voice altered through his mask to sound lower and more resonant. More menacing. It really was an adorable gesture of intimidation.

“Well, why don’t you tell me over breakfast? And then perhaps stay to sign some autographs? I’m sure all the humans among us are utterly starstruck at your presence.”

A delicate snort from his right. The little spider stood, mostly silently, at Darcy’s other side.

“Well. Most of them,” Loki amended, grinning.

“Romanov! What the hell are you doing here?” Stark asked, his words flowing fast like river rapids. “I thought you worked for me? Or at least SHIELD?”

“Not for the last two months,” she quipped dryly.

“Social climber,” Stark retorted.

Romanov was silent, but Loki was not.

“Oh, do come along, Mr. Stark,” he said, his tone one of pure affability and utter friendliness. “Our accommodations are rustic, but our chef is excellent. We have much to discuss, I’m sure, but your armored presence is making my warriors twitchy. Won’t you take your helmet off? As a tiny gesture that you mean no harm at this particular moment?”

The helmet came off, but Tony Stark remained in the exact center of the bifrost rune. Loki resisted the impish urge to have him sent to Asgard without further ado. Instead, he smiled.

Stark was resisting, but the chaos that the human had already embraced as a life principle was practically laying at Loki’s feet, purring. It was clear to Loki that Tony really didn’t want to like him nearly as much as he actually did.

It was enough to make a man giggle for sheer, giddy joy. Loki refrained from this as well.

‘Mischief, what the hell are you doing?’ Loki had been, more or less, filtering out his wife’s inner fangirl reaction since he announced their guest, but this seemed to come from her calmer inner voice. ‘And are we really about to have breakfast with Tony Stark?’

He was prevented from answering in any manner, by the center-of-attention’s response.

“Look here, Brit Pick,” he said, tucking his helm underneath one arm and gesturing with the other. One finger was very nearly wagged in Loki’s direction, hampered only by the fact that his suit restricted gestures involving fluidity. “Let’s get something clear. If you in any way, shape, or form, directly or indirectly fuck up my planet, I’m holding you responsible. And I will take it out of your hide.”

Loki smiled, even as the warriors audibly bristled and the apprentices gasped in horror and disbelief. A small child, the son of one of the warriors, began to cry, and the sound tore through the other quiet noises. Darcy was suddenly thinking rather darker thoughts toward her former idol. The tension was quite thick.

“I would expect no less of you, and you have my assurances that not only do I come in peace, but I will aid in Earth’s protection in whatever way I can. Now, I see you are not wearing the Mark V, but if you care to remove your armor and weapons, I can promise you technical assistance in donning them once more.”

Loki’s smile remained firm and friendly, despite the tension around him. In the moments of silence that followed, the apprentices were the first to be affected by his calm demeanor. Nine of twelve mouths closed, and six of those seemed visibly calmer. The warriors remained unamused and insulted, the child continued to cry, and Darcy was… incensed on his behalf, and unlikely to be calmed any time soon.

Breakfast should be quite interesting.

Jane was thrilled that she’d already eaten. While she wouldn’t mind having a technical discussion with the former CEO of Stark Industries, and she did have a moment of starstruck wonder at seeing his suit and that reactor in his chest cavity , he was obviously an obnoxious person to be around and she was much, much happier to be working with Thor and Sharon getting the twelve settled into their trailers - designed by Loki with the baby mages in mind - and make sure they had the concept of toilets, potable water, and electrical outlets. She was fairly certain she’d get the entire scoop from Darcy at some later point, anyway. It would be all of the information and none of the drama and that was fine with Jane.

There were four trailers. Three apprentices would share each one, but the interiors were vastly simplified from the standard living trailers that Jane and Darcy had first inspected. No one needed kitchens, for instance, as there was a central kitchen and dining area that for the time being, everyone used. Instead, in the trailers, there were three small bedrooms, large enough for a twin bed, a bedside table, a small bookshelf, a comfortable chair, and floor space for a trunk, which each apprentice did in fact bring. There was a slightly larger bathroom than the standard trailer boasted, with a separate toilet room and sink, and shower room and sink, with storage for towels and toiletries. The rest of the common space in the trailer consisted only in a mid-sized room with a thick, plush rug, tapestried wall hangings and thick pillows for sitting on. It was a meditation space, and apparently it was far nicer than anything Loki had had when he’d been an apprentice. In the hallway there was a watercooler with three mugs that hung on the wall next to it.

And that was it.

Jane had protested at first - this was New Mexico, not Sparta - and Loki had reminded her that what felt austere to Jane would feel like palatial comfort to the apprentices. They had private and semi-private spaces, their own bedrooms, they were not required to bathe outside, meditate on bare stone, prepare all meals, clean everyone else’s living space, or serve him daily.

And organizing their space, well, it sort of made Jane stop and think about just how much stuff she owned. Yeah, most of it was in storage right now, and she’d give up her collection of teapots over her cold, dead body, but she remembered standing in the first trailer after she, Thor, and Sharon had finished making the beds and laying out the pillows. It was simple. It was comfortable. And after a full day of working and learning and spellcasting - or whatever Loki had up his sleeve for his portion - they would be comfortable spaces to return and retreat to. And for people who needed to spend serious time in meditation every day, this space obviously made that a priority.

Standing in one of those furnished but empty trailers made Jane a little nostalgic for what, she wasn’t sure. It wasn’t like she ever had lived such a sparse, monastic life, but when she went back to her own trailer that evening, it felt crowded. When she stopped to examine individual things, they all had such meaning to her, but when she blurred her eyes and just saw the sheer volume of stuff she had accumulated around her, it left her feeling vaguely unpleasant.

The next day she had walked Darcy through and said nothing about it, and the topic quickly shifted to architect's plans and the former-SHIELD contractors and construction crews. There were four different teams working on four different projects; a landing strip and helicopter pad, the internal roadways and buried electrical and plumbing systems, the water and compost plant, and the solar and wind farm. Infrastructure was the first order of business, after the temporary shelters had been put into place.

Jane thought of the progress they’d made in two short months. The temporary cell tower was up, the internal roadways were as finished as they could get at this point. The tech gullies were everywhere and bridged - Loki was aghast at the idea that they would bury the plumbing and electrical, and then pave over it, only to have to dig it up and break the paving in six months when there was a problem to fix or something to add. He called it planned obsolescence, and Jane couldn’t quite disagree with him. So instead, all of the plumbing and electrical were in large conduits that were laid in gullies by the interior roads. Every footpath or road had a bridge when it crossed the path of the gully. The conduits were easily opened and easily closed, and even the bridges could be removed and replaced by one of their new maintenance crews. But more than that, the wind and solar farm was finished and generating energy, and the landing strips were all done, as well as the hangers that seemed to go up overnight. Now crews were just beginning work on the parking garage, the entrance gallery, the air traffic control tower, and the building that would hold the main kitchens and banqueting hall, as well as a ballroom and training facility.

Well, they were, until Tony Stark showed up and threatened Loki right in front of everybody.

Really, he was bombastic enough for anything, if any of the media coverage of him was even slightly correct. But this was her friend and patron Stark had just threatened. Jane didn’t quite have the same reaction as the apprentices, but she wasn’t far from it.

Speaking of whom, they did look a little shell-shocked. Time to be helpful.

“Hello. My name is Jane Foster. I’m very excited to be working with you all, and I think that once you’re all settled in and start understanding the scope of what Loki and I will be having you do, you’ll be excited, too. Next to me is my Midgardian assistant Sharon James and my assistant from Vanaheim, Thor, and yes, he was named for the prince.”

She knew no one would recognize him, because of the geis Frigga placed on him, but they would wonder at his name. Apparently it was somewhat taboo to name someone after someone else while the someone else was still alive. Given that Vanir culture was just slightly different, Darcy and Jane figured this might stem some of the natural curiosity of the baby mages. Maybe.

“First we’ll be taking you to your rooms so you can put your trunks down, and we’ll show you a few details about the magics that will make your life easier here, and the hazards of operating them incorrectly. After this, we’ll show you where you will be eating and when, and we’ll end our brief tour in one of the spaces where we’ll be doing some of our work and learning. Do you have any questions?”

Two apprentices met her eyes and everyone looked down to about the area of her knees.

“No?” Jane paused and the two who met her eyes continued to do so. “Well, alright then, pick up your trunks and let’s go.”

“My lady, a word,” Thor said quietly, touching her armored shoulder. She barely felt his touch, but she was keenly aware of where he was and what he was doing most of the time he was around her, anyway. In fact, the hairs on the back of her neck were standing straight up, but Jane was almost used to that by now. She looked back and over to where Thor stood, just behind her and off to the left. She raised an eyebrow.

“There are two who have questions, if you wish to call on them.”

Without thinking, Jane looked back round and saw that the same two apprentices were still looking at her, and no one else was. She turned slightly to face Thor.

“You mean the ones staring at me?” she asked in a low voice.

Thor nodded and smiled.

“Right. Got it. That’s not weird or anything.”

Thor contained a laugh and said nothing. His smile was rather beautiful, though. Not that she technically noticed.

Jane turned back around and looked at the apprentice on the left. “Yes? What is your question?”

It was a young woman who had been called on. She looked to be about sixteen. Jane knew her to be exactly three hundred and ninety. They all were.

“Mistress, how shall we address you?”

Loki and Jane had argued about this.

“You may call me Dr. Foster, or ma’am,” Jane said calmly, as if she hadn’t had an ongoing disagreement with her patron about familiarity. “In ten years when you are no longer apprentices, I expect you to call me Jane.”

“Yes, ma’am,” the apprentice said slowly, but not unhappily. It was as if she was testing the new word. “Thank you, ma’am.”

“You’re welcome,” Jane said, and had a brief moment of wondering if every answer would be greeted with a thank you. She had hopes it would not. She was rather afraid it would.

Jane looked to the second apprentice, still looking up at her. This one was a young man who looked no older than the first, and who was, in fact, exactly the same age.

“Yes? What is your question?”

“Do you know what Master Loki meant? Of what we will learn, and what we will do? And why we must wait two more days? And who was that dreadful man who dared to threaten the Master in his own home? Does he not know who the Master is? What the Master could do?”

Jane tried very hard to keep the laughter on the inside, but it was leaking out. This was probably the first of many, many fanboy moments. All the same, one of the other apprentices hit the questioning one lightly on the side and glared at him.

“It’s alright,” Jane said, laughing slightly. “Questions are good. Questions are always good. You’ll never be penalized for asking a question, even if it can’t be answered immediately. Let’s walk while we talk. If anyone else has a question while we go, please don’t try to get my attention by staring at me. I’m Midgardian and I’m not used to that. If I can see you, please raise your hand. If I can’t or you’re holding a large trunk, please simply say, ‘Dr. Foster, I have a question.’ Grab your trunks and lets go.”

All of them were thin and did not look particularly strong, yet all of them hefted their mid-sized wooden trunks by the side handles with seeming ease.

“My lady,” Thor said quietly at her side. “Loki may not be pleased about this.”

“Where I come from, Thor, staring is rude. That’s a cultural adjustment I’m sure Loki will be fine with.” Then she turned and began walking. Immediately she realized that the crowd behind her wouldn’t be able to hear her well. And she was not about to start walking backwards.

“Sharon, you lead the way. Thor and I will go walk in the middle.” It took a moment to sort things out, but eventually they were all walking in a clump, taking up the entirety of the interior roadway which was only twelve feet wide to begin with.

“To answer your question, and wait, I need to learn your names. So, new rule. Every time you ask a question, please start by stating your name. There are twelve of you, and it will take me a little bit of time to memorize your names. You might also do this for the princess. I’m sure Loki has his own ways of remembering who everyone is. So anyway, apprentices, will the first one who asked a question please tell me your name?”

“Runa, ma’am.”

“Runa. Runa. Runa. Okay. Thanks. And what’s your name?” Jane asked the young male apprentice who walked next to her, the one who had asked the long series of questions.

“Eluf, ma’am.”

“Eluf. Eluf. Okay. So, you asked a lot of questions. I’d hate to ruin Loki’s surprise, though I’m sure he can cook up more. But I think he’ll have you working on some of the foundational magics that the Embassy Enclosure is going to be using on a daily basis. With him, of course. And one of his friends, I think. And as for the rest, you’ll be doing some preparation work, and a lot of reading. How many of you have read Loki’s books on modern Midgard?”

Nine teenagers choused politely that they had.

“Wow, more than I expected. Okay, that’s good. For the rest of you, we have a few copies that you can share. And anyone who wants to refresh their memories can do that as well. That’s part of what you’re going to be doing in the next two days. Reading. When you’re done with Loki’s books, we have others for you. You’ll all eventually read them all, but reading is a big part of what you’ll be doing in the next ten years. But not all of it, of course. Anyway, I know that Loki wanted to be considerate of you and give you time to settle in and be comfortable. I realize that you may not be used to such courtesy, but I think you’ll find your new master perfectly difficult in other and probably unexpected ways. He’s like that. Let’s see, other things you’ll be learning. Well, I might as well just be clear: you need to learn to read and write the language I’m speaking. Don’t worry. We’ll teach you all. That’s part of what Loki has been working hard on these last two months. The other part of your question had to do with Iron Man. He’s… well, I’m not going to make excuses for him. He is what he is. And I think I can safely answer that he does not really know who Loki is, and he really has no concept of what Loki can do, even without his magic. But don’t worry. Loki can handle it. Really.”

They continued on their way and had a fair bit to go yet, so Jane decided to open it up.

“Dr. Foster, I have a question.”

“Okay, ask,” Jane said.

“I am Tue, ma’am,” the young man answered. “May I inquire as to the magic you have mastered, Dr. Foster?”

Everyone was so polite. It was a little jarring, and yet… kind of nice. And unlike Academia, they probably meant it.

“Well, I’m not a sorceress. I’m a scientist. Midgard doesn’t use the same sort of magic that Asgard, or the rest of Yggdrasil does. But no, that’s not quite exact. It’s better to think that the Source and Dream you know and study, I know and study from a different angle. You call what you do magic, I call what I do science. You are studying to be masters and mistresses of magic. I am a doctor, which is what we call those who have the highest amount of learning in a specific scientific field, and I’m a doctor of astrophysics, which is a branch  of science. It means I study, among other things, the stars. But the reason you’re here is so that Asgard, and really, the rest of Yggdrasil can understand and study Source and Dream the way Midgard does, in addition to the way you’ve already been taught. Because you see, you can do things that I can’t do, and I can do things that you can’t do. But we don’t need to remain ignorant. Midgardians, in general, abhore ignorance. It’s one of our defining traits. I think you’ll notice it come up again and again.

“And since I can’t do magic but you could do science, it’s probably fastest and easiest for you to learn science and together with a common language and deep curiosity, we’ll figure out how to translate magic into science and science into magic. This is, by the way, what Loki has been slowly doing on his own for the last hundred years, and much faster now that we’re working together. And now that you’re all here, once we get you settled in and you have a basic understanding, our work will make progress even faster still.”

And the questions continued. Some of them were simple. Is it true that Midgardians do not generally live to see their first century complete? Some of them were not simple. Do you know why Master Loki has never taken apprentices before? And why he has done so now, but so briefly? And so many? Jane decided not to answer that one. Loki could explain himself, or not, as he chose.

Will we be serving the Master and Her Highness?

If we don’t, who will?

Do you know how much moral progress we will be asked to make in but ten years?

What will become of us after our apprenticeship ends? Must we leave Midgard and all of the work we’ve only just begun?

That one Jane answered.

“Good question. After your apprenticeship, you’ll be free to leave and continue your life at home, or go to study further with other masters as Loki did. You will also be welcome to stay and continue the work we will be doing here, translating science into magic and magic into science, and aiding Loki and myself as we continue the work. I really can’t say it’s positively done until we’ve entirely rewritten Midgardian science to account for magic, established the Internet of Yggdrasil, and figured out how to create another bifrost. Which is what I was doing when Loki found me.”

What is the Internet?

What are computers?

What is electricity?

Jane smiled. It was turning out to be a fantastic morning.

Darcy wished she had already eaten.

The plan had been to eat, not at the head table where she usually did, but at one of the round tables in the center of the room, all the better to discuss the thing the architects came here to discuss .

Which, obviously, was not going to happen now.

Fucking Iron Man. Fucking Tony Stark.

It wouldn’t be so bad if Loki were also pissed. But no, no, of course Loki wasn’t in the slightest offended, because of course Loki’s sense of humor had kicked in - Darcy’s, notably, had not. Of course Loki now saw this as a challenge to see just how quickly he could win over Tony Stark utterly and completely. Because no matter how much Stark was a hot mess in thruster boots, he was also one of Loki’s favorites.

And all the architects were busy watching with awe the back and forth between Loki and Iron Man. It was better than reality tv, Darcy was sure. If only Darcy gave a shit. Which she did not.

And Darcy was desperately trying to remember how to meditate, and failing, and so instead, concentrating on her eggs benedict with a double side of bacon. Mostly. Because she was also decked out in leather and armor and covered in a wool cloak and she was somehow still cold , because no matter what she said and to whom, every single building she was in was too heavily air conditioned, and she was freezing her ass off. Everywhere. She. Went.

No. Breakfast. Darcy could totally do this. It was like meditation, but with bacon. And there was coffee, orange juice, and even some sort of healthy fruit-vegetable juice that had a whole lot of kale in it. Yes. Concentrating on breakfast would be the way she would get through this without hurting anyone, because Iron Man had left his weapons at the door and Darcy still had her cutlery. He was totally within fork-stabbing distance. But Loki would be annoyed at that.

Or would he? Maybe not. He took a lot in stride. Maybe he’d be totally fine with his wife getting a bit stabbity with the salad fork. Just on special occasions. Like now.

‘Darling, do refrain from attacking our guests with the tableware,’ came his voice in her head, full of laughter and light and joy and bunny rabbits.

Fucking husband. Fucking husband and his fucking friends. They were all insane.

No, Darcy was just going to concentrate on her breakfast...

But no, she couldn’t even enjoy her kale juice. Why? Because Iron Man was now hogging it.

“Ooo, is that kale?” he asked, which was the only part of his unending stream of inanity that Darcy paid attention to, because she was focusing on her food, thank you very much. And then Tony Stark drank all the fucking kale juice at the table.

And then signed autographs. Including the architect's plans for her house. He signed right over the master suite.

Asshole.

Borghild had been with her new mistress, the Princess Darcy, for twelve days. They had not been twelve days Borghild could have ever anticipated based on previous experience.

Previously, Borghild had been a member of the Queen’s Guard, second in command to Svanhild the Brave. The days had passed calmly and serenely, as the last time the Queen was in battle had been before Borghild had been born, and trips such as Queen Frigga was wont to make required vigilance but were, in essence, almost entirely free of threat.

Midgard was a veritable prison realm compared to the peace of the twin realms of Asgard and Vanaheim, from the latter of which the Queen drew all of her personal shieldmaidens.

In Midgard, warlords killed, tortured, and bullied their own people.

In Midgard, madmen filled with anger and hate took weapons of devastating effect into the schools of infants and engaged in the wholesale slaughter of children.

In Midgard, magic could be used to attack , without the creators of it feeling the full brunt of the devastation and havoc they have wrecked.

Midgard was stunning in its level of ambient threat and Borghild was, reasonably, stunned.

A warrior-sorcerer the likes of Prince Loki would naturally feel at ease even here, but Borghild was the Princess’s constant shadow from the time she emerged from her quarters in the morning to the time she retreated back to them with the Prince in the evening. She could do no less and still sleep at night.

She worked closely with the formidable shieldmaiden Natasha, who was the Princess’s Midgardian guard, and she was grateful for it. While Natasha would be useless if the Princess required the aid of Source and Dream, she was strong and powerful and had necessary insight into the complex workings of people and culture on Midgard, and Borghild would have been lost without her. She did, however, use the Midgardian magic to attack, and though Borghild understood it was considered necessary to keep up with the threat level, she could not condone it and refused the offers Natasha had kindly made to teach her how to utilize such magics known as firearms.

There were some lines one did not cross, even if all around you did.

And now she sat at table with her mistress and the flying man with whom the Prince was so very cordial. This, she supposed was diplomacy; when someone barges in and insults you, you must still be kind to them in return. If so, Prince Loki was born to this work.

Borghild was no diplomat.

She was a shieldmaiden and a sorceress with a mastery in healing, and it had always been her duty to protect. Already someone had tried to kill the Princess and her companion the Director, taking advantage of the Prince’s magical exhaustion to attempt the deed. Natasha had told her everything; how the Princess, untrained as yet as a shieldmaiden, bravely confronted him and subdued him and then later, while the Prince was still recovering, how she interrogated him and was able to glean much important information from him before sending him to be held in the dungeons of the Palace. There was another guard who assisted her, the Director’s warrior from Vanaheim, but it was unknown what part he played in the capture of the assassin.

And that was a strange thing, indeed. If he was from Vanaheim as Borghild herself was, he certainly didn’t act like it. And who would be so bold, so rude as to name their child after the All-Father’s still living firstborn? It was tantamount to asking for the early death of the first nameholder. Disgraceful. Utterly disgraceful. But in other ways the so-called Thor was confusing and vexing.

He had been the first to arrive. He had been present before even Natasha had been hired by her mistress, and Natasha joined the Ambassador’s family the first of anyone. Except the Imitator, who had apparently been given to the Director as a first gift of the All-Mother to aid and protect her newest ally. Apparently it happened directly after the wedding. It must have been that the All-Mother wanted protection for the Director while Borghild’s mistress and the Prince were travelling to another part of the realm.

And the Prince had taken a special liking to him, even though the Imitator’s work was quite separate and different from what the Prince had before him. But they ran every morning before the first rays of dawn broached the world, and every evening they trained together and the Imitator was nearly as skilled a warrior as the Prince himself.

And there were heavy magics laid about him by a sorceress powerful indeed. The Midgardian custom for men while training was that they be bare to the waist and so Borghild had seen quickly enough that the Imitator had two tokens of power on him, one slight and in the standard position for a location token, and one significant, and curling around his neck to nearly meet in the front. Borghild frankly had no idea what purpose the second token might serve, but it was lengthy and long, and so the purpose was complex, indeed. The signature color of the tokens was light green, but that wasn’t completely indicative, as many people had green as their signature color. Borghild herself did, and the self-same hue as the tokens borne by the Imitator. Indeed, behind blue, green was the most frequent signature color that sorceresses adopted, not that one could control it. It was the Prince’s color, too, and that was plainly evident from looking at his bare back. If one wasn’t aware that the second born of the All-Father was the most powerful sorcerer in the land, one casual glance at the tokens on his body, all in one unrelenting shade of green - his own - was enough to teach one otherwise. Well, except for his marriage token, which was bright blue, but no sorceress creates her own marriage token.

But the Imitator was no sorcerer. That was clear enough from his aura, but even so, she had observed more than once that each night after training Loki removed his language spell so that he, like the rest of the non-Midgardians, could spend his evening hours working on the tablets that were teaching them all English. It was Borghild’s duty to remove the language spell from each of the warriors and their families in the evening, and renew it each morning before the Princess emerged. She did wonder if that was a job that could be soon fobbed off on the apprentices, but tedious or not, she did it without complaint for everyone in the compound who was not raised on Midgard - except for the Prince and the Imitator.

Loki and ... Thor .

It was ironic, really. But the Prince seemed not to hold it against the Vanir, so perhaps Borghild should follow in his footsteps. Perhaps.

The Imitator was not at breakfast today, but that was not unusual. He ate when his mistress ate and with the apprentices coming today, the Director and her assistants undoubtedly came early to table.

Borghild herself usually took a seat somewhere down in the rounds, leaving the head table and its wings to those who wished to converse with Their Highnesses and the Director, and any special guests, but today by mutual and silent assent, both Natasha and Borghild took places seemingly at random at the head table. So, too, did the Prince’s Midgardian guard, Clint, called Rooftop, the husband of Natasha.

The only thing Natasha did have a chance to tell Borghild about the flying warrior who so insulted the Prince was that he was probably harmless.

Probably harmless.

That was the same as saying possibly harmful.

And so Borghild ate quietly and quickly, listening intently to the conversation between the Prince and the Insulting One, trying the best she could to glean some measure of the man who was in their presence. She failed, utterly. His conversation was entirely at odds with any understanding Borghild might have drawn.

“So why are you here? And why did you steal my bad assed secretary?”

The Prince laughed and answered congenially, as if it were one of his best friends asking after his health. “Mrs. Romanov has graciously accepted an offer of employment, and we are grateful to have her on our staff.”

If the Prince meant to say anymore, he had no opportunity to do so.

“Wait, hold on. Mrs? You tied the knot, Romanov? And you didn’t even send me an invitation? I’m hurt! Who’s the lucky man? Or woman. I don’t judge. And that’s really hot. Actually, I hope it’s a woman. I could see it. And I’d like to.”

Clint, the shieldmaiden’s husband cleared his throat and gave an arch look to the flying warrior.

“Oh, damn. Wait, him? Really? I wouldn’t think he’s your type.”

“My type is Not You, Mr. Stark,” the shieldmaiden Natasha responded before drinking some tea.

“That hurts. Still. I’m sending you a present. Something you’ll really need. Peacocks. Or something. Polar bears? No, that’s Christmas and Coca Cola. Red Pandas. Nothing says ‘my condolences’ like sending an endangered species.”

“Did you want to start a zoo, Your Highness?” the shieldmaiden asked the Prince dryly. He only laughed and shook his head. “Please don’t,” she responded to the foreign warrior.

“Ugh. You’re really harshing my mellow, Social Climber. Ooo, is that kale?”

Breakfast was served and the warrior proceeded to drink the entire contents of the pitcher meant for the Princess and the Director, though of course latter wasn’t present to object. The Princess kept her own council, and it was difficult after so brief a connection for Borghild to know her mistress’s mind on the subject. Doubtless she was remaining as kind and compassionate as always, and possibly thinking of something else entirely. Perhaps the antics of the Brazen One were normal, everyday occurrences for her.

“So. Brit Pick. What’s up with the accent? You made it clear you’re not from the Mother Country.”

“I learned to speak English two hundred years ago, in London.”

“Huh. What about them? Everybody else here speaks English, too?”

“No, indeed. They speak the Common Tongue of our galaxy - common everywhere but here -” the Prince said with a smile before continuing. “And tis but a translation spell that allows them to understand and be understood.”

“A spell? Like magic? I don’t buy it.”

And then the Prince shapeshifted quite jarringly into a perfectly copy of the flying warrior, and when he spoke it was with the same voice, the same quick cadence. “Don’t you, Boy Wonder? Are you sure? There’s a lot science can’t explain, and any doctor worth their salt will tell you they actually know shit about the way the brain works.”

The flying warrior blinked, silence blanketing the room. He slowly reached out to touch the face of the Prince which at present looked exactly like his own.

“How…”

“Magic.”

“But how did you know-”

“Magic.”

“That means nothing!”

Borghild tensed as he shouted and almost reached for the nearest throwing dagger on her belt, but the conversation quickly flowed on and she saw the Foreign One calming as the Prince spoke.

“To you. But you are the only one in this room who is in the dark. You remain there only because you want to. Another time you should talk with Dr. Jane Foster, the Director of the Institute here. She has the envious job of working to reorganize and illuminate all scientific progress up until this point, in light of the progress the other inhabited planets of this galaxy have been making for the last two hundred thousand years.”

“Uh, why isn’t she here?” the flying warrior demanded. “And could you change back? That’s freaking me out.”

Instantly the Prince resumed his form, this time complete with armor, though without weapons, Borghild noted.

“Dr. Foster is currently quite busy welcoming my new apprentices. Think of them as… post doctoral research fellows, in magic. That’s not quite exact, but close enough.”

“They’re not going to accidentally blow up the state, are they? I’m sure we need New Mexico. For some reason.”

More smiles and laughter from the Prince. “No indeed. I assure you they will be supervised.

“Huh.”

And all was silent for a while. People ate. Borghild could tell that Natasha and Clint were calm, but ready in case the flying warrior became suddenly quite foolish.

After all were finished, the architects had the flying warrior sign his name upon the large scrolls they bore before he left with the Prince and Clint.

Borghild breathed a sigh of relief and hoped the day would now return to normal.

Chapter Text

Idle hands are the devil’s workshop.

This was not a saying with which Loki was familiar, but the concept was.

Really, this entire thing was something Loki probably should have anticipated, but he hadn’t. Neither had Jane.

It was something Loki might have noticed, for they were saying his name quite often. But today was the day his presence was made known to the world. Hundreds of thousands of other people all across the globe were also saying his name quite often today.

In truth, it had been a long, long time since either Jane or Loki was a teenager. With absolutely nothing to do. In the presence of their ultimate idol. Who needed their curiosity. And their questions.

Well, the apprentices were curious, alright. And Jane had told them they would never be penalized for asking questions.

So they had spent their morning, afternoon, and evening asking questions of everyone they could find.

All twelve of them.

They reconvened at dinner time, at which point, the damage was already done.

They couldn’t talk at dinner, that was quickly ascertained. They could only sit six to a round table anyway, so they all split up, sitting with warriors and their families, staff members, maintenance crews. Anywhere there was a free seat, an apprentice took it, and continued asking questions.

By nightfall, they knew everything worth knowing.

Darcy looked up from her dinner and took a quick survey of the room. There was more space they weren’t using, more tables they could set up, but the tables that were there were set at ten percent above capacity so that no group of people would be forced to split up to find a seat at dinner.

But that apparently wasn’t a problem, because while the warriors and different sections of staff seemed to clump together, the apprentices certainly didn’t.

“Kids look like their integrating easily,” she commented idly to her husband who was grinning while quietly shovelling in food.

“Oh, it’s much better than that,” he said after he had chewed and swallowed. And then he started eating again.

Darcy gave him a look. Dude, she thought quite clearly at him, staring him in the eye as he ate. Don’t just leave me hanging. Please explain that tantalizing comment you just made.

Loki smirked and kept eating. He spoke in the silence of her mind, however.

“I’m not sure how I’d forgotten. I suppose I imagined that my level of precociousness - well, mine and Thor's - was unparalleled. Silly of me, really. But these children, whom we did choose on the basis of their curiosity and precociousness, are not much younger than I was when Thor and I were unleashed on Midgard and ended up being worshipped as gods for centuries. And I left them alone and unsupervised for the better part of the day. And didn’t think to warn Jane, either.”

“Oh, fuck,” Darcy whispered. “Oh fuck. Okay, you're grinning, so it can’t actually be the end of the world. But you have a refined sense of humor, so it could be close to the apocalypse and you might still find it funny.”

“Well, my darling, the good news is that they are ravenously curious about me and intensely curious about anything I’m interested in, so they - all twelve, mind - have limited themselves to wandering the Enclosure asking all of the questions they could think of to anyone who would stand still long enough. And apparently everyone in the Enclosure finds them universally sweet and adorable, even Mrs. Romanov, and has answered, without reservation, nearly every question asked.”

“Well, that doesn’t sound too bad,” Darcy muttered, and then took a calming breath and pulled her mug of after dinner tea towards her.

“They already know, or think they know, that Thor is in love with Jane.”

Darcy choked on her tea.

What? What? Thor was in love with Jane? When did that happen?

“They believe that you are pregnant already.”

Darcy continued coughing. On her other side, Natasha patted her firmly on the back.

“And of course they have discovered that I am violently in love with you. Not that I’ve been attempting to hide it at all. And eight of the twelve alternate between being terrifically jealous of you and wanting to be exactly like you in every way.”

Darcy nearly snorted her tea.

“Then again, they know I’m a shapeshifter. They all twelve have spent some part of the day fantasizing about being just like me, and alternately being, shall we say, in your shoes?”

Darcy’s eyes narrowed. They’re my shoes and I’m not sharing.

Loki laughed. His mouth wasn’t full, so he responded aloud. “I wouldn’t wish it, darling.”

Do they know you’re a telepath? Darcy asked in her mind, figuring it was safe to take a sip of tea again. Possibly.

“Oh yes. They just don’t think it applies to them. And admittedly, mischief aside, which they do not actually intend at this point, they do not much fall into my realm of awareness. They are not particularly deceitful, and there was absolutely nothing chaotic about today. Simple though it was, it was planned well and executed brilliantly. Truly, if they hadn’t been using my name in every other thought or sentence even now during dinner, I might not have noticed them at all. That is why nicknames are so often used on Asgard, by the way. We none of us have our attention piqued by a nickname, even a familiar one, the way we do when our given name is used. I shall tell them of this, eventually. Perhaps in ten years.”

And, Darcy snorted her tea. Again.

They had an hour before they were required to be settled in their quarters, and another two hours before they must turn off all the lamps and be asleep. It was plenty of time.

They didn’t realize that by making their meeting after dinner they were also missing the viewing of their master’s nightly training session with the Dr. Foster’s assistant from Vanaheim, but they would discover their error soon enough and search for a different time to come together and exchange notes.

They gathered at one of the building sites, walking on thin railings and climbing up scaffolding until they could all perch on the top of what had been built thus far. None of them could remember what it was supposed to be, but that didn’t matter. It was now time to discuss what did matter.

“Let’s cover this by subject, alright? And if we get through all the ones I can think of and you’ve got more information, we’ll add it at the end, agreed?” the young man named Sigurd asked.

He met eleven eyes, and knew he had their assent.

“First, Master Loki. Everything you’ve discovered that hasn’t yet been mentioned. Be brief. We’ll go around the circle, starting with… Ragnhild,” he said, indicating the apprentice to his left, a young woman with long blond hair. She had proven herself to be outspoken, but thoughtful. Sigurd found her mildly annoying, but couldn’t disagree with the wisdom she brought to any conversation.

“Master Loki adores his wife, he’s overly fond of Dr. Foster’s assistant Thor, he’s a better warrior than all the warriors here, but they all respect him for his training regimen, and he’s covered head to foot in magical tokens.”

“Master Loki has been bound of his mastery over chaos and lying. He is a different man, but still a good sorcerer.”

“Master Loki has been bound of his mastery of mischief as well.”

“Master Loki has mastered all nine gates.”

“Master Loki has been secretly coming to Midgard for centuries.”

“Master Loki has been courting his wife for the last seventy years.”

“Master Loki has been turning into a cat and perching on the Vanir’s shoulder during meetings with Dr. Foster.”

“Master Loki and his wife sometimes have entire conversation with each other using only telepathy. So, if he’s laughing and you can’t see why, it’s because the Princess has been amusing him with her wit.”

“Master Loki wrote the original translation spell we use to speak Midgardian.”

“Master Loki is a terrible healer. No! I don’t mean it as an insult, that’s just what one of the warriors told me!” Hillevi, a young woman with darker hair cringed back as the others glared at her for her insensitive remark.

“It’s alright. Let’s continue,” Ragnhild offered. They were nearly around the circle.

“Master Loki is very, um, virile. Unusually so.”

A pause as all took this in, according to their own desires. Nanna, the only one of Alfheim among the twelve had a dreamy look on her face.

“Master Loki has a shockingly unique sense of humor that is often at odds with those around him. Except his wife,” Sigurd said, ending the circle. “Now let’s move on to the Princess Darcy. Ragnhild, will you begin again?”

“The Princess is kind, gentle, witty, and a very lucky Midgardian. She is a sorceress and a shieldmaiden, and she has mastered placement-of-things-in-space. She teleports regularly. She adores Master Loki, and she is beloved of the All-Mother.”

“The Princess has not yet finished her training in diplomacy, but that is what she has been trained in.”

“The Princess does not train in weapons or war, not that anyone else has seen.”

“The Princess likes to run, and I forgot to mention that Master Loki does as well, but they don’t run with each other. The Princess only runs a few miles, and does so in the afternoon before dinner. She runs with the Dr. Foster, her shieldmaiden Borghild, and her assistant, Natasha. Master Loki runs before the sun rises, with that Vanir, and his assistant, and whichever warriors care to join them. They run many more miles, the entire road all the way around the Embassy on the inside.”

“The Princess has only broken the first gate, and not yet mastered it. I know because I can see auras. And, about Master Loki… Well, I mean no offence, but he isn’t bound in any way, and he hasn’t mastered the ninth gate, not yet. But he has broken it. Which is shocking enough. I can’t tell when, but he’s definitely broken it.” With that, Halvard looked back at Fiske who sat next to him and shrugged. Fiske had been the one who brought the information that Master Loki had mastered all nine gates.

Fiske shrugged right back, taking no offence.

Ragnhild interrupted the circle. “I think this is a lesson to us. What we learn may be exaggerated, or presumed based on false knowledge or assumptions. Just because someone positively tells us something, I think we should hold such observations gently until one of us can provide truly telling evidence that the information is true. Let us henceforth mark such observations as personally verified by one of us, shall we not? And remark upon what evidence we have for such an assertion? But so saying, Fiske, you did well to take no offence.”

Fiske shrugged again.

“Let’s continue,” prompted Sigurd gently.

“The Princess is wildly intelligent. Master Loki himself has praised her intelligence in the midst of others, and has said that she amazes him.”

“The Princess is the mastermind behind the Embassy. It is she who is planning everything.”

“The Princess is actually Aesir.”

A thoughtful pause drew out after that comment, but no one spoke up to contradict it.

“The Princess fully welcomes Master Loki in all… um… of his… amorous moments.”

Another thoughtful pause drew out even longer, as each apprentice digested this small nugget as well, weighing it on the balance with other pieces of information that had been presented.

“The Princess grew up not far from where we are now. She is a blossoming desert flower, that is what Master Loki has said of her.”

“The Princess sleeps eight or nine hours a night! Sometimes ten.”

“The Princess subdued a deadly assassin entirely by herself! She interrogated him as well!”

Another moment of silence as each apprentice, perhaps, realized that in such a position, they most likely would not have been able to handle such a feat.

“The Princess has two siblings, a man and a woman, and both of her parents and one of her grandparents is still living,” Sigurd said, ending the circle. “I think we have time for one more round. Let us reveal what we have learned about Dr. Foster. Ragnhild?”

“Dr. Foster is the All-Mother’s favorite scientist, she is a shieldmaiden and bore witness at Master Loki’s wedding ritual. She is very intelligent, and a very happy person.”

“I have heard that Dr. Foster is a sorceress, but that cannot be true, because she has already told us she is not. But at least one of the warriors believes she is.”

“Dr. Foster is in love with the Vanir that assists her.”

“I have heard that Dr. Foster is not in love with the man called Thor, but that he is very deeply in love with her , and that is why he allows her cat to ride on his shoulder. Apparently when the cat is awake, it is often on Thor’s shoulder. But perhaps it is Master Loki in disguise?”

“Dr. Foster spends all of her time reading things that are written down, and writing more things down. And causing others to write things down.”

There was a thoughtful pause as the apprentices tried to imagine why that would be necessary.

“Dr. Foster is very young to have received her mastery in her science. She must be very intelligent, indeed.”

“Dr. Foster and the Princess Darcy are great friends and they have known each other for many centuries.”

“Dr. Foster prefers to drink her vegetables. I’m not sure how, but that’s what a man on the maintenance crew told me.”

“I have heard that the Dr. Foster is but thirty-two years old.”

A stunned hush as everyone remembered that Midgardians did not live past their first century. And so the Dr. Foster and the Princess could not have been friends for centuries unless past lives were being considered.

“Dr. Foster is not just our supervisor. She is the head of the brand new Institute that Master Loki has founded. She is a very important person, and we are very lucky to be working with her, as well as with Master Loki.”

“Dr. Foster argues with Master Loki. Warriors have seen them. But Master Loki always laughs afterwards, and they are said to also be great friends.”

“Dr. Foster’s assistant from Vanaheim is actually the Prince Thor, only he has a geis on him to subdue him and make him unrecognizable, and he is serving at the pleasure of Master Loki, and that’s why Dr. Foster is in love with him! She knows his true value, but they must keep their romance a secret from the All-Father, for surely he would not condone two Midgardian daughters for his sons. Though I forgot to say that I also heard that the Princess Darcy is much beloved of the All-Mother, who dotes on her and who has foreseen her! She knew the Princess Darcy would be the perfect wife for Master Loki, and that is why she permitted the marriage and allowed it to happen before the All-Father awakens. It is the opinion of everyone I spoke to that Princess Darcy brings much joy to Master Loki, and that they are very well matched, indeed,” Sigurd reported, ending that round.

After much quiet in which everyone was considering all the possibilities presented to them, Halvard spoke. His was a quiet, tentative voice.

“As I have said, I do see auras. I can report that Thor is old enough to be the right age to be the Prince in disguise, and while he is not full-blood Vanir, he does have Vanir blood in him, which would be right for the son of the All-Mother. Now that I consider it, Thor does not quite match Master Loki’s aura in that way. Master Loki seems to be full Aesir, but I could be confusing the reading of that, as all know Master Loki is a shapeshifter. The Princess Darcy, by the bye, seems aught but Midgardian to my senses, but I am not yet well acquainted with many. But all also know that Prince Thor is the Master of Thunder. This man who assists Dr. Foster is not a master of anything. He has some very slight magical ability, but he seems to be, in the main, a warrior who has the favor of our Master. Also, it is said that Prince Thor is never without the Mighty Mjolnir, the hammer of legend, but this Thor certainly does not carry such a weapon of power about with him.”

Sigurd looked around the rough circle to see how everyone was doing with this information. No one seemed offended, but many seemed confused. That made sense. There was little about their situation that was not confusing.

Ragnhild, who was growing on him, spoke up to Halvard. “These are wise observations, friend Halvard. Is there aught you have noticed that seemed to you odd or out of place?”

“Well, this goes deeply into personal territory, but I trust all present can be discreet?” Halvard waited until everyone met his eye, Sigurd noticed. “There is nothing out of the ordinary with the warriors, or so I noticed, and nothing with most everyone else. I believe that the Princess’s Midgardian assistant is somehow strange. I think she may be past her first century, but for a Midgardian that would mean she would be close to the grave, and this she does not seem. Of course, I could be misreading things, and so it is best not to ask her of it. I’m sure we’ll find out soon enough. The other odd thing is, and again I am not at all certain of this, but it is possible that the Princess is already pregnant with Master Loki’s firstborn. Or, I suppose, the one who will be his firstborn. It is unlikely, as it is rather soon, but she is Midgardian, and so perhaps that changes things from what we are used to.”

After a moment of silence, Halvard spoke up again.

“One more thing. I almost forgot. I apologize. The man, the warrior from Midgard who threatened Master Loki just after we arrived. He is dying. He’s not a well man. His aura is a sickly yellow and full of holes, and there is great darkness there, as well. He is dying, and he must know of it already. I’m not sure how one could have such an aura and not know it.”

After another moment, Halvard spoke again.

“One more thing. This is not irregular, but it may be helpful to know that the Princess’s shieldmaiden - I cannot recall her name - is also a healer. I have not noticed any other healers hereabouts yet. So this could be useful information in a crisis.”

Sigurd considered this information. He nodded slowly. “Friends. We must treat this knowledge, all of this knowledge, very carefully and be wary of spreading rumors. Particularly as concerns the man named Thor. If he is, somehow, the Prince and Master Loki’s brother, which would explain their familiarity, he is here for some secret purpose that our Master undoubtedly knows and agrees to, and may have orchestrated himself. We must honor the trust he has placed in us by inviting us to be his apprentices, and we must keep his confidences. Thus, it goes no further than this circle, it never does, until such time as Master Loki himself allows it.

“Thor, as Dr. Foster’s assistant and warrior is still above us, and he deserves our utmost respect and courtesy, as when he speaks, he speaks for Dr. Foster, and thus, for Master Loki.”

All in the circle met his eye, and Sigurd knew he had their agreement.

“Is there anything else of import that anyone can think of to add?”

No one met his eye.

“Then I suggest we sleep well and reconvene here at dawn, after our morning meditations. If I understand correctly, we should have at least an hour until breakfast at that point. In the meantime, please consider what we could spend our day doing, now that we have an initial grasp on the main players of this strange and beautiful drama in which we find ourselves.”

All eyes met his as he glanced around the rough circle. Once finished, the apprentices to the last one sprang lightly and gently down inclines, half finished walls, scaffolding and ladders until at last twelve thuds on the hard packed earth welcomed them back to ground level. They made their way, without words, to their individual quarters, each to sit in a bit of luxury they had not recently known - some having never experienced anything like such luxury as this - to read, to meditate, to wash, to sleep.

And perchance, to dream - an evening dream within the beautiful waking one that had become their lives.

Chapter Text

It was not unlike leading a hunt on foot, Loki mused.

It was dark, he and Thor were in the lead and running quickly, and they were trailed by various groups of people. If only they had actually been chasing something and bearing weapons, the image would be complete.

Rooftop was a few hundred feet back, but he would leave off his run by the fifth mile, circling back to his shower and his wife. Behind his somewhat frail human bodyguard-cum-assistant, there were three or four warriors running today, and they would last all twenty-six miles, the marathon loop around and through the Enclosure that Darcy had so wisely insisted upon. And newly added to their train, somewhat behind the warriors and apparently losing speed quickly, were all twelve of the apprentices.

Loki idly wondered how many miles they would last before their stamina failed them. When he was their age, he was often embarrassed when he returned home for his harvest visit. Thor would and did run circles around him.

When Loki at long last began his training in weapons, war, and diplomacy, he decided there and then that Thor would never be able to run circles around him again.

Really, running was the only part of physical training that Loki truly enjoyed.

It was with no small amount of inner glee, however he repressed it on the surface, that Loki discovered Thor’s stamina was somewhat compromised by his relative inactivity of late. With great restraint Loki refrained from running circles around him. He did consider it though. And it made him smile.

Still, it was the right thing to do, inviting him on the long morning runs Loki had decided to recommence now that he was settling into his routine here on Midgard. After two weeks of running in silence, they began to talk with one another. Two months in and they had quite a comfortable rapport growing between them, the likes of which they had not enjoyed since they were boys.

And so, when Thor started out with saying Loki’s name in that tone of voice, the one that meant he had something hard to say and was determined to say it, Loki was not entirely surprised.

“Loki,” he began, and then paused. “What must I do to regain the use of my magic overnight? Set me a goal and I will meet it, whatever it be.”

Loki slowly turned his head to look at his brother in the darkness as they ran. It didn’t help to increase his understanding of the situation. They could see the flat ground clearly enough by the light of the moon and stars, but all color and expression was drained from all that could be seen, including the usually quite expressive Thor.

“Why should I allow that? If you think you’ve learned your lessons, go speak with Mjolnir and get her judgment. I will abide by her decision.” Loki didn’t mean for it to come out harshly, but there was little other way to deliver such a judgment. Suddenly, Loki had much insight into his father that was not altogether welcome.

“I…” Thor faltered in his words, but Loki was patient. “I am not confident that I have, and I would not wish to bother her. I ask only because I wish to spend my nights in meditation. For no other reason.”

And Loki knew that it was true, because he knew his brother was not lying. And yet, it was hard to fathom.

Loki was aware that Thor had spent some time in meditation while he stood guard over him, but it was hard to imagine that he welcomed more of it.

“I see,” Loki responded, considering the matter. He wanted to be supportive, and yet the All-Mother was quite clear and explicit in her instructions. Also, this was Thor going against a millennium of habit. Then again, that was the point of this entire exercise. Perhaps Loki shouldn’t be so surprised to see the fruit of their labor in just a few short months?

Thor continued on, breaking into Loki’s thoughts. “When my magic was unbound, for those three weeks until you were fully well, I used every free moment I had meditating on my talent. I have learned so much already, and I finally understand what my tutors had meant all those years ago. I finally understood why you and Mother could find such solace and renewal in your meditations.”

To imagine Thor sitting regularly in meditation without making a great fuss was difficult enough. To imagine Thor craving and yearning and treasuring each moment that was offered was almost impossible.

“You meditated on thunder for three weeks straight?” Loki queried, now knowing the basic fact to be true, but doubting the completeness of it just on principle.

“No, lightning.”

Loki blinked slowly in the darkness, unthinkingly picking up some of Darcy’s mannerisms. Well, of course. Thor channelled lightning often enough that he was known for it, sometimes even called it down from the clouds. Still, his mastery was technically understood as thunder, not lightning.

Then Loki thought further on the matter.

“But there were no clouds in those days, I don’t think. Not in that part of Texas. How did you manage that?”

“Midgardians channel lightning everywhere, brother. It’s all around us. It’s in us . And if I am only to regain the use of my magic as a precursor to being sent back to Asgard, then I shall miss out on something very precious to me that can only be found on Midgard.”

“Midgardians channel lightning?” Loki echoed dumbly, feeling like the younger brother once more.

“Yes, and they have for the last hundred years. I’ve been reading the history of it. Jane has provided me with many books on the subject. It’s quite fascinating. They call it electricity, but it’s lightning sure enough. And it speaks. I believe it to be fateful. And with my magic bound I can hear murmurings only, but nothing specific. Even here with the solar and wind farm, generating it out of nature’s energy, I can hear but vague whispers. It is… well, it is maddening, to be honest.”

Electricity… of course it was the same thing as lightning. Loki had just never considered that as a particularly important piece of information. Except, of course, it would be to Thor.

“Well, in answer to your question, this task will I set before you: Learn English perfectly. Amaze me with your skill. Speak it fluently, write it perfectly, understand it exactly. When you feel you have, I’ll test you. If you amaze me with your skill, you may have your magic unbound until such time as I feel you have abused the privilege, at which point it will remain bound until you satisfy Mjolnir as to your progress on the whole.”

Thor gasped. “Do you mean that, brother? You would leave my magic unbound entirely?”

“Yes,” Loki said, in utter truthfulness.

Thor ran a bit ahead for just a moment, then did a jump and front flip with a crow of laughter, and then continued running as normal next to Loki.

“Thank you, brother! I will not let you down in any regard. I will learn as fast as I possibly can. To that end, please do remove my language spell just before dinner and renew it only just after breakfast. I will talk with Dr. Foster about getting an additional external battery or two for my tablet. I do run out quickly. But you will remove it after our run, will you not?”

“Of course,” Loki answered simply, his smile evident in his tone. “I see you are quite enthusiastic about this, brother mine. Tell me what it is like to meditate with electricity.”

And Loki listened to the story of his brother finally falling in love with his element, which was naturally perfect and could do no wrong. For so long he had simply used its brute force, but now, it seemed, he was beginning to understand it and there was a newborn respect for it, as well.

Loki smiled as his brother went on, and on.

This, he thought to himself, this is progress indeed.

At the halfway point of their run Loki pulled two more apples out of his store, part of the fruit he had put in only just this morning, and just for this purpose. He flipped one to Thor, who necessarily needed to stop talking about lightning in order to eat. It also gave Loki a chance to digest what Thor had been saying.

At first, Loki had believed that his brother’s enthusiasm had led him to be perhaps a little over boastful about his subject matter. There were things, after all, that one could do with subjective truth that were not quite lies, and thus not really in his ken, but neither were such things objective truth, not that Loki could always tell at first blush.

Still, lightning sounded too good to be true. If Thor was to be believed, it was both sentient and… enlightened.

The pun made him giggle around his apple.

Taking the opportunity while he could get a word in edgewise, Loki swallowed and spoke.

“And what of the Tesseract? Is it the same sort of substance as lightning? Could you speak with it as well?”

Thor, never one to stand on ceremony where talking and eating at the same time was concerned, at least, not outside of important dinners of state, happily spoke with his mouth full.

“That is a very interesting question, brother! You see the way of it, then. Well, in truth, the Tesseract does, in some respects, seem very much like lightning, but in other ways it is woefully different. First of all, we can converse, and you know I have never had the way of conversing easily with the large varieties of beings and intelligences that Father has had. And you, to some respects. So there is that. And yet, lightning is so effervescent! So joyful and unbounded in spirit. The Tesseract, alas, is no such thing.”

“Oh?” Loki asked, his curiosity piqued.

“No indeed. It is surly and perhaps even cruel. I liked it not at all. It also had a sense of self, which lightning does not have - even though it is obviously separate in this battery, in that generator, in the strike of lightning yesterday or tomorrow. Still, lightning, and all electricity I have encountered so far, has a very specific and agreed upon way of seeing itself, and that is of remarkable oneness. Even in saying so, I’m probably not doing it justice. There are no good words I can think of to properly express how it is. But the Tesseract does not seem to be this way. It is alone, cut off, and deeply unpleasant. I did not like to speak with it, and it did not like me being able to hear its discontented mutterings.”

A sinking feeling came over Loki as they ran. Had he been too late, after all? Should they evacuate the Embassy?

He reached out to the web of chaos and could see no immediate danger, but then, he might not be able to sense it.

“Thor, what did the Tesseract say?”

“Nothing to the point. I would not wish to disturb you with the details, brother.”

Loki clenched his eyes shut tightly for a brief moment before trying again.

“Thor. What did the Tesseract say?”

“Cruel and hateful things. About everyone. About no one. About me, once it realized I could understand it. But they were ravings. Truly, they made no sense. Do not concern yourself, brother.”

“Thor! What did the Tesseract say?!?”

“Brother, calm yourself. If you truly wish to know, I will tell you. You must understand that the language is no language, it is more like emotions that I experience as words. Mostly. That’s not exactly it, but the manner in which lightning communicates is simply different. Often, it speaks in litanies - just an emotion or word repeated at length.”

“Get on with it, Thor.”

“Fine, fine, but this impatience does not become you. So, before I made myself known to it, the Tesseract was muttering without apparent aim, as one might talk to oneself if one knew no one else were around. Well, if one were quite mad, and talking to oneself alone. The litanies were on the following topics: frustration, annoyance, intrusion, a general sort of hatred, fear, a desire for vengeance, perceived wrongs and slights, a sense of persecution and attack requiring defense.”

Loki’s mouth was dry. This was not good.

“Then I made myself known to it. This I did not do right away, you understand. I needed to ascertain my sister’s general safety, first, and the automobile in the midst of a stream of such conveyances was not just slightly unnerving. When I did make myself known to it, then it turned its vitriol on me. A similar series of litanies followed. Liar, usurper, interloper, uninvited, murder, death, kill, kill, kill.

“Then I tried to placate it. I told it I was present only to aid in assuring its isolation, away from all who would persecute it, away from frustration and annoyance, and so on, and so forth.

“It, perhaps not unsurprisingly, did not believe me. I do not think it helped my case that, as I mentioned before, I like everyone else has small amounts of lightning in our veins, and of course we were surrounded by lightning in other people, and in the automobile and then the aeroplane, and all of that lightning was simultaneously beckoning both myself and the Tesseract to cease believing in anything but joy and join in with its, or their, or if you prefer, the collective’s joy. Yes, come to think of it, the Tesseract seemed not to enjoy that at all.

“Anyway, I continued being as soothing as I could and it continued being as mutinous and friendly as a rabid fox.

“After my sister tossed the ungrateful wretch into the sea, I could still hear it for some time. We hovered for a bit, a matter of twenty minutes or so, and the progress of it was tracked. There was some question about whether or not it would sink properly and hit the mark, or if it would go astray with the currents. During this time, with no other life but that of the sea and no other sources or storages of lightning nearby, I could still hear it quite well, and it could still hear me.

“Its grumbling did not cease entirely. I would say it downgraded from mad and murderous to annoyed and surly. That was, I am sure, as close as it could get to saying thank you.”

Loki took a deep breath. If it was no longer thinking murderous thoughts, then they were as safe as they could be, as safe as they were yesterday, at any rate. The fact that he had a better sense of just how close the realm had been to annihilation was moot. The Tesseract was now safely out of convenient reach for Midgardians, and Thanos the Meddler was no longer seeking it.

Loki and Thor ran in silence into the dark and it was some long moments together before Loki realized that he could not possibly know the Meddler’s name, nor that he no longer sought it.

Could he?

Thor easily filled Loki’s silence, as easily as he had ever done. Given, however, that it was early morning and no mead had been taken the night before, he could not go on at length without noticing his companion’s quiet.

“What fills your mind, brother? I know it cannot be lightning, any more than I care to think about chaos or deceit for any length of time.”

“I…” his normally eloquent brother trailed off. “I am not sure,” he said, and Thor marveled that there was no smooth lie to cover up what was clearly both confusion and consternation on the younger man’s part. Then again, perhaps he was not the only one changing. Loki seemed to be quite a different man than the one Thor had last known.

“Surely you have some inkling.”

And then Thor could no longer hear the active if inarticulate murmurings of lightning all around him, only from their bodies. He glanced back, and yes, the warriors running behind them had stopped mid-stride.

“I don’t suppose you’d like to explain why you have appeared to stop time? I say nothing about your actual ability to do so. I shall ask about that at another convenient time, when you have no need of generating more of it,” Thor pointed out, in what he considered a very calm and reasonable manner.

“The Tesseract is in the center of a dire plot, and from what you’ve told me, this realm only just barely managed to escape certain annihilation. I knew it was a possibility, but honestly, I had no idea of the level of escalation of the situation in which I found myself. Well, we. I suppose we’re all in this at this point.”

“And this is what has you ruminating in a timeless hole? And should we not perhaps stop running? When you rejoin us with time, will not the warriors be alarmed?”

“Yes, of course,” Loki said, but kept running. Thor decided not to press the point.

“So. The Tesseract. Dire plot. Certain annihilation. What has you confused? Come. Talk it out with me and we shall see if the answer does not make herself known soon enough.”

“I think… I remember things that have not occurred.”

“Interesting. You’ve never shown signs of being a seer. Do you feel the pull of madness now that we are to discuss it?”

“No, not remotely. Nothing more than usual, that is.”

Thor’s own laughter caught himself off guard. “Ha! Your sense of humor returns! This is an excellent sign. When you have lost it, we are all doomed.”

Loki gave Thor a dark look that was not lost in the darkness of their continued run.

“It cannot be a dream I have remembered. Each night I wake and I take note of my dreams, in case any prove useful. And I have never forgotten a dream I have taken note of…”

Loki trailed off, his tone full of uncertainty, and Thor wondered at his diligence. He dreamed nightly, too, of course. Everyone did. And his dreams were full of beauties and horrors, both, but he never took any of them seriously. Why would he? They were just dreams, just fancies of the mind at rest, were they not?

“Except when I’m exhausted,” Loki added with grim decisiveness.

“How many times have you exhausted yourself magically, brother?” Thor asked, incredulous. Surely he could not have done this more than once or twice. Wouldn’t Thor have noticed?

“Only eleven or twelve times,” Loki responded absently.

“You jest,” Thor stated baldly.

“Hm? Well, it’s a conservative estimate. The question is, what did I dream, how much did I dream, and how much of what I’ve forgotten is important. That is the question.”

“That is three questions, actually. But important ones, I’ll agree. Is there aught you can do to aid your recall of them?”

Loki shook his head. “No. The best I can do is be alert. When a memory returns, however tenuously, I can sometimes trace back and get a fuller picture of what the dream entailed. Perhaps not all of it, but perhaps enough.”

“And is that what you have done?”

“Perhaps.”

“And you are afraid that you are being watched, somehow? And so you pulled us out of time to discuss it?”

“As you say. There is an unpleasant intelligence angling to interfere with the Tesseract. And I think it may have come to me in a dream. I think I debated it,” Loki ended, dreamily.

“It no doubt lost, then,” Thor said, firm in his knowledge of his brother’s ability to debate anyone into the ground.

“I think I bargained with it,” Loki said in a tone of soft wonder.

“I’m starting not to like this, Loki.”

“I think I promised to solve its original problem for it,” Loki said, his voice continuing to be soft and dreamy and very far away.

“I’m certain I don’t like this, Loki.”

“No, no, I was perfectly confident in the dream. I think.” Loki was definitely in a world of his own that no longer included reality as anyone else understood it.

“Loki, this is not good.”

“The only problem, really, is that I can’t remember what its original problem was. Or my solution.” Loki spoke of this as if he could not remember what he had for breakfast.

“Oh, Loki. What will Mother say? What will Father say when he wakes?”

Loki gave Thor another hard look. “They need never know. We both know I have a fate to meet. I doubt very highly that this figures into that. Therefore, whatever happens, I will likely not die because of this, and therefore will be successful. If I am successful, this will be but a passing adventure, and not my first on Midgard. Nothing to bother our parents with, thank you for inquiring.”

“By the Nine, Loki! Is this how you’ve been living your life? What tales you have to tell!”

“I did not live them in order to tell them. I lived them because they were before me and could not be avoided. Now, to the point. Talk of the Tesseract brought this memory back, at least in part, and talk of the Tesseract may finish the job. Tell me more. Tell me every little detail you hardly noticed. Walk me through the entirety of it, as if I were sketching it scene for scene to illustrate a history.”

Thor did not have to ask if his brother was serious. It was clear, and Thor did his best.

He spoke of when the man named Furious first brought the Tesseract to the hostel. He spoke of his sister, and of the wonderful Dr. Foster who had managed to solve their problems. Thor gave his impressions of all involved. Furious, living up to his namesake. His sister, showing her mettle again and again. Dr. Foster, so helpful, so kind, so strangely amusing. He spoke of the introduction of Mrs. Romanov to the group, and Thor was not at all abashed that such a fine shieldmaiden as she had compromised him so quickly.

Thor spoke of the car ride, so quiet, except for the bliss of the lightning and the killjoy of the Tesseract, and when he described the interior of the flying aeroplane, which was actually quite interesting and used quite a stunning amount of lightning to power, much more so than birds, even large ones, that is when Loki bid him to silence.

“And you did not speak much,” Loki said.

“No, brother. I did not think it wise. I was hoping at that point only to assuage the Tesseract and be on hand should my sister need my aid.”

“And Darcy and Fury spoke at length. Debating. Arguing. She never won, but was not daunted.”

“Yes, brother. How did you know?”

“And the metal briefcase in which the Tesseract was housed, that sat at her feet the entire time, yes?”

“Yes, has the Princess already told you this part?”

“No. I remember. I dreamed it. Or, I was there, in spirit, in the dream. I’m not sure. There were things I saw that may not have happened. At no point did the three of you begin an orgy?”

“Never. I swear it.” Thor looked at his brother, but he seemed calm. There was no hint of the maddening rage he once bore when confronted with any such similar idea.

“I thought not. And at no point did the conveyance and everything within it become entirely translucent?”

“Not that I noticed, no.”

“Interesting. Did you notice my presence? Or a little old sorceress? Or a misshapen purple doll grotesque?”

“I am certain I did not. Nor did I hear the lightning in you or any of the others you describe. There was naught but myself, my sister, Furious, and the pilot and pilot’s assistant, who were at the wheel, navigating. If you or the others were there, you were not there in any of the standard senses.”

After a time of silence, Thor broke it.

“Do you remember yet?”

“I could not remember the four axioms of illusions. And then Mistress Oydis appeared, and told me. I think. Or something like that. And then I put a halt to the orgy, which wasn’t really happening, and saw through the lies. And pulled the doll from my chest. And then we sparred with words. And it threatened to end Yggdrasil, which I found particularly amusing, as that is my job, and that’s when I remembered… or was it? Was it before? No, the order matters not. And I remembered the stories about it, and realized that, like anyone stuck ten thousand lifetimes from the end, it was taking entirely wrong-headed measures to get what it wanted, and I offered to help, on the condition that it leave the Tesseract alone. I think it agreed, and gave me ten years before it came and laid waste to Yggdrasil. Again, an amusing thought. Of course, ten of which realms years? I didn’t think to ask. Wasn’t quite the moment, you know?”

“Loki,” Thor began, speaking slowly and clearly, as one would to a recalcitrant child, or a quite senile elder. “Do you remember how you were going to help?”

“Oh, yes. And before you ask, no, you cannot help. I’m afraid no one can, though I’ll need you to guard Darcy while I’m gone. Well, metaphorically speaking.”

“Loki,” Thor began again, speaking even more slowly and clearly. “Speak plainly before you drive me mad.”

“He cannot die. I promised to have him killed.”

“ What?” There was no part of Loki’s answer that made sense in Thor’s brain, nor, Thor reasoned, in anyone’s brain, should anyone else have heard of such a statement.

“It is Thanos, the Undying. You know the legend-”

“ What? ”

“Oh, good, you do know the legend-”

“ Thanos the Realm Killer? Thanos the Slayer of World Trees? Thanos who bathes in the blood of his enemies to be more alluring to his lover? ”

Thor was so upset it would take him sometime to realize he had started sprinting. Loki just kept pace with him.

“You know that last part is the problem, of course. She won’t have him, and he’s going about it in the wrong way. He needs to master the Ninth Gate to impress her, and he is at least ten thousand lifetimes away from doing that, and as he had a geis on him, death won’t have him even once, to say nothing of the ten thousand times. So I agreed to negotiate with death and make him killable.”

“You did not. Say you did not. Loki, this is madness. ”

“Quite the contrary, brother, it’s one of my better ideas, really.”

“ Loki! Do you not see it? This IS Ragnarok! This is THE END. Thanos will slay Yggdrasil once he has the Tesseract, agreement or no agreement! This IS Ragnarok and you have brought it about too soon! ”

“Thor, calm yourself. Really. He can’t kill Yggdrasil. You know perfectly well that is actually my job and I won’t subcontract. My, you are running fast today,” Loki pointed out calmly, before returning to the subject at hand.

Thor felt no urge to slow.

“And that is many thousands of years into the future, I assure you. I’m not quite enlightened yet, and I’m only just married. I have things to do, first. I promise you that if we are still on speaking terms I shall alert you beforehand. No, no, all I need do is make him mortal again. I am absolutely certain that he puts himself in mortal danger on an hourly basis. One only need convince the Queen of Death to kick him back into the cycle of rebirth, and he will get along with whatever his destiny is - which is not Ragnarok, thank you very much - and we can get along with ours.”

Thor was speechless. He wasn’t sure if it was his brother’s casual reference to the scarring fate that had so wounded him, or speaking of personally bringing down the known Universe’s most well-known and thoroughly-feared warlord. Perhaps it was the territorial way in which he claimed Yggdrasil’s death for his own. No, it was definitely his confidence in having a successful negotiation with an entity Thor was not entirely certain actually existed.

“No, there are only two questions in my mind. How long do I actually have, and how am I going to tell Darcy?”

“As to the former,” Thor responded without thinking too much about it. “The shortest year in Yggdrasil is on Jotunheim. Something like one-third the Common Year, isn’t it? And as to the latter, good luck.”

Chapter Text

Darcy got up at the knock on the outer door, leaving her mug of tea on the low table in the meditation space.

When she opened the door, she was not actually surprised to see Natasha standing there, dressed informally, but more normally than Darcy was.

Desperate for warm clothes, at least to lounge in at 5 AM when she couldn’t sleep and Loki was out running with Thor, she took to her trunk-token-bag and did what amounted to a Google search for warm clothes.

Frigga had not let her down.

There was wool. There were down blankets. There were fur coats. And fur blankets. There were leather boots lined in fur. There were tubular things of various size that she wasn’t sure where to put. Some were wooly. Some were furry. There were things that might have been wide scarves or long wraps, or just really oddly shaped blankets.

Darcy currently had on a t-shirt, a pair of yoga pants, the pair of brown leather boots lined in fur that went almost to her knee, and a wool hat she had knitted two years ago, because sometimes it snowed in D.C.. She’d left the calf-length fur coat and the fur lap blankets on the pillows she had been sitting on, because she didn’t want to go to the door looking like a complete freak.

Darcy now regretted leaving off the jacket, and was suddenly cold again.

“Hi,” she said to her body guarding assistant.

“Hey. Saw your light was on. You okay?”

Darcy nodded, and moved back away from the door to allow the older woman to come inside. “Want some tea? Or was this a drive-by check-in?”

“I’d love some tea, thank you.”

Darcy ambled to the beverage station that hosted a Keurig, an electric kettle, a selection of ten teas and four coffees, a tin of cookies, a tin of crackers, a bowl of fruit, a mini fridge that had half and half and four fresh bottles of vegetable juice, and a free-standing five-gallon water cooler. She turned the kettle back on and got Natasha’s preference for tea.

“Couldn’t sleep?” the former assassin asked.

Darcy shook her head. “Last couple of days. Loki doesn’t wake me up when he goes, but without fail, fifteen minutes after he’s gone I’m uncomfortably awake and kind of restless.”

“If this keeps up, you should consider a nap in the afternoon. You do need to sleep, after all.”

“I know. But there’s just so much to do…”

“There’s always going to be so much to do, Darcy,” Natasha said, having thoroughly lost the battle of what to call her employer. “You have to take care of yourself and get what you need, when you need it.”

Darcy wrapped her arms around her torso and shivered a bit, and was relieved when the water, already quite hot, reach a boil quickly. She hustled the tea over to Natasha and snagged a little bowl to put the leftover tea bag in.

Hospitality done, Darcy gratefully wrapped the long leather and fur coat around herself and did up the buttons from the throat half way down. When she sat down, she grabbed one of the pretty fur lap blankets and plopped it over her legs, offering one of the remaining ones to Natasha.

The redhead took the offering putting it on her lap and stroking the fur.

“It’s lovely. Do you know what kind it is?” she asked, looking still at the blanket.

Darcy shrugged. “No idea. They’re actually Loki’s. I haven’t asked him about them yet, but I suppose I will eventually.” There was a lot on that list. It was the ‘things I think of once or twice and wonder about, and will eventually ask Loki, at some point’ list. She hadn’t actually written up that list. Yet. She might. But there were, conservatively, eight or nine hundred things on it.

Darcy’s blanket was pure white, and Natasha’s was white with blue irregular stripes, like some kind of long-haired arctic zebra or something. There was a third blanket nearby and it was white with creamy smudges on it. They were all beautiful, and warmer than anything Darcy had ever experienced before.

“The Aesir have a lower ambient body temperature, don’t they?” Natasha asked, nonchalantly.

Darcy was caught off guard and forgot to play it cool, as it were. Her eyes shifted to Natasha and narrowed slightly before she remembered that her assassin was wicked observant, but probably hadn’t yet figured out that Loki was a giant icicle on the inside.

“It’s possible,” she hedged. “Man doesn’t describe the temperature outside based on a fixed scale, so I know they don’t do that for body temperature. And I haven’t stuck a thermometer under his tongue, though I might after this.”

“Have you taken your own temperature lately?” Natasha asked, again with great nonchalance, which Darcy now found suspicious.

“No,” Darcy said, drawing the word out and filling it with unspecified accusation. Because where exactly was she going with this?

“Your appetite has been off, lately. How are you feeling?”

“Fine, Natasha,” Darcy answered, not actually wanting to talk about the intermittent nausea, or, really, anything having to do with a toilet, with her assassin. It’s possible that she wasn’t super convincing in her answer, though, given the look on the other woman’s face. “Would you just cut to the chase, please?” Darcy asked.

“I think you might be pregnant.”

“Oh, Lord. Not you, too,” Darcy said, rolling her eyes.

“What makes you so sure you’re not?” Natasha asked calmly, her fingers wrapped around her bright blue mug of tea.

“Loki said it would probably be pretty difficult to get pregnant and it would probably take us awhile.”

“Do you know if he was referencing other Aesir-Human matches, or Aesir-Aesir matches?”

“Probably not the mixed ones,” Darcy said, uncertain if there was historical evidence of a Jotunn and a Human ever successfully mating, come to think of it. She certainly hadn’t happened upon it in her reading, not that there was a book devoted to just that sort of thing. Not that she had found yet, anyway. It’s not like any of the books, even the reference ones, had indexes. It wasn’t like there was a cross-referenced library catalog. Or a keyword searchable library database.

Yet .

And Darcy made a mental note to add a librarian to her staff.

Natasha continued on, regardless of Darcy’s organizational musings. “Then it could be in Aesir-Aesir matches that it’s the woman who is less fertile and the man more so. If that’s the case, then there would always be a low birth rate among the Aesir, until an Aesir man has a relationship with a Human woman, and then, bam, high birth rate. Either way, have you considered consulting with one of their doctors, or maybe a midwife who has experience in cross-species births?”

Darcy sighed. “I was going to wait until the clinic was built and staffed, honestly. But maybe I shouldn’t.”

“I think you shouldn’t. Even if you’re not very nauseous now, the temperature thing could be an indicator. And if you’re carrying a child that’s half you and half the Prince, you need to be under medical supervision to make sure you have a safe pregnancy.”

The word ‘safe’ rung in Darcy’s ears. Of course. Of course. Of course that was why Natasha was particularly concerned and rather nosey.

Darcy’s safety was Natasha’s job.

“I’ll make an appointment today,” she conceded. “Or whatever the Asgardian equivalent is.”

And I’ll talk with Loki about this, and about telling you about this whole I-Married-A-Popsicle thing.

For reasons that Darcy wasn’t completely clear about, she felt comfortable enough with Natasha now, and she really wanted someone else to talk to about the issue. She knew she needed to wait and discuss it with Loki first, but just at the moment, Darcy had the strongest urge to just tell Natasha everything.

Perhaps it was just the issue of keeping secrets in general. Darcy had never been particularly good at it, and couldn’t see the point. To her mind, it only ever made matters worse.

And then Darcy realized that she didn’t have to keep this a secret, at least, not in that way that felt like lying. She remembered what Loki had said, that sometimes there would be things she would ask about that he simply couldn’t give her answers for.

Darcy bit her lip and wondered how to even say this.

Well, fuck it. Just say it.

“So, there are, let’s call them mitigating factors… There are mitigating factors that I can’t mention at this point, and I’d like to. But I need to get Loki’s permission first, because it’s intensely private and personal information. And I… yeah.” Darcy sighed and started to worry that a diplomatic life was not going to work out for her after all.

They shared some silence then, sipped tea, and Darcy tried not to think about the fact that her having a small lump of nearly-frozen cells in her uterus might explain her current temperature issue much better than buildings being over-air-conditioned, and the fact that she could only discuss it with Loki. Determined to change the subject, at least in her mind, Darcy looked to the woman across from her.

“Did you ever get pregnant?” As an assassin, the answer was probably no, but any conversational segue would do.

Natasha shook her head. She looked off into the distance with the mug of tea held just below her nose. “I can’t have children,” she said softly.

“Oh. Sorry,” Darcy said, wondering how it was she could manage to stick her foot in her mouth so frequently.

Natasha shrugged one shoulder. “It’s not a big deal,” she said in the same soft voice that made Darcy wonder if it was, in fact, a very big deal indeed, or had been at one time. “I’ve had a lot of time to come to terms with it.”

A thought occurred to Darcy, but she debated whether or not to say it.

Ah, fuck it.

“It must have happened when you were very young, because you’re not that old, now. Was it an accident?”

Natasha, now deeply looking elsewhere, and probably not at the tapestry on the wall, responded in that same faraway voice. “No, it was no accident.” In an even smaller voice, she continued. “I was in a training program. When I was a teenager. A sort of… elite assassin’s school. The graduation present was a hysterectomy.”

“Laparoscopic?” Darcy asked, knowing that one kind was a tiny incision and a quick recovery and the other was a huge slice into your abs and took ages to fully recover from.

Natasha snorted delicately. “No. This was well before that technology became popular.”

Then Darcy did some math. Her mother had needed a hysterectomy ten years ago, and it had been done laparoscopically. And ten years ago, Natasha Romanov would have been about fifteen.

But then Darcy doubted her math, so she double checked. No, no, her mother totally had the surgery nine or ten years ago.

“Not that it’s any of my business, really, so you can just tell me to go to hell and that’s cool, but how old are you really, Natasha?”

The not-twenty-five year old former assassin sighed and took a sip of tea. “I was planning on telling you eventually. It’s a relief, really, to finally work for someone older than me. I mean Loki, obviously,” she said as an aside, but still didn’t meet Darcy’s eyes. “And to finally work for someone who will outlive me, even if I die naturally. Not that I have a good sense of what my life span will actually be.” She glanced over at Darcy finally and gave a weary sigh. “They used experimental drugs. There were a lot of side effects, some of them rather long-lasting.” Perhaps at Darcy’s horrified expression, she elaborated. “They, like everyone else, were racing to find a super soldier serum. They, like most everyone else, did not entirely succeed.”

“Not entirely?” Darcy asked, shifting slightly to wake up her legs.

“Well, I am ninety-five, and I heal rather quickly. And I don’t morph into some kind of crazy Mr. Hyde figure when I’m angry. And I seemed to stop aging at about twenty-three. I have no idea how long this will continue, or if it will ever stop.” Natasha shrugged. “And I’m tired already. I don’t know how Loki does it.”

“He makes his own fun,” Darcy dryly quipped. Then she paused and really thought about it. And thought about how far she and Natasha had come in the last three months that they could even have this sort of conversation now.

“I don’t know many aliens who live stupidly long lives, but I can say two things about my husband. He has a really clear sense about what he’s supposed to be doing in the world, and he’s really close to, like, Buddha-level enlightenment. I’m totally planning on joining him as soon as I figure my own shit out. But anyway, I think that helps wile away the dull hours. When you’re ready, I’m sure he would talk to you about it.”

Natasha nodded, but said nothing.

“And about the other thing. Aesir medical technology is way ahead of the curve. It’s one of the many things Jane hopes we’ll be able to replicate in time here on Earth, but in the meantime, you and Clint should get a check up. Loki and I are due to go and run me through the Billionaire’s Itinerary because my mother-in-law is horrified that the first time I might see some of this stuff is with strangers, and the first dozen are happening in… gosh, three weeks.”

“Three and a half. And I wouldn’t mind getting that check up, uterus or no uterus.” She paused before speaking again. “And if they could help Clint, I’d be really grateful.”

Tumblers clicked in Darcy’s brain.

“New plan. Because you’re helping me organize this anyway. You and me and Loki and Clint are going to do the Billionaire’s Itinerary together. So we’d best figure this out sooner rather than later. We can do the entire thing and take plenty of notes and pictures. And see if any of my assumptions based on Loki’s stories are just way off base. And that will include a stop in the medical spa for everybody. So I’ll consult with an Aesir OB/GYN today, and have my follow up this weekend when I’m there anyway. And in the meantime, I’m just going to be wearing wool in the desert. And that will have to be okay.”

Natasha nodded in agreement and the swank trailer was quiet for a long while.

“Shit,” Darcy began, resignation in her voice. “I’m probably pregnant, aren’t I?”

“Probably,” Natasha agreed.

“Well. Well. Okay. Yeah.” Darcy trailed off into silence that was broken by the sound of the door handle rattling slightly.

Darcy watched as Natasha rolled over the pillows and landed in a low crouch behind the door. She had pulled a gun. From whence she’d pulled it, Darcy wasn’t super clear. Darcy also wasn’t super clear what happened to Natasha’s cup of tea, and if she had been finished with it.

“You’re up early, darling,” Darcy could hear as the door opened. There was Loki, sweaty and beautiful, and there was Natasha, coming up from her crouch and holstering her gun back wherever the hell she hid it behind her to begin with. He glanced over once he cleared the door, striding into the small room. “All is well, Mrs. Romanov?”

“Just peachy, Your Highness.” She glanced over at Darcy. “Thanks for the tea. See you at breakfast.”

Darcy nodded as Natasha slipped out and shut the door behind her.

“Are you well, darling?” Loki asked as he happily flopped on a pile of pillows next to her, rolling up one of the fur lap blankets and tucking it under his head.

“Mmm. More or less. I think I might be pregnant.”

Loki sat up quickly, his eyes searching her body as if he could, just by looking, see a blastocyst growing somewhere underneath her lungs.

“Are you certain?” he asked, idiotically.

“Of course I’m not certain. How on earth could I possibly be certain? Why would you even ask that question? You usually don’t ask stupid questions, and you usually come back from your run about twenty five minutes from now. So what’s up with you ?”

“I… yes, well, that. Thor was sprinting part of the time, but I shall tell you all in due course. Let us discuss this first. Why do you suspect you are pregnant?”

“My period is way late. Like so late I totally forgot about it. And then there’s the morning sickness. And also I’m freezing my ass off. As if, perhaps, I had something very, very cold growing inside of me, stealing all of my body heat. Which I would like to discuss with you, at length, momentarily. But first, I’m requesting a midwife or someone like that to come down and talk to me today, and I need to be able to speak freely about your heritage, or the conversation will be entirely moot.”

Loki nodded. “Of course, darling. Would you prefer if I be present or absent for this conversation? What is the standard on Earth for such things?”

“It varies. What is the standard on Asgard?”

“Men are not involved in such things, but that matters not to me, if you would wish me to be present.”

“I do,” Darcy said, with some relief. “I really don’t want to feel like I’m doing this alone.”

Loki shifted gracefully to kneel beside her. He laid a hand on her knee, on top of the snow white fur. “And I would not wish you to feel that way. Or to be that way.”

“Okay. I’ll send a message to Frigga to recommend someone, then. And this weekend, we really ought to do the trial run of the Billionaire Itinerary. I want to take Natasha and Clint with us for a variety of administrative reasons, and because I did promise access to the Asgardian healthcare system when Natasha was hired. Come to think of it, I’m not sure I mentioned that to you before. But I figured it wouldn’t be a problem.”

Loki shook his head. “No, of course not.”

“And, this is probably for another conversation at another, albeit soon, time, but we, or possibly just you, or some combination of you, me, and Frigga, need to really think about how and when and where you’re going to go public about the rest of your heritage. Because if I am cold because I am pregnant, then it is very likely our child is going to really look like you more than me. And he or she may not be a shapeshifter. You get me?”

Loki sat back on his heels, and if his unguarded expression was any indicator, he was stunned. Darcy waited.

And waited.

And waited.

“You still with me?” she asked gently.

His words came out hesitantly. “I… thought…” A much longer pause followed. “I… would have… more time…”

Darcy picked up his hand. She wasn’t sure if he meant more time just the two of them before a child presented his or herself onto the scene, or more time to get used to knowing his heritage before having to bear the scrutiny of everyone else knowing his heritage. Probably the latter. That was the bigger one.

“No matter what, the wider world doesn’t have to know until the birth. But the people close to us, if I am in fact pregnant and it is our child inside of me that’s making like an icecube, well, some of them will have to know. And I want them to know. And Odin would have known that he’d have to tell you and everyone else at some point. And I know this is really your secret, but I’m probably bearing your rather chilly child and so that makes it my secret, too. And, babe, I really fucking hate secrets.”

Loki bowed his head, bending in half and all but resting it in Darcy’s lap. Without thinking her free hand rose and scritched at his head, running her fingers through his once-short hair that had been growing like a weed.

“Have I failed you so quickly?” he asked in a broken whisper.

Oh, shit, Darcy thought, and wondered where in her words she had gotten too harsh. She had obviously tipped him over into highly-emotional-and-guilt-ridden-Loki mode, which she hadn’t seen in months, not since they first met.

“You haven’t failed me,” she replied calmly. “I love you, and you haven’t failed me. We just live complicated lives. I knew that privacy and discretion and diplomacy and keeping confidences were all part of the package. I knew that and I accepted that. I’m just better at some parts of it than others, I guess. I’m sorry I was too harsh.”

Loki remained bowed over her lap, and she couldn’t tell if she’d helped or just made it worse.

“You are too kind,” he said, the tone of his voice still speaking of so much more angst than his brief words could convey alone.

“No, actually, I’m not. You knew exactly how homicidal I got at breakfast yesterday,” she pointed out, not minding at all changing the subject and maybe adding a little levity to the moment. “I mean, sure, it’s a great story, ‘And then I fantasized about stabbing Tony Stark with a fork.’ But joking aside, and maybe you couldn’t get this just through my thoughts, but there was more than one moment that I’m kind of disgusted by that I actually wanted to do him harm. Actually. As if I was some kind of insane woman who could really be incited to violence just because someone insulted her husband. Borghild mentioned something about breakfast later on yesterday, and I had to admit that I hadn’t paid attention to a damn thing that happened because I was too busy trying to meditate through my violent rage to notice anything else. Shocked the hell out of her, I can tell you.”

Darcy paused, realizing that she might have changed the subject, but she probably failed at levity.

“But the point, Loki, is that I’m not a too kind person. I just love you. And sometimes I say the wrong things when I want to prove my point.”

It was a shocking moment when Darcy realized that she got that from her father, but her father’s interpretation would have been different. If you can turn the tables on your opponent and make them see their own error, they’ll feel guilty. Or defensive. Either way you look better to the jury.

“No, you are too kind. And I have failed you. I have asked you to hold for too long a secret that has become a burden for you, and only because I myself was reluctant to continue the inner work that is necessary to bring this secret to light. And for me to have done this to you , who finds deceit particularly burdensome... I have added to your pain instead of lightened it, and all because I was selfish and distracted. Forgive my selfishness and my distraction. I will be more vigilant in the future.”

Darcy sighed. She probably wasn’t going to be able to convince him that this wasn’t a big deal to her, just because it was a big deal to him. And truly, she didn’t want to this be a secret for too much longer.

“The Romanovs we can tell this weekend, or sooner if you prefer,” he said. “It is only right that we allow Borghild and Dagmar an opportunity to consider well their reaction and whether they wish to continue in our service.” Loki took a deep breath and ended it on a sigh. Darcy wasn’t sure what he was going to say, but she knew he didn’t have to be the one doing all the talking.

“I’ll handle Borghild and Dagmar, and I’ll give them that opportunity. I’d also like to tell my family.”

Loki looked up, then, rising from his abject misery.

“Of course. Would you like me to be present?”

Darcy shook her head. “Babe, you need to deal with this stuff inside your own noggin. I can handle talking to my family and my staff, such as they are. If Aiden is available to come for the meeting with the midwife and wants to be there, would that be okay with you?”

Loki cocked his head and his face turned inquisitive. “You would not mind if the talk turned quite intimate?”

Darcy shrugged. “The most intimate I could imagine is questions about sex, or my uterus. Aiden knows I have a uterus and she’s pretty fine with it, and if she doesn’t know we have sex, it’s only because she doesn’t want to think about it too hard. Anyway, it would be her choice, if we give her the opportunity. I figured she would be interested because of the medical angle, you know?”

“I do not mind, and if it is your wish she be there, then by all means invite her.” Loki plucked the empty tea cup from Darcy’s hands and put it off to the side, by the wall. “But you shall not distract me from my mission. A very important mission it is, too.”

Loki plucked open the first button of her leather and fur coat, and then the second. And then the third.

“I see,” Darcy said. “You do realize I’m using that to stay warm?”

Loki leaned in and brushed his face - and his facial hair, oh, heaven - against her neck. Then he licked the outer rim of her ear.

“Yes, well, I thought perhaps I could warm you with some vigorous bed sport instead,” he whispered.

Darcy snorted. “You say the sweetest things,” she replied sarcastically. Someone once told her that sarcasm was only thinly veiled anger, but she couldn’t be bothered to think about that too deeply just at the moment.

“Would you like me to be sweet?” Loki asked, removing the lap blanket then taking up her hands and leaning back, pulling her gently but irrevocably towards him, over him as he began to lean back and recline on a pile of pillows. Loki was all grace and power. Darcy did her best not to accidentally knee him in the balls.

“Well. I do like you bold and saucy,” she pointed out once she had successfully straddled him, moving one pillow out of her way on the left side and tucking it under her right knee. “Remind me what sweet looks like?”

A smile erased the last of the angst from his face. “My darling, it would be my pleasure to do so.”

He flexed and half sat up again, and trailed three fingertips down the side of her face, down her neck, and over her shirt down the middle of her chest, between the braless girls, and down to her waist. Loki had only just gotten one hand around her side with a finger underneath her shirt that she pressed the pause button.

“Mmm, but come to think of it, why are you still wearing a shirt?” she asked, a small smile on her face.

“Because no one has taken it off me. Yet.”

“Saucepot,” she accused, making quick work of his shirt and throwing it in the general direction of their bedroom. “Like you usually wait for me to take off your clothes. I can count on one hand the number of times you’ve actually waited that long. What happened to you demonstrating what sweet looked like?”

His smile was more than a bit mischievous. From his sit-up like position, he now had both hands at her waistband, underneath the hem of her shirt. He ran cool fingertips, and then dull nails along the line above her yoga pants.

“Are sweet and saucy diametrically opposed?” he asked, his tone as innocent as the pure driven snow. “Mutually exclusive?”

Darcy was enjoying the hell out of herself, but that didn’t mean she’d just let him win. “Pretty sure argumentative is, Silvertongue.”

He smiled and acted wounded all at the same time. “Ah! A hit! A palpable hit!” He leaned up further and captured her lips in his and Darcy was forcibly reminded that the nickname Silvertongue had at least three meanings. When he was finished with the kiss, she could feel his lips against her throat. “You would have me seduce you while wounded?”

Darcy smiled. “You once promised me that you would eat me out even when you were magically exhausted. I’m sure this won’t be a problem for you.” She pushed him back onto the pillows and leaned over him, her hands bracing herself on either side of his head. Except that the pillows weren’t exactly a firm foundation for this sort of thing, so she ended up bracing herself against his shoulders.

And then she was on the bottom, because Loki slipped and shifted and rolled. And there was a breeze against her thighs…

Because Loki had made her clothes disappear. But notably not the knee-high leather and fur boots, nor the calf-length leather and fur coat. Which meant that Darcy was still fairly warm.

“You are delectable,” he whispered, hovering above her, the corded muscles in his arms perfectly visible from her peripheral vision, as was his frankly magnificent chest and washboard abs.

Darcy liked to think she wasn’t a shallow woman. Her husband was wise, peaceful, insightful, wickedly funny, and a thoroughly decent man, despite his knee-jerk reaction to prevaricate whenever possible. But sweet Jesus he was also the living embodiment of peak physical perfection, and a damn fine lover. And moments like this she kind of just wanted to pause and look at him. And possibly drool a little. Because Loki made her mouth, literally, water.

And then, the jarring sound of attention-seeking kittens startled her so badly that she jumped.

“Meow!”

“Mrrowr!”

Darcy had no idea when Pratchett and Dr. Who had come in through their cat door, but they were hard to miss, now. They had seated themselves next to her head. And just when she had decided to have a quiet moment to objectify Loki, too.

“Meow!”

“Mrrowr!”

Loki paused and smiled at her. “They have prescient timing.”

Darcy turned her head and looked at the pair of six month old kittens who had, obviously, the run of the compound. “I’m busy.”

“Mrrowr!” replied Dr. Who.

Darcy faced Loki and was determined to ignore the kittens. It wasn’t hard. Cute though they were, and they really, really were, Loki was on the other side of that equation, and really, it wasn’t fair to the kittens.

She reached up and grabbed the back of his neck. “Hi.”

“Hello,” he echoed softly, his smile crinkling the corners of his eyes. “I believe I was in the midst of convincing you that I can be sweet. Shall I continue, or have I satisfied your curiosity already?”

“I think you should continue,” she replied quietly, her voice still audible under studiously ignored cat pleas for attention.

And then Darcy discovered that having sex while two kittens stare at you and meow is actually kind of weird.

When Darcy and Loki were lazing about after the morning round of connubial bliss, also scritching a pair of adorable kittens, Darcy remembered that there were one or two things that Loki had back burnered in their conversation earlier.

“So, why were you back early this morning?”

Suddenly the kittens stopped purring, and it took Darcy a moment to realize that they’d stopped breathing as well. Loki took each of them carefully in his hands and placed them on pillows an arm’s length away.

It took Darcy’s brain some number of moments to realize that the kittens hadn’t spontaneously died, and that’s why Loki was placing them reverently on pillows. No, Loki had stopped time, but only for the two of them.

So, this was a serious conversation, then.

Which was why Darcy was confused when she saw a grin on her husband’s face.

“Well. I figured out who The Meddler was.”

“During your run?” Darcy asked, confusion personified.

“In essence, though not originally. He came to me in a dream that I had forgotten. I remembered the dream during the run,” Loki said, all shades of previous frazzlement erased from his face. But that was maybe the orgasms. They always calmed him down.

Darcy shifted to her stomach, grabbing a few pillows to prop herself up with and leaned on her elbows as she stared at Loki, still naked, and gesturing with his hands as he spoke.

“Oh, shit. Okay. And?” Darcy prompted.

“I guessed his identity. I won’t tell you his name until after this is all over - just a precaution, you understand.”

“No, no, no, I get it. He’s a big bad and his name attracts attention. Don’t worry. Go on.”

“And I also guessed a point of leverage, and used it as a bargaining chip.” Loki grinned and laced his fingers together, cradling the back of his head with them even as he arched his back to stretch it. Darcy heard three cracks before he sighed and flopped back into the pillows.

Darcy was getting tense. She blinked a few times, thinking about what he had just said in his nonchalant manner. “Loki, are you saying you just made a deal with the devil? That shit never works out.”

Loki shook his head, still grinning. “He doesn’t have that much power. He only wishes he did.”

Darcy blinked again.

“So what’s his side of the deal?” Darcy asked, hugging the pillows to her chest.

“He leaves the Tesseract alone, gives me time to do my part, and in the end gets a much better chance at achieving his life goals.”

“‘Life goals.’ We’re coming back to that in a minute if it’s not already abundantly clear. Okay, so what’s your part?”

“I bargain with a third party on his behalf and get her to release the spell she has laid on him.”

“Huh. Okay.” Darcy thought about this for a moment. It seemed simple enough. But of course she still had some questions. “Why’d she lay a spell on him?”

“Legend has it--”

“Legend?” Darcy interrupted without even thinking. “These people are in your legends?”

“Yes, but don’t let that distract you. You have married someone, after all, who is in the legends of your own world,” Loki pointed out calmly. “So, legend has it that she doesn’t like him very much. But I believe there is more to it than that, though what it is, I only suspect. And I believe that my particular talents, used for the good of all, will be quite helpful in this endeavor.”

“Okay. So where does this third party live? And when do you need to do this?”

“The sooner the better. I have no idea if the Meddler will truly live up to his end of the bargain, and every reason to suspect that he will not. And I do not have an exact address for the third party, but I have a very strong feeling that when I am ready and I go looking for her, she will seek me out soon thereafter.”

“Okay. Do I get to know her name? This third-party? And what the Meddler’s life goals are?”

“Well, this is the part that may be difficult to believe. He wishes to die, and believes that will serve his ends and meet his goals. He cannot die, because of the spell laid on him. The rest is drama, as you would say.”

“So you’re going to kill him? Normally I’m not in favor of that sort of thing, but I could make an exception, here. I believe you when you say he’s dangerous. And he’s probably already done very bad things.”

“Not quite,” he said, which only served to confused Darcy further, as she had said rather a lot, and which part was he responding to, anyway? “I’m going to make him killable. He will undoubtedly die by some means or other shortly thereafter.”

Darcy let that one sink in for a bit, and Loki seemed content in the quiet. He rolled over to his side, right up against her and flung an arm out around her back, over the thick leather and fur coat she was still wearing.

“Okay. So, the third party’s name? Is that knowable?” Darcy asked, looking to her left and meeting his eye.

For the first point in the conversation, Loki’s happy demeanor dimmed. He sighed, looked away, and then looked back again. “Death,” he said, finally.

Darcy’s eyes went wide, and then narrowed again. “I’ve heard bargaining with him doesn’t work, either.”

“I have more than one ace up my sleeve,” Loki said, mysteriously.

Such mystery wasn’t impressing Darcy today. “Yeah. And I’d like to know what every one of them is before you do this, so I don’t freak out. Or at least some of them, if utter secrecy is required.”

Loki nodded. “I can arrange that. But not all today. This weekend, when we are on Asgard. While Rooftop and Mrs. Romanov are getting their medical attention, I shall whisk you off to meet someone very special to me whom I need to consult on this matter. I think that would be the best time to lay all my schemes before you both, at the same moment. As with other, lesser matters, I look to you to improve upon any and all of my schemes.”

Darcy’s smile was not so reluctant as she let on. And when he leaned into her for a kiss, she was not reluctant at all.

It was another forty-five minutes before Loki put the two of them back into the flow of time and dealt with the outraged meows of two kittens who knew they had just missed out on something, even if they weren’t clear on what.

Darcy told Borghild and Dagmar separately, mostly out of convenience’s sake. Borghild was stoic and Darcy frankly had no idea what the woman might have been thinking or feeling. The shieldmaiden told Darcy she would consider it overnight and let her know in the morning, and regardless, maintain the confidence she had been given.

Dagmar was much easier to read.

Darcy had learned that Dagmar was in her six hundreds - not quite in her full majority, but old enough to have learned a saleable skill and use it to earn money, as was the case in being Darcy’s maid. In Darcy’s head she equated it to being about seventeen years old. And apparently, Dagmar would be seventeen for another fifty years or so.

All the same, Dagmar’s eyes had widened when Darcy said, ‘my husband is adopted.’ When she continued on to say ‘He is actually Jotunn,’ Dagmar gasped.

“No!” Dagmar exclaimed, obviously shocked, and Darcy wondered just how many stereotypes she was working against.

“Yes,” Darcy replied calmly. “Eventually everyone will know, because we are going to have children sooner or later and they are all going to resemble their father. So, here’s the deal. I know this isn’t actually what you signed up for, and I wanted to give you an opportunity to seriously consider whether or not you wanted to continue as my maid, now that you do know. You can tell me tomorrow, when you’ve made up your mind.”

“I can tell you right now!” Dagmar said with unusual vigor, and Darcy had a sinking feeling that this was just the beginning of the rampant bigotry she was going to have to deal with on her husband’s behalf. She silently reminded herself that she was not allowed to stab anyone with a fork, even if she really wanted to.

“Dagmar,” Darcy said patiently, “I think you’re missing the point of careful consideration for several hours.”

“But I know now! I will never abandon you, Your Highness.”

In that moment, when tears sprang to Darcy’s eyes unbidden and still mercifully unshed, Darcy realized how much she had been steeling herself to deal with other people’s unconscious hatred, something she had never consciously had to do before. And how much it hurt to even have to don that kind of armor.

“And His Highness Prince Loki is proof that we must all be quite wrong about the Jotunn.” After a moment, she added, “And the All-Father showed great wisdom in making His Highness Crown Prince during the time when all would find out about His Highness’s adoption. It shows to all that the All-Father loves and trusts His Highness, just as much as the All-Father does His Highness Prince Thor.” And then, as an afterthought. “His Highness Prince Thor is not adopted as well?”

Darcy smiled, blinking to clear her vision. “No. He’s not.”

Dagmar nodded. “Even if His Highness Prince Thor once again becomes Crown Prince after this, the All-Father’s gesture is wise and such subtleties will not go unnoticed.”

Darcy nodded, wondering why she should be amazed that her maid was awesome.

“Thank you, Dagmar. We’ll need this information to remain private for now, but not for long. Borghild has also been told, if you need someone to discuss this with. I wouldn’t like to ask you to keep it a secret by yourself.”

Dagmar paled. “Your Highness, I would never speak of your personal matters with anyone, not even another member of your household.”

Darcy’s eyebrows rose and she wondered what taboo she had just tripped over.

Well, fuck it.

“Thank you for your loyalty, Dagmar.” Darcy was thinking on her feet, and hoping she wasn’t going to end up putting one of those feet in her mouth. “You know that my life before I met Loki was very different than my life now. One of the things that was different was that I never had a personal maid, or a servant, or a bodyguard, or an assistant, or anything.” And the idea of royalty was abhorrent to me. And I’m still dealing with my issues in that regard. But you don’t need to know about that right now. “And I had no idea how much loyalty I could expect from you or anyone else.” Darcy continued in a gentler tone. “Or how much I would appreciate that loyalty. But what I do know about is honesty. And what keeping secrets does to people. Asking someone to keep a secret, that can be a burden as well as an honor. And my family wouldn’t think it’s a good or honorable thing for me to ask someone to keep a secret without giving them someone else to talk to, if and when the burden becomes too much to bear.

“All that is to say, you don’t have to discuss this with anyone. But if you need to, there are people you can talk to and still keep our confidence.”

Dagmar did not look convinced, but she seemed to at least understand where Darcy was coming from. Which was good enough for today.

Darcy pulled out her relatively new cell phone, the one that came from the S.H.I.E.L.D stockpile of random useful things that their new Head of Security drew from. Her family each had one, as well.

She pulled up the texting app and grabbed the ongoing conversation with her sister.

"Hey. Are you free at all today? I’m setting my first ob/gyn apt. Wanna come?"

It wasn’t too long later that she got a response.

"I’d love to, thanks for asking me. I get off at noon today, and I could get back to my apartment by 1:30. If it’s possible to schedule it then or near, I’d love that even more. It’s a 24 hour shift this time. I’m going to need to collapse at some point."

"Lemme see what I can do."

If only Frigga had a cell phone. As she didn’t, Darcy went outside, looked up and politely asked Heimdall if he would send a message to the Queen, asking for a brief audience.

Come to think of it, this way wasn’t terribly inconvenient, either.

Forty-five minutes later, Darcy excused herself from her meeting and stepped outside of the trailer that served as her office.

Her wrist was itching like hell.

And then Frigga stood before her, looking about as radiant as she always did.

“How lovely to see you, my dear. I have been thinking about you and your works here on Midgard. How do you fare today?”

“I’m well, thank you Frigga. I’m…” And for some reason Darcy found it very difficult to say ‘maybe pregnant’. She took a deep breath. She looked the queen in the eye. She took another deep breath and straightened her spine. (Being with Frigga always made Darcy want to improve her posture.) “Don’t get too excited yet, but I think I might be pregnant.”

Frigga’s eyes lit up and Darcy watched her take a slow deep breath. A little smile formed on her face.

“I’d like to talk with one of your healers who would… understand our situation. And why I am so cold right now.”

Frigga nodded. “I shall send someone immediately.”

Darcy glanced at her wrist. “Actually, would it be possible to send someone in about four hours?”

Frigga nodded silently.

“Loki and I, and two of our assistants, are coming for the weekend. I have questions about the scheme with the visiting groups, and Loki and I need to consult with some of the people he knows for another project he’s working on. I was hoping that if I needed to do a more indepth consultation with a healer, it could happen then.”

“Of course, dear. And important to your functioning here, I shall also arrange a meeting between yourself and the leaders of all the different departments. This will be very useful to you in arranging those weekends, and you should feel free to send your requirements directly to the leaders themselves.

“And to that end,” Frigga continued. “I have been considering that there should be a regular system of sending and receiving messages, perhaps twice daily; once at a time convenient to Midgard and once at a time convenient to Asgard. This would benefit the Aesir and apprentices among you who may wish to write home upon occasion. What time would be best for you?”

Darcy blinked. Mail. What a good idea. Why didn’t I think of that?

“Nine in the morning would be great.”

“And ours shall be at the twentieth bell. I shall send you a trunk. What inscription should it bear, my dear?”

Darcy didn’t have to think twice. “Asgardian Embassy Mail Delivery. And make it a good sized trunk.”

“Ah!” Frigga said with a knowing look. “I see you are already acquainted with such things. Midgard has come a long way.”

“It really has,” Darcy agreed.

“Is there anything else we should discuss at present?”

Darcy almost didn’t ask. But then she did. Because Loki wouldn’t.

“How is Odin?”

Frigga’s smile grew soft. “He is well. Sleeping. Naught has changed. Thank you for asking after him, my dear.” After only a moment’s pause, she added, “You should not worry about meeting him, you know. He will love you, as I do.”

Darcy’s look turned rueful. “You don’t know that for certain, or you wouldn’t have been able to say it.”

Frigga laughed, a sudden thing, as if it surprised even her. “No, it is not something I have foreseen. But I do know my husband. And I know how dearly he loves Loki. And when he has seen what joys you bring our youngest son, who has for too long walked in the shadow of melancholy, he will be nothing but overjoyed at your presence.”

It was clear that Darcy was just going to have to take Frigga’s word for it, but she wasn’t about to say that to her mother-in-law. Instead she nodded and smiled and changed the subject and soon enough the image of Frigga was gone.

Darcy returned to her meeting after sending a quick text to Aiden, and one to Loki. Darcy wondered when Odin would wake up, and how Loki would take it when he did.

Loki finished up the day’s recordings for Duolingo, the language program that Darcy had first suggested they work with to enable the rest of Yggdrasil to learn English, and for English-speakers to learn the Common Tongue of Yggdrasil, which was, of course, an ancient hybrid of Low Elvish and Vanir with some realm-specific words thrown in from all of the great varieties of languages that have been spoken over time in all of the nine realms. The course was twenty-two percent done, which was not to his liking, but he had only been providing information and audio for the past six weeks. If Thor was as keen as he seemed at first, Loki would need to find more time in his day, lest his brother catch up, which grated in a way that Loki recognized would need to be brought to deeper consideration in his meditations.

But other things were going well. Contract negotiations with Google were progressing nicely, despite the fact that Loki refused to allow them to consider bringing fossil fuel burning and polluting engines onto the planet. Or even nicotine cigarettes or cigars. In fact, Jack Lewis had introduced Loki to the concept of ‘Carry In and Carry Out’, which meant that whatever foreign item or substance was brought onto the planet must also be carried away, even if it was fully used up and needed to be ‘thrown away’.

On Asgard, items which no longer had any use left to them were either broken and melted down for reuse, composted, or were safely burned for heat and cooking purposes.

This was not, Loki had been discovering in dribs and drabs, the way things worked on Midgard.

Sewer systems.

Water treatment plants.

Garbage pick up.

Landfills.

Nuclear energy plants.

Toxic waste.

Coal-fired energy plants.

Strip mining.

Illnesses due to coal mining.

Illnesses due to the prevalence of lead.

Illnesses due to asbestos.

Illnesses due to radiation.

Disposable this-that-and-the-other.

Polluted air.

Polluted land.

Polluted water.

There was much to be learned from modern Midgard. Their use of the scientific method. Their harnessing of electricity and the subsequent revolutions in energy, industry, commerce, communication, travel, finance, medicine, and information.

And there was much that Asgard could offer in return. That was something of which Loki was equally certain. Because Midgardians were once again treating their realm as a disposable commodity, and it could be that they would not like Yggdrasil’s natural response to such things.

“Knock, knock. Can I come in?” Darcy texted her sister at one thirty, giving her fair warning before she apparated into her living room.

It was only a moment or two later that she received the response.

“Parking now. I’ll be up in a minute. Go on in.”

Darcy turned to her husband. “I may be a couple of minutes. We’ll meet you both back at the trailer, yeah?” Not that the healer had arrived yet. They were waiting at the bifrost rune and she was due any moment.

“Of course, my darling.”

Loki took up her right hand in both of his and kissed her knuckles. It was a sweet gesture, and it did not escape her notice, in particular, that it was sweet.

Because her husband was still proving he could be sweet.

As Loki’s eyes rose again to meet hers, they were playful.

Darcy said nothing out loud, but she did grin.

Secrets sucked, but inside jokes were awesome.

She took her hand back and tried to clear her mind and focus on the couch in her sister’s living room, a nice piece of furniture her parents had found at an estate sale. Darcy was not entirely successful, because she was also thinking about just how sweet her husband could be.

Three tries later and she was in Dallas. She’d only just got settled on the couch and was wondering if she should practice meditating, or work on one of her lists when the handle of the front door rattled and a key was put into a lock.

When her sister came in and locked the door behind her, her hands full of bags, Aiden called out to her in exacerbation. “Couldn’t unlock the door, huh?”

“Nope,” Darcy responded with more cheeriness than she felt. “Only reason I could come here without bodyguards was because I was coming into a locked room, and you’re the only one with the key. Natasha didn’t even like that, really, but Loki overrode her.”

“Does Natasha like anything?” Aiden grumbled from the kitchen, putting away a few groceries she’d obviously gotten on the way home.

“Pretty sure she likes guns, and her husband,” Darcy answered from the couch. “She might like me. Hard to tell, though. She’s a complicated woman.”

Aiden harumphed, her head obviously in the fridge. She said something else, but Darcy didn’t catch it.

Aiden strode across her living room, toward the back of the apartment where the bedrooms were. “Five minutes,” she said as she passed.

Darcy sat back and instead of meditating or working on a list, she took out the book on the shared history of Jotunheim and Asgard and picked up where she’d left off. It wasn’t a particularly exciting read, but she was starving for any actual information she could get on Jotunheim. She wasn’t totally sure, but she thought that she had just gotten to the war that happened around Loki’s birth-slash-adoption. It had to be. There was nothing else after it.

The account was short and sweet, and Darcy read it over for the second time.

“This is the account of the war between Jotunheim and Asgard in the four thousand three hundred and fifty-eighth common year of the reign of King Odin of Asgard, All-Father of Yggdrasil.

“King Laufey of Jotunheim held grievances against Asgard. He believed the requirements placed on Jotunn apprentices training in Source and Dream with Mistresses from the Royal Academy of Sorceresses were unjust. This refers to the requirement that apprentices from Alfheim need only master the first gate, apprentices from Jotunheim need master the first four gates, and apprentices from all other realms need master the first two gates.

“Jotunheim believed that this led to the brainwashing of powerful Jotunn youth to the detriment of Jotunn culture. His own two sons are of an age to begin their training and have displayed signs of becoming powerful sorcerers. When he sought sorceresses who would teach his sons on his terms, without the requirement of any moral progress, he was denied by the Academy, as well as by the community of Jotun sorceresses still residing on Jotunheim, remotely.

“In his rage, Jotunheim slaughtered all who resided in the remote community on Jotunheim.

“Asgard was informed of the deaths in the remote community by the Academy, and sought out the presence of Jotunheim to speak reason to his fevered brain.

“Asgard requested his remorse, and was denied.

“Asgard requested his apology to the Academy, and was denied.

“Asgard requested his recompense to the families of the slaughtered, and was denied.

“Asgard requested leave to make his own offer of sanctuary and support to the families of the slaughtered, and was denied.

“Jotunheim reminded Asgard that he was sovereign ruler of his own realm and dealt him a blow.

“Jotunheim declared that there would be no more manipulation of Source within Jotunheim.

“Jotunheim declared that the Academy, who he claimed were but pawns of the Golden Throne, would no longer be allowed to corrupt the hearts and minds of malleable youth, rendering them castrated and non-Jotunn.

“Jotunheim declared that none would be allowed, for their own good, to have the stain of the Academy and their corrupted morals touch them and so spread to infect the realm.

“Jotunheim seemed possessed of a rage beyond rage and a fear beyond fear. His true motivations are unknown, but whatever prophecy fills his mind with dread has done so completely.

“Asgard inquired whether he intended to keep his people trapped in this realm, to bar free trade and use of Doors to his people.

“Jotunheim agreed that this was to be the case.

“Asgard requested that one solicitation be allowed, just one, that any who wish to emigrate could do so before the Doors were barred.

“Jotunheim denied the request, and viewed the very request as an act of war.

“Jotunheim made threats against the Academy. He would rape their mistresses of the ninth and murder every sorceress, from the apprentice in her first year to the Head of the Council.

“Jotunheim made threats against Asgard. He would torture and murder the royal family, cannibalize their servants, and set fire to the realm.

“Jotunheim seemed both thoroughly mad and also quite serious in his threats.

“Knowing the general state of the army of Jotunheim to be unready for war at a large scale, Asgard reluctantly agreed to war.

“The first wave of warriors, with berserkers held in reserve in the second wave, was more than sufficient to subdue all that Jotunheim had to offer. Mercy was the first response to hesitation on behalf of the Jotunn warrior, and many lives that might have ended nobly, but all too briefly, in those days saw instead length of life to enjoy with family and friends.

“By the end of one realm week Jotunheim had given leave that Asgard should offer sanctuary once and only once, and then leave forthwith, never to disturb the peace of Jotunheim again.

“Sanctuary was offered, with the offer laid open for an additional realm week. But one took it, and sanctuary was duly given.

“Asgard has promised that none shall come to Jotunheim unbidden.

“Jotunheim repented of his threats against the Academy and Asgard.

“In the end, it is considered that Jotunheim lost to Valhalla twenty-three brave children of the realm, who were joined in those hallowed halls by twelve brave children of Asgard. May they drink in peace and forgive lesser men their follies.”

Darcy thought about what she had read. It had to be the war that happened around Loki’s birth. While the account wasn’t specific about who sought sanctuary, it was very clear that only one person did so.

And that obviously had been Loki. As an infant. Somehow. And, shit . Because if his brothers could have been even half as powerful as sorcerers as he was, but now weren’t, because Laufey had banned the use of magic in Jotunheim…

And what prophecy did Laufey know about? That obviously involved a powerful sorcerer of a son? Which he now had, but didn’t know he had?

And was it the same prophecy that Loki was told about as a child? Not that she knew the exact details of it yet, but she knew it was heavy, and possibly horrible and tragic, and might, just might, not turn out to be the absolute end of the world if only Loki could manage to become enlightened before it happens. Or something like that.

For just a brief moment, Darcy wondered if she was actually in the middle of some sort of tragic Greek space opera.

Darcy also wondered when the last time it was that Loki had read this history.

Aiden walked back into the living room of her high-rise apartment in Dallas. It had  beautiful views, and was beautifully decorated. Aiden had always been good at that sort of thing, Darcy mused.

Darcy patted the sofa next to her. “Cop a squat,” she invited.

Aiden rolled her eyes. “We were raised in the same household. You know, no one says that,” she pointed out, sitting down next to her sister nonetheless.

“So,” Darcy started out casually, not entirely certain what she would be saying until the words poured out of her mouth. “I might be having an alien baby.”

“That’s what I’ve been led to believe,” Aiden replied dryly.

“Which means that your niece or nephew is not going to be entirely human. Or look entirely human.”

Aiden gave Darcy a hard look. “But Loki looks entirely human,” she pointed out slowly.

“Yeah. About that. He’s actually a shapeshifter.”

Aiden blinked. “And this isn’t his normal shape?”

“Nope. Was a state secret, though. He’s adopted.”

Aiden blinked again. “So he’s not a prince?”

“No, he’s really a prince. He was a prince before the adoption, just of a different planet. But Odin really adopted him. He’s really the Crown Prince of Asgard. But he’s not Aesir. He’s Jotunn. But keep it on the downlow for now.”

Aiden blinked a few more times. “Does Mom know?”

Darcy snorted. She wasn’t looking forward to that conversation, and she wasn’t going to rush it. “Not yet. You’re the first in the family that I’ve told.”

Aiden sat quietly for a while. “So what does he actually look like? Horns? Hooves? Tentacles?”

Darcy smiled. “Nope. None of that. He gets very cold, and he changes color. It just so happens that he turns my favorite shade of blue.”

Aiden looked confused. “That’s it?”

Darcy nodded. Then remembered something else. “Oh. And he’s supposed to be a giant. But he’s actually kind of a runt. Six foot two is short for the Jotunn. So, who knows how tall our kids will end up being.”

Aiden nodded slowly, taking it all in. “So… he’s a dwarf giant who’s cold and blue?”

Darcy nodded, glad this was going relatively easily.

“And that’s a state secret.”

“For now,” Darcy agreed. “There’s a lot of prejudice against the Jotunn in the rest of Yggdrasil.”

“The Universe is full of racist bastards,” Aiden pointed out.

Darcy smiled at her big sister, glad to see Aiden had decided not to be one of them.

A meeting that might have just been two or three people could have happened comfortably in Darcy and Loki’s bedroom in their trailer, given that Darcy might probably need to lay down at some point.

Now they were five, the bedroom was a bit cramped. Interestingly, not quite as cramped as when three of the five were copies of Loki doing delicious things to Darcy, but that required less personal space.

When one of the people in your bedroom obstetrics meeting is the Queen, your mother-in-law, you wish you could forget that you ever even had sex with her son, much less multiple copies of him.

In this room.

Where she’s standing.

Darcy tried to focus.

Mistress Frete, to whom she and her sister had been introduced, had her lay down comfortably on the bed. The healer sat on the edge and with her eyes closed had one hand laying gently on Darcy’s lower abdomen.

“Yes,” she said, her eyes still closed. “You are pregnant. The child is Midgardian, Jotunn,” and there she paused, and a little crease formed in her brow. “And Elvish?” She turned to the Queen and Darcy saw her look askance.

“That is to be expected,” Frigga responded softly.

“Well. Well. That will make this all easier. Even with… would it be the great-grandmother who was Elvish?”

“Yes,” Frigga said simply, her face giving nothing away.

“Well. Well. I shall wish to see you every ten days. I understand you are travelling soon to Asgard. I will visit you at your convenience while you are there and I shall have some tokens for His Highness to put on you. It is the temperature that is at issue, of course. You must stay warm. The child must stay cold. As the child grows, the amount of cold it requires will grow with it, as well as the amount of warmth you require. This will be a delicate balance that we shall attempt to achieve as best we can, day by day.”

Darcy nodded, vindicated.

Aiden asked a question though. “How long will she be able to travel by bifrost?”

The healer turned briefly to her sister, but chiefly spoke to Loki. “With aid, Her Highness should be able to travel throughout her pregnancy.”

Then Darcy thought of a question. “How long do you think the pregnancy is going to last?””

Mistress Frete answered the question with a question. “How long do Midgardian pregnancies normally last?”

“Nine months,” Darcy answered.

The healer looked confused.

“Three-quarters of a realm year,” Loki translated.

“The Jotunn woman is pregnant for just over two Common Years, and Elves, of course, are pregnant for nearly five, but that may not lend much influence. We could expect this pregnancy to be somewhere between Midgardian and Jotunn.”

“How long is a Common Year?” Aiden asked.

“Good question,” Darcy muttered.

“Only a bit longer than Midgard’s realm year,” Loki answered.

“So Darcy is going to be pregnant for something between nine and twenty-six months? But likely closer to twenty-six?”

“Apparently,” Loki answered with good humor.

“It’s a good thing you love him,” Aiden said softly to Darcy, and she couldn’t help but to agree.

Chapter Text

Darcy had already left with Aiden and the Chief Healer had just returned to Asgard. Loki, at Frigga’s request, was strolling along with his mother, ostensibly so he could show her the progress they had made on the Embassy and Institute.

And Loki knew full well she cared little for such details.

There was much they could discuss. And some things they, perhaps, ought to discuss. But none of these things occurred to Loki just then. He was transfixed by one tiny, bothersome possibility that had teased at the edge of his senses since his mother first arrived.

Eventually, he broke the silence.

“Mother… have you mastered the ninth gate?”

Loki glanced over and his eyes widened at his mother’s impish smile. So she had.

“When?” he asked.

“After I sent your brother to you,” she said calmly.

“But when did you have the time to meditate? I must own that I barely have time now, and that is before we added in time to my schedule in which I must spend with the apprentices.”

Frigga nodded. “The days are long on Asgard, and I used my time wisely. My priorities were clear, as yours will be, when you sort through them all.”

Loki sighed. That was hard to hear, the idea that he had simply prioritized badly, and so had failed even before he had begun.

“Yes,” he countered, realizing even as he did so that he was making excuses. He continued all the same, almost as if watching himself whine and complain like a little boy. “But the days are shorter here on Midgard. Significantly so.” And before he knew it, he no longer had such perspective, and had lost himself in his complaint. “And I am loathe to remove myself from the flow of time so regularly, and for something so…” He was about to say insignificant, but caught himself.

Because this wasn’t insignificant. This was everything. Everything changes at the ninth gate , that was widely known, if not completely understood. And he needed to master the ninth, the sooner the better.

Loki took a deep breath and released the accumulated tension in his shoulders.

“I have for many a long year heeded the warnings of lesser masters in their call for caution in regards to the flow of time. Thus I have used it sparingly. Or, I mostly have. You are saying, then, that naught would come ill if I used it less sparingly, even regularly, in order to lengthen my days and meditate? And for the apprentices as well?”

Normally Loki was not so direct with his mother, as they usually understood each other without benefit of words, but in such a delicate matter, he could not risk the chance of misunderstanding.

“None at all,” Frigga replied calmly. When Loki glanced over, he caught an odd sort of little smile on her face and wondered what it was about. And then wondered about his wondering. He was usually the first to get the joke.

“There is another question you wish to ask me on this subject, I think,” Frigga added, still smiling her mysterious little smile.

Loki’s frustration grew from nonexistent to quite present and obvious as he wondered what his mother could mean.

“Forgive me,” she said, grinning wider now. “I am being obtuse. It is the prerogative of mistresses of the ninth.”

Loki tried to calm himself and was surprised by the depth of his formerly unacknowledged frustration. Suddenly he wasn’t just frustrated about this, he was frustrated about everything.

“No?” Frigga asked, still in good humor. “Well, it will come to you later, I am sure. The answer is yes.”

Loki spent several fruitless minutes trying to calm himself and wondered if it would be entirely too rude to stop time in the midst of his conversation with his mother simply so he could calm down. As she was now a mistress of the ninth, she would undoubtedly know, probably join him out of time, and thus offer him no time alone to sort himself out.

Instead, Loki decided to change the subject.

“Why didn’t he tell me?” Loki asked, changing the course of the conversation to something entirely different that also was frustrating him.

Frigga’s smile turned rueful, Loki noted out of the corner of his eye.

“He looked always for the best time, wishing to spare you every pain. This was not possible, of course. He could see that plainly as a present reality, but he had hopes that the future would hold the answer.”

“Ah,” Loki responded, calmer now that he was focusing on someone else’s faults. Odin had fallen into a keen trap of the seventh gate, which his father had not mastered. And Loki was intellectualizing to distance himself from the pain. And he knew it. And he fully authorized it, for the moment.

He sighed again.

“It might have been useful to know, earlier. It would have answered many questions I had about myself,” he pointed out, his tone gentler than his emotions.

Frigga nodded quietly before answering. “You already bore too much. Odin refused to add another single feather to your burden, much less this.”

Loki understood her point. That understanding failed to make him feel any better about it, however.

It was quiet between them for a long while.

“Little boy who knows his fate,” Frigga whispered, switching from the Common Tongue to Vanir, a language few in the Enclosure knew, and her own, native tongue. In an unemotional voice she continued, almost as if she was remembering another lifetime ago. “How I wanted to kill that seer, throttle him with my bare hands, bash his head against the pavement stones, and wipe his blood down the side of my face, only to go and comfort you then, with his blood on my face.” She sighed. “It took a great deal of time for me to regain mastery of the third gate after that. I lost it entirely for many years. Many, many years.”

Loki smiled despite the pain, feeling keenly the depth of his mother’s love for him. They walked another quarter mile in silence.

“My other mother’s mother is Elvish?” Loki asked, after staring out into the desert for sometime. He knew that the king of Jotunheim was entirely Jotunn in his heritage, but he hadn’t realized that the queen wasn’t.

“Mmm, yes. Elven women are the only other race who may successfully bear the children of either Jotunn or Maspar men. It is their ability to control their own body temperature, of course. That your child is one-eighth elven, along with the help of the healers, is the only reason, I think, that Darcy will be able to bear your children, my dear. But I do not fear for her, and neither should you.”

Loki closed his eyes and breathed deeply. He concentrated on his breath. Darcy was safe. And he was, apparently, only mostly Jotunn. He was, apparently, partly Elvish. Which could, apparently, account for his ability to maintain his body temperature wherever he generally needed it to be, slight discomfort aside.

“But Odin’s mother’s mother was Jotunn. And his mother’s father was Aesir.”

“And a powerful sorceress in her own right. What measures she took to ensure the health of her daughter before the birth are unknown. She did not share them with others, and certainly not with me,” Frigga responded, ending with no small amount of humor.

She continued. “Your other mother’s mother had, upon learning of your birth and subsequent removal from Jotunheim, expressed a wish to see you in due course of time, once you were told of your early history. She resides on Alfheim.”

The question burst from him before he knew it. “Was I stolen?”

Frigga stopped and turned to face Loki. She reached up and cradled his face in both of her hands as she sometimes would when he was but a child.

“No,” she said simply, looking into his eyes and laying herself bare before his senses. And he knew she was not lying.

A simple answer. Simple, and direct, and impossible to twist to mean something else, not when he was paying attention, not when the other laid herself bare before him.

Loki drew in a shaky breath and exhaled, his face still cradled by his mother’s hands as he looked down into her eyes.

Spontaneously, he embraced her. It was brief and they quickly resumed walking in silence once more.

Walking next to him, this time with her arm curled around his, Frigga continued. “Odin will tell you the story, and it is his to tell. It is beautiful. I cried when I heard it. And by that time, your father was thoroughly in love with you. He fell in love with you before he fell in love with Thor, you know. And he tried very hard not to show you favoritism throughout your youth. It was even more difficult for him after the prophecy was revealed to you, and you started working so hard… and Thor… did not match your pace.”

Loki could not help the look of disbelief that was writ large across his face. He was his father’s favorite? Though Frigga’s words had the taste of truth, they clashed mightily with his own experiences.

Frigga answered his look with her own glance of silent challenge, because of course, she had spoken truthfully. And he knew it. They both did.

“This is most… shocking,” Loki finally decided on.

Frigga nodded sagely. “Life often is.” After more silence, Frigga added, “I feel he will wake soon.”

Loki sighed.

She continued, after a moment. “Interestingly, he wakes usually having broken one or more new gates. I wonder if this time he will continue on to mastery.”

Loki kept the rest of his questions about his father to himself. They were impertinent and rhetorical, and he had no wish to play such games with his mother.

“Will you see your other mother’s mother with Darcy?”

Loki nodded. “After I speak with Odin.”

Frigga nodded, and then pulled a sealed scroll from her store and handed it to him.

“Is this her direction?” Loki asked.

Frigga shook her head. “No. That is a copy of a letter I sent on behalf of Odin. He had an agreement with your other mother. And it was time for an update. It could not be delayed, but I wished you to know what was being said of you.”

Loki reeled yet again, but nodded and silently slipped the scroll into his own store.

The silence stretched for another quarter mile.

Finally, Loki recalled yet another aspect of his duty. In particular, the meeting he’d had yesterday afternoon with the Head of Security for the entirely insecure Embassy Enclosure that was less enclosed and more wide-open. He had an idea for a primary security measure, but was uncertain if it was feasible in several different ways, and wished to consult his mother before possibly embarrassing himself in front of others, whose help he would also need.

He explained the whole of his scheme to his mother, and after he assured her that such extreme measures on the whole would be considered reasonable and normal on Midgard, received both her assent and support.

“For such an endeavor you would need… let me see… the strength of six masters?”

Loki nodded. “I plan on constructing something similar but on a smaller scale to test my theory. I’ll use the apprentices. It will be part of their training.”

Frigga gave Loki a dubious look, but he waved it away.

“Surely you don’t subscribe to such archaic notions, Mother.” Loki had always despised the way most mistresses refused to collaboratively work with their own apprentices.

After the passage of but three heartbeats, Frigga laughed despite herself. “I suppose I don’t, not anymore. Thank you for the challenge.”

Loki laughed once, short and sharp, amazed at how quickly his mother had recovered from what had to have been a long held belief that she just now realized was wrong.

Well, that was a mistress of the ninth.

“I shall do the work with the apprentices on the morrow, so when we meet again I shall know how feasible it is.”

“So be it, my son,” Frigga said, smiling once again.

Loki let the endearment and the statement of fact wash over him in a warm and loving wave of emotion. His mother loved him. And she was his mother. Though she did not bear him, she raised him and taught him and loved him no less than the child she did bear.

And somewhere on Jotunheim, in the midst of glacier and frost, there lived a half Jotunn, half Elvish woman who also called herself his mother, who did bear him, who loved him and looked forward to news of him.

And he hadn’t been stolen.

Frigga left shortly thereafter, and Loki sat down and stopped time, his head spinning with new information, possible schemes, and a tumultuous wave of emotion. He sat in quiet meditation as the sun hovered unmoving in the sky until the tumult finally ceased.

In time, Loki remembered the scroll his mother handed him. He took it out, not knowing what to expect. What he found was written in High Elvish.

Dear daughter,

Your father sleeps, but remains well. I write in his stead, and apologize for the breach in tradition.

I have news indeed of your father’s second-born. He has married. She is a good Midgardian, appropriate for his life, but they also bring one another great joy. Theirs is a love match of their own choosing. Also he begins a new chapter of his life on Midgard with her, as our ambassador. Also, he knows a portion of the secret that has been kept lo this long while. When your father wakes he will tell the whole of the story, and finally all shall be revealed, to him at least.

May the days of your suffering be brief, indeed,

Your loving mother

Darcy had popped into her father’s office, met her mother for coffee, and caught Austin after work. Not even her mother had made a fuss about the news she needed to share. In the end, he was still human-shaped and human-sized, even if he wasn’t human-temperatured, or human-colored. The fact that he was an alien to begin with was far more interesting than the fact that he was cold and blue.

So life continued on.

Darcy’s focus was primarily on raising the Embassy and Institute from the dust of their collective imaginations, while staying within her budget, and raising money from the individuals who wished to pay for the privilege of a weekend stay on Asgard.

They’d only been public for 36 hours, but she and Natasha had been ready. They’d had plenty of time before Loki had made himself known to the world to produce a slick and beautiful digital package in six different languages, ready to send out once Natasha made first contact with the staff of each person on her list.

There were twenty different people on the first list, and thirty on the second, just in case. It contained no war lords, no drug lords, and no sitting politicians. It also contained no one Darcy found personally revolting. Tony Stark, for instance, had been taken off the list.

So far they’d only had two responses that were less than entirely enthusiastic, and even those weren’t wholly negative. While two well-known billionaires weren’t sure if they wanted to pay for the weekend, they did want to partner with the Institute, and as they both had foundations that gave away billions of dollars in grants every year, Natasha happily passed on their information to Jane’s assistant, Sharon.

And when J.K. Rowling’s people got back to them with a yes (actually an ‘Oh my God, yes!’) Darcy literally did a happy dance around her work trailer, much to the bemusement of Borghild who was studying English, and Natasha, who was outright laughing. And then they mutually decided that the author’s party would comprise the first to visit Asgard, and Darcy couldn’t help occasionally squealing and flailing whenever she thought of it.

By the time Loki had caught up with Darcy after her run, she was a much calmer woman. The two on-the-fence billionaires had called back - or, at least, their assistants had - and asked if the offer was still open. In fact, within four hours of their initial inquiry, all twenty in the original list had responded in the positive. The first dozen were given firm yeses back from Darcy’s office and the next eight were put on a waiting list, because even though she was technically over budget in terms of visitors, Darcy couldn’t bear to irrevocably close those doors and the financial and social resources that were involved. Besides? Perhaps it could be an annual thing, for a while, as long as there was interest. Darcy and Natasha had decided that tomorrow they would go ahead and ping the second list, too. If she were going to go to Loki and try to convince him of her rolling annual billionaire thing, it would probably be best if she had an impressive waiting list in her pocket - like, at least several years worth.

When he did catch up with her, it was about as dramatic as her husband tended to be. She’d been taking a shower - always a necessity after her runs - and he just walked in, naked as the day he was born. He had an intent look in his eye, he was already completely hard, and he went straight for a deep kiss. Needless to say, Darcy dropped the soap. That was somewhere around when a finger started questing around in her lady garden, but Darcy wasn’t entirely sure about the exact order of events. When Loki’s lips left hers and started in with open mouthed kisses on her throat, Darcy cleared it even as she came out of her husband-induced haze.

“So. Hi,” she started.

“Hello, darling,” he murmured against her skin before returning to nip it with his teeth.

“Uh, been meaning to ask you...” Darcy took a deep breath and shook her head a little to try and remember what she’d wanted to ask. It came back to her when she thought of sex with him. “Whose part elvish - me or you?”

“That would be me,” he said before bending slightly, curving around to bring his mouth to the tip of her wet breast. Well, really, everything was wet.

Darcy smoothed his hair back, away from his face. Some of it was wet, some of it was still dry, and it looked adorably funny.

Which was nice, since she felt a little disappointed not to be secretly part elvish. When she sighed, Loki straightened up and looked at her, his brows slightly furrowed. He absentmindedly bent down to grab up the soap and Darcy couldn’t help but to admire his very fine butt. She really liked how the tattoos from his back came down and curved around the outside of it, framing its perfect roundness. When he rose again, he began washing her tenderly and Darcy sighed an altogether different kind of sigh.

“And how has your day been thus far, darling?” he asked as he washed her back.

Darcy sighed again, happily, as she let the hot water pound onto her scalp. “Good. Things are going swimmingly.” She briefly recapped the initial success of the billionaire plan. “We still have so much to iron out, but I think this weekend will be really helpful. Natasha and I are compiling lists of questions. But, oh, I was curious. Relatively speaking, what time zone is the palace in? When we went over for the wedding, I thought it might have been the same as us here in Mountain Time, but when Natasha asked, I really wasn’t sure, and we want the timing to be perfect for our guests.”

Loki hummed, making sure her breasts were very thoroughly soapy, undoubtedly because cleanliness was high on his list of priorities and for no other reason, Darcy considered.

“The palace isn’t quite in the Mountain Time Zone. The days are longer on Asgard than on Earth,” he pointed out.

That information clicked over in Darcy’s brain a few times before her eyes grew wide as her formerly neat and tidy schedule just suddenly became all shot to hell.

“Exactly how much longer?” Darcy asked, a sense of growing foreboding beginning to dawn on her.

“Oh, perhaps six hours. Or so.”

Darcy swallowed hard.

“Are you being inexact as a rhetorical device, or don’t you actually know precisely how long it takes for your planet to rotate once around?”

Darcy began to rinse off but was waiting for his answer with a hard look on her face.

“The values of the scientific method really have infiltrated every part of life here, haven’t they?” Loki asked, as if this were somehow news to him.

“You’re stalling,” Darcy pointed out, carefully rinsing her lady garden.

When Loki then explained how time was (very crudely) measured on Asgard, Darcy was stunned. As Loki sunk down to his knees and gently pulled one of her legs over his shoulder, Darcy made a mental note to have Natasha order a stop watch and bring it with them to Asgard.

And then she didn’t think of much else after that.

Loki sat in while Natasha interviewed for six more staff for Darcy, and Rooftop for three more staff for him. He rejected three-quarters of the candidates, all of whom were agents for some country or other. In the end he only allowed former SHIELD employees to progress to the second round of interviews.

Loki had imagined the exercise might be slightly tedious, but it wasn’t an issue up for compromise, regardless of whether or not it amused him. And in the end, it did amuse him. The first round of interviews were humorously short and all ended in the same manner. After a few moments of small talk, Natasha or Rooftop simply asked, with a smile on their faces, if the candidate had ‘a loyalty to another government or organization that would lead the candidate to share sensitive information’. No one said yes, of course, but once they started lying in earnest it was clear, even through the encrypted uplink connection, as few of the interviews were in person. After Loki silently passed his verdict, Mr. and Mrs. Romanov both said the same sort of polite thank you and that was that. Their utter cordiality was highly amusing to him.

Jane considered that all was not, as Loki and Thor would say, in readiness. But there was a classroom. There were math tudors. There was a nascent language program. There was rudimentary housing and enough food, even for Asgardians. Jane and Darcy had been working long hours to get everything ready in only three months. During that same time, Loki had been spending the same sort of hours building the language program the entire staff and body of apprentices would be using to learn English. And Thor had been memorizing the history and practical application of electromagnetism.

In fact, after much meal-time conversation on the topic, Jane and Thor finally did it. She sourced all the materials and she coached him in building it. It wasn’t much - really, it wasn’t. Just a small magnet, a coil of copper wire, and the rest of the dime store accoutrement necessary. In fact, just to prove a point, Jane didn’t buy anything for the project. She took all the materials out of her workshop, and liberated a magnet off the fridge.

Thor was ridiculously excited as Jane walked him through building his first generator, but she supposed, not his last.

She had considered peppering him with questions while they worked, but his focus was so intense she thought against it in the end. She did take a picture, though, of Thor deep in concentration, sitting at her lab table carefully coiling the copper, with Pratchett the kitten perched on his right shoulder.

Jane smiled at the memory as she checked in on Thor and Sharon unpacking and doing an initial rough catalogue of the library the All-Mother had gifted her. They had been at it for three days, and they added the beautiful leather tomes to the rather shabbier mass-produced paperbacks and hardcovers that Jane and Eric had put together for the edification of the apprentices.

They had thrown together a library of books, three copies each, on a variety of subjects, including but not limited to science, math, history, biography, with special emphasis on physics - both quantum and astro - and engineering - mechanical, electrical, and aeronautical. All of the books were particularly readable and not requiring advanced degrees to parse.

But now Thor and Sharon were adding to the library catalogue all four thousand odd volumes that the All-Mother thought essential for the Institute to have on hand. Eventually they would be fully translated and digitized for ease of searching. But for now it would be great to know what was in there and on what shelf it was located.

And tomorrow morning, it would begin. She would begin her work with the baby mages to continue the massive project she and Loki had taken on.

But now it was time to meet with her business manager and then the three teachers who would be creating the cultural, historical, and musical and artistic curricula for the kids.

“What? What? What? What do you mean I’m not invited?” he demanded.

Pepper Potts reclined on a gorgeous divan in the newly finished Stark Tower in New York City, visibly satisfied with her accomplishments on this project, and secretly satisfied that Elon Musk’s personal assistant still kept in contact with her.

“Grapevine has it Warren and Bill initially passed, but Melinda threw a fit, so they called back and got back on the list. Once in a lifetime, you know.” Pepper popped an olive in her mouth and got a bit more artisanal goat cheese for her crackers. They’d already had a small champagne toast, but now Pepper poured chilled thai coconut water into a tall lager glass for Tony. He was still on his health kick, and this would be a nice change from all the kale juice.

“Hmm. That’s nice,” he said, after tasting it. “Hey Jarvis, think Crown Prince Loki of Asgard has a cellphone yet?”

“I know he does, sir. I’ve just programmed his number into your phone.”

“Jarvis, why do you think I wasn’t invited?”

“Well, sir,” the AI began with the utmost tact, “I suppose it might have something to do with the manner in which you threatened His Highness before the entire Embassy yesterday morning. I couldn’t help but notice that the people who were not overwhelmed with shock and horror did seem to level murderous gazes in your direction. That includes the Princess and her staff, who I am given to understand are the ones organizing the weekends on Asgard. In fact, had not the Ambassador himself intervened, I should have thought we’d need to come and collect the pieces of you. Some of those warriors were bearing quite large axes.”

Pepper laughed. “Tony! You said you were going to be nice.”

“Hey! I was nice! I was totally nice. Nice could have been my middle name. I mean, it wasn’t. It still isn’t. But it could have been. I shot no one. I took the helmet off when asked. Hell, I took the entire suit off and ate breakfast with them. Isn’t there something about breaking bread with people? It’s nice! And there was bacon. And kale. Niceness was everywhere.”

“Except with Princess Darcy, who wanted to kill you, and honestly, I do have sympathy with the urge.”

Tony made a wordless harumph of annoyance. “Okay,” he said sighing and sighing again. “How much grovelling do I need to do, here?”

“Jarvis, do you have the interaction on tape?” Pepper inquired.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Play it.”

Both were silent as the audio and video played around them in a 3D manner from a 360 table-top nano projector next to the olives.

“Oh, Tony. We’re talking big time grovelling, and even then there are no guarantees. You can’t just stomp around pissing off powerful people who haven’t done anything wrong and expect them to immediately be able to see your finer qualities.”

Tony sighed again. “Alright. Ugh. Jarvis. Did you get her dress size?”

“I estimate the Princess Darcy to be a rather non-standard size 14.”

“Yeah, that was my thought too, but there was a lot of armor. I’ve never dealt with armor before. I mean, not real armor that I didn’t design. Shoes?”

“Size seven, sir.”

“Yeah, okay. Jarvis, I need two dozen couture dresses, shoes, and bags, and I need them to ship out in twelve hours.”

“This will incur significant cost both financial and in favors. Such dresses are not often found in size 14 unless ordered in advance.”

“Do it. Each one needs to include a card that says, ‘With my sincerest apologies for the slight against your husband.’ And my signature. Make sure the colors work with her skin tone, yeah?”

“Of course, Mr. Stark.”

“And for the Prince…” he trailed off, considering his options. “A case of Glenlivit, 50 year, a case of the Dom - no, make that two of each, and my two 1928 Krugs.Take it all from my cellars and send it immediately to the Prince. The card should say, ‘It was a stupid stunt, and I’m sorry if I caused you any embarrassment. Welcome to Earth.’ And my signature. Let me know when it’s been delivered.”

Tony looked over to Pepper with a hopeful look on his face.

She shook her head. Her expression was dubious.

“Their Institute’s all about collaboration of science and magic, right? Sounds expensive. Let’s go throw money at them. Jarvis. Alert the Stark Foundation that they’ll be granting the Institute a hundred million dollars a year, auto-renewable for ten years, negotiable thereafter, expressly for the advancement of the collaboration of science and magic. Have them notify the Institute’s head, Dr. Jane ...What’s her name?”

“Foster, sir.”

“Dr. Jane Foster immediately.”

Tony looked over at Pepper, his eyebrows high. He was holding his breath.

Pepper slowly closed her eyes and nodded her head.

Tony exhaled heavily.

“Okay. Give me a delivery confirmation on those dresses, Jarvis. And I want to know when the call has been made to Dr. Foster.”

“And when everything is delivered, then the grovelling can really begin,” Pepper said.

Tony nodded slowly. He knew that all too well.

Chapter Text

Jane hurried up to Darcy just before dinner. “Can I grab you or do you need to do other stuff during dinner?”

“No, I don’t have anything on, and Loki wanted to sit with some of the warrior’s families tonight.”

Together the two women got in line to get their food. It was, presently, served cafeteria style and it had only taken twelve days for Darcy to impress upon everyone that she was content to wait in line just like everyone else. She loaded up her tray with a gigantic salad, a filet of salmon, some sauteed asparagus, and a little plate of flan. The chef had put aside two large pint glasses of freshly juiced vegetables for Jane and Darcy, and they were both icy cold.

They chose an end of the high table and were left alone for the meal, their various assistants close by but far enough away to pursue their own ends and give the women some privacy.

“Okay,” Jane started, after both women had a moment of silent gratitude over their meals. “What gives? I thought you told me everything that happened with Tony Stark at breakfast during our run?”

Darcy blinked and started cutting up the portion of her meal on a plate. It would shortly be tossed in the salad with the rest. Everything but the flan was going in.

“Pretty sure I did. Minus the drama, as requested.”

“You failed to mention the part where you buttered him up for a collaboration with the Institute. Or was that Loki?”

Darcy shook her head. “You were mentioned, and he petulantly demanded to know why you weren’t present, because he’s obviously a big, selfish dickhead who always gets what he wants. That was it. Seriously. And I spent the entire breakfast silently murderous, and Loki told me I wasn’t allowed to stab him with a fork.”

Darcy paused in her slicing and dicing to take a long drink of the kale juice. Because she could. Because no one else at the table was going to take it from her, so she might as well really enjoy it.

“Weeeell, something must have made an impression, because Sharon had a voicemail from the president of the Stark Foundation. We have our first grant, Your Highness,” Jane said with a giddy grin.

Darcy blinked. She really wouldn’t have thought that would be an outcome of breakfast. She shook her head again and wondered at her husband. It had to have been his charm. “Huh,” she finally settled on. Darcy shrugged. “How much?”

“A billion, over the course of ten years.”

Darcy half-snorted and half-choked on her juice. A coughing fit ensued. The hall got embarrassingly quiet as everyone waited to see if the Princess would be alright, or if she required medical attention. Borghild had closed half the distance to her before she held up one hand to the room in general, and with her face flaming red, croaked out, “I’m fine.”

“You know what this means?” Jane continued on after a suitable pause. Her enthusiasm, however, was undimmed. “It means that we can go on the accelerated schedule of construction for the Institute! Because there are absolutely no strings attached. Literally. I mean, the only specification was ‘to forward the collaboration of science and magic’ and that is it. I mean, I’m going to be adding staff just to keep track of granting guidelines, but if they’re all like this it’s going to be easy. I mean, they didn’t even ask for naming rights for the buildings.”

“How unusual,” Darcy snarked, her voice still raw and much lower than normal.

Their conversation continued somewhat one-sided as Jane rhapsodized about the accelerated plan versus the standard plan, and Darcy rested her voice. Darcy also kept her opinion of Mr. Fabulous Asshole Stark to herself. Was this some sort of non-apology apology? Or something else? What kind of favors was he expecting in return, and would Darcy be able to be the person to turn him down? Loudly? In front of witnesses? On national television?

Unfortunately, Darcy was getting quietly murderous again.

The furs were piled high on their bed and Darcy was cuddled into Loki. It was early yet, and usually the two would be talking and having sex late into the night.

“I’m sorry,” Darcy said on a whine. No sex had been forthcoming, and no conversation would, either.

“No, darling. You have nothing to feel remorseful over. This is what your body needs right now. Rest. Rest, and I will hold you and keep you safe.”

Only moments later Darcy’s breathing evened out and Loki began to meditate, rather than worry. It was obvious to his mind that the pregnancy was beginning to take its toll on his wife already, and she was at most five weeks pregnant. Would this continue throughout all the long months of her waiting while the child grew within? This would definitely be part of her meeting with the healers come this weekend…

No. He would meditate.

Loki continued to hold Darcy, but took them both out of the flow of time. He did this for his beloved so she could have even longer rest, and for himself so he could have even longer meditation.

He quietened his mind and could see more and more clearly the troublesome thoughts. He went through several standard meditations from the Apprentice’s Guide which he had memorized through diligent practice long ago. By the end of the fourth one he was a great deal calmer, and by the end of the seventh he could see clearly that his mastery over the eighth and seventh, and definitely the sixth gate had weakened.

He spent the next six hours meditating outside of time while his beloved slept in his arms, and when he pulled them both back into the flow of time, rejoining the early evening in the compound, Darcy had already slept just over eight hours and Loki was finally ready with a firm foundation beneath him to work on the mastery of his ninth gate.

He slept then, his requisite four hours and when he woke sometime after midnight, Darcy did as well.

“I feel great,” she mumbled. “Mmm. ‘S dark out. D’I sleep through the day?” she continued to mutter and Loki’s brain translated her sleepy slur quickly enough.

And then he suddenly realized what his mother had alluded to.

There was another question he needed to ask about the flow of time, and her answer was yes. His question now was obvious. Is it alright to take Darcy out of the flow of time as well? Significantly out?

And Frigga had said yes.

Loki grinned and kissed Darcy’s nose.

“I shall tell you when you are fully awake my dear one.”

Darcy grinned sleepily and rolled toward him, snuggling down in the many layers of sheet, blanket, and fur that covered them. Her hands groped clumsily at first, and then with greater and greater dexterity.

Loki gasped and sighed in quick succession as Darcy drug her nails down his side and along his hip. He lay in thrall for a moment, luxuriating in the touch of her hand and thanking the fates once more for his beautiful wife with whom he was so perfectly matched, and his moral progress which made his life so much calmer and happier.

He considered his options in the feast that was their shared love, and then considered them a moment too long, apparently, for Darcy had begun shifting and wiggling down the bed, taking every bit of warm covering with her. As Loki began to get colder and colder, it became clearer and more obvious what was in store for him.

Darcy’s mind was largely quiet, except for the slightly less sleepy, but still gentle state of adoration she was frequently in when they were alone.

“I see you’ve taken all the warmth with you,” Loki pointed out quietly, and with a small smile. He didn’t ask for her to share a blanket. He didn’t really need it, not for the moment at any rate. And she did.

I can make you warm, Darcy thought clearly as she sucked his left ball into her mouth.

Loki gasped, and groaned, and agreed.

Rooftop approached him as they set out for the morning run. Thor eased back momentarily to give him a bit of space.

“Sir, some interesting packages came from the personal residence of Tony Stark late last night. I took the liberty of scanning them, and they were clean, so I didn’t open them any further. But this was with them.”

Rooftop handed over an envelope, but at 4 AM it was too dark to read. Loki put the letter into his store and nodded.

“Where are the packages now?” Loki asked.

“Just outside your office.” And Nat has a hundred bucks on it being an elaborate apology, but I say it’s anything else.

“Well, we shall see after I meet with the apprentices this morning. Thank you for letting me know,” Loki said, politely dismissing the man so that Thor could return.

When some distance grew between the two men in front and all else who followed, Loki spoke to his brother who had been practicing, muttering sentences to himself in English along the lines of, ‘My name is Thor and I like my friend’s cat. The cat’s name is Pratchett and he is name for a great author. Pratchett has a brother who are Dr. Who. Dr. Who are not real, but very good stories are being told about Dr. Who. Many people like to hear the adventures of Dr. Who.’ It was flawed, but coming along nicely.

Thor stopped practicing his English after a moment.

“I have excellent news to share,” Loki began in High Elvish, which no one in the compound knew but himself, Thor, and one of his new apprentices who was nearly a quarter mile away.

“Father is awake?” Thor guessed, his pronunciation slurred and marred, likely from lack of practice.

“I do not know that. But Darcy is pregnant with my first born.”

Thor crowed with joy and slapped Loki on the back.

“Congratulations, brother! I knew you couldn’t be so virile for nothing! It is certain then?”

Loki smiled. “It was confirmed yesterday. Measures are being taken to maintain her safety. And the child’s.”

Thor took a moment in his response. “But you are not anxious,” he stated, looking more deeply into his brother and the situation than Loki was used to witnessing.

Loki shook his head. “No. I do not fear for her. It comes in waves, of course, and each time I seem to need to deal with it afresh, but meditation helps.”

“How do you meditate brother? Is it always with chaos and deceit?”

Loki smiled ruefully. Change. All was change with Thor. This is what he had looked for for so long in his older brother, and now that it had come, Loki felt so unprepared for it.

“No, indeed. Only once a day and sometimes not quite that. I need not do it for long, though it does tend to calm me when I’m deeply upset. Mostly my meditations are for the gates.”

“Ah, sorcery. Always working, always improving.”

Loki demurred. “No, Thor. You know, at least you’ve been told whether you’ve absorbed it or not, that any may break and master gates and all should, regardless of capacity to craft Dream with Source. It is only those who craft the dream who are required to do so in order to be taught.”

“You think I should, don’t you?” Thor asked after several quiet moments had passed between them with nothing but the light patter of their feet on the path, and the distant sound of those behind them.

“It would not harm you, and would only help your ultimate goal here.”

Again silence was between them.

“Would you help me? After I master English?” he asked, and the word English was said with Thor’s now vastly improved intonation from High Elvish. It turned the word into a figment of poetry, highly aspirated and as light as a harvest zephyr.

“Of course,” Loki replied, honored at the request, and idly wondering if he would have to find time, or make it.

“My apprentices. I hope you have made the most of your free days. You will have two free days within each cycle of seven, but in truth they will be free only in your decision of how to structure them. You will be given many, many assignments that will require your ardent study and meditation during most if not all of your mornings, your evenings, and your free days. Use the time wisely.

“First, I shall tell you of all the difficult things you shall master, and well before your ten years with me are finished.

“You shall master English, the reading, writing, and speaking of it, which is one of the more common languages on Midgard, but truly only one of many thousands spoken here. It is the only language you will be asked to master, and the only language you will be asked to use without a translation spell, or an individual on hand to provide proper translation.

“You shall master the third and fourth gates, as well as the first two. Fear not on this point; it is not nearly so difficult as the first two, and for Nanna,” here he paused, and looked to his only apprentice not of Vanaheim nor Asgard, but of Alfheim, “it should be almost easy. Anyone should feel free, however, to go beyond this goal and break and master their fifth gate. Or whichever gate comes next, for that person.

“You shall master token exchange. I personally do not know why this is not a standard practice, as it is one of the most useful ways for any sorcerer or sorceress who has any particular gift to expand upon it and use it to the utmost.

“You shall learn of Midgard in this age, partake in some of its many cultures, learn of its hopes, dreams, sufferings and shames. I ask that when you do so, you bring the best of your moral progress to bear. It is easy to judge what is different, but that is no way to learn and grow even within yourself.

“And now to other things. I shall be present to you for at least six hours in each day. And you have undoubtedly noted that the Midgardian day - the cycle of light and dark - is somewhat, or perhaps drastically,” here he looked at Nanna, “shorter than what you are used to. So it is. But that is Midgard. Their days are short, their lives are short, and they waste not a moment of it. You shall have at least four more hours than they, however, for I shall take you out of time for such a span each day in order to meditate.

“As to the other two hours I shall be with you, from seven to nine in the morning on each working day, we shall be together, we thirteen. In the first hour I shall be instructing you, or we shall be working on projects together. For the second hour, I shall be available for your questions, as a group.

“I know you are accustomed, as I was myself at your age, to personally serving your mistress - washing her clothes, making her food, cleaning her home, waiting on her at table. Most of this will not be necessary, and you will need the time to study. You will, however, and on a rotation, be assisting the chef in the kitchen, washing the clothes and linens of your fellow quarter-mates, cleaning the common areas of your quarters, and yes, waiting at table upon myself and the Princess Darcy, when we are present and dining in the Enclosure. I will have cause to travel about this realm, but even in those times your lessons and meditations with me will continue for the most part.

“When it is your turn to wait at table upon myself and my wife, you will be inconvenienced in that you will necessarily need to eat afterwards. I have never thought this to be quite fair, so I will in turn give you my time and my undivided attention for thirty minutes, at some point during that day. It may pull you out of your regular studies or routine, as my own schedule may be,” and at this point Loki smiled, “ chaotic. But I promise dedicated and private time to each of you for your own use, on the day you dedicate your own mealtimes to me for my convenience. This time I give you will be an excellent opportunity for you to discuss your gate progress, ask questions about your studies or experiences, or air concerns you may have about anything at all. You may ask anything you wish. I promise absolute truth for every question I am at liberty to answer.

“In addition to this, I will also pull the apprentice of the day out of time for an additional hour in which to guide her or his meditation, to speed you on your way.

“And now it is time for me to describe to you our first project together. It will be done in stages. You shall learn the theory and practice of it as we go. The first of several we shall begin today. I shall harness your energy to mine and we shall make the first of the farming biodomes. We shall then spend the next many days analysing the use of Source and Dream in this fashion. When I am convinced that you have the general way of it, I shall harness my energy to yours, and in teams of three you shall make the next four biodomes. We shall learn together, correct errors together, and the last will inevitably learn many things from the first. Do not let this dim your enthusiasm. I have found that doing is the fastest route to mastery. Even when you make mistakes, you make more progress than one who makes none at all by virtue of one’s inaction.

“You may find this exciting. You may find it daunting. I warn you that life on Midgard flows at a frighteningly fast pace when compared to life on our home realms.

“Speaking of home, we have not yet many diversions or entertainments in the Enclosure, but they will be present soon. I fully expect every apprentice to spend at least one half day of your free time, or two evenings, engaging in something entertaining or rejuvenating. You will not have time for much more than that. Your workload will be heavy, but if you periodically step back to relax, even this heavy workload will not break you. If you do not, it will. This is my warning. Heed it.

“Now. To the farming biodomes. The goal is simple and elegant: form a dome that flows above as well as below the ground to entirely enclose a space. This dome allows sunlight in. It allows in beings bearing a certain token. It allows in equipment and cartons being a certain token. It circulates air at a regulated pace. It does not allow beings to pass, no matter their size, who do not bear that certain token, nor plants, nor items, nor even so much as pollen. It does not allow water to pass, not as liquid, solid, or in a cloudy state. Now, what aspects of Source and Dream would you imagine come into play in such a simple and elegant dome?”

Loki looked at his assembled apprentices as they swarmed around him while he walked and inwardly grinned. They adored him, which was… odd, and they were slightly overwhelmed each in their particular way. But they were capable. Of that he was certain.

Finally one met his eye and Loki called on him. A slight boy, gentle in appearance, the one called Tue from the village Kirgard in the foothills at the base of Kir, far from the capital.

“Yes, Tue.”

“Master Loki, are you certain this dome of which you speak is simple?”

Loki laughed. “Yes. It is simple. It allows somethings to pass, but not others, based largely on a system of token exchange. But do not confuse simple with easy. Simple implies it is not terribly complex. Easy implies it is not terribly difficult. The gates, for example, are all quite simple and straightforward. I know no one who would call them all easy.”

A young man tugged at his cuff and Loki looked over. It was Fiske, a child of Vanaheim, and one of the three apprentices, all from Vanaheim, who had mastered the first two gates, and broken the third already.

“Yes, Fiske.”

“But, Master Loki, you just said the third and fourth gate might be almost easy for Nanna. That’s because she’s of Alfheim and her way does not view war and the self as ours does, correct?”

Loki laughed and the entire group continued to walk where he led, over to the area marked for the biodomes. It was an easy distance away from the temporary dining hall and his long strides ate up the land in between. The apprentices trotted to keep up.

“Yes, that is my assumption, though of course I might be wrong. No gate is easy to master, though Mistresses of the Ninth say they all could be. But as we are all quite different, each of us has an easier time with at least one gate, that is to say, an easier time than our peers seem to have with the same gate.”

And his elven apprentice wished to ask the next question, which was not altogether surprising. She had only mastered the first gate, he noted. He also remembered from the letters that came with all his apprentices that she was the great, great, great grandaughter of the old Queen of Alfheim. The current Queen was her many great aunt, for the succession of the Sylvan Throne ever went sideways, like root and branch, before it went up.

“Yes, Nanna.”

“Master Loki, what gate was almost easy for you?”

Precocious, indeed.

“Fate,” he said wryly, and then called on Nanna again when she tugged politely at his cuff and met his eye.

“Master Loki, was your fate an easy one to accept? Is it because you are a prince?”

Loki sighed, seeing more deeply into Nanna’s complacency and why she had only mastered the first gate when gate mastery came so much easier to those in the trees. He took a deep breath and told the truth. He would lie to these young ones no more so than he would lie to Darcy, not if he could help it.

“No. Quite the contrary. It was because I already knew the specifics of my fate. A mad seer told me once, long ago, when I was younger than you are now.” There were gasps. He understood well their horror, and they knew but the smallest part of the horrifying tale. “And then he committed suicide in front of me,” Loki added quietly, an afterthought.

More gasps, more tugs on his cuffs, but Loki ignored them because something felt off. Something was not quite right, and Loki always listened to the voice that told him such things. Now it was only a matter of figuring out what was going on.

Look away little Loki, for you must not see what comes next.

But no, that wasn’t right. He had run away in the middle of the seer’s prophecy.

No. No, wait.

No, he ran away at the end , because it ended when he ran away. He ran away, back to the palace, back to his mute and ashen mother, back to his father who had given him such comfort, such words that braced him up and led him to strive so hard, learn so much, be always better this day than the one before. That was definitely what had happened.

Look away little Loki… you have your fate, and I have mine... I have spent my mind in its purchase, this one hope I hold out for you.

Walking even as he delved deep inside of himself, he removed himself from the panicky emotions that had always accompanied the series of memories.

Laughing liar of Asgard, he heard echoing in his mind, but for the first time it was said in a loving manner, no condemnation in the memory. It was said as if to remind him of his own capacity, to remind him of something good, and yet it had always been an insult in the past. It still seemed to be so now, except…

Laughing liar of Asgard.

It was said with so much love. How could it be an insult?

Loki breathed deeply as he tried to examine his confusion logically.

He seemed now to have two sets of memories, in part conciliatory, in part contradictory. One he knew had actually occurred in the time and place in which it appeared. One could not have. So what was true?

A sudden image of Mistress Oydis patting him on the cheek, telling him sweetly he was a commonplace liar, pretty, but uninteresting.

Like hell I am.

Another deep breath and Loki sunk inside of himself to that deep internal place where he could see and feel the fabric of lies around him, not just vaguely or occasionally or even with one particular person before him, but in intensely vibrant color, texture, and sound all around him.

He saw all that his apprentices wanted to keep from him, all they had discussed two nights before, all the individual issues they carried, all of the little ways they lied to themselves and to one another. He catalogued each with barely any thought at all, making a mental note to check in on them each later. And then Loki turned to the issue at hand.

In one hand he held a little statue, a miniature of himself fleeing the seer’s tent. And he could see layers of both truth and lie, source and dream, swirling.

And in the other hand he held a similar little statue, a miniature of the seer, sitting in his chair, a mad and desperate look in his eye, a hunting dagger sheathed fully in his chest.

And he could see that there was almost nothing at all but truth around the second statue, even thought it occurred to him in a dream within the dream.

And suddenly he could see that each terrifying nightmare he had ever had of the encounter was trying to lead him to this moment, this moment when it was less of a nightmare and more of a vision, this moment where he could hear the rest of the prophecy, but he hadn’t been ready. So he’d been stuck in the nightmare. In his waking and in his sleeping he had been plagued by the fear of what could befall Yggdrasil at his hands. Waking or sleeping, his life had been one long painful nightmare underneath it all.

Until he came here.

Until he met Darcy.

Until he broke the ninth gate.

Loki laughed in relief and joy and wonder.

Coming back to his normal senses, Loki breathed deeply and felt the release of a burden he had carried his entire life.

He also realized they had overshot the nearest farming biozone area, but were nearly to the edge of the third, which would do just as well.

Gathering his own mental focus, Loki then gathered the apprentices like a hen would her chicks and taught them the gestures and the words for the simple act of temporarily sharing the ability to craft the dream with source. Then each apprentice in turn stepped up to him, boldly taking his palm in theirs, their forearms meeting clumsily, elbows touching. Each one Loki pulled closer, past the point of polite distance. Their chests touched their combined forearms and their noses - for the tall ones - were not that far apart.

Each apprentice repeated the ancient phrase. “I offer you my aid, I give you my will. Let us craft the dream together, as you imagine.”

To each apprentice, Loki answered. “I accept your aid and will do you no harm. Let us craft the dream together.”

Afterwards, each looked rosy cheeked, but it was nothing to what they would feel after he had finished the work they’d come here to do today. Which was nothing, still, to what they would feel like when they harnessed his power.

Generally, this was not the done thing between masters and apprentices, but that was largely because few mistresses were willing to yoke their power with anyone else, much less their apprentices. Also, few had the need to do such large works as would require yoked power. Finally, there were side-effects, such as needing to treat your apprentices as equals, by which few mistresses could abide.

Loki cared not for such conventions - this was an important aspect of working collaboratively, and his apprentices would learn not only how to do it but how to treat it with respect.

“Now it begins,” he said.

All were wide-eyed, their attention riveted to his every word and action. He went to stand closely to the edge of the circle, spray-painted in bright orange on the hard ground. Loki indicated that they could follow him, but stay inside the circle. He held his hand out, the point of one relaxed finger demarking the edge of the containment circle he would draw, directly over the spray-painted line. He did so in silence, at a moderate pace. It was far easier than usual, even for such a large containment circle as he drew presently. Twenty minutes later, he was finished and ready to attend to the second part of his work, which would require him to make another circuit, this time dancing slightly, a little hop and skip and twirl added to his stride.

His words were sing-song and in Aesir. In that language they rhymed and were measured in the perfect cadence. He wove his spell in his native tongue because in such situations, nothing was better than your cradle language.

Yggdrasil, Yggdrasil, your secrets we do not guess
Doors and branches are your domain
We request but window panes
One glass orb, not unlike a door
A door unto itself, itself
To keep within within
And keep without without
A farming sphere where the soft wind blows
Sun shines not magnified but dimmed
To keep within within, without without
Till harvest time and all is done
Till tit for tat, and fruit for dirt exchanged and all is done
And begins to begin again
Till next harvest time is done

Yggdrasil, Yggdrasil, a window we wish
An orb to farm as done of old on realms not far from here
Not magnified as then for them
But dimmed for us for here for now
Hard rock will yield us fruit and grain
Bare desert will bloom in reds and greens and blues
Wasting not, willing not, renting tearing never never

Yggdrasil, Yggdrasil, for us you wait so patiently
Your children to wake up
This realm you shepherded tenderly to ever safer shores
Create for us a windowed garden
A wonder to behold
Realm within realm
And food at harvest time

Loki stopped, his spell finished and his task nearly done.

“Brace yourselves,” he said on a whisper and heard it repeated several more times behind him. It was time for the third and final part.

He took a deep breath and closed his eyes. He allowed his sense of present chaos to alert him to every living thing within his containment sphere. On the exhale, he transported every living thing 2100 feet to the right. Including himself.

As the apprentices were all gasping and eeping, while small and medium-sized desert creatures were all scurrying away, Loki faced them all and bowed deeply at the waist, his palms held out in front of him, flat and open to the sky.

At the depth of his bow, he spoke. “I thank you for your aid. Our task is done. Your will is your own. Nothing is owed but a debt of gratitude and friendship, which I will pay.”

And that, he thought wryly, is the real reason why no mistress would borrow anything from an apprentice.

“Now!” he said, clapping his hands together and rubbing them a bit. “What did you notice?”

Twelve pairs of eyes eagerly met his and he grinned, picking an apprentice at random. They walked as they talked, and in an hour and twenty minutes he dropped the children off with Jane to introduce them to the two mathematics tutors who would take them from multiplication to multivariate calculus and beyond.

Chapter Text

Darcy had kissed her husband goodbye for the morning and he had a twinkle in his eye. She knew he was looking forward to getting started with the twelve baby mages, and for her part, Darcy was just over the moon that a plan, and that particular plan, of hers had been scooped up and approved of so very wholeheartedly by her older and wiser husband.

As it turned out, Loki was enthusiastic about most of her plans and the confidence that gave her buoyed her up.

That is what Darcy was considering when she rounded the corner and was stopped short by the small mountain of boxes that were being unloaded from a bright yellow DHL truck, into the area just to the right of her office door.

Borghild hung back with her while Natasha and Dagmar approached the delivery guy. It wasn’t the first time something had been sent through one of the standard international delivery services, so the two alien women were familiar with the process. In general.

“Have we ordered that many items, Ma’am?”

“No…” Darcy said, trailing off and wondering what would be sent DHL, and why there would be so much of it. The boxes seemed to be in two general sizes, and it seemed like there were about twice as many of the smaller ones as the larger ones.

Presently Dagmar trotted back and gave her report, even as Natasha pulled out her cell phone and started speaking somewhat tersely into it, if the expression on her face was anything to go by.

Dagmar stopped and stood at attention. “Your Highness, Natasha says she will linger until the delivery is complete. She says that one of the packages is from… Channel… and the rest are of similar origin. And she seemed quite grim. Apparently Security allowed them through without scanning the packages, or the truck.”

Darcy thanked her maid and ignored Dagmar's confusion for the moment. Because she had to deal with her own.

Channel? Like Parisian house of fashion, Channel? Coco Channel?

Darcy blinked and shook her head.

“Come on. We have stuff to do, and until those packages are scanned, I’m obviously not going to get them done in my office. Let’s go check on the progress of Garage One.”

Natasha talked her out of burning the dresses in effigy.

Yes, they were expensive.

Yes, they were elegant, beautiful, and the cream of the crop.

No, they had been ordered but not touched by Tony Stark.

And Darcy didn’t want to have anything to do with them. She especially did not want to see them, because then she might get greedy and want to keep them and that was obviously not going to happen.

Two dozen pairs of shoes. Two dozen purses. Two dozen dresses. One of each category coordinated with one of the others, she was assured. And there was a card with each one. So sorry. I’m an asshat. Tony Stark. Or something. They were identical cards with digital signatures so it’s not like he worked hard on the messages.

So, he was apologizing. But why?

And why on earth should she forgive him?

Not a rhetorical question, she thought bitterly.

From afar, his brash get-it-done quality was admirable. From close up, his tendency to steamroll over anyone he considered less important was despicable. In Darcy’s world, only fools or monsters treated people that way. Fools were to be pitied and educated. Monsters were to be jailed and their redemption was between them and their maker.

Still partial to getting rid of them immediately, Darcy did realize she should consult with Loki before she put them all on eBay, with the proceeds to go to whatever charity Natasha thought would upset Stark the most.

Natasha promised to store them appropriately and very far away from anywhere Darcy was likely to be until such time as a final decision was made.

When her cell phone rang with the unknown caller vibration pattern in the middle of working with Natasha on reorganizing the billionaire weekends to account for days of unknown but longer duration, she ignored it. Her new policy was to let all unknown callers leave a message first.

Besides, she was also getting used to the idea that her time was valuable, and that only certain people could interrupt her when she was busy. It still felt a little odd, like she was a little girl playing dress up, and that eventually someone would come out of the woodwork and point out that she was actually a fraud. Loki tried diligently to disabuse her of this notion, but it was a deep one, and not going away any time soon.

Still, it meant that she didn’t listen to Stark’s message until the afternoon, just before her run. She had twenty minutes in her schedule blocked off to check messages and decide what to do about them. It was in between two messages that Jane had left without calling, the first about the two librarians she would be hiring, in case Darcy had thought of doing that, no need to double up on the efforts, and the second an extension of the first message, about the custom library database that would be created, and all the details involved, of which there were many. It was a four minute message. And then there was Stark’s.

“Your Royal Highness, this is Tony Stark calling. I wanted to take the opportunity to apologise for my recent behavior, which was execrable, and offer you my most sincere apology for insulting your husband, his intentions, and your efforts. I have the utmost respect for your joint efforts of peaceful diplomacy and technological collaboration, and I hope that we may meet in the future under better circumstances. If these apologies of mine have been accepted, I would be honored to pay for the privilege of bringing a party of guests to Asgard. I look forward to hearing from your staff soon. Thank you, and have a good morning.”

Darcy deleted the message, refrained from throwing her very nice and very high tech phone across the room, and instead muttered, “Over my dead body.”

Loki took his apprentices out of time for two hours before lunch and for two hours before dinner in order to meditate. He chose a different place each time. The first time, he took them to the farming biodome they had erected, and Eluf asked the question he was certain was on most of their minds.

“Master, how can we enter the dome if only those with tokens may enter?”

“Because we made it. You will always be welcome to enter the dome, and you will never be forbidden. How could you be? It was your petition to Yggdrasil that made it possible for her to create the dome for us in the first place. And I see now that clarity is beginning to dawn on you all. We shall discuss this more tomorrow morning when we meet.”

The thirteen gathered in a circle each in the standard position for their race, with the exception of Loki who wasn’t actually certain what the standard position for the Jotnar was, and in any case was currently manifesting an Aesir body.

He did not speak the whole time, as he might if he were intensely guiding someone in their meditation, but he did begin and end each meditation, spending about twenty minutes on each one.

First a simple mind clearing meditation, in this case the Swirling Vortex.

Then the ever-useful White Light meditation.

From there the Token Exchange meditation, which he led more directly, and which he would do daily for two weeks before setting them to make their first tokens.

That was the first hour.

Then Loki had them focus on the meditations for the first three of the compassionate gates.

Just before dinner, Loki gathered his apprentices and explained very briefly what he was going to do. Then he cast a containment circle, and a simple ‘do not notice’ charm on them which excluded the notice of everyone not currently in the circle. Then he broke the circle, had everyone join hands and travelled with ease to the banks of the Ganges. Amongst the crowds he shepherded the apprentices to a clear spot, had them assume the standard position for meditation, and pulled them out of the flow of time. When Nanna dove into the Ganges and assumed the standard elven position - which was a specific variant of an upright standing posture, with first preference being in the boughs of a tree, second being in waist high water, and third being on dry land - Loki made sure to include in his cessation of time, a meter of water all around the elf. He had once made the mistake of not doing such a thing and found himself trapped in a suddenly rock hard liquid that was no longer flowing, thanks to lack of time.

The two standard meditations for clearing the mind and centering and grounding, and then he led them in the four basic meditations for the compassionate gates.

And so it would be for the next ten years. One meditation session somewhere in the compound. One meditation session somewhere in the realm with the express intention of getting the apprentices quite used to meditating anywhere at all, and quite a bit more often then they were used to, and too, offering a variety that would allow each apprentice to discover, perhaps, their own favorite places and favorite types of places so that meditation would become even more attractive.

As they all walked toward the dining hall after the meditation, he allowed questions.

First it was Gunvor, one of the Aesir girls from the villages around the capital city.

“Master, what did you meditate on?”

Loki smiled. His own apprenticeship was incredibly helpful, but rarely did his Mistress meditate with him. It wasn’t a surprising question.

“Today I did the same as you. Though they are considered beginning meditations, they are still quite helpful at any level, and they were helpful for me, today. I may not always do this, of course.”

The second question came from Ragnhild, another of the Aesir girls from a local village. “Master, how often and for how long do you meditate?”

Loki grinned. “A tenth of the day does not go by that I do not meditate in some form. I can, at this point, meditate while doing other things, and so I do. I also assume the standard position and meditate to the exclusion of all other things, as you do, and that I do somewhere between six and twelve bells a day. And I anticipate increasing that very shortly.”

The third question came from Nanna. Her voice was full of disbelief. “Master, why would you meditate even more?”

They were in line to get their food, now, and Loki was at the head of the collection.

“For the same reason the fifth gate was almost easy to me,” Loki said, obliquely referencing in the more public area of the dining room the fact that he knew his fate, “I know I wish to have already attained mastery over the ninth, for when that time comes. In short, I do not wish to tarry overlong.”

After a moment of consideration, he added something to his statement.

“Just because you haven’t the same circumstances as me, it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t work as hard and as thoroughly as you can. It just means that I have lived with the fear and terror of knowing intimately what may happen if I don’t, and you are innocent of such knowledge. Knowing or not knowing doesn’t change your fate, and we are each one of us capable of great things. The more enlightened we become, the better those great things end up being. Enjoy your dinner,” he said finally, dismissing them to sit where they would as he joined Darcy, who had begun wearing the fur-lined leather coat outside of their rooms.

It did not take long for Loki to realize his wife was uncommonly angry. Much more so, he imagined, than the situation merited. Even though all of his common wisdom said it was impossible, Loki looked more deeply into her only to discover that his wild notion was correct.

His darling wife had broken two gates and mastered none.

Mastering no gates was no feat at all. Many ended their lives with that firmly accomplished.

Having two broken gates at the same time, beckoning an initial mastery? Common wisdom said it was impossible. In fact, he had only ever heard of his father doing it, and only then after waking from one of his infrequent times of magical sleep.

Impossible. Yet possible. Or perhaps it was a characteristic of Midgardians that they did not share with the rest of Yggdrasil.

Now, however, as Darcy was savagely cutting into her steak and in low vicious tones extolling her opinion of one billionaire who would never set foot in the Golden Hall, was obviously not the time to congratulate her on her accomplishment.

Or was it?

In a break while she was chewing and only mentally stewing, Loki gamely pointed out that at least Stark was good for this: she had broken the second gate, thanks to him.

Darcy gave him a hard look.

'Oh good. Something else to do,'  she thought at him clearly and directly.

Well, that could have gone much worse.

Jane took a seat at the largely empty dining table, next to Thor, and waved off the two other people approaching. She wanted to talk with him alone, and he tended to disappear directly after dinner these days. She didn’t want to bother him in the trailer he shared with Sharon, and she’d learned from Sharon that just lately he’d started staying up late, learning English. He still ran with Loki in the morning, but he he’d stopped training in the evening with the warriors, even.

She sat down and he ignored her, headphones on, quietly working on the language program on his tablet while shovelling food in.

Jane drank some juice and considered her options. In the end she decided that while interruptions were annoying, it was time to just pull rank.

She pulled one of his earphones off his ear and quietly asked if she could speak to him.

He turned off the tablet and pulled his earphones off, but as he turned to her, he made a face. He made a little motion towards his forehead and accompanied the gesture with an apologetic look and a shrug.

Of course. He could only learn English when he didn’t have the language spell laid on him. Well, it was time to practice.

Jane made an effort to speak slowly, with simple grammar and verb conjugations.

“You speak English, now.”

Thor nodded and shrugged modestly. “I speak English, now,” he repeated softly, and the British accent that must have been part of the language spell was absent. He was learning English with an American pronunciation, and that was something that seemed quite strange to Jane’s ears. Except there was something else. It must have been his Aesir accent coming through. It was… remarkably endearing, and the moment Jane realized that was the moment she wished she hadn’t.

“Why do you work hard, Thor?”

He gave her a dubious look before he schooled his features. “I live on Midgard to work hard, Doctor.”

Jane shook her head. “No. You work hard, and well. Learning English,” she said with special emphasis, “you work very hard. Very, very hard. Why?”

And then… Thor blushed.

It took him a moment and he was clearly thinking hard. “Loki is saying, I learn English, I have not…” and words failed him, but he tapped the long green token that circled around the base of his neck like a torque. It was the token that bound his magic. So if he learns English, Loki is going to unbind his magic?

What?

Their conversation continued in this halting, somewhat stilted manner, with some significant use of gesturing until Jane understood that electromagnetism was a sentient energy source which voluntarily conversed with Thor, when his magic was unbound. This took about twenty minutes, by which time Jane was done with dinner and Thor was about halfway.

Jane buried her head in her hands when she finally understood, and then ended up rubbing her temples in a soothing manner for some long moments.

My so-called numbnuts assistant, whom Loki calls an idiot, and Darcy has sometimes referred to as a trained monkey, is the master of electromagnetism, can speak with it, understand it, and bend it to his will. And I’m having him train hard in order to do data entry.

No. Wait. He’s had a lifetime of privilege, and he’s here to learn humility. It doesn’t matter if he can redefine a field of science with me. The most important thing, in terms of my contract with Loki, is that he learns humility. And once he learns humility, then he may consent to work with me in the field of electromagnetism. Besides. I have a lot to do here anyway. A lot will be redefined in the next forty or fifty years, or until I’m so decrepit they make me Director Emeritus and let me live in a cottage on the edge of the enclosure and come play probability games for a few hours in the afternoon.

Okay. So nothing has changed. Well, everything is always changing. But just because I know more about Thor’s motivations, doesn’t mean his mission here has changed in the least. It’s just like me and that damn crown in my trunk. Just because I found it doesn’t mean I’m going to change my outlook, or my actions, or my plans. It is what it is. Some may know the future, but I don’t, and that’s that.

Move on, Jane.

Wednesday passed in a blur and Thursday was no better for Darcy, and everything became focused with a laser intensity on making sure that she and Natasha were as prepared as humanly possible for their weekend in Asgard - more particularly that they were prepared to beta test their billionaire itinerary, iron out inevitable wrinkles unforeseen in their plans, and connect with the various departments that would be providing support for the immense job of hospitality that Natasha assured Darcy would actually be a breeze.

They decided that Dagmar and Borghild should accompany them after all, as they would be invaluable as couriers around the palace, and besides, their sole responsibility was to Darcy. They would have nothing to do and a very large desert in which to do it in, were she to go without them.

On Friday morning, Darcy woke up with serious butterflies in her stomach. Some moments after Loki left for his morning run, she dashed to the bathroom and dry heaved nothing at all, for all that it still made her feel wretched. Sometime later when she was up and reading a history of Asgard in Loki’s meditation pillow pit, Natasha knocked on the door. The sun still had not risen.

“Hey. Still can’t sleep in?” Natasha asked as Darcy went to make the woman a cup of tea.

“Nope,” Darcy confirmed, and the level of resignation in her voice surprised her even as she heard herself speak.

“Everything’s going to be okay. You know that, right?” The voice of Darcy’s assistant was quiet in the small space, and the sound, per usual, was swallowed up. It was the tapestries hung on the wall, Darcy thought.

Wordlessly she nodded, her back still turned. She put a few crackers in a small bowl for herself, and a few berries, hoping that something might help settle her stomach. And hoping, too, that Natasha’s optimistic viewpoint wasn’t just a passel of platitudes. Darcy wanted everything to be alright. She really did. But there were so many things that could go wrong, and she just couldn’t ignore them anymore.

When they each had all they needed and sat amongst the pillows, Natasha spoke quietly again.

“What’s scaring you?”

Darcy sighed.

“These people are spending so much money. And it’s more money than I can really comprehend on a personal level.” At this point Darcy was all curled up in her furs and leather, with her fingers wrapped around her mug of hot tea. “And they’re giving it to me, so we can build this place, and that’s wonderful. But what if they have an awful experience? What if they get food poisoning? What if someone is rude to them? Or worse, if they’re rude to someone on Asgard? What if they can’t negotiate the concept of the Asgardian Toilet and end up being unspeakably awful about it? What if they sow discontent amongst all the others and they cancel??? What if I mess up everything because I do something stupid, and then we run out of money and we have to live in a shack in the desert, eating yucca and sauteed cactus?”

It was only as the words flowed out of her mouth that Darcy was able to see how utterly ridiculous her fears were, at their base. And yet, inside her head they had seemed like such a convincing set of arguments… And they still held some power over her thoughts.

“Breathe, Darcy. Right now. Pause the angst train and breathe.”

Darcy closed her eyes and breathed deeply for a moment as Loki and every yoga teacher she’d ever had had coached her in doing.

“I have a new idea,” Natasha said as Darcy continued to breathe. “Let me run the weekends. Let my profound capacity for manipulating people into believing what I want them to believe actually work for the good of humanity for once.” This, Natasha said with an entirely straight face and Darcy suddenly had many more questions that were entirely too rude to ask dancing in her head, distracting her somewhat from her own inner turmoil.

“Here’s my spin,” the assassin-cum-bodyguard and personal assistant said. And when she began to speak again, her voice had a mesmerizing quality to it Darcy had only heard a few other times before. “What they are paying for is to be shocked and discomfited. They are paying for the actual experience to set foot off planet, and onto a planet that is populated by sentient bipeds who aren't human, and who are more fully evolved than humans - mentally, emotionally, physically, and spiritually. That’s what they’re paying for and that’s what they’ll get. That they will also be honored guests will be dependent upon their behavior. And they must abide by the rule of law, and by cultural norms while present, or risk having their trip cut precipitously short without their money being refunded.

“Will being on Asgard inspire them? Yes. Will it make them not want to sleep, much less take naps? Also yes. Will it challenge them and make them uncomfortable? Very likely.

“All questions will be directed to me. All damage control will be done by me. You and Loki will still be present and likely to show up at any moment, but your presence will be a gift, and except for the times when the schedule specifically calls for your attendance as part of the program, you can just pop in and out.

“I will keep them on their toes, and toeing the fine line between being overwhelmed by the ability to have the opportunity to have this adventure, and being very conscious that they will be teaching the Aesir what Humans are like, and so they will want at all times to put their very best foot forward so as to represent the very best face of Humanity.”

Darcy looked at her, seeing more clearly another side of her assistant. What was she like when she was an assassin? No! Focus, Darcy!

“Are you sure that’s not too much to ask for? I mean, it was my idea. I feel bad making someone else go and see it through.”

“Darcy Elannor Veracruz Lewis Jackdottir of Asgard,” Natasha said, middle naming her with as many names as one could reasonably cram in. “You can’t do everything yourself. No one can. So what if you’re an idea generator? Few people are actually as good at that as you seem to be.” Here Natasha leaned in for emphasis. “Let yourself live amongst their ranks. Generate the ideas. Do what you can to improve them and see them through. But let others help you, and let them take their role. There are still, on this planet, only 24 hours in a day. There’s only so much you can do anyway. And if you put all your energy into trying to do something that someone else is better at, and enjoys more… aren’t you taking that opportunity away from them? And making yourself a little more miserable than you need to be? Why not give that job up to someone who loves it, and then be free to do what comes easily to you ?”

Darcy set her tea down and flopped back into the cushions. The pillow pit was at least good for that.

“You sound like my mother-in-law,” she said on a groan. She was grousing a little bit, but she saw Natasha’s point clearly enough. She just didn’t want to admit that so quickly, not this morning.

Would it really be okay? It wouldn’t be an abdication of responsibility to be the one having all the fun, coming up with awesome sauce ideas only to have other people be the ones who have to carry them out?

But no, that was Natasha’s whole point. Not everyone was good at coming up with ideas, which, admittedly, Darcy seemed to have in abundance. And a lot of people did enjoy doing things that Darcy didn’t. That just stood to reason.

“High praise,” Natasha whispered, interrupting her thoughts.

“You really wouldn’t mind? And you’d find it fun to usher around group after group of billionaires and their guests for two nights and two days?” Darcy asked, checking one last time.

Natasha chortled.

“Trust me.”

Every now and again, Jane wanted to ask Loki what the fuck he was thinking. Not often. And anyway, she tried not to swear, even in her head. But the concept of WTF was such a useful one in conveying utter disbelief that a set of actions or assumptions seemed good and rational in someone else’s head.

Four days into having apprentices - not four weeks before, mind - Loki mentioned in passing that we needed to provide them with clothing. All of them.

They weren’t wearing standard clothing for apprentices. Because mistresses provided such clothing, and apprentices left it when they left their mistress. And it was understood that they were not to wear their own clothing for a variety of reasons, one of which was it was the mistress’s responsibility to house, clothe, and feed their apprentices.

So clothes must be procured.

So, Jane asked, what kind of clothing do apprentices wear?

No, no, Loki said, not that kind of clothing. Modern Midgardian clothing. Whatever hard-wearing, long-lasting clothing college students might wear.

And Jane blinked.

The Aesir tended to have extremely small wardrobes. Their variety was based purely on functionality, clothes were washed and worn again immediately, and there was no such thing as fashion. Styles, yes. Fashion, no. Even Jane had picked this much up, spending a day with Frigga and Darcy on Asgard. Even in the complete wardrobe that she had received along with Darcy, once she explored it, she saw very few variables. There were essentially two of every type of clothing, except for accessories, of which there was one. They were based on function and warmth. It was clearly a wash-one-wear-one scheme, and because she and Darcy were meant to be prepared for every eventuality from visiting Jotunheim to going to war to going on a three week trek through the forest and having a state dinner at the end, they did have a lot of clothes… But a farmer? A farmer might have three outfits. An apprentice? Only two.

Jane wondered if she should attempt to explain how the wardrobe of an American college student worked, and then decided not to even try. It was obvious that Loki still was operating on Aesir standards, but wanted the apprentices to be able to blend in better. So Jane would just do the best she could, and if there was one universal constant among college students that also met his standards it was jeans, t-shirts, and hoodies emblazoned with the college logo.

This, she could manage.

The bags were packed. Borghild had gotten Loki’s permission to teach the language spell to the apprentices, whose job it would now be to attend to their own spells, and those of all the others in the Enclosure who needed them. Natasha was the keeper of the most extensive checklist Darcy had ever had a hand in making, which covered every detail they could think of, and everything that could possibly go wrong that they could imagine.

Over breakfast they were debating how best to teach their guests how to use an Asgardian Toilet, which Darcy had explained at length to Natasha earlier in the pillow pit.

“If you think about it, it’s really a much better system than any of the ones we’ve managed in various parts of the world,” Natasha pointed out, and Darcy privately wondered how many different kind of toilet and sewer systems she had used. She decided not to ask, as that would definitely derail their conversation. Still, Natasha was musing on the issue, her voice soft and dreamy as she considered the question. “Except maybe the toilet-bidet, in some respects, but certainly not in cleanliness of the item, nor of the sewer system behind it.”

Then Darcy decided that life was short, and she needed to know. Also, she’d never heard of a toilet-bidet. “Yeah, so how many different types of toilets have you encountered?”

“Toilets? Or the whole shebang?”

“Yes,” answered Darcy.

“Well, there are the standard toilets you’re used to, bidets largely in Europe, combination toilet-bidets in Japan, and then there are holes in the ground that you can find almost anywhere - sometimes porcelain, sometimes wooden. Then there is the system behind them. Latrines are popular, and many do some measure of composting just to keep the smell down, then there are actual composting toilets, septic tanks which could fall into the category of porting a nonportable cesspit, sewers that are strictly blackwater, sewers that combine blackwater and stormwater, but wherever you go, whatever you do, cleanliness is always in question, except where it is obviously absent. And you have to admit, the Aesir system is remarkably clean.”

Darcy processed that for a moment while nodding and chewing, because really, the Aesir system was remarkably clean. “Anyway, there has got to be a way to disseminate this information quickly, painlessly, without embarrassment, and without it being an information download that is too much all at once. Oooo…”

“See? You’re the idea generator. What did you think of?”

“We should do a series of videos !” Darcy said, excited at such an elegant and obvious solution. “Short little things. Little documentaries. Life on a planet 12 lightyears away. All the quirks, the oddities, the things that would catch you up. I bet we’d have time to film a few things while we’re there, and we could make a start at the first few. Toilets. Time. Other things that pique our interest. And that wouldn’t start riots.” At this point Darcy considered the state of Aesir medical technology and what it would mean to too many people on Earth.

But no. Dwelling wouldn’t help. We are building the Institute for exactly this reason. And healthcare will improve on Earth. Shift gears, Darcy!

“Think there are some tripods that fit a cellphone in SHIELD’s stockpile of useful items?” Darcy asked.

“I’m sure there are. I’ll raid it before we leave.”

At 11:05 that morning Loki joined the assembled group at the edges of the bifrost scar. He had guards sent down to assist the Romanovs and Dagmar and as a whole, they travelled quickly and quietly to another planet.

Upon arrival, and upon removal of certain spells to maintain poise, Natasha looked over to Darcy and simply said, “Let’s get video of that.”

Frigga laughed. She was doing that a lot, lately. Odin would wake soon. She just knew it. It wasn’t quite a prophecy of the future, and yet as a mistress of now the ninth gate, her senses were altered.

She just knew, and in the knowing was great peace, and also quite a bit of humor, because of course many, many things would crash down on him at once when he did wake.

And she had just realized something else, too.

Accordingly, she rose from her loom where she was just doing some meditative weaving of a fine shirt fabric for someone she loved, but no one in particular, and removed herself from her tower chamber. She descended stair after stair and traversed across the palace courtyard to the barracks, and thence to the prison rooms, below that. She came in person.

She waved off the guard who retreated back down the hallway, and stood before her daughter’s would-be assassin.

“Hello. How are you feeling today?” She asked gently, a soft smile on her face.

He looked over, eyes narrowed, and he seemed better than all the reports had led her to believe. Or perhaps she had only imagined the worst.

“Who are you?” he asked, significantly more verbose than the aspect of a caged animal that Svanhild had led her to believe he was.

“My name is Frigga. Do you remember yours?”

He blinked and flinched and all was seen and noted by the All-Mother of Yggdrasil.

He was silent.

She waited.

“Bucky. They called me Bucky, once. It was along time ago, though,” he said, adding the last part so very quietly.

“Bucky,” she said, considering the name. “What does it mean?”

After a moment, he said almost inaudibly, “I don’t know.”

“When you are tried, Bucky, you will be found guilty. Even without your own admission, there were witnesses. It is inevitable. But the sentence has yet to be considered. Do you still wish for your own death in a merciful manner? Should that still be taken into consideration?”

The room was silent for some long minutes.

“I… sometimes… I don’t know.” And then all in a rush, a question. “Are you my lawyer?”

Frigga smiled in a bittersweet fashion. “No, child.

“I have but one more question for your consideration and then I shall bother you no more. If you would no longer prefer your death mercifully delivered, would you consider receiving your life mercifully delivered?”

His look of confusion was plain, but Frigga waited until he said something specific.

“I don’t understand what… you’re offering. And who are you, anyway?”

“You have, as I understand it, just come from a lifetime of slavery of the cruelest sort. Would it be crueler still to sentence you to a life of servitude? Though you would live well in all the pride and glory of a strong warrior, you would be beholden to guard and protect until your sentence was served. Would such a thing be welcome, or ever more painful than before?”

His eyes narrowed and she could see him breathe faster. “Who are you?” he hissed.

“Think on the question,” Frigga answered mildly, smiling not despite him, but because his fear did not cover his desire so entirely. “You will be called to answer it very soon, and your fate will hang in the balance. For this lifetime, at least.”

“Who are you?” he half-shouted, his voice full of his anger and impotence, but Frigga was halfway out of the prison. When a guard came to look in on him, he demanded to know who his visitor had been.

The guard, who had never been moved to talk to the prisoner before, made an answer. Of a sort.

“If she did not tell you, I shall not tell you.”

Chapter Text

Loki and Darcy left the Romanovs at the healers with Dagmar to shepherd them next to the massage rooms where the royal couple hoped to catch up with them after their first and second call of the day.

“Are you ready?” Loki asked her, taking her hand firmly in his once they left the healing suite and stood in the outer hallway.

Darcy nodded, and then Loki shifted them such that they were no longer in the stone palace, but in the midst of a forest, just next to the trail that ended at the front door of Mistress Oydis’ cottage, a three week trip on horseback from the capital city of Asgard.

They walked in silence along the trail. There were so many things to discuss, and Loki knew full well his beloved was generally bursting with questions, but the silence had a beauty of its own, and with completely tacit agreement, neither one said anything mentally or otherwise.

Soon the tall trees gave way in areas for the shorter ones as they passed from the Mistress’ nut orchard to her fruit orchard. He knew well the ring upon ring of trees that encircled the crop lands. The beehives would be far to the left, soon, and the barn far to the right. The Mistress always kept three nannys, three ewes, and three chickens. The compost pile would be on the far side of the house, away from the path, far beyond the ring of nut trees.

Loki had many memories of harvesting Mistress Oydis’ orchards and storing the fruit carefully beneath her cottage, but today all he could think about was the fact that his mother farmed these fields for three hundred years, during her apprenticeship. Planting, harvesting, yes, but also making cheese and soap, drying meat, fruit, beans, and herbs, brewing mead, and storing food for fallow for sorceress and animal. He had heard the story of her first shearing - it was dreadful, and almost ended in tragedy. The chickens never liked her, but eventually the alpha nanny goat forgave her. Eventually.

Alas, he had no time to become lost in old stories, even his mother’s humorous ones from early in her apprenticeship.

The current apprentice robed in the traditional undyed and shapeless wool garment belted at the waist came running out to them, and somehow Loki had imagined she would look different than she did. He shook the thought away as she bowed before them.

“Please, sir, ma’am. The Mistress says won’t you come join her for a horn of mead. She’s inspecting the new lambs, if you wish to meet her there.”

The apprentice bowed again, then ran to the cottage, undoubtedly to fetch their refreshments.

“Huh.”

Darcy seemed more bemused than anything else.

Loki steered her towards the barn.

“Have you seen newborn lambs before?” he asked.

She shook her head.

“They are outrageously adorable. Almost adorable enough to keep you from eating them immediately.”

Darcy snorted and gave him a look.

And then they walked in the small structure. One large pen on one side for the goats and the sheep, the smaller chicken pen with all of its assorted areas, and the tool pen both on the other side. A ladder at the far end, to the loft where fallow fodder was stored. He could hear the soft bleats, and when he looked around the Mistress’ location was not immediately obvious. When he looked into the pen to see the lambs, he also saw Mistress Oydis, sitting on the low milking stool, singing an old folk song to the little ones. Loki decided not to offer Darcy a translation unless she specifically requested it.

They waited quietly until she finished her song. By that time the apprentice had returned, in her hand the three leather thongs holding upright three horns of mead.

The old woman got up easily from the deep crouch and took the milking stool back to the tool pen and dusted her hands off. When they all had a horn of mead, the Mistress proposed a toast.

“To accomplishments, great and small.”

When she said it she looked deeply into Loki’s eyes, and then to Darcy’s. He had not yet had a chance to introduce Darcy and wondered what his wife would make of this woman. Her mind was being particularly quiet, or perhaps she was shielding herself for reasons he could not fathom. It did not panic him as much as it had in the past. Everyone was entitled to the privacy of their own minds, if they could maintain it. That his wife was beginning to be able to maintain hers was a source of pride for him that he had not yet shared with her.

After they drank to the toast, and an interesting toast at that, one which Loki noted Darcy only pretended to drink, Loki decided to try it and risk the Mistress’ annoyance. “May I introduce to you my wife, Mistress Oydis?” Loki asked, and waited for her answer. One was never rhetorical with a Mistress past the eighth gate, if one wished to stay where one was.

The older woman nodded.

“Darcy Jackdottir of Midgard.”

The Mistress held out her right arm, and Darcy tentatively clasped the older woman’s forearm.

“May your life be long and sweet, little one.” Loki kept his reactions masked, but noted in particular that she had given his wife a blessing… and also addressed her the same way she had addressed the lambs in her song.

He decided not to mention this last thing, either, unless his wife specifically requested it.

“Thank you, Mistress. It’s an honor to meet you.”

They released forearms and it was over as quickly as it had begun. Loki hid his shock at how well that went. Smoothly. No hint of the stubborn old sorceress he knew. And Mistress Oydis blessed her.

She’d never blessed him.

“Come,” the Mistress said, leading them now out of the barn. “We have three things to discuss, you and I.”

Three?

Loki was fairly certain there were only two things he needed to ask, and so he wondered what the third could be.

“Bring the least of your concerns to me first, Laughing Liar of Asgard, and I shall give you my response.”

Loki grinned at her, the epithet feeling like a deep endearment, now that he remembered the dream, and the fullness of the prophecy concerning him.

They began a gentle circuit around the farm fields as they talked.

“Midgard is becoming interesting again, and beginning to wake, as a whole. I have cast my lot with them as Ambassador from Asgard, and we have a significant area of land - a day’s wander, encircled - that is to be ours. But they are still a fractious and rageful lot, prone to attack in ways large and small. I wish to create a variant of the Jotunheim farming dome. I have done this already with the apprentices I now have on a smaller scale as it is necessary to be able to farm there, but I wish to do it on a larger one, for the protection of the compound and the people within it.”

“Defence begets offence. Separation is never the true answer, little one.”

Loki sighed. And now he was being referred to as a lamb. Was he acting like one? He didn’t think he’d been acting like one. Lovely. “I know, Mistress. But I see no way around it.”

“That is because you do not see clearly, yet.”

“Would you help me, all the same? And join with others in doing so?”

“Yes, little one. And now a topic of my choosing. You will bring to me the stone that the All-Father fears, and I will use it as a millstone.”

Loki continued walking, but speechlessly he gaped at his Mistress.

“That may be difficult, ma’am,” Darcy said quietly. “I tossed it in a really deep part of the ocean. On Midgard. A few months ago.”

“Why use it as a millstone, Mistress?” Loki asked with great politeness and tact.

“Because when I am done with it, that will be the only use it has left.” She grinned up at Loki’s look of astonishment. “Fear nothing in this world, little liar. Especially not a rock. It will present itself soon. And your second question. You need not stop time. We will not be overheard.”

“The Realm Killer has taken an interest in Midgard and all of Yggdrasil as his next set of targets. I would thwart his plans in the most complete way possible, by having the geis lifted from him. Is it possible?”

“Of course it is possible,” she said, grinning.

He paused a moment before asking his next question.

“Would I do it in the normal way of negotiations?”

“Not if you wish the outcome you prefer.” She was still grinning. It was less comforting now, though.

He paused again, even moreso this time.

“I would appreciate all of the advice you are willing to give, Mistress.”

“All of your skills and talents here will avail you only delay. You may call upon the essence of the eighth gate if you wish, and struggle mightily you will to finally reap your outcome, but you will have gained and lost in the same moment. Like father, like son. When you face an opponent, you have already lost, for you have named your brother ‘enemy’, and in that moment he is lost to you, and you to him.”

“Is there another way open to me?”

“Master your broken gate.”

Loki laughed ruefully. “That may take many long days yet, and I would have this task done quickly, as quickly as may be.”

“You ask. I answer. Your priorities are your own concern. And as for bringing me the stone, you may not touch it, nor your lady. Your brother alone must handle it, and you will accompany him. I would not recommend travelling with ease. You may not like what that does to the stone.”

“What is the nature of the stone, Mistress?” Loki asked, suddenly consumed with curiosity.

“Ha! That I will not say until it is naught but a millstone. Ask me again, then, and I will answer truly. Until then, think not of it if you wish to regain your gate masteries, for they are slipping, even now.” She shook her finger at him as they walked.

Loki blinked and shook himself. “It creates obsession,” he whispered.

“Among other things, with which you should not become obsessed. It will eat you, Loki. Especially you. Your brother sees through its madness with ease,” she said, gesturing blithely with one hand. “Let him carry the burden, and him alone.”

With that she left them. Their walk brought them exactly to the mouth of the path, where the apprentice met them to reclaim their drinking horns. Loki watched the Mistress return to her lambs to sing to them of their current fate, be it the roasting spit or the milking stool, and Loki turned and walked farther and farther away from the cottage. His arm was linked with Darcy’s as before, but the silence they shared was not nearly so pleasant now as his thoughts were in turmoil.

Loki brought them back to the hallway just outside the healer’s suite. They had an arrangement with Mistress Frete and this time it would be just Darcy and Loki to meet with her. They did not have to wait even a moment before they were ushered by the head of the healers to her private study.

Loki had never before gained admittance to this room. It was not an overly large room, but a warm and welcoming one nonetheless, filled with light and where wallspace permitted it, bright tapestries depicting flowers. One wall was filled, save the area of the large window, with bottles and tomes. There was a small high desk with a stool, a small work station, and several reasonably comfortable chairs circled around a low table, with a reclining couch as part of the circle. The low table was set with tea for one and water for two.

When they were settled it became clear that the tea was for Darcy. She tried it, and then tried not to make a face.

“I know. It is an acquired taste, but you will get used to it, Your Highness. You must drink three cups of this tea a day - early, mid day, and late. It will help to strengthen you, and you will need that strength.

“Now,” she addressed Loki as well, “I have done some reading and consulted with the healers of Alfheim. They say that the baby will stay cool enough without intervention, even with such a small amount of Elven blood. It is Princess Darcy we must keep warm. I have a variety of tokens for you. They are all to the same purpose, and the size is indicative of the amount of warmth they will convey. They should be put on the neck here, and here.”

“Oh, that is so visible,” Darcy muttered.

Loki intervened. “Would aught occur if they were temporarily placed in another area? There are certain taboos on Midgard against having such skin markings in certain very visible areas such as the face and neck, and I would not wish my wife to bear such scorn in public.”

Mistress Frete considered her answer for a moment. “For a bell or two nothing would come amiss, I would think. But they will not be as effective, and it will be necessary to use more. I would wish that Her Highness use as few as are effective, so that the baby will not be overtaxed. But you should use them in whatever combinations are necessary. When Her Highness finds she is using them all and still too cold, return to me. I am in the process of making larger and more intense ones now.

“Now, let me see, what else?” the Mistress asked rhetorically. “As the child matures, you will need to eat more and more. If you drink this tea it will also help to stimulate your appetite and calm your stomach. When you feel tired, rest. When you need to sleep, sleep. This will keep you strong, and Your Highness, you must maintain your strength. This was something the healers in Alfheim and I both quite agree on. Regardless of the Prince’s stature, you bear a half-giant. If you are careless of yourself, this pregnancy could go wrong. Quite tragically wrong for both you and the child.”

Loki’s stomach dropped.

“Is she unsafe?”

Mistress Frete met his eye for a long moment before answering. “No. She is not unsafe now, and she will remain safe throughout the bearing of your child so long as she takes reasonable precautions. She must eat when she is hungry, rest when she is tired. She must not ignore what her body tells her, when it tells her. If she is thoroughly sensible regardless of what others think, she will be fine. If she bows to any opinion other than the one I have expressed, she may not be fine, and what margin of danger she may court with her actions I could not say.”

Loki nodded. There was no deception within her, and she spoke to the best of her knowledge.

“Now, I’d like to check on the baby in just a moment, if you please. I’d like to check on you every ten days or so. Unless it is particularly convenient for you to come here, I shall travel to you. Our meetings will be brief, unless you have questions.”

Darcy nodded and squeezed Loki’s hand that she held.

The chief healer rose from her chair and approached Darcy, putting out her hand and placing it on her lower abdomen.

“Yes, quite healthy. Quite strong.”

Still with her hand on Darcy, she looked up to meet his wife’s troubled gaze. The healer smiled, and he was reminded that Mistress Frete was quite good friends with his mother. They had similar smiles that disarmed with peace.

“There is nothing to fear, Princess. All you need do is take care of yourself. The rest will follow.”

Darcy gave her a tight smile and their interview ended with his beloved tossing back the rest of the tea. Mistress Frete handed over a medium-sized box which must have contained the tea, and gave them strict instructions for the brewing of a single cup.

Loki gathered up the tokens that had been laid on the low table before him and silently offered to put a small one on Darcy. She flinched when it sank in, and then he saw her shoulders drop.

“Oh, that is so much better. I haven’t been warm for days.”

They both thanked Mistress Frete, and when they had left the healing rooms and were back out in the corridor, Darcy spoke. “Um, can we detour by our suite, please? The quick way?”

Loki squeezed her hand in answer and took them directly to the room he had so precipitously abandoned, which now, blessedly, he shared with his beloved. He helped her take off layer after layer, first the woolens, then the long coat, and finally the tall lined boots she had been favoring of late. She called her trunk to her and fiddled with her token for a moment, putting it in a bag, and then pulling out a light cotton garment that seemed to be the lovechild of a tunic and a coat. She donned it, along with a pair of Aesir slippers usually reserved for formal banquets. Once finished, he led her over to a couch and they both sat down.

“So,” she began, and he could feel the tumult of her thoughts. “I don’t suppose you would pause time? I mean, maybe you shouldn’t just for something like this, but I don’t want to eat into anymore of our massage time. I really like massage time. But I really need to talk to you about some stuff.”

Loki had taken them outside the flow of time as soon as she asked. “It is done.”

“Right. Yeah. Okay. So. I’ve never been super good at taking care of myself. And I’ve only ever noticed in hindsight. And regardless of the fact that you’re planning this grand negotiation with Death, I’d just as soon it not, you know, be on my behalf, too.”

Loki’s heart stuttered and he gathered her close. “No. No, no, no, no, no. This is not how you will die. We will make it easy for you to take care of yourself. You will learn as our child grows and be doubly blessed. And if you are become stubborn, I will remind you of this moment and beg you not to endanger your own life simply so that you may work another hour.”

“Promise?”

“I swear it. I swear it upon my mother’s love and my father’s wisdom. Later, we will talk with Natasha, Borghild, and Dagmar. We will make it clear what you need, and they will help you, too. You will be well, and you will be safe.”

She snuggled deeper into his embrace and after a few fumblings was sitting half on his lap. He leaned back on the comfortable couch and held her quietly, their minds and mouths both silent.

“You will be well, my darling.”

He felt her nod against his chest. I’m feeling better, she said in her mind and then he heard the echo of it in her voice muffled against his clothes. This, she did often, and each time Loki caught it he relished it. She more often than not spoke as she thought, with no deceptive filter in between.

“So,” she continued. “Wanna talk about what that little old sorceress of awesome had to say? I mean, as long as time is stopped and everything?”

Loki groaned, all sense of comfort abandoning him instantly. His head hit the back of the couch as he considered the position that Mistress Oydis had put him in.

Frigga would trust her judgment. Odin would not. So clearly, the Tesseract needed to be transported before the All-Father awoke. Which could be at any time. And if he woke before the Tesseract was safely a millstone, he might do all in his power to stop her, just out of sheer panic. And if they were to take three weeks to travel - which was destined, he knew, to be three extremely long weeks - that made the trip all the more urgent.

And then there were her words on his inevitable negotiation with Death. In which she stated outright that if he faced it as a standard diplomatic negotiation he would both win and lose, likely referencing Odin’s own notorious moment of the same, when he got what he wanted but lost his eye in the process.

None of this he wanted to admit to Darcy.

He groaned again.

“The urge to lie is so keen,” he whispered, feeling broken, and bound, and pulled apart all at the same time.

She shifted around and nudged him this way and that until she was straddling him, facing him on the couch. She stroked his face as she spoke, though he did not look up to meet her eye.

“You don’t have to tell me. I get that this is crazy, and complicated, and extremely stressful. And also,” here she took a deep breath and exhaled before she continued. “You don’t have to bear this alone. I’m stronger than you think I am, Loki of Asgard. And I can be even stronger, when you need me to be. So let’s start with the Tesseract. Is there anything you want to tell me about our upcoming roadtrip? I take it from what she said that I’m coming, too.”

He laughed ruefully, and he knew it was an ugly sound.

“There are no roads,” he pointed out spitefully, and with more energy than he had anticipated.

“Huh,” she said, apparently taking it in. “So, just… driving through the forest, following the map in your head?”

“ And through the mountain pass,” he added, again in an acidic tone.

“Okay, so how long does it take to get there?”

“Three weeks, on horseback,” he said in a whisper, thinking of three weeks sleeping at night on the ground under the stars between his brother and his wife. They had been doing so well, too. Beginning to rebuild their friendship. But three weeks in his constant company? With only his wife to come between them, a thing he was determined would not happen for the sake of his sanity?

“Horseback. Okay. Sure. It wouldn’t be an adventure if we weren’t on horseback.” Are you sure Asgard is an advanced civilization?

Loki laughed ruefully. “Oydis lives three weeks from the nearest town because she does not wish to be disturbed by anyone who does not truly need to seek her out. And she can travel with ease. She was the one who taught me how. And taught my mother.”

“Okay. So, we’re camping. This is fine. We can camp.”

“And hunt. And fish. And prepare our meals over a fire. And be constantly hungry. And haul water. And get rained on in the middle of the night.”

“Mmm, no. I veto that idea. I veto all of those ideas. Question for you. During those three weeks, do you imagine yourself, with the deft use of some time stoppage, nipping back once or twice a day and meditating with your apprentices, and giving them the lessons you’re responsible for?”

Loki thought about that for a moment. “Yes, I could still do that without delaying progress.”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought. So, here’s what we’re going to do. For you, and me, and Thor, and whoever else is going with us, because there will be others, because for the sake of your stress level I’m not going to be alone with Thor -” and here Loki felt his shoulders sink in gratitude for her forbearance, “- every morning and evening you’re going to stop by the palace kitchens to pick up and drop off a crate of supplies. And we’ll carry what we need to with us throughout the day. And I will introduce you to the waterproof Coleman Tent, and battery-operated air mattresses.”

His beautiful, inventive love. How he adored her.

“We shall have to do this very, very soon.”

“Am I going to need to reschedule the first round of billionaires?”

“Perhaps not the first, but those thereafter… yes.”

“That’s not a problem. We can do that. Are we doing this on the downlow, or are you telling Frigga?”

“I will secure the All-Mother’s permission.”

“Okay! This is not a problem. We can do this. Let’s talk about Death. Anything you wanna mention about your upcoming negotiations? Sounded like she thought you should reach Enlightenment first.”

Loki laughed and for the first time looked at his darling wife.

“We don’t have time for that,” he said both ominously and with regret. “The movement of the Tesseract is likely to get the Realm Killer’s attention. I will shield it the best I can, but there are no guarantees that any of my efforts will fool him in the slightest. The destruction of the Tesseract is guaranteed to get his attention, and there is no way I can shield that from anyone with the capacity to observe. If I thought it possible, I would negotiate with Death before we take the stone. I don’t know if I can, and I don’t exactly know what will be involved, or how long it will take. As it is, if the Mistress consents, I would begin the moment it is a millstone as the rest are encamped near her cottage. If need be you could take people back to the capital and do such supply runs as may be necessary, but in truth there is no place safer for you than in the company of Mistress Oydis.”

“Okay. Well, no matter what, we have to wait for it to resurface, right? I mean, we’re not going down to get it, right?”

“No, we’ll need to fetch it, but not from the ocean.”

This time it was Darcy who gave a little grunting groan.

“Okay, okay, this is fine. As soon as it surfaces we’ll reschedule the weekends to accommodate that, and until then we’ll just continue on. No harm, no foul. Right? Right, Loki?”

His head thumped back onto the cushions behind him.

“Right,” he said, his voice tired.

“What do you need to do to prepare for these two things, and is there anything I can do to help?”

Loki held her close and lifted his head once more to bury it in her neck. She was so kind, and so giving, and he loved her so much.

To answer her question, he was brief. “I must study and meditate. If I could rely on you to make the preparations for our travel, I would be most grateful. Have you travelled on horseback?”

“I’ve been on a horse,” she admitted with a smile, her tone still so light, so contented. “Once.”

“We will ride while we are here, and every time we visit, and see if we cannot get you quite familiar with it. For planning purposes, and Thor can also guide you and your staff as you consider provisions, you want to burden the horse as little as necessary with weight. So feel free to store as much as possible in your trunk, my store, and Thor has a similar bag I made him once, if he has not lost it. But fresh food may not go into the store. Preserved food may - smoked meats, jerkies, and so on. But I’m quite fond of your idea for the crate of supplies. Thor will scoff, but I will remind him that you are pregnant, and the rigors of adventure are not for you right now.”

She deflated in his arms. “Oh. Shit. Right. I totally forgot. Oh my god I’m such an idiot. And how are we going to do this if I need to rest? Or eat at weird times? Or take a nap?”

Loki held her tighter.

“Whenever we stop, we can prepare your bed first and you can nap while we rest the horses and prepare the food. And whenever you are tired and need to rest, you have only to tell me and I will take you up in front of me and… come to think of it, let us consider you may simply ride that way part of the time. That way you will be free to rest whenever you like. And if you wish to ride alone, you may do so. When we are at the stables I will advise you on which sort of horses and tack we’ll need.”

“You sure it’s not going to be an issue to ride double?”

Loki’s smile was a slow thing. “To hold you in my arms for hours while we talk, or while you snooze and I meditate? Do you really think this will be such a trial for me?”

“You put it like that and it seems obvious,” she admitted ruefully, lifting her head from his chest and meeting his eyes. “Thanks for making accomodations for me.”

“I could do nothing less,” he answered honestly.

She snuggled back into his embrace for a long moment before he heard her speak.

“You ready for a massage? Because I could totally be ready for a massage.”

Chapter Text

‘Don’t.’

Darcy had just groaned with happiness as her muscles were being pounded and was about to ask the Romanovs how the healing went, when Loki mentally cautioned her.

‘It was an emotionally exhausting thing for them, to be healed in ways they never thought they would be. And now they worry they can’t maintain it, for the healer’s instructions were exact. Inquire of Natasha in private. And possibly discuss this eventuality for the billionaire’s itinerary. But not now, dear one.’

Oh. Right.

Darcy kept her questions to herself. At first it was surprisingly hard not to make a bit of conversation, not to discuss whatever came into her head with whomever was at hand to answer her questions, and that surprised her.

Instead of dwelling on it too much, she decided to take a deep breath and let it go. She was growing and changing, and she had always preferred to be kind over inquisitive.

Instead of dwelling, she decided to thoroughly enjoy her massage. There was no rule that said she had to work all the time, or that she had to keep working and planning through even a massage. And wasn’t the whole point of taking care of herself during the pregnancy (and arguably learning to take care of herself beyond the pregnancy) to not squeeze just a little more work in to every possible moment? Or something like that?

Exactly.

So she rested for something almost like two hours, working diligently not to think of death, Death, birth, children, giants, elves, realm killers, or little old witches with cottages in the woods.

And then they were on horseback. It was decided that there would always be an alternative in the itinerary for those who could not or wished not to ride, and as well for those who were capable riders, and those who had greater desire than skill. At the stable they had met with a variety of individuals, including the horse master, the weapons master, the training master, and the head of the palace guard, which was different from the head of Odin’s guard, and the head of Frigga’s guard. 

When Clint had turned to Loki and dryly asked him who was the head of his guard, Darcy couldn’t restrain a snort of laughter when Loki informed him, “You are.”

The Romanovs both had a comfort on horseback that Darcy did not yet have, and so Loki led her horse, and the group at large, on a gentle walk around areas that Darcy had only ever seen in passing.

Dagmar and Borghild were sent on various errands to request meetings and information around the palace, and they would meet up at the next stop on the itinerary, a meal in one of the palace gardens.

“We need to put in a lot more time for changes of clothes, and maybe pausing for showers or baths. Not everyone wants to go to lunch smelling of horse,” Natasha pointed out. “And if the days are going to be longer, we’re going to want to rethink how often we feed people. But that’s easy. Here’s something harder: are we going to let them shop in the market we passed by on our way in?”

Clint groaned. “That’s a barrel of monkeys. You sure you want to open it?”

“Barring the issues of currency exchange, what harm could come from it?” Loki asked, proving the occasional depth of his naivete.

 Darcy let out a deep breath which ended up sounding like a fatalistic sigh. Her gut said it was a bad idea, but her brain had yet to catch up with the reasons why that might be. “Okay, pros and cons. Go first, Natasha.”

“Pro, we set the exchange rate. We set the duty. We set the purchase limit. We set the fines when they try to lie about how much they’re bringing back. Con, we have no power over what they do with their purchases on their return, and that would necessarily produce a bidding war on eBay of previously unheard levels for even the smallest item if they’re intelligent about it.”

“Think some of the stuff might exceed the purchase price of the weekend?” Darcy asked.

“Easily,” Natasha responded. “And from what you and Borghild have said about magical items and the dangers of using them as even improvised weapons for the most basic and broadest view of attack, humans obviously cannot be trusted with even the most mundane item if it has been charmed in some way. So those would be barred from purchase or removal and that’s what average people would want the most. So then if you forbid the purchase of certain items, you create unbridled desire. Whereas if you focus on the fact that we are providing an experience and there will be souvenirs as part of that experience that they can take home - and sell on eBay, if they so desire - and point out that trade, with all of its attendant regulations and tariffs, has not yet been established between Midgard and the rest of Yggdrasil, therefore shopping is not yet allowed, then you create a more distant hope that is easier to manage. All said, I vote for no shopping.”

And then Clint spoke. His voice was soft, but audible. “Not to mention there’s a higher incidence of sociopaths and narcissists among billionaires, and they’re known for generally thinking rules are for other people. If you give them an inch, they’ll take a mile. Better not to give them an inch.”

Darcy nodded. “Well, that explains Tony Stark.”

Natasha shook her head. “Nothing explains Tony Stark, Princess.”

Darcy snorted and nodded again. “But I like the points you both make. It’s all too messy right now. But we should enforce the same rules across all visits of this sort. Equal pay, equal access, kind of thing.”

“Definitely,” Natasha agreed.

Darcy looked over to Loki, who was on her right, her horse pacing his exactly. “I bow to your insight.” He glanced over to Natasha. “Thank you, Mrs. Romanov, Rooftop.”

“You’re welcome, Your Highness.”

“Oh. Possibly pertinent,” Darcy added. “Natasha, an opinion, please. Is it better to have the first weekend as scheduled, but then postpone the rest at least by nine weeks, but possibly three or more months, or to simply push all of them back by the same, unknown amount of time?”

“Better to postpone them all. Otherwise speculation will run rampant and negativity will be assumed. I can see the headlines now. No, no, better to postpone them all with the excuse of an unavoidable diplomatic errand from the throne, so long as you can both remain out of the public eye for much of that time. I mean, if you don’t mind lying.”

Darcy laughed.

Is it time to tell them? she asked Loki in her head.

Loki switched their conversation over to English, rather than how they had been conversing previously - in the Common Tongue. It was blatantly obvious, because in the Common Tongue he sounded American and in English he had that British accent she’d come to love. Darcy idly wondered why that was.

“How much do you know of the fate of the Tesseract, Mr. & Mrs. Romanov?” he inquired, tossing a playful smile over his shoulder that Darcy also saw.

There was a beat before Natasha replied. Darcy wondered if that was her moment to stop herself from lying.

“We know that the Princess and Fury, and Thor took it somewhere. And that Dr. Foster made it sinkable. If it were me, I’d opt for the most inaccessible part of the ocean. But probably not the deepest, because that’s a focus of attention. Maybe the third deepest.”

Darcy gave her husband a silent look and a shrug. Loki laughed, probably at her somewhat comic face. Possibly at the situation. Maybe because that would be how it would come back to them sooner rather than later.

“I know, for instance, that James Cameron has a big documentary in the works right now, Challenger Deep, that is going down to that part of the Marianas Trench.” And then Natasha added with great nonchalance that Darcy hoped to one day imitate, “So, we’ll be retrieving it soon, then?”

This time Darcy laughed, too. She almost face-palmed, but restrained the urge and felt extremely adult for doing so.

“And that’s why we’ll be gone for nine weeks at some point in the near future?”

“Quite,” Loki said, still laughing.

“So how are we getting it back?”

Darcy snorted. “Something tells me it’s going to be waiting for us when we return.”

And Loki laughed.

“You don’t actually mean at the compound, do you?” Clint asked, looking for all the world like the Marlboro Man, sans hat and tobacco.

“I’ll take a stab in the dark,” Darcy said, “and guess that Mr. Nick Fury doesn’t want James Cameron to be playing with a toy he’s not allowed to have, either.” She turned to her husband. “I’ll send Jane a note in the next post and ask her to alert us immediately through the gatekeeper if Mr. Fury should show up with a spherical cow.”

Loki’s eyebrows furrowed for a moment as Darcy and Natasha led the laughter. Soon all but the horses had joined in, however.

They rode in silence after the laughter died away. Darcy spoke to the bodyguards. “Okay, but for reals, yo. As soon as we can fetch the tesseract and make the preparations here and there, we need to take the angry rock that wants to kill everyone on an extended roadtrip to the gingerbread cottage where it will be neutralized. We’ll be glamping with a combination of the best of earth tech and magical supply runs to the palace kitchens. And horses. There will also be horses.”

Clint asked the obvious. “Are we going to be on horseback for nine weeks, or four and a half?”

“Three,” Loki said.

After a moment that sank in. “You built in three times the contingency? Are we going to have to get past dragons or something?”

“And what will we need to do to make sure the rock doesn’t kill everyone during the three weeks of transport?” Natasha, ever practical, asked.

“Only allow Thor to hold it,” Loki responded.

“That’s… your plan?” Clint asked, and then belatedly tacked on, “Your Highness?”

“No,” Loki responded blithely and with utter truth. “But it will work. And no, the only dragons we shall encounter will be those we bring with us.”

“I really don’t like the sound of that, Yoda,” Natasha muttered.

“Yeah,” Clint responded softly, drawing out the word. “Me, neither.”

The day had been extremely long, more than twenty small assumptions Darcy and Natasha had unwittingly made had been dispelled, they’d taken some great documentary-style video to be edited later, they’d had a quiet dinner on some tables set up in the palace library, and they had retired to bed.

Sort of.

Because the Queen had sent a message that she would visit them before they slept, and so there had been some light chit-chat as she seemed to be assessing how their visit was so far, and Darcy considered, waiting to drop whatever bomb she’d come with. Because one thing that could be said about a meeting in their palace apartment just before bedtime - it was entirely private.

When they had finished detailing what tomorrow would look like, it seemed Frigga had heard her cue.

The Queen smiled. “In that case, I would have you attend me but briefly for the second bell after tomorrow’s breakfast.”

“So early?” her husband asked with a smile on his face. Since Darcy had no idea at what time breakfast was typically served, she couldn’t possibly comment. Except that slightly over two hours after breakfast didn’t seem shockingly early to have meetings and start the work of the day, whatever it was.

“It will suit our purposes,” she said mysteriously. Which didn’t say much, as Frigga was often mysterious. Beautiful. Happy. Serene. And damned crafty. It was part of what Darcy really liked about her mother-in-law.

“I will send for Dr. Foster as well. She must also attend me, as well as you both. I have waited as long as I may. I must do it. It would not bode well if I left the responsibility to Odin.”

Darcy was used to being in the dark. She had, after all, spent the majority of the day on a foreign planet. She tried not to ask questions and interrupt when it seemed like she was the only one who didn’t understand.

But now was the exception.

“What’s happening tomorrow two bells after breakfast?”

“I try your would-be assassin. Thor the Banished cannot be officially recognized by the Throne and therefore he may not bear witness. But you and Jane must do so. To have but one witness would be suspect under our laws, though in the case of an attempt at assassination it is sometimes necessary.”

Darcy’s stomach bottomed out and she suddenly wished she hadn’t eaten as much as she had at dinner.

“Um. Do you guys have… minimum sentencing? I mean, do you know in advance, if he’s guilty, that you must pass at least a certain level of judgment?”

Frigga shook her head in the negative. “There are common sentences, but mercy is a much hoped for quality in a judge. How could a judge provide mercy when appropriate if bound to rules about what sentence must be passed?”

“Just checking,” Darcy said, trying to hide her relief and her continuing nausea. Loki had reported back some months ago that he had talked the Winter Soldier into joining their bodyguards when he was well, but Darcy had no idea if he would make it through Frigga’s court. Or the Aesir court, really. And had Loki even told his mother his plans? Darcy seemed to recall that Frigga was always out of the loop, which made sense why she was then making her own plans, and entirely circumnavigating Odin and however he might adjudicate.

How does one tactfully ask about this?

Loki! Is she going to kill him? Does she know about the bodyguard plan? You better be listening to me, buddy. Also, I’m feeling nauseous and I think I need to call it a night. Soonish.

Loki smiled at her, and then spoke aloud. “One of the common sentences for a repentant murderer is of service to the family for a certain length of time. Is this something you would consider, Mother?”

“Yes,” she said calmly, leaning back on her sofa before the fire in Loki and Darcy’s shared quarters and sipping her horn of mead. “Then again, he has just ended a period of repugnant servitude. In this case it may not be appropriate, or merciful. What has been done in the service of apprehending those who pulled this puppet’s strings?”

“I helped the organization to disband, and I understand that the head of the organization committed suicide upon his capture.”

Frigga nodded and Darcy momentarily forgot her own discomfort, remembering that Loki had made all of HYDRA collectively vomit and thus identify themselves to S.H.I.E.L.D.. She grinned, amused at how far Loki could go using magic offensively before it was technically called ‘attack’. He, of course, maintained that he was helping them with a spiritual and physical cleanse, of which stomach flu-like symptoms were standard. Then again, he’d said it all with a rather looped-out grin, so it was hard to tell exactly where he was stretching the truth. He still had his magic, though, so it must have been a truth in essence.

“I am glad to hear it,” Frigga said. “He has hastened himself on to his next life and has there his work ready for him. And I am glad, too, that you have brought the organization to their knees. Anyone who thinks killing you is the best option clearly has confused priorities. Now, before I take my leave of you, I believe you have a rather significant request to make?”

Darcy blinked and wondered what she meant. And was it just her imagination that Loki tensed beside her?

“Mistress Oydis wishes to make a millstone, and she has required that Thor, myself, and Darcy bring her the raw materials. To be honest, Rasserstein.”

Until her dying day, Darcy would not forget Frigga’s reaction to that news.

Frigga narrowed her eyes, tilted her head, looked off into the middle distance, and then burst out laughing.

With her head flung back and laughing as she went, the Queen crowed something in a language Darcy’s translation spell could not accommodate. When Darcy looked to Loki for assistance, her never-speechless husband’s jaw was gaping slightly.

No help there.

Darcy instead decided to simply stare at her mother-in-law with an I-don’t-get-the-joke smile on her face and expectant eyes. After a while, it worked.

“So that’s where Mjolnir comes from!” the Queen translated, laughter still lacing her voice.

And Darcy was confused again. But harder this time.

Jane had a surprising amount of mail from Asgard to read over her breakfast. She read the note from Darcy first, mostly because Darcy had addressed it like she was sending it on Earth, and thus Jane knew who it was from. The other was an unmarked scroll, except for her name on the outside.

I have no idea what day it is.

Jane,

Naturally things have come up. Nothing to hamper the billionaire’s weekend in the long run (and all of the funding it entails for the both of us), but a few things on the horizon. First, if Fury comes knocking with a spherical cow no longer in a frictionless vacuum, call to Heimdall to alert us immediately. We need to take it back to Asgard asap.

Second, we’ll also need to borrow Thor for a few months some time very soon. I hope it’s not too inconvenient. I’ll send him a separate letter with instructions, and provided that all goes well (and I have no plans for it not to go well) we’ll be able to tell you all sorts of interesting things when we get back.

It’s been crazy here. But seriously, sometime after we return Thor, we should consider some kind of girls only spa weekend on Asgard. You, me, Natasha, Sharon, Frigga. It could be fun. I might need some fun at that point.

I did get some magical heating, fyi. I know you were worried about me. More details on this front, soon, too. But I am under proper medical supervision.

Hugs,

Darcy

Jane sighed and wondered if she would ever really, actually, get the full story on the glowing rock of destruction. Well, she assumed it was a matter of destruction. Most apocalyptic scenarios were about destruction, in the end, and it seemed the glowbug was a part of one of those scenarios.

Jane sighed again and filed it under Magical Mysteries: Glowing Rocks of Doom. That done, she sipped some of the kale juice that was really beginning to grow on her and opened the other letter.

To the Doctor Foster, greetings from Frigga, Mistress of the Ninth Gate, All-Mother of Yggdrasil, Queen Regent of the Golden Throne, Patroness of the Institute of Science and Sorcery on Midgard.

We hope this letter finds you in good health and flourishing with your research and plans. Another time, perhaps, we shall gather to discuss them.

Your witness is required at the trial of the accused Bucky of Midgard, the Winter Soldier. The trial will be held seventeen hours from the original delivery of this letter. Guards will be sent to assist your travel and that of your entourage. Ceremonial armor and weaponry is appropriate to bear. You may expect your required presence to be brief and upset the organization of your day minimally.

May your travel be easy.

Jane dropped the letter in her eggs and called to the nearest apprentice. “Find out what time the most recent mail delivery from Asgard occurred,” she said, dreading what the answer would be. Removing the letter from her eggs, she ate them instead and reread the letter. It really was quite formal, but it was from a reigning monarch, so that made sense.

Ragnhild and Fiske approached her only moments later. 

“Excuse me, ma’am.”

Jane nodded, having gotten used to their unfailing politeness. It was kind of nice.

“Fiske is on mail duty, Dr. Foster. He says the trunk from Asgard came around dinner time last night, or a little after dinner time last night. But he’s not sure when.”

Jane groaned on the inside. She was really going to need to get someone on the task of creating a program that kept track of Asgard Central Time. Darcy said she would measure how long the day was, as Loki had simply indicated that it was longer by some mysterious amount of minutes. The inexactness of it made Jane unreasonably frustrated. At least, she assumed it was an unreasonable amount of frustration. Really, it should just be another interesting scientific observation to make.

She sighed and then mentally sighed again when the apprentices visibly cringed.

“No, no, no, I’m not upset with you. You’ve both done very well. Thank you very much. You may return to your breakfast.” She smiled at them, knowing it didn’t quite make it to her eyes. Well, it was the best she could do.

So. Seventeen hours. Did Frigga measure hours the same way Earth did? Was Frigga the one doing a lot of math to make it easier on Jane’s understanding? Or was ‘hours’ actually a translated word for the nearest equivalent concept which might not be the same chronological measurement?

And Jane couldn’t actually tell the difference between reading English and reading the Common Tongue through the English translation spell.

If hours just meant hours, then seventeen hours from around seven in the evening was around noon. If hours meant hours. 

Jane tapped the rolled scroll on the table as she ate the rest of her toast and thought about things. Drinking the last of her kale juice, she caught Thor’s eye as he was about to leave his table, tablet in hand.

“Yes, Doctor?” Thor greeted her, his accent and choice of words making it clear that he didn’t have his translation spell back in place yet.

“I received a letter from the All-Mother, and I need to know if it was written in English, or in the Common Tongue.” Jane handed over the scroll with a straight face. She knew this might be difficult for him to bear emotionally, but she absolutely did not want to give the apprentices anything else to gossip about. They were about to see her go to Asgard in ceremonial armor anyway. That would be enough. They might end up seeing her wander around the Enclosure doing work and waiting until the right time wearing ceremonial armor if Jane’s math was wrong, however, and that was something that she would try to avoid.

Then again, she could just go early, and wait there. Maybe have an informative conversation with Heimdall. Yes, that was a much better idea, really.

No reaction showed on Thor’s face when he took the paper from her. He glanced quickly at the contents and Jane would have bet a month’s salary that he hadn't even tried to read it, just to look at a few words. In that moment she loved him, a little. And then was horror struck at her own thoughts.

“Not English, Doctor.”

He handed back the letter. 

She nodded. “Alright, then. Once you get your language token, I need to talk with you. Also, I’ll need your help getting dressed. Uh… I mean, putting armor on.”

Thor’s look askance was brief and fleeting.

“The trial is today,” Jane murmured, not knowing if Thor would be able to understand the word ‘trial’. 

His look was blank. She’d tell him again later.

“Go. Thank you for your help. I’ll see you later,” she said, enunciating clearly.

He nodded and left the table.

Jane poured herself more kale juice. She folded her letters together and breathed deeply, remembering the meditation Loki took her through months ago, the one with the white light. She didn’t allow herself to be distracted by the growing fear about the fate of her would-be killer, especially now that she’d learned a bit more about him. She hadn’t asked for details - the idea of the torture and slavery he’d been subject to was quite enough without knowing about the minute data points. But it did put Darcy’s innate compassion in perspective. And made Jane feel slightly guilty about her somewhat callous initial reaction.

But he had tried to kill them all, she reminded herself.

She took another deep breath and pulled the white light closer, feeling calmer and calmer  and still even calmer than she’d had in the last week, since she’d last done the meditation.

And then Sharon approached.

The former S.H.I.E.L.D. agent bent over and whispered in her ear. “Jane, security at the front gate just alerted me. Director Fury has arrived and he’s asking for the Ambassador, or the Princess, if he’s unavailable. Will you meet with him? He doesn’t seem particularly happy.”

“Is he ever happy?” Jane muttered back just before downing the last of her second glass of green good stuff.

“Not that I’ve noticed,” Sharon murmured in return.

“Yeah, okay, let’s go.”

Jane pocketed the letters and left her table only to have an apprentice sweep her dirty dishes away as Sharon spoke quietly into her walkie talkie.

As the two women left the building and started the brisk five minute walk to the front gate, Jane sighed again. “Did security happen to mention if he was carrying anything with him?”

Sharon shook her head as she answered. “No, they didn’t mention.”

“So, I’m going to Asgard briefly at some point today, and I’m not taking Thor with me. I’d like to take you. Are you game? It’ll be brief, and you may not see much. But Darcy has invited us on a girls only spa day weekend in Asgard sometime in the next couple of months that might make up for that. Thoughts?”

“Hell, yeah.” Sharon’s words were spicy, but her tone was still quite even.

“Queen Frigga may join us.”

“If it doesn’t bother you, it doesn’t bother me,” Sharon said calmly. Then again, she was always extremely chill, Jane had noticed. Not for the first time, Jane wondered about how Sharon had been as an agent. She was so much calmer than Natasha seemed to be, and less overtly deadly than Clint. Had she been a librarian?

A librarian with a gun.

Jane was fine with that.

She was considering which bit of her schedule she’d need to reorganize and discussing it quietly with Sharon as they approached the gate. A large black SUV with dark tinted windows stood idling there. 

One of the back windows of the SUV slid smoothly down and Director Fury pulled his sunglasses down slightly so that he could, arrogantly, Jane thought, look at her over them.

“Good morning, Dr. Foster. I understand you’re the best I’m going to get, today. May I have a word with you in private?”

The driver’s door opened and the chauffeur got out, walked around the car, and opened the back door for her.

Jane had a brief flash of nerves. She’d seen movies where things like this happened. She was confidant, however, that Sharon probably wouldn’t let Fury kill her, even if he was particularly annoyed.

“Uh, yeah, okay.”

If only Jane had been able to be graceful about getting into the SUV. Alas, she was clumsy, her shoe got caught awkwardly, she had to stop and restart not once but twice, and eventually got settled. The intimidating man across from her was utterly silent and probably judging her. No, definitely judging her. And when she looked up, finally, she noticed there was… a metal case at his feet. She’d made a similar one sinkable not too long ago.

Dammit.

“I see you’ve noticed why I’m here. What you may not notice is that there is an invisible, unbreakable chain connected from the handle of this case to my wrist. And I will not let it go except to the Ambassador.”

Jane blinked, and stared at the handle, and then stared at his wrist. Then the handle. Then his wrist. Was he being dramatic? Would he do that? He probably had access to technology that a year ago would make her drool, but now she really had enough on her plate to research. But the idea was really quite fascinating, and with the right application of nanotechnology you could actually make an essentially invisible, unbreakable cord, except it would easily slice through your wrist and the handle, unless of course it was connected to something quite visible and a good deal thicker, like maybe a watch band and the handle itself, but no, Director Fury wasn’t wearing a watch, and the watch band would have to be quite special anyway--

“It’s a figure of speech, Dr. Foster. But I’m really not giving this thing to anyone else, period. And I’d rather not wait. This window of opportunity is open only briefly, before I change my mind.”

Jane blinked. She filed Unbreakable Nano Cords under Pet Projects To Consider and moved on.

“He’s not here right now. But I can take you to him.”

“Excellent. That’s an answer I like to hear.”

“How do you feel about travelling to Asgard?”

There was a brief moment of silence in the car.

“How delightful. I can’t wait,” he said, but Jane didn’t really think he meant it.

“Good. Um, I can be ready to go in about a half an hour. I hope that works for you.”

“Delightful,” he said again, his voice taking on a lower timbre.

“Yeah, okay, I’ll go now. Um, can I show you to the refectory? Get you a cup of coffee while you wait? I have a few things I need to do before we go.” 

“Thank you, no. I’ll wait here,” he said politely.

“Yeah, okay. Great. I’ll have someone come escort you in a bit, then.” And then she nervously laughed.

Jane took a deep breath and got out of the SUV. As she walked with Sharon away from it, back towards the residence trailers, she started making mental lists out loud.

“Okay, so here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to Asgard early, bring paper, pen, stopwatch, ruler, actually we might want to do video recordings of the tests we’re going to be doing, so a small tripod if we have one. Thermometer, wind gauge, we’ll get permission later to set up a permanent weather recording station somewhere in the capital city to start getting data. A protractor and some string. Let’s also bring the audio recording stuff so if I can snag some interviews with Heimdall we can get that on tape, too. I also want to get some recordings of the bifrost in action, okay, but anyway. If you can think of anything else that could be useful, bring it, but no modern weapons. Knives are okay. At some point soon I’ll see about getting you some of the more traditional ones they carry on Asgard, for when you’re there. I don’t know if Darcy has thought to do that for Natasha, but if not, I’ll point it out to her. It’s better to honor their culture and blend in, but I wouldn’t want you to feel naked.” Sharon and Jane shared a small grin. “I have to get dressed in my ceremonial stuff, and I still don’t actually know how to put the armor on, so before you assemble the goods, if you could just find Thor and send him to me. I told him I’d need him for this soon. Oh, and we’re taking Mr. Fury with us, but just so he can deliver something sensitive to Loki, and then we’ll send him back again. We’ll be staying for, well, possibly a few hours while I wait for something the Queen needs me for, and that’s when we can take some measurements and do some interviews. Anyway, grab what you can, and what you need for yourself, and maybe a couple bottles of water, and I’ll meet you at the bifrost site in thirty minutes.”

“Got it,” Sharon said, splitting off and jogging to her next destination, pulling out her walkie talkie as she went.

Jane washed her face in the reasonably luxurious bathroom of her quarters and threw on all the clothes she remembered wearing for Darcy and Loki’s wedding. She’d only put her hair back in a ponytail because, really, that was all she was good for without someone else doing it for her. And Thor’s knock came when she was putting on the tall, complicated leather boots.

“Come in!”

He did, and immediately the space seemed significantly smaller. Jane was determined not to think about the fact that there might have been just one or two fantasies about his presence in this trailer.

Instead of anything of the sort happening, he helped her to arm herself silently, asking no questions. Eventually, she remembered to tell him about Darcy’s request.

“Loki will need you to do something with him soon. I don’t know how soon, but I’d guess given other developments, quite soon. Darcy said it would be a couple of months. You might want to pack your trunk now, and feel free to take all those books we’ve been talking about. And snag all six solar chargers, three extra tablets, and you might as well download all the language modules that you can into them, now. They won’t be able to sync while you’re gone, but at least you’ll get to practice. Don’t worry about neglecting your other reading, or the math, if you have an opportunity to be language intensive while you’re gone.”

Finally he spoke, as he fastened the weapons belt around her waist and rearranged her scarves. His voice was soft and calm. He really was a different man from the one she first met a few months ago. Jane idly wondered how much longer he would need to stay with her. Quite unexpectedly, she felt a pang in and about the region of her heart that she immediately decided to ignore. “Do you think I will be leaving immediately?”

“Not sure,” she said, blithely ignoring any feelings she may or may not have on the subject, because what if this was the prelude to him leaving for good? It could be. He’d grown that much, Jane thought. But if that were the case, she’d probably be able to see him at least once more, to say goodbye. She mentally shook herself again, because she was not thinking about this. She was not. “But anything’s possible, and it’s better to be prepared. If not immediately, then I think you’ll pretty shortly be told exactly when.”

For some reason Jane just didn’t want to mention the Tesseract. It was almost as if… if she said something out loud about it, something unknown but irrevocably bad would happen. Worse than the inevitable of Thor leaving and going back to being Crown Prince of Asgard, whatever that entailed. Obviously, not much, since Loki seemed to be ignoring whatever it was. Unless this ‘borrowing Thor for a few months’ was actually a part of that.

“I will prepare immediately, my lady. I thank you for the warning.”

“You’re welcome, Thor. I think we’re done here, and thank you for that, too. Will you alert front gate security to have someone escort Director Fury to the bifrost scar and wait for his immediate return? I’ll be right along, and I’ll be back sometime this afternoon.”

“Of course, Dr. Foster.”

And then he left. And Jane wondered if she’d ever see him again.

“Oh, for the love of Jesus.”

An insistent knocking on the other side of their bedroom door did not abate, no matter how Darcy cursed.

Loki was up and had pants on just as Darcy was snuggling deeper underneath the covers, pretending there was no interruption at what felt like four in the morning. Certainly it was still dark out.

There was some murmuring at the door before it shut and Loki was back and sitting on the edge of the bed in what felt like an instant. Possibly, because she had fallen asleep again.

“Are you fully awake, dear one?” he asked gently.

“Unfortunately,” she grumbled.

“It seems the rage stone that my father fears has been found and brought back to Asgard.” Darcy’s heart began to pound as she blinked several times and struggled to sit up despite the comfy covers. “Director Fury has accompanied it. Except of course that I may not touch it, and I dare not even do so briefly. So I will fetch Thor, accept the stone, and we will finish our weekend of making preparations for the itinerary you have worked so hard on, even as we make preparations to take the stone to Mistress Oydis.”

Darcy blinked.

“That was quick,” she said slowly. “That was, like, super quick.” Darcy blinked some more. Her speech was slow and measured, but her brain was ticking over relatively quickly. “Wait, no, hold on. Okay. Lemme think a second. This is more important and we can figure out the rest of the itinerary when we return. And I can’t imagine Thor or Frigga wanting Thor to be hanging around the palace while we do our thing.” She took a deep breath and thought for a moment more before continuing on. “I’ll send the Romanovs back after breakfast to get what we need, and what they need, for our trek, and to postpone the weekends, and I’ll sort out the kitchen and stable requirements with Borghild and Dagmar after the trial. We should be able to leave this afternoon, since we’ll be coming back for supplies at least daily.”

Loki grinned at her. “You are a marvel, and I love you.”

“Yeah, yeah. I’m going back to sleep now,” she replied, flopping back down onto the pillows.

He kissed her, was dressed, and left the room by way of the door, apparently intending to walk rather than apparate.

And Darcy lay awake for several long moments, adrenaline and cortisol flooding her system, until she reluctantly got up to start her day.

She read for three hours, lounging on a couch before the empty fireplace. Loki had returned after a while, bringing a tray with some baked rolls and cheese and a pot of tea of some description and had joined her in reading.

A knock on the door signalled Dagmar’s appearance and she, too, bore a tray with the first cup of medicinal tea of the day for Darcy, and some toast.

“Dagmar,” Darcy said, addressing her teenaged maid, “We’ll all be going on an adventure soon, possibly as soon as this afternoon, so all the plans we had for today have been scrapped. Please let Borghild know that I’d like to have the two of you join me at breakfast today so we can discuss what needs to be done. After breakfast, I need to attend to some matters with the Queen and Prince Loki, but then after that I’ll be available for more questions, and to help you, or possibly get in your way while you make preparations with Borghild.”

Dagmar nodded and asked if she needed any assistance before breakfast, but Darcy was fairly confident she could convince Loki to put her armor on. As it turned out, she was right and it wasn’t long before the two made their leisurely way down to breakfast, picking up the Romanovs two floors below.

Over breakfast the six of them put their heads together to discuss the plan and though Loki obliquely mentioned in passing that the seven travellers might number eight, he never actually said, ‘oh, and I’ll be bringing our would-be assassin along,’ which was just as well because the trial had yet to occur. By the end of breakfast the list of glamping supplies had been created, the list of daily supplies had been created, and everyone had their respective tasks. Natasha would take Darcy’s trunk with the token already in the largest bag and put the Earth-based supplies in and bring them back before handing off the token and the bag to Dagmar, who would finish filling up with the Asgard-based supplies. 

At the end of the meal the Romanovs had already said their goodbyes and Borghild had removed herself to begin her list, and Darcy noticed that Dagmar looked extremely worried. 

“Do I have some time before we meet with your mother?” she asked Loki.

His smile was his first response, and Darcy was struck all over again with the kindness of his eyes. Possibly he already knew what she wanted to do. He gave a little nod.

“Kay. If I get lost, I’ll call you. Dagmar, let’s go for a walk.” 

Outside of the main dining room, or feasting hall, really, Darcy informally looped her arm through that of her surprised maid. “Point me in the direction of Frigga’s garden.”

“Y-y-yes, ma’am.”

They walked in silence until they walked among the flowers. Darcy had been thinking all that while what she might say, but she never had had a planned speech that worked well in life. In the end, she just said what came.

“So, Dagmar. You seem upset. Will you tell me about it?”

And, then her teenaged maid burst into tears.

Spot on, Darcy. She was in fact, upset. And she still is. Did you make it worse? You might have just made it worse.

Through the tears Darcy was finally able to understand what was going on. Dagmar had never been on a horse before, though she liked the beasts, and knew how to care for one. Dagmar had zero suitable clothes for riding. Dagmar had zero money to buy suitable riding clothes, not to mention zero time to do it in. Dagmar was terrified that Darcy would find her unacceptable as a maid and companion and give her up for a more experienced choice. That Dagmar had lost her calm demeanor was, she thought, the last nail in her figurative coffin of employment with the Princess.

As the crying died down, Darcy gave the terrified young woman a hug.

“First of all, I’m not getting rid of you. And as soon as I figure out what we pay you, I’m going to give you a raise for being so wonderfully honest with me, even though it was hard for you. Second, we will find you all the clothes you need, and I will pay for them. In the future, if you need a certain kind of clothing that you don’t have, you need to tell me, and we’ll get it for you. To that end, when we return to Midgard we’ll go shopping for you and Borghild. I never thought that you might like to expand your wardrobe, but that’s something we can do. And finally, I don’t know how to ride a horse, either. Now, take a moment and take some deep breaths. That’s what Loki would tell us both to do if he were here. I’ll take some, too.”

Darcy breathed in very audibly and slowly, and breathed out the same way. Then she did it again, and again, and again.

“Okay, now, armed with the knowledge that we can tether your horse to someone else’s so that all you have to do is stay on top of the creature while it’s moving, and that we can find you clothes, is this an adventure you’re willing to take?”

“Yes, ma’am!” she said fervently, sniffling.

“My dearest one,” she could hear Loki’s voice echoing softly in her mind. Except of course, as always, it sounded so much like he was just over her right shoulder that her head whipped around only to realize that he was using telepathy, something he didn’t often do. “It is time. Do you need an escort to the blue chamber outside of the throne room?”

“Okay, Dagmar. Can you lead me to the blue chamber outside the throne room?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Darcy linked her arm with her maid again and they set off.

Nope, she thought clearly and deliberately in her head. I’m good. Be there in a few minutes. We’re in Frigga’s garden, but leaving now.

Darcy knew that the trial wouldn’t be like the sort of court her father spent his adult life working in and around. She knew that a quadruple attempted murder trial on a planet twelve lightyears away would necessarily look and feel different than the dozens of crime shows she had absorbed over the years. Still. Nothing prepared her for the large, empty throne room devoid of lawyers, clerks, bailiffs, a court reporter, reporters, witnesses (beyond the three of them), or, wait for it, a jury.

If nothing changed before this all began, it was looking like Frigga was going to be both judge and jury, as well as mother of one of the victims.

Conflict of interest! Conflict of interest!

And Darcy’s stomach bottomed out and the nausea began to set in as she realized, somehow… this was it. This was apparently all that was needed for a trial on Asgard. At least, for this trial on Asgard.

Did Frigga want the trial to happen before Odin woke up because she would be more lenient, or because he would be?

Darcy took a deep breath and schooled her features as well as she could. Maybe if she looked upset it could be chalked up to the fact that this was her would-be assassin’s trial? Maybe. Given present company, Darcy considered that her emotional mask would only fool Jane.

She really needed to up her diplomatic-game-face, the one in which she thought something she was pointedly not saying while her face was pleasantly neutral. But now was obviously not that moment, so it was time to switch tactics.

Ok, keep it together, Darce. This is not your planet. These are not your customs. Have some compassion, bitch about it later, and for now look at this as a learning opportunity. Think of what marvelous insights this will give you into what may or may not turn out to be an advanced civilization.

All those steps should have been my first red flag, the voice of snark pointed out .

No!

You are observing! Observe! Reserve judgement for later.

I observe that the lack of familiar justice is actually making me sick to my stomach. That might be the pregnancy, but let’s go with lack of justice for now, her inner snark recorded for posterity.

Okay, okay, okay. Focus.

I also note that everyone’s wearing Asgardian armor except the accused. It’s very much a united front we’re showing here. I wonder if Jane spontaneously decided to dress in Aesir sportswear or if this was part of what Frigga relayed to her. 

Darcy briefly remembered Loki’s response to her question about why she had to wear a sword, but he didn’t have to bear weapons. She might have been somewhat whiney at the time. His response was gentle.

“You must bear arms as a symbol that you are not helpless, as you are not an established shieldmaiden with a fearsome reputation. Though I note that in subduing your assassin, the reputation has begun. I refrain from wearing weapons because it is a symbol of the fearsome reputation I have; I do not need weapons to be dangerous.”

Darcy blinked as she parsed the information. “Thor did all the work. I just got spat on,” she argued absentmindedly before thinking some more. “So why did you wear weapons at our wedding then?” Darcy asked, feeling vaguely insulted for being considered non-violent. She also mused that Asgard seemed so enlightened in some ways, but really not in others. It clearly wasn’t just the stairs.

“Weapons are part of the ritual. I cannot pledge to you my sword if I’ve left it at home,” he said grinning. “Worry not about this. You will never be required to use your weapons. Ours is a different world now, than what it used to be. It is filled with more kindly thoughts and less ambient threat than Earth. These symbols are old, and the last things to change as a society does.”

Darcy thought about what Loki had said earlier in their bedroom as she stood next to him in the throne room.

Symbols are old, and the last thing to change when society does.

She took some deep breaths as surreptitiously as she could.

So maybe it just looks like a kangaroo court, but in fact does espouse justice and mercy. I like that idea. I want it to be true. And that will undoubtedly alter my observations. Dammit.

Okay stomach, could you stop being nauseous now?

It was in the middle of her trying to coax her stomach into proper functioning again that Frigga spoke. They had only been assembled and quiet for a moment, but in that moment Darcy’s mind had run riot.

“Bucky of Midgard, the Winter Soldier--”

Bucky? His name is Bucky? When did he remember that? And where the hell have I been? Dammit, I should have asked for updates more frequently.

“-- you stand before the Golden Throne accused of the attempt to assassinate both Crown Prince Loki, and Princess Darcy--”

Oh, duh. Of course he wasn’t there to kill me. He was there to kill Loki. Ohmigod I’m an idiot.

“-- and you are further accused of the attempted murder of Dr. Jane Foster, and Thor the Banished, formerly Crown Prince of Asgard.”

Huh. Thor’s not here because he’s banished, but he still gets a listing, and acknowledgement of who he was. But it’s not considered an assassination attempt against him, because he’s on the outs right now. Interesting.

“The Golden Throne looks kindly on none of these attempts. Give the Golden Throne an answer to these accusations.”

On the whole, Frigga’s voice was level, and the joy and kindness that usually radiated out of her was dimmed. But Darcy considered that she didn’t look angry, either. She was just… neutral. Or something like it. Maybe. Hard to tell with people who had effective masks, unlike Darcy herself.

“I… yes. I made those attempts.”

His voice sounded better! Not some weird growly rendition of an angry bear speaking English. And generally he looked better. Less anaemic. Slightly less haunted. Still had a metallic arm, though. That’s weird. Is that weird? That’s weird.

“I was given the task of killing the Prince of Asgard and whoever was with him. I willingly submit to whatever punishment you choose.”

Waaaait, what? What? Who says that? No one with a lawyer says that!

“Noted,” Frigga responded. “Who gave you this task?”

“My handler. In the organization HYDRA.”

May they burn in hell. Bastards.

“Did you work for them of your own free will and volition?” Frigga asked.

“No, I did not,” the Winter Soldier responded, dispassionately.

Okay! Now we’re getting somewhere.

“If you had the opportunity, would you return to their care?” Frigga asked.

“I would rather die,” he said in the same toneless manner.

Poor guy.

“Why is that?”

“They... stole things from me,” the man apparently named Bucky said, and this time there was more than just hesitancy and nothingness in his voice. Maybe something that could pass as hurt, in the right light.

Uh… I think there is subtext I don’t understand, here. And I’d like to. I’ll ask Loki about this later.

“The head of our healers has given me a detailed report of the physical, mental, and emotional wounds she had healed for you. Are they all from HYDRA?”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

I wonder how long the list was. Is that any of my business? Maybe it’s none of my business. Maybe I shouldn’t ask Loki later. Okay, striking that from the todo list.

“Has your memory yet returned in its entirety?” Frigga asked.

“Not yet.”

Huh. I wonder how much he remembers. I’ve sort of made that part my business, so I’m definitely following up. He might still have family living, that sort of thing. We should find out for him.

“Do you have remorse for your actions?”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

Oh. Really? Interesting. I… did not realize that.

“That is all for now.” Darcy watched as Frigga turned her head to look at her son. “Loki. Is this the man whose murderous thoughts you heard and thus took precautions against before you fell into exhaustion?”

“Yes, All-Mother.”

All-Mother? Is that the proper way to address her here? Should I do the same? Well, I’m just going to go for it.

“Darcy. Is this the man who attempted your assassination and the murder of Jane and Thor?”

“Yes, All-Mother.” And my voice didn’t even shake! Though it would be great if the nausea would go the hell away.

“Jane. Is this the man who attempted your murder and the assassination of Darcy, and the murder of Thor?”

“Yes, Ma’am.” Jane sounded nervous, but Darcy couldn’t tell much more from just the two words.

Darcy watched as Frigga’s eyes slid back to Bucky. They seemed dwarfed in the large hall, just the five of them. There had been half a dozen guards present - all women - when they arrived, and that many more escorted the accused into the room, but all the guards had left before the court began.

“Bucky of Midgard, the Winter Soldier, you are guilty of your own admission, and the admission of three other witnesses, to the attempt of assassination twice, and the attempt of murder twice. The Golden Throne accepts this admission. Now to the consideration of your sentence.”

Waaaait, wait, wait, wait, wait. That’s it? I mean, that’s IT? We’re done? Four attempts at murder and the trial is literally four minutes long? I mean, yes, he tried to kill me and I know it and he knows it, and we all know it, but holy jesus. Aren’t we supposed to talk about it more than four minutes? It took us longer to walk to the throne room than that!

“Do you have any request to make of the Golden Throne at this time?” Frigga asked the Winter Soldier, apparently oblivious to Darcy’s volcanic eruption of blissfully silent disbelief.

“No, Ma’am.”

“So be it. You are sentenced to five hundred Asgardian years--”

WHAT?

“-- per assassination”

WHATWHATWHAT

“-- and two hundred fifty Asgardian years per murder.”

DA FUCK ASGARDIAN YEARS ARE FIVE TIMES LONGER THAN EARTH YEARS OH MY GOD YOU HAVE TO BE FUCKING KIDDING ME HOW IS THIS MERCIFUL OH MY GOD WHAT THE FUCK

“Your sentence will be carried out in service to those you have wronged, beginning with the Crown Prince, continuing with Princess Darcy,--”

THIS FEELS LIKE SLAVERY AND I’M NOT OKAY WITH THIS I AM SO NOT OKAY WITH THIS THIS IS NOT MORALLY GOOD OR LAUDABLE AND ASGARD JUST LOST THE ENLIGHTENED SOCIETY COIN TOSS

“-- and then to Dr. Jane Foster, and finally to Thor the Banished. Should any of your masters wish it,--”

NO! I REFUSE TO BE THE MASTER OF ANOTHER PERSON! THIS IS FUCKING RIDICULOUS!

“-- or die before the term of service is through, your service will be transferred with first option to the Crown Prince himself, as he was the primary target, and secondarily to the Golden Throne. Should your life be imperiled, all efforts will be made to save it. You will accordingly receive an Apple at Harvest. Your masters will be required to treat you with common decency, and provide adequately for all your needs. Should you perchance master the ninth gate before the end of your final term of service, your debt will be considered paid in full to all aggrieved parties.”

WAIT WHAT

“This is the will of the Golden Throne.”

And then as Darcy looked on with the wide eyes of moral outrage, Frigga took the spear in her hand and thunked it down on the step her feet rested on, except the sound of course wasn’t a dull thunk, it was a profoundly resonating ringing that brought in the guards again, and a few other people besides. One of them seemed like a scribe, and it was to this man she addressed herself.

“Make it known, and let the history record. In this the first year of the Queen Regent’s reign on Asgard, she named Frigga, Asgard did find guilty Bucky of Midgard in his attempt to assassinate the Crown Prince Loki who did go but peaceably to that realm, bringing embassy. As the assassin represented not the throne of Midgard, nor any separate government of Midgard, Asgard has decided to refrain from waging war.”

Instantly Darcy’s cooler head began to prevail.

Oh, God. I hadn’t realized that of course that could have been an outcome. This is why we have the concept of diplomatic immunity. An attack on the Ambassador is an attack on the Country.

Okay, still not okay with slavery, but really happy that Asgard didn’t decide to go to war. Ooooo, THAT’S why she didn’t wait for Odin. Okay. I get it now. Still upset about the slavery thing. Did I mention that? Let me mention it again.

Still not okay with the slavery thing.

“The Crown Prince saw the dissolution of the group represented, whose leader did commit suicide upon capture. The Princess Darcy, wife to Loki, was also threatened, as were two of her companions. Bucky of Midgard was sentenced to 1500 realm years of servitude. Asgard is relieved that no life was precipitously lost. So ends the record.”

At least the record wasn’t longer than the trial.

Darcy watched as Loki gestured to a guard who came forward to remove the shackles off of the Winter Soldier’s wrists, elbows, torso, and ankles. Another attendant came forward and put a small circular token on his neck, just above his jugular.

Well, shit. And shit. And shit. I guess I kind of always thought of him more as a potential bodyguard, or just another assistant when we discussed this before. Not as… a slave. And not for more than a hundred years. I’m… I’m not okay with this, Loki. I’m really not okay with this. If you managed to miss the mental fireworks earlier. Not okay. Your wife is not okay.

“I do hear you, dear one,” she heard her husband’s voice echoing softly in her head. “We will discuss this at length shortly. The trial was not the time to do so.”

Still, the Queen spoke. “Svanhild, please escort their highnesses, Dr. Foster, and the Winter Soldier to the small library so they may enjoy more private discussion. Guards, you are released from your duties here with many thanks. I will return to resume the hearings of court in four bells.”

The giant spear rang out when she thwacked it on the floor again, and then she swept off in another direction to where Svanhild - a woman wearing far more armor that Darcy currently was - was indicating they should go.

...And yet, it wasn’t like Loki didn’t know where he was going. In fact, out of the corner of her eye, Darcy noticed that the assigned valkyrie fell in beside Bucky and began to speak quietly to him as they walked behind Jane. Who looked slightly unnerved to have an assassin walk behind her. But not exactly pissed to have a slave in five thousand years.

Loki tucked her hand in the crook of his arm and led them out into another room, but presumably not one where she was free to freak out. She wouldn’t mind doing that in front of Jane, but not the Winter Soldier. At least, not at this point.

“Not that this isn’t fun, but I should get back. Stuff. Things. Research. Apprentices. Administration. Mostly the administration, if I’m honest,” Jane said once they were alone, looking once more comfortable and mysterious. She’d styled her red scarf the same way as during the wedding, so it was artfully draped around her head. Darcy wondered if she looked half as good in her armor as the older woman did. Probably not. Jane was slight and slim, and Darcy tended slightly more to the dumpling side of the spectrum.

“Have you any questions, Jane?” Loki asked.

As Jane answered in the negative, Darcy noticed that the Winter Soldier had… acquired a creamy light brown scarf? It went with his white shirt and cream-colored pants that looked a lot like something an all-organic vegan yogi would wear, as opposed to a bad-assed cyber-modified assassin. But maybe these were the clothes prisoners wore? Or maybe they were just the basics, like jeans and a tee-shirt. And then there was the scarf that came from nowhere...

Well that was weird. He didn’t have it on him at the trial. So the guard must have given it to him?

It was a small thing, but Darcy couldn’t get it out of her head.

Loki drew close to a single comfortable chair and silently indicated that she could sit if she wished to - which was nice, because nausea while standing was no fun, but her armor precluded her from curling up into a ball of low-grade misery. She remembered to do the thing with the sword and her dress before she actually sat, but nearly choked herself on her scarf when she almost but not quite immediately remembered to sit up straight. Darcy felt a further bit of awkwardness at being the only one sitting, but hell, she was pregnant and she was supposed to learn to be kind to herself, so perhaps that kindness started right now.

“There are things which need to be said,” Loki began quietly and with a voice of authority that Darcy was not used to hearing from him. “First and foremost, you may not fully enter into our service until you are healed.”

“I am,” he replied, briefly.

Darcy watched as Loki blatantly looked to Svanhild for confirmation.

The guard spoke, and her voice was quiet but strong. Which made sense, as the shieldmaiden was some sort of palace guard. “While his memory has not returned entirely, he is physically recovered. His soul has healed as well. Mistress Frete reports that mentally he is as recovered as he will be, and emotionally he still has a ways yet, but that is difficult to do alone.”

“I don’t want to wait,” he whispered.

Loki nodded. “Secondly, my wife has significant concerns that this sentence of servitude will effectively be slavery. It is not. Let me tell you what it is.

“Taking a life, or an attempt thereof, creates a debt between two people. If not attended to, it becomes a heavy weight, a burden which doubles in size again and again as the years go by. If the accused instead offers himself up to be at the service of those he wronged in this lifetime, and if in turn those with mastery over him treat him well and kindly without succumbing to the urge toward cruelty and hatred, then the pattern is broken and it will not continue in subsequent lifetimes, and so ends the painful cycle of grievance and vengeance. I know this is not accepted as common justice on Midgard. Do you accept this for yourself?”

Darcy watched as the cyborg not-slave looked at her, and then back at Loki again.

“I’ve killed so many people,” he whispered. Which was not actually an answer.

Oh, goodness. Somehow it’s so much more awkward when he admits it outloud and the assumed thing becomes the confessed thing.

“So have I,” Loki whispered in return. “There are other ways to atone. I will teach you, if it is of interest.”

Am I the only one in the room who’s never killed anybody? Jane’s gone, now. Ohmigod, I am, aren’t I? Oh, for the love of Jesus…

“I accept,” said Bucky of Midgard, the Winter Soldier. “I would like to atone,” he added, looking at Darcy.

His soft words cut through the layers of her fear, panic, and both general and specific moral outrage until suddenly her eyes were filling with tears. She blinked them away as quickly as she could. “I forgive you,” she whispered, not trusting her voice to come out right otherwise.

Hello, rampaging emotions! Do I blame you on pregnancy? Being on an alien planet? Being pregnant with an alien? Or the strangely good-and-evil Asgardian Justice System? Eenie, meanie, miney, mo...

Loki’s hand rested on her shoulder as he stood beside her.

“Then there is but one question that remains,” he said in a much more upbeat voice. She could hear his grin, and Darcy was glad to have it back. Serious Loki was a little intimidating. 

“Can you ride a horse?”

Chapter Text

Loki opened the door to a small, brightly lit shop in the main square, walked through, and then held it open for his wife, her maid, and the newest addition to their retinue. He was greeted by Ganir the tailor with the same effusive affection as when Loki had been a boy. He introduced his wife and their two retainers quickly enough and deftly redirected conversation when Ganir looked like he was starting in on a story of when Loki was young and foolish.

There would be time for that, later. Perhaps in several years.

“They both require a set of hardwearing venture clothing with cloak, as well as one full banqueting set of clothing, and a set of deep fallow furs. Also two sets of plain hardware with coats.”

Ganir directed his assistants and the two began the process of getting measured. The old man pulled three chairs together and invited them to sit with him while they waited. “Shoes as well, I presume? I can make that request for you and share the measurements. Save you a trip.”

“That would be wonderful, my friend.”

“And how quickly do you need all of these?”

“She’ll need a pair of plain hardware immediately, even if we need to send it back once the rest is finished for better tailoring. Beyond that the venture clothing for both is a priority, along with the appropriate boots. If you can send those as immediately as they are finished, I’d be grateful. For the rest, there is no rush, finish them as you’re able.”

Ganir nodded.

Then Darcy spoke. “I’ve seen you before, haven’t I?” she asked the old tailor.

Ganir threw back his head and laughed. “I wondered if you would remember, or perhaps not. You looked like a spooked deer at the time, barely restraining the urge to jump the wall and disappear.”

Loki watched as his beloved wife’s eyes darted around as she thought about it, then admitted, “Yeah, that’s accurate.” She turned to him. “It was a tough moment, before I calmed down and started eating cheese with your mother. A little overwhelming.” She took another moment before she turned back to Ganir. “It’s really nice to meet you in a less stressful moment. And thank you very much for making some of my beautiful clothes. May I ask which ones you and your assistants worked on?”

Loki turned his attention to Dagmar and Bucky as Darcy chatted companionably with Ganir.

Loki’s eyes glazed over as he looked beyond what he could physically see and instead looked at the web of chaos around them. It was almost non-existent in this shop, save for the presence of himself. Not quite surprising, he supposed. 

Darcy’s maid, Dagmar, was neither chaotic nor a liar and would ordinarily be someone he entirely overlooked. As he had considered more and more often, all of the people Loki tended to naturally overlook all seemed to be lovely, kindly people, and in general, he wanted more of them in his life.

Loki’s own new guard - what a fascinating irony, that this should be the time in his life that he would acquire a personal corps of guards - had been tightly controlled chaos when he first encountered him, a bit of a chaotic nightmare while being detained, and now, quite a placid thing. Loki felt the last of the chaos that caused so much pain in the man ease as his mother passed her sentence at the end of the trial. He had tried to help at one point, earlier, but unlike when he helped Thor, who apparently very much wanted to grow and change, and so accepted the help and didn’t fight him, Bucky did no such thing. Every time Loki drained away the chaos, it returned to the same levels within moments. The Winter Soldier had at the time, apparently, wanted his misery very much indeed.

It was an odd thing, Loki considered yet again, how neutral chaos was. In some people, it interacted with the best of them, and buoyed them up. In others, it reinforced the nightmare of their existence.

Casually looking around the shop with unseeing eyes, Loki’s gaze lighted upon his wife, whom he’d always considered quite chaotic, and what he saw confused him.

His observations were interrupted, however, by the assistants finishing their first round of duties and waiting upon Ganir. 

In just a moment an assistant was showing Dagmar to a changing area.

Ganir explained to Darcy that they had nearly completed an order for plain hardware for someone only a little larger than Dagmar. It hadn’t yet been charmed, and so could still be altered. It could be finished in three bells without a problem.

“That’s very kind of you. Won’t your other client be annoyed by the delay?”

Ganir waved her off. “Yesterday, today, tomorrow,” he said, half-quoting the common phrase.

Darcy took the obscure reference in stride. “What did you mean by charming?”

Loki smiled as Ganir avidly described the art of his trade. Dagmar came out and an assistant worked to mark the garments she wore and where they would need to be altered. Loki silently made the polite gestures that would excuse him from the present conversation in order to go have a quiet word with his second guard. It remained to be seen if he would become Mr. Romanov’s second-in-command. That might take some time, and even more trust.

He was wearing, as a scarf, the same thin blanket Loki had seen around his shoulders while he was being detained.

“When we are finished here, we will go to the armorers. While you are on Asgard you may not bear firearms, but I am not opposed to you bearing any of our more familiar weapons, and you may receive any training you desire. Do you have a preference among them?”

“Do you have some sort of throwing blades?” the Winter Soldier asked quietly.

“Many varieties. You may choose which you like best, or use them all if you prefer.”

A short nod from his new guard. “Without firearms I only lack ranged weaponry. I am deadly enough in close combat.”

“We also have arrows that are shot and spears that are thrown, but for capacity and storage a set of throwing knives may be more ideal, unless your preference dictates otherwise.”

A simple nod was all he received, but it was all that was necessary.

“I see your insignia is gone,” Loki said, referring to the red star on the outside shoulder of his metallic arm.

“Yes.”

Loki grinned inwardly at his taciturn guard. This would be fun. “I’m glad to see that,” he said simply, before walking back over to his wife who was laughing with Ganir. The transaction was wrapped up shortly thereafter and the group made their way to the armorer, across the square.

A blacksmith and tanner ran the storefront together, each of them artisans with their own medium. Introductions were made here, too, and quickly enough both Dagmar and Bucky were measured for armored leather vests and weapons belts. When the tanner turned to Bucky to ask what decoration he might prefer for his weapons belt and scabbards, Loki was not entirely surprised by the response.

“Do you have something that symbolizes remorse?”

“Yes,” the tanner replied. “The sapping vine.”

“Twine it with the duri flower,” Loki added, then turned his attention elsewhere in the shop, closing off the opportunity to explain himself, for which he was well aware the Winter Soldier was not yet ready, as the duri flower symbolized forgiveness.

When Dagmar was asked the same question by the master tanner, she turned to Darcy and asked a question so quietly that Loki could not hear what it was. After Darcy nodded, her young maid turned and fairly beamed with pride when she announced that she would have the same insignia as her lady.

Loki hid his smile and instead directed his guard over to the more metallic side of the shop where Bucky was shown the sharp, thrown things. In a moment while he weighed different sizes of thrown blades in his hands, the master armorer shifted his attention to Loki.

“Is there aught you require, Your Highness?”

“Did you provide a small all-knife to my wife on her wedding day?”

“No, Your Highness, that was not requested of us.”

Loki nodded shortly. “Then we’ll need three, one for each of them, each with their chosen insignia.”

“Of course, Your Highness. Would you like Her Highness’s to be more ornate, or otherwise standard?”

“Could you source a blue stone for the end of the handle? Something discrete?”

“Yes, Your Highness. That can be done, easily.”

“Then otherwise standard save for that. We’ll also need three sharpening stone kits, unless you’ve already provided my wife with one, in which case we’ll need two.”

As the women were drifting over, Loki caught the eye of the master tanner and was able to have a quiet word with him. After all, the Harvest was not so very far away and now that he had an actual staff, he needed to secure gifts for them, to be presented with their Apples.

Which made him think of Mistress Oydis. He should bring a gift. Two, actually. One small and personal, and one on behalf of the Golden Throne for the services she had promised to render. The first gift would be easily done. A supply of her favorite candied fruit would be a simple thing. The second would be difficult. The dual issue was that she lacked for nothing, and the importance of the gift ought to be commensurate with the task.

As nothing came to mind, Loki decided to put it to his mother before they left, and perhaps by the time they arrived in so many days, it would be all sorted out.

Clint was on the supply run while his wife - his wife! He almost smiled outright every time he thought of Nat that way - was busy making nice with billionaires and twisting the minds of their staff. It really was amazing what Nat could do to a person with words when it was the sole focus of her attention.

He was driving into the nearest town to hit up as many outdoor sports stores as he needed to until he had the five required tents, eight tarps with ropes, bungies, and stakes, six air mattresses with repair kits, as many battery powered air pumps, a truly significant amount of batteries, eight camp chairs, one of them deluxe with attached footstool, eight cups, plates, bowls, sets of utensils, mesh dry bags, eight camp towels, a collapsible basin, and eight oversized, boxy sleeping bags which, for the couples, could be paired up and zipped together. He got several hiking daypacks, as food couldn’t be put in interdimensional storage and Clint just didn’t trust how much could fit in a horse’s saddlebags. He also got sixteen liter-sized water bottles, a UV-light water filter, two extremely long collapsible camp tables, four lighters, a double burner coleman stove, an overabundance of fuel, one tea pot, two coffee percolators, and an extra camp towel for the coffee-dedicated kitchen area. On his way back he stopped at Starbucks and got eight bags of Sumatra blend, ground for a percolator and just suffered through the barista’s knee-jerk look of horror. He would very happily hand-carry the coffee in his own backpack, the one he had specially made to sit well with his quiver.

The coffee was extremely important.

He also got, per the princess’s request, an extremely small freezer bag and three reusable freezer packs. While cream for the princess’s coffee couldn’t be put in stasis, apparently the prince could refreeze the freezer packs without a problem.

It was vaguely odd to have a boss who was a walking CFC, but since that wasn’t the oddest part of his employer, Clint had just nodded and added it to his list. As he was reminded at breakfast, “We are not camping, and we are not roughing it. We are glamping. And for those at the table who are not part of the millennial generation, that means glamorous camping. Emphasis on the glamorous. Not the camping. We are making many concessions to leaving quickly, but really, as few as possible.”

In the end Clint had only needed to go to two sporting goods stores before his list was complete and the SUV was looking slightly full. It had taken, all told, five hours round trip, and he got lunch while he was out.

When he arrived back at the not-actually-enclosed Enclosure, Nat was waiting for him with an empty blue IKEA bag thrown over one shoulder. The slight smile she gave him made his heart race for a moment and he returned it through the windshield.

“Any problems?” she asked in greeting.

“Nope,” he responded as he got out of the car and leaned over to kiss her cheek.

She gave him a reprimanding look, but Clint was undaunted.

Silently she opened the back hatch and started unwrapping goods from boxes, taking tags off and inserting them into the large blue bag, where they promptly disappeared.

“That really is very cool,” Clint pointed out, doing the same thing.

“Yeah. If I wasn’t such a minimalist, I might be jealous,” Nat said casually, telling him that she was actually quite jealous no matter how few things she possessed. Its use for smuggling weapons alone would be priceless, and she knew it. His carbon fiber bow and all the arrows he possessed were already in it.

And no one would ever know.

God, he wanted one.

He decided not to say anything. They both knew what she meant, anyway.

“You gonna take His Highness up on that meditation offer?” Clint said, because he, too, could be casual about things.

“Why, you wanna join?” She asked, calling him on it.

“Maybe. He can run circles around me, but I’m pretty confident about my ability to sit quietly for hours on end.”

She snorted and almost smiled. “It’s possible there’s more to it than that.”

“It can’t be that different from preparing to take a shot.”

“Less killing, I imagine.”

“I’ll grant you that. But the stilling of the mind? Pretty sure that’s the same.”

This time she almost chuckled, and covered it with a snort. He was getting closer and closer. He could feel it. Laughter was coming.

But, dammit. She didn’t continue the conversation. Possibly because she was too close to actually expressing overt happiness. Still, Clint was undaunted.

At this point, it might have been his middle name.

Clinton Undaunted Romanov.

Borghild was surprised but quite pleased to see her former captain at the stables. She had no wish to interrupt any reverie of Svanhild the Brave, Captain of the Queen’s Guard, and yet she had several things to prepare and could not linger over long simply in order to avoid the encounter.

There was nothing for it.

“Greetings, O Svanhild the Brave! Your sword is sharp and your heart is stout, I hope?” Borghild said heartily, determined to be fully polite and not at all informal unless the other woman invited it first. It was hard to know, after all, exactly where one stood when, as second-in-command, one took another assignment. A part of her still felt tumultuous about the choice and wondered if she should have stayed in the Queen’s Guard with all of the familiar around her, sure of her role, sure of her duties, sure of her environment.

But no. She did not regret it, and had no close family, unlike others who might have to leave loved ones to accept such a position. Too, it was a position of great esteem, and great need, for the first assassination attempt had already been made, and her dear, sweet, guileless princess faced the foe alone, which Borghild was determined she should never do again. 

When the princess so carefully and thoughtfully warned Borghild about the Crown Prince’s true ancestry, she gave strict instructions for Borghild to consider the matter overnight and only give her answer in the morning as to whether or not she would stay. So Borghild followed her instructions to the letter. But her answer had not changed from the instantaneous response of her heart upon receiving the news. No. She would serve the princess until one of them died. That was very clear to Borghild.

It might be all the more necessary should Mad King Laufey of Jotunheim ever realize he had a son raised by Odin, whom he seemed to hate more than death itself. It only made sense, after all. If adopted to become a prince, he must have been one in the first place. And just as clearly, the King of Jotunheim did not know it, or else he would have spent all his warriors to reclaim him. And then where would the Nine Realms be? No, Prince Loki was obviously meant to be raised by the parents he had. Perhaps he had been groomed to foster peace between the two realms.

But should the Mad King find out too soon… Then, Borghild was certain, there would be war, and Borghild did not imagine Laufey would be happy to have a Midgardian daughter-in-law.

That determination gave her clear eyes and a clear heart when she faced the indomitable spirit of her former captain and possibly former best friend.

“Borghild!” The woman cried happily as her head turned away from the horse with whom she had been speaking softly. “My sword is sharp. I cannot account for the rest,” she said, striding forward and pulling Borghild into a solid hug. After a moment, they parted, but Svanhild slid her arm companionably around Borghild’s waist. “Come. You must tell me all your news, and pull me out of my doldrums, for mine is not fit to tell. Unless you are terribly busy?”

Borghild smiled. “If we can arrange for horses, tack, and fodder while we catch up, I have at least two bells.”

“Wonderful! What are you arranging? A day outing for the young couple?” Svanhild said, grinning.

Borghild snorted. “A three week trek, or more, up north. Possibly we will be travelling with ease on our return journey, but we carry a difficult cargo that must go on foot.”

Svanhild looked at her askance. “You cannot even shorten it with the Doors?”

“It’s to Mistress Oydis,” Borghild said, knowing that would explain it all. The sorceress was famous for her reticence towards visitors. Even those who were not members of the Royal College of Sorceresses knew of her.

They started to discuss the needs of the adventure with the Master of Horses, explaining the requirement for daily fodder to be delivered to the kitchens by certain hours so that it could be picked up. They were momentarily sidetracked in their conversation by a deep discussion on the mixture of grains and proper proportions of hay for such exertions. And how liberally treats of fruit and vegetables should be available, depending on the mount.

“What a strange adventure,” Svanhild remarked.

“It gets stranger still,” Borghild pointed out with a grin, explaining her mistress’s pregnant state, her need for comfort and rest, and her absolute insistence about going all the same.

“So you’ll be travelling in state? Don’t you imagine it will take longer than three weeks?” And won’t you need more than sixteen horses?”

Borghild shook her head and sighed. The Princess Darcy would never agree to that, she knew. She described the sort of horses they would need, and what sort of tack, and the Master of Horses gave her free rein, particularly pointing out the two princes’ favorite horses who had not gotten much attention in the last few months. As they looked at the different horses and evaluated their fitness for prolonged adventuring, Borghild filled her in on all the recent developments she was able to speak of. When she mentioned the assassination attempt, Svanhild suddenly looked as pensive as she had when the younger woman first approached.

“Yes. He was tried this morning. The Winter Soldier. He’ll be serving the Crown Prince for some time.”

“Oh,” Borghild said, somewhat shocked. She wasn’t sure exactly how she felt about having the Princess’s would-be assassin serving her mistress’s husband, but she was fairly certain it wasn’t a positive feeling she was having at the present moment.

After a moment of quiet in which a horse head-butted her out of her tumultuous thoughts, Borghild took a deep breath. “Well, that would explain the eighth set of horses.”

She noticed that her friend was still in her darker thoughts, whatever they were, and so Borghild sought to change the subject and bring her out of them.

“Tell me about this Midgardian assassin. Their Highnesses already have two former assassins as their Midgardian guards. I cannot imagine he is so much different.”

“He is ruthless and cruel, thoughtless and self-absorbed,” Svanhild hissed with surprising vehemence. “And he is broken,” she added more gently. “He is like a bird with all its bones broken,” she said meditatively, “and you know you shouldn’t care, but every time you touch it and it nips at you with its tiny, sharp beak, you care even more. All it can do is nip at you. It’s all there is left for it to do. That, and die.”

Borghild’s eyebrows were nearly at her hairline. “Oh. I see,” she managed to say.

At least, she thought she saw.

“My Lady has woven a blanket for him, a thin thing, but shot full of magic. Something calming and comforting, but I know not what exactly.”

“Huh.” So the Queen wanted to know his future. Before she tried him. That was rather fascinating, all things considered.

Almost as fascinating as the fact that Svanhild the Brave seemed to have fallen in love with the absolute wrong person. How dreadful for her. And how beautiful, at the same time. It was like an Epic Poem of old; heartbreakingly lovely.

Borghild was silent, knowing it wasn’t quite the thing to say what she wanted to, so waiting to see what else her friend had to offer.

“And now he is to Midgard for a few thousand years.”

“Actually, he is to Mistress Oydis, which it seems might be quite good for him,” Borghild pointed out, uncharacteristically contrary.

Svanhild snorted. “He will be in the background as you and I both know.”

Borghild snorted right back. “From all I have heard, no one visits Mistress Oydis and remains unchanged, not even a child.”

Svanhild leveled a hard gaze at her. “When was the last time a child visited the infamous Hermit of the North Woods?”

“That is not the point and you know it. She is a Mistress of the Ninth, and you know that changes everything.”

Svanhild’s eyes went soft and her demeanor lightened. “My Lady is a Mistress of the Ninth, now,” she said, almost completely joyful. And there was the beneficial topic change, and Borghild was so stunned she couldn’t even appreciate it.

Borghild’s eyes went wide, horses entirely forgotten for the moment. “No,” she breathed out, truly disbelieving, if only for a moment. Her former mistress had been a Mistress of the Eighth for something like the last five hundred years, and that alone was enough honor in mastery to last a lifetime, or three. That alone would have assured her perpetual outranking of even the High Sorceress in the Royal College, who was a Mistress of the Seventh.

Of course, Mistress Oydis was a Mistress of the Ninth, the only known one in this present age, but then again, Mystress Oydis preferred her cottage and her solitude, though she did her duty and took on apprentices regularly. She had no care for politics, or so it was believed.

Borghild had always boggled that Queen Frigga had managed mastery of the eighth gate, that of Death. Prince Loki, too, was quite advanced, at least a Master of the Sixth, but she couldn’t tell exactly how far, and it had not been mentioned to her yet.

Borghild herself was a Mistress of the Fourth, and quite an accomplishment for a shieldmaiden, as warriors had the most difficulty achieving mastery of the third gate, to say nothing of gates beyond the third. Mastering the offensive spirit was no small matter, and Borghild, much to her own satisfaction, had managed to master it, and go on to master her will.

But the All-Mother was now a mistress of the Dream!

Two in one generation!

This was unheard of!

Her eyes snapped back to her best friend and Borghild demanded, “Tell me all. I mean it; all.”

And so Svanhild did. And Borghild learned many things, indeed.

That which Midgardians called the Tesseract was not happy. And if it was as dangerous as his father had hinted, and his brother had outright stated, Thor could not bring himself to be happy, either.

He paced in his old chambers. No one knew he was here, except for his brother and his sister, and her maid. It was the maid who brought him a tray of food at each meal, knocking at the door and leaving before he could open it. And here he would stay until they were ready to set off. Here, with a very angry rock.

Thor still couldn’t quite believe his brother’s insane plan.

For all that was good in the world, was this normal for Loki? This… this… this hairbrained, save-the-world-or-else, cockamamie plan that he had clearly just pulled out of his left ear?

Thor continued to pace, not realizing he had already begun to pick up the odd Midgardian turns of phrase his brother had so favored in the last few centuries. He was, instead, considering the letter he had read only a little while before his brother had shown up in the flesh. It was a far different thing that the last letter he had received from his little brother. Gentler, for one. Apologetic, for another.

He couldn’t quite believe that, either.

No, no, that wasn’t fair. He could believe any emotion from his quite emotional little brother. He was still baffled by their mission, really. And the fact that there was no way in the nine realms that Odin would approve, and so that at least explained their undue haste.

O! What if Odin should wake up! Nightmare!

Thor continued to pace.

Thor had packed, not his trunk, but the venturing bag Loki had charmed for him years ago, the one that held a truly astounding amount of things, and yet persisted in being small and light. He had taken the advice of his wise mistress, the Doctor Foster, and brought all manner of material with which to study both the English Language, as well as the algebra he was working through, which was not so different from accounting and supply maths, just differently stated and perhaps more expansively generalizable, and the books on electrical engineering which he was just starting on, now that he had exhausted the history of electromagnetism. But he could focus on none of that.

He wondered if he would be able to focus on anything at all during the trip.

The stone was quite loud, even if Thor couldn’t hear what it actually said, due to the token around his neck.

In a desperate flash of inspiration, Thor retrieved the small, simple generator he had made with the Doctor Foster from his venturing bag which laid across the foot of his old bed, shapeless and apparently quite empty. He cranked the handle slowly and slowly produced a small, steady current. Thor sighed in relief. He couldn’t hear the current, either, not exactly, and certainly not clearly, but it somehow served to cancel out some measure of the incoherent and rageful screaming from within the metal case that Thor had banished to the balcony, after which he had shut the balcony door.

Somehow the stone’s screaming turned out to be so much louder on Asgard. Perhaps it was the lack of high levels of ambient electromagnetism all around. That would make sense.

Ugh. Now that he could think clearly, he would need to do something about the metal case, as well. It would be cumbersome for him to carry it constantly, and there was no way Thor would strap the angry stone to a poor, defenseless horse.

Still cranking steadily and gently on his generator, which he silently dubbed Peace of Mind, Thor went to his closet and managed to rummage around while multitasking with his hands. He pulled out a similar, but entirely mundane venturing bag of leather, this one decorated more ornately, and a gift from his father. While he was at it, he pulled out several leather flasks for water, and a very large number of woven and leather cloths and small bags. Some would be used to wrap fruit and nuts and roasted grain for eating along the way. Some would be used to wrap the rage stone. He was clumsy, trying to do this while still steadily cranking the generator and as it turned out, the easiest way was to grab things between combined fingers of both hands and toss it all over his head, item by item.

Thor turned around and sighed. A mess. Still, he had been able to continue with Peace of Mind. He began pacing again, kicking things out of his way as he went, so that eventually they were in something of a mound on the floor. He really wasn’t sure how this was going to work. He very pointedly did not wish to stop using Peace of Mind, and yet it would not do to have a split focus while carefully wrapping up the rage stone.

And it would not do to be able to hear its ranting, even vaguely, at any point in time, now that Thor had realized there was a way to mute it in some measure. He paced some more, still toying with Peace of Mind. Now, at least, he could focus and concentrate.

Thor emptied his mind and did a version of his standard meditation on electromagnetism, the best he could under his impaired circumstances.

How do I do this without going insane?

And the answer came to him.

Carefully he put Peace of Mind on the bed and continued cranking with one hand as the other reached into his charmed venturing bag and pulled out one of his three tablets. He had loaded on to each one a month or so ago two albums of music that the Doctor Foster had introduced him to. One was music from a master on an instrument that she, too, could play, though not as well, she had assured him. The other was of a band of musicians singing and playing many instruments. He turned the tablet on and cued up the piano music, put it on repeat, and set the volume as low as it would go. It wasn’t the music that he wanted, in particular, though it was fine music indeed, and very calming. It was the low background hum of electricity in the tablet, in a constant stream. It might just work.

Thor stopped cranking Peace of Mind and held his breath.

...it worked.

Thor immediately pulled out all of his solar chargers and the external batteries he had, set them up in an array on the balcony to charge as much as he had time for, and pulled in the over large metal case that was full of angry, glowing, sentient, explosive rock. He set the case on the floor and kneeling beside it, went about the process of wrapping the stone in a large piece of woven cloth, and then securing it in a piece of leather. He tied it up with a sturdy piece of twine and put it at the bottom of the mundane venturing bag, with the other loose cloth and bags in on top of it. The deed was done, and his floor was tidy once more.

Now, would they leave today? Tomorrow? Sometime within the current moon cycle? Though admittedly he had no idea where in the moon cycle Asgard currently was, it wouldn’t answer his questioning heart even if he did.

Thor decided it would be better to be ready than not, so he began pulling out the appropriate wear from his pack just as there was a knock on his outer door.

It was not a meal time. 

Thor approached the door, half thinking that it might be his mother, and his stomach dropped in unaccustomed dread.

With great relief, the door opened to frame his little brother waiting in the hallway. It wasn’t a stretch, in hindsight. Their suites were adjacent. Not that that would be the only reason he would call on him, but--

“May I come in?”

Thor shook his head to knock himself out of his thoughts and stepped back to allow his little brother in.

“I apologize, brother. The stone distracts me.”

“Yes. About that.” Loki came in and closed the door, then leaned against it, his arms crossed over his chest. “Would it be easier on you to have the restraining token on or off for you to bear it, for you must bear it alone.”

Thor sighed and ran a hand through his hair.

“On. Definitely. I can’t quite make out what its saying when it’s on.”

Loki nodded.

“And when I say you must bear it alone, and I do apologize for this brother, I mean entirely alone. I understand now that it creates obsession, primarily with itself, apparently in everyone but you. Therefore... Do not answer questions about it. Do not allow anyone to see it. Nor touch it. Nor get too close to it. Not even me. Especially not me. As you know, we bring the stone to Mistress Oydis, and she alone may bear it from you.”

Loki continued, and Thor’s eyes were wide as he learned more and more of the mission, and as Loki continued, Thor could not hide his bafflement in particular concerning the extremely odd method of travel.

“I do not wish to countermand you, brother, not in the slightest, but would it not be better for my sister to remain on Midgard? Or even here with Mother?”

Loki shook his head. “I have considered this, too,” he said, gesturing with one hand. “But I must go, and you must go, and she must go. She will not be left behind, and I’m not sure I could manage three weeks in the company of the entirely too compelling rage stone without her calming and frankly distracting presence.”

“How then,” Thor asked, “did you bear it last time? Surely I remember you handling it as much as I?”

“I have pondered this question myself. Were we protected by our own innocence? I know not. I think we were different people then, and certainly father’s admonitions were enough for me. They no longer are, in more ways than just this. And you have changed, obviously. You can hear it speak, now.”

Thor nodded. Not clearly, not with Mother’s token on, but Thor understood Loki’s point. And even with the token on, he heard significantly more than he wanted to hear.

“You know,” Thor began, “before, I didn’t give the feeling credence or much space in my thoughts, but I believe I just found the thing repugnant. I couldn’t hear anything, as you say, but I somehow knew I did not want to tarry overlong in our mission, nor linger with the stone any more than absolutely necessary.”

Loki nodded. “I recall thinking you were being annoyingly abrupt and did not display the proper amount of intellectual curiosity due the matter.” His little brother snorted. “It seems you had the better response.”

Thor shrugged.

Loki looked at him closely for a long, silent moment before he spoke again.

“Thank you for having such intuitive wisdom in the face of deep darkness. This has not always been my own tendency,” he said in a quieter tone.

Thor blinked in surprise. He silently nodded after a moment, realizing some reaction on his part, beyond shock, would be appropriate.

Then his little brother blissfully changed the subject.

“Darcy and I will conclude our previous business on Asgard another time. We will all set out in three bells. Borghild and Dagmar will come to fetch you in two bells time, as no one recognizes you here, so that you may have adequate time to organize yourself and your horse to your liking. Borghild, by the by, has figured out who you are, so I anticipate you being assigned to your favorite horse.”

This brought an unexpected grin to Thor’s face. He had not anticipated such kindnesses, and such small pleasures.

Then again, he had not expected much that he had encountered in his banishment. On the whole, it was going much better than he could have possibly imagined, given that he had imagined he would just curl up in a ball of misery and die of emotional anguish.

“You should know, too, that the assassin has been tried and is now in our service. He is repentant.”

Thor nodded. He was glad to hear that no life was precipitously lost.

“And once Mistress Oydis does what she needs to do with the stone, I will be embarking on that meditation we discussed.”

Thor looked at him askance. He couldn’t be referring to his insane plan of negotiating with Death as ‘that meditation we discussed’.

“Which, exactly?” he asked in clarification.

“I will be looking for Death.”

A chill raced across Thor’s spine. Without realizing what he was doing, he shook his head slightly and sighed. This was such a bad idea. It was really such a bad idea. But apparently, this is what Loki did with his free time, and Thor would not abandon him, now that he knew his little brother took such abject terrors in stride.

Loki continued on, unheeding of his elder brother’s response. “And during that time, Darcy’s safety will be entrusted to Mistress Oydis, the company, and you. I will remove the binding token before I begin, and do one last run for supplies that should last for a week, so that we do not impinge too deeply on the Mistress’s hospitality.”

After a moment of silent reflection, Loki spoke again.

“Take care of her while I am gone… and there can be no debt between us.”

Now he was getting maudlin.

Thor took three steps toward his little brother, who had decided that now was the time to worry, and pulled him into a hug.

“She is my dear sister, she is carrying your child, and I will protect her with my life,” Thor said simply, relishing Loki’s firm grip on him.

So this was the reason she was really coming on the trip. While Loki was incapacitated, and possibly anticipating a threat from the Eater of Worlds, Darcy would be protected by a Mistress of the Ninth and only those guards who would die for her. And should there be an attack, it would be staged in the middle of nowhere, away from farms and family, merchants and trade.

Suddenly Loki’s plan didn’t feel quite so badly organized.

It was still quite insane, though.

The timid little girl led him to another arched, wooden doorway in another long stone hallway, in some upper floor of the gigantic castle on this alien planet which seemed to be populated with the most forgiving people in the Universe.

“This will be your room while you remain on Asgard, and whenever you return with His Highness. Borghild’s room, that is, My Lady’s Vanir guard’s room is just there,” she said, pointing to the doorway on the right, “And the Romanovs, their Midgardian guards, are there.” She pointed to the doorway on the left. “If you would like to rest, I will come and fetch you before we depart.”

“What’s your name?” He couldn’t just keep calling her the timid little girl in his head.

“Dagmar.”

“Dagmar,” he repeated, wondering if he would remember it. He remembered so little. Why should this be special? “Dagmar, how old are you?” 

She stood up straighter. “I am approaching my sixth century, as counted in the Common Years.”

That actually made him feel a lot better about himself.

“Well,” he said slowly, “I’m approaching my first century, as counted in Earth Years, and I feel ancient. But I don’t need a nap. Can I follow you?” He looked around the walls a moment, wondering why it was so hard to get his bearings when he could do it on a mission so quickly. He remembered that, at least.

She looked sceptical for a moment, but the emotion on her face was fleeting and quickly gone. Then there was a smile as bright as the sun. “I will only be doing the tasks I am set to do, but you are welcome to join me.”

The timid litt-- Dagmar. Dagmar twittered on in a remarkably soothing manner as they walked and she waved toward this notable thing, that particular staircase. He did his best to memorize the layout of the castle, but it was not coming to him easily. He wished there was a schematic to work from. 

As they walked, they were largely ignored by others going on their way and no one gave them a second look.

Bucky quietly followed and soon became engrossed when Dagmar negotiated with the Quartermaster. The older fellow was reluctant to give up plain, undecorated versions of what was necessary, but neither did he have extra of the ornate laying around. Dagmar was insisting on immediate satisfaction and was content to take whatever he had, plain or not.

He watched as she was handed, and then clipped, a large undecorated metal ring onto her belt with a strange amount of relish. Then out came bowls and baskets, chairs, small tables, a stack of oddly shaped wooden boxes, and three rolled up rugs. On top of the pile was placed a large, empty cloth bag.

“The rest you’ll have to arrange with the Master of the Laundry. You want help taking this out to the stable?”

“May I leave it in a corner here for a few bells? Then I shall take it directly without aid, though it is kind of you to offer, and I thank you.”

The business was quickly concluded and as they walked through parts of the castle Bucky didn’t think he’d been in before, he let his mind wander. He was satisfied that they would be lingering on this planet. At the trial the judge - the Queen, as it turns out - said that HYDRA was disbanded, but Bucky didn’t really believe it. They were too slippery for that. He didn’t remember a lot about them, but he knew that. And he knew about the tracker inside his abdomen. They had talked about it in front of him obviously enough, at least during the prep for this last mission, and he remembered that just fine. He would have to ask if the doctors here had removed it already, or if they would. There was no way he could return to Earth, otherwise.

He remembered his mother. His kid sister. His best friend Steve. Steve, the wonderful wimpy kid with a heart of absolute gold.

But it had been ages. Seventy, eighty years. Mom was certainly dead. Steve, too, with the number or fights he got in. Hard on the body, fights. No one lives to ninety or a hundred, having lost that many fights. If his sister wasn’t dead, she’d be in a nursing home by now. She might have had kids. He could be an uncle, maybe. But what kind of reunion would that be? What kind of uncle would he be to fifty and sixty year olds?

And apparently he’d live another several hundred years. What kind of weird family tree would that be like, with the great uncle who wouldn’t die?

No.

No, it was better off this way.

No family.

No friends.

No ties.

And when he was done serving his time, well, he’d figure that out then. He had time.

She was done! Done with all of her chores! She was done early! Dagmar had at least a bell and a half to herself before she was meant to go find her Lady.

If she’d been alone in the palace she might have gone around to the maid’s quarters and seen who was about for a chat and a cup of tea, but as it was she had Prince Loki’s new guard who knew no one and nothing, and it would have been cruel to just say goodbye and leave him stranded.

She wondered what he might like to do. Dagmar tried to peek over at him in a quiet way, and he wasn’t looking at her so she thought it was safe to try and get a really good look at him.

His left arm was… well, it was armored. She wondered at the closeness of the the fit of the armor to his flesh. It was very clearly not Aesir, or Vanir, or Elven armor, or any kind that Dagmar had ever seen before.

She decided to ask.

“Bucky the Winter Soldier,” she began, addressing him in the politely formal way she would need to until they became better friends, “is it always your custom to wear just those pieces of armor, on your left arm, and no other? Is this a Midgardian custom?”

She watched him as his head swivelled and his glare pierced her. What kind of man was he? Not a happy one, to be sure, not like Prince Loki, or her father back on Vanaheim. More like the All-Father, perhaps, whose one eye could be used like a spear to pierce you through.

But then his look softened and his brows rose.

“Yes. No. Why were you so happy to get that ring on your belt?”

Dagmar did not follow his answers and was a little jarred and somehow could only concentrate on his question. “Oh. That. Well.” She blushed to realize that she had been so transparent. “It means I’m among the highest ranking maids in the castle. A waterbearer. It’s a great honor. Almost as great as getting to serve Her Highness, Princess Darcy.”

“What’s she like?” he asked quietly as they walked along the hallways.

“She is kindness itself,” Dagmar said, almost a little choked up, remembering moment after moment of her Lady’s immediately compassionate response to life, and to Dagmar herself. She would never say anything negative, regardless, and she would never share any details, but it was safe, perhaps, to say what she had, and entirely true.

“Yeah, I guess she is,” he replied.

They walked in silence for sometime, but it was not uncomfortable in the least. They passed many people without any comment at all, but then he spoke.

“Do you know who that woman was, the one who just passed in armor?”

In fact, two women in armor had just passed, but she knew them both. Dagmar waited until they had turned the corner and walked a bit further to make her reply. She was not speaking out of turn, and it was right for the Winter Soldier to be curious and want to know who people were, but still, it seemed odd to speak about people rather than to people in their hearing.

“Oh, yes. They’re both from Vanaheim and serve the Royal Family. The dark haired shieldmaiden is Borghild, and she is my Lady’s bodyguard, along with Mrs. Romanov, from Midgard. She is also a sorceress and a healer. Borghild. Not Mrs. Romanov. Mrs. Romanov is like you, a former assassin from Midgard. Not that she tried to kill my Lady and is repentant. And she has always been quite kind and gentle to me. 

“But it is always good to know where the nearest healer is. When she is on Midgard, she is the only healer in the Enclosure. Borghild, I mean. Unless Mistress Frete comes to visit. But that is mostly for my Lady. She is pregnant, you know. It is common knowledge, now. And we must all be very careful for her. She must rest and eat whenever the urge takes her, and be encouraged to do so. But I expect His Highness will discuss this with you, if he has not already. He is very concerned and takes a great deal of care for her.”

He nodded and she saw. “And… the other… shieldmaiden?”

“Oh, that is Svanhild the Brave. Borghild served as her second-in-command, before. She is the Captain of the Queen’s Guard.”

“Svanhild,” he said slowly, and some moments later added, “the Brave.” 

Again they walked in silence, so much so that Dagmar was quite surprised when he continued their conversation. He was a pensive one, to be sure.

“Where did she get that title?”

That made Dagmar curious about where he got his title, but she did not ask just at that moment. Instead, she made an answer, and such an answer because it was such a story!

“That is a beautiful story for which I cannot possibly do justice. I have not properly heard the epic, of course, for it was told before I was born, but I know in general that sometime after Svanhild the Brave joined the Queen’s Guard, and well before she was Captain of the same, there was pitched battle. This had to have been before the Jotnar-Aesir War, which was the last we engaged in, for that was when the Queen was pregnant and she would not have gone into battle with her Guard. I think perhaps dark elves were involved, but truly I do not know the details. But many fine children of Svartalfheim, Alfheim, Vanaheim, and Asgard were lost to Valhalla that day, and Svanhild was nearly one of them. She had fought back to back with the All-Mother and was nearly exhausted when she was gravely wounded in her defence of Queen Frigga. Still she fought, and when the battle was won, the All-Mother was greatly distressed at the losses all around her, and moreso even for her young guard. But the battle ended quickly enough that Svanhild could be saved, and the All-Mother saw that it was done, and dubbed her Svanhild the Brave, there on the battlefield, and so she has been for longer than I have been walking.”

And nothing more was said after that, not for a long time.

Natasha lay in bed with her Clint. They wouldn’t need to return to Asgard for another hour, and they both knew that their charges were safer there than anywhere on Earth, and so worry wasn’t an issue either.

She was twined around him, and he around her, sated and relaxed, and she asked the question that had been on her mind since the healing.

“Do you feel different?”

“Yeah,” he whispered, but a louder one than he usually used, more of a stage whisper. For Clint, it was like he was yelling.

“How’s your hearing?”

“Good. I think. Better than before.”

“What about… the other stuff?” she asked, meaning everything and nothing at once.

He sighed and her hair shifted in the breeze he made.

“Everything’s changing,” he said.

She nodded. She knew. And she understood. She could barely discuss it herself, and only really to ask about him. And if he turned the tables on her, she might break.

“Did they give you a list?” The dos and don'ts. Some of them were relatively innocuous. Some were absolutely out of the question. A few were in between.

Clint snorted. “Yeah.”

“How much of it’s a no-go?”

He snorted again. “Maybe three things.”

She nodded against his chest. That sounded about right for her, as well.

“And the rest?”

“I guess I should try, you know?” After a breath he did the unthinkable. “What about you?”

She held him tighter.

“I’m pregnant,” she whispered, her stomach roiling at not just one set of implications, but several. For the briefest of moments she could no longer be in denial on the subject of her own healing.

Her uterus had been back for sometime, apparently. She hadn’t been menstruating because she’d worked her body so hard, but in the last two months she’d grown soft, quite literally, and now that she had slightly more body fat, significantly less stress, and regular sex, pregnancy had happened on its own.

Her lifespan would still be lengthened by god-knew-how-long, possibly not as long as before, and all of her abilities were dimmed.

But dimmed also would be the bloodlust, and the almost uncontrollable fits of rage, mitigated only by strenuous training, or strenuous missions, and extreme mental discipline.

All of the super soldier serums, they only enhanced what was already there, but hers had been administered when she was still so young. How much of who she was was real? What would be left now? Would a diminishment of who she thought she was be a worthy trade-off for a lessening of the bloodlust and rage? She’d always hated it, and hated herself for it.

Her ledger, after all, was dripping with red, and none of it was hers.

And into this chaos, a child?

And the analytical part of her wanted to know why the Aesir healers seemed so familiar with the issue. Because they seemed very familiar indeed with both the good and bad of the situation. Had they also experimented? Did they also understand the repercussions?

After several pregnant moments filled with Natasha’s silent thoughts, Clint gave his pronouncement on the subject.

“Huh.”

And then a bit later he added, “Did I know everything about this subject that you did?”

“Yes,” she whispered, grateful he was asking neither rhetorical nor stupid questions. She wouldn’t be able to take that right now.

“Huh.”

And then a bit later he added, “And how do you feel about this?”

“Conflicted,” she whispered. “Deeply conflicted.”

They lay in silence for a long time. With his previous hearing he might not have heard her next words, but they were both changed people, so perhaps he would.

“I don’t think I can do this, Clint.”

“You don’t have to decide right now,” he responded, immediately. “And you’re not alone, Nat. You’ll never be alone, again.”

And then she did cry, silently, half into the pillow, half into his hair. He said nothing, for which she was grateful. He held her, though, tighter even still after bringing the covers up over their bodies, and tucking them in around her back.

Her sobs became audible as she was tucked in so lovingly. The last time it had happened was more than eighty years ago. And she never thought she’d get the chance to do it to anyone else, young or old, with true sentiment. It wasn’t something she’d knowingly missed, and now that she had it again, she was mourning its loss, for it did not seem possible or likely that she should be able to keep it. It was easy to forget in such a moment the dozens of times she had tucked Clint in during one of his nightmares, neither willing nor able to admit to the love she had for him, then. It was easy, in the darkness, to forget that she could have such a thing, because she did have such a thing.

The darkness and pain were unbearable, so Natasha Romanov did what Natasha Romanov had learned to do so long ago. She gathered up all of the pain and anguish and shoved all of it into a little closet in her heart, locked the door and mentally swallowed the key. It wouldn’t hold forever, she knew that now, and the healers had said as much. But it would hold for now.

She took a deep breath and looked up at her husband. And she smiled. “I’m fine,” she said, entirely believing the lies she told herself. “It’s fine,” she said, with an unconscious little shake of her head.

Chapter Text

Oh, for an airplane, Darcy thought to herself after approximately the third hour riding a horse who was not, as she supposed it would be, galloping and eating up the landscape with its long and powerful strides, but walking rather sedately. This was apparently normal. Because if you wanted your horse to carry you for approximately half an Asgardian day, which was about a third longer than an Earth one, so let’s say all eighteen hours - if you wanted your horse to carry you for nine hours before you switched to your second horse which would carry you for another nine hours - then you walked the horse. One all-too-brief gallop in the day, a fair bit of trotting, in between an exceptionally slow walk. And then for the benefit of the two-legged folks, there was also some walking next to the horse. And that is how you rode if you wanted to keep using the same horses day in and day out.

And for her and Loki, who were two-to-a-horse, they had four horses they rode, switching out twice as often as the others.

No wonder it would take three weeks , Darcy thought, once more bitter in her mind, and then she castigated herself for thinking it. It was unkind to even mentally bash her husband’s culture. Still, she wanted to blame someone, and preferably not herself.

Movies. Fantasy movies are to blame. They give you unreal expectations about horse travel. They also give you unreal expectations about that shiiing noise no sword actually makes when it comes out of a sheath. And they never discuss the weight of weapons and armor. They make sleeping on the ground look romantic, and I’m certain it’s not, and I’m clear that I don’t even want to test it out to make sure, because I’ll never get that night of non-sleep back again to do it over.

Without meaning to at all, Darcy managed to mentally grumble for another hour before they halted to stretch and water the horses, heal herself and Dagmar who were entirely unused to the muscles needed through the legs and back for this kind of constant riding, eat a mid-day meal (of which there were several) and give Darcy some non-horse time to rest. In fact, she took a short nap while things were being set up, as her tent was the first thing Dagmar and Bucky did. It was a rather fancy tent (while still being a standard model freely available at a sporting goods store) as they all were, one where even Loki could stand up inside, and he was the tallest of the group. It had a small vestibule, and then split into two larger rooms. One served as their bedroom, and one as their Aesir bathroom, minus gigantic tub. Still. There was the Aesir equivalent of indoor plumbing, so Darcy was thrilled. The Romanov’s tent was set up this way, too. And then there were two more three-room tents, one shared by Thor and Bucky, one shared by Dagmar and Borghild, and those four shared a separate ‘bathroom tent’.

It was all quite civilized, really.

Thor, Borghild, and Natasha took care of the horses. Dagmar and Bucky took care of tents and all that went in them. Clint took care of all things food, Loki took care of Darcy, and Darcy learned to take care of herself.

After a power nap and a quick heal that took care of most but not all her pain, Darcy rejoined the group who had just finished setting up, and apparently Loki had only just returned from a quick trip back to Earth to give the apprentices two hours out of time for their magical training. He’d be doing this more than once a day in order to do everything he needed to with them and fulfill his duties.

As she settled into a camp chair, with Dagmar fussing around her and bringing her a warm shawl for her shoulders, and Clint bringing her a steaming cup of coffee that smelled like a heavenly piece of home right in the middle of an alien jungle, Loki dropped a kiss on the top of her head and plopped into a camp chair next to her.

“I love glamping,” he announced.

“We’ve only being doing it for four hours,” Darcy snarked after swallowing the first and most beautiful mouthful of liquid ambrosia.

“It’s much more sensible, if one can manage it.”

“Magic helps,” she replied, not quite able to get the snark out of her voice. She really didn’t want to be snippy, or have an attitude, but she couldn’t quite get rid of it, either.

“Like the travel technology you pine for, yes, it does.”

Darcy sighed. Of course he’d heard that. Shit. 

“I’m sorry,” she said, and then took a deep breath. “I really don’t want to be an asshole,” she said quietly, but aware that others probably heard everything she said, if only to make sure she wasn’t saying something they needed to hear. “But the pace is… clearly something I’m going to have to get used to.”

Loki laughed, because of course he laughed.

“This,” he clarified, waving his arms in an expansive gesture, “is the standard pace of life on Asgard. There is no rush. There is plenty of time to do what must be done.”

“But don’t you get bored?” Darcy asked, briefly forgetting who she was talking to. “I mean, the first two hours were like some sort of forest nirvana experience, but then it was like, ‘okay, bored now.’ And all I could think about were all the things I could be doing if I wasn’t riding a horse. And then the second two hours lasted, like, eight times longer than the first two hours.”

Loki laughed again, but briefly this time.

“I know not if this is some difference between our bodies,” he began, still smiling, “or ourselves, or if it is purely the conditioned training that occurs when one has short days and short lives, or really, something else entirely. But I look forward to such times, and many others do as well. It is a time to be alone with our thoughts, a time to meditate perhaps, which you have already told me you have no time to do in the normal course of your day, and a time to grow closer to those with whom you travel. It is a time to gain insight and wisdom. A time to relax from the normal flow of the course of your duties and immerse yourself in something else entirely.”

“You could be a paid advertisement for the slow life right now, Loki,” she said, her dissatisfaction with the whole idea seeping through her tone. Again.

He let her be in quiet for a while and she let his words sink in.

He had offered in the past to lead her in meditation, especially with those gates of hers hanging open and broken and whatever it was that they were. But when? There was literally no time, and Darcy’s punishing schedule was just one new source of angst for her, now that the healer told her ‘be nice to yourself or die’. 

Not that those were her exact words. But the sentiment was there, and when Darcy had looked over to Loki for reassurance in that moment, instead she had seen the undisguised horror on his face. Which had helped to drive home the doctor’s point, really.

It seemed like a generally slower pace of life would be a good thing. In theory. If she wouldn’t die of boredom.

Darcy took another deep breath. Okay. This would be okay. She just needed to adjust her expectations. Loki said it was a good time to meditate and to bond with people. Also, she had the Aesir Library of Congress to wade through in the evenings. So. That is what she would do. Meditate and bond. Quiet time and story time. And book time.

Okay! Quiet time and story time. She could do this.

She turned to Loki with new resolve. “Will you teach me to meditate? Work on those gates of mine?”

He smiled in response. “It would be my honor to do so, my darling one.”

He proceeded to lead her in a simple guided meditation, just following her breath, just being aware of different parts of her body, and when she finally opened her eyes back up and saw that others were beginning to break down their little rest-stop camp, for once with activity buzzing around her, she didn’t feel guilty at all for sitting down with her feet up.

Darcy inhaled and exhaled deeply and freely, just as she had been for the last who knew how many minutes. “Wow,” she exclaimed softly. “That was awesome. Can we do it again?”

Loki laughed. “Of course. Let us prepare to shift our venue, first, and check in with the others.”

Darcy grinned at her husband. She was still so relaxed! She took a deep breath of the beautiful Asgardian forest air as she headed back to her tent to use the bathroom there, so it could be dismantled. She had a strong feeling Dagmar was waiting on her, and Darcy didn’t want to make her maid’s life any more difficult than it would already be on this trip.

At the outset of the trip, Darcy had gone through the formalities that Dagmar had actually taught her, to share access of her trunk with everyone in the party, since most people would have equipment and personal items stored there, it seemed only fair. Of course, if the token was already set into a big bag, anyone could put stuff in. But still, only designated people could pull things out again, or open the trunk at all.

Not that they actually brought the trunk. It was back in the castle. If they really needed it Darcy could call it to her. But then they’d have to either strap it to a horse or leave it in the forest to be called later.

Darcy was given to understand that the chest was largely indestructible, but she still didn’t like the idea of just leaving it on the ground and riding away from it. She really wanted to give it more respect than that.

Darcy was also given to understand that if she tried to help with the set up or take down of her own tent, she would be offering a tremendous insult to Dagmar, insinuating that her young maid wasn’t capable of doing it quickly and efficiently. Apparently, the Romanovs had already taught her how to assemble the tents.

And apparently, Bucky was allowed to help.

Darcy thought about this as she finished up in the bathroom section of her tent and washed her hands, Aesir style. When she came out she saw the blue IKEA bag laid reverently at the foot of her bed. Darcy pulled out one of her college sweatshirts and the book that she had nearly thrown across the room on their honeymoon, An Apprentice’s Guide to Source and Dream. It was time, apparently, to crack it open again. Darcy put the volume in the oversized front pocket of the sweatshirt and ducked out of the tent. She had had a nap, a nibble, a fantastic meditation (who knew meditation could be so good?), and a pee, and now she was ready for another four hours on a horse. Or however many it would be today before they set up camp for the night.

It would be, generally, a short day of travel today, since they hadn’t started out first thing in the morning. And it had been less than one full day since Bucky had… joined them as a guard. Darcy was happy to see that it seemed he had made a friend.

It was a bit of an odd friendship, Bucky and Dagmar, but who was she to judge the yin and yang of people’s lives? It wasn’t like she was an obvious choice for Loki, romantically.

And anyway, a person just couldn’t go throughout life without friends, she considered.

And then Darcy thought all over again how distanced she had become from her college friends. She’d had every intention of staying in touch through social media, despite everyone dispersing after all of their graduations, but it just hadn’t happened. First she’d been working so hard on the papers, and connectivity hadn’t been all that at Jane's headquarters, so updates had been sporadic to say the least. And then she met Loki. ...And what would she have said to them about her life at that point? What could she actually still say? She’d gone radio silent to all but family. When Darcy looked back at her actions, she couldn’t imagine anything she’d have done differently, and yet… It still left a bad taste in her mouth.

Ugh.

Still, Darcy made a mental note to reach out to her best friend from college when she got back to Earth. Life was too short not to have good friends, no matter how long she was going to live.

But quickly her mind skipped back to the world’s shortest attempted murder trial. There were so many aspects of it that seemed totally bizarre… but really, the outcome was good at least in this case, though Darcy would follow with interest any future trials she could hear about. And really, maybe calling it bizzare in her head was being a bit too judgy, and from a place of complete cultural bias. Who was to say that the American court system that she was used to was the most perfect way to meet out justice? It was good when it worked… But Darcy was well aware how easy it was to have a miscarriage of justice. Lawyers with essentially unlimited budgets and resources could trample the average citizen underneath their extremely expensive shoes, on behalf of their clients. It was horrifying, sometimes, to read between the lines in the news reports.

Darcy had talked with her dad once, and asked him if he’d ever thought he’d represented a client who was guilty.

“You know I can’t share details, princess. But I think I can tell you, in aggregate, there have been moments I’ve represented people who I privately considered might be guilty of the crimes with which they were charged. But I also believed those people to be innocent in a larger sense. Guilt and innocence aren’t always as black and white as we might like them to be. Our laws are not always helpful, and not always right. Likewise, sentencing guidelines. It’s not my job to change the laws, however, and I wouldn’t be good at it if I tried. It’s my job to be an advocate for the innocent. And that, I’m good at.”

Books on law, Darcy considered. There were undoubtedly the collected laws of the Aesir, or some sort of summary or commentary, in her collection, to mention nothing of the laws of the other inhabited planets in this galaxy. She just didn’t know the names in order to call them to her through the bag. But Loki might know.

Books on law, Darcy decided, and added them mentally to her current reading list, along with history and religion.

On the second day, they met a bear. 

The horses started to shy for no apparent reason and Clint knew without anyone telling him that danger was near. From the first he’d worn his quiver, though he kept his bow clipped sideways to his belt. It wasn’t ideal while walking, but for horseback riding it was fine.

He had his bow up and drawn, scanning left and right, but seeing nothing through the dense foliage they had been travelling through for sometime.

This was not his ideal viewing point, down on the ground, in the thick of things.

“What’s going on?” he distantly heard the Princess ask from several positions away. He never would have been able to hear her so clearly, before. 

Clint cleared his mind of idle thoughts and kept scanning left to right, with half a mind paying attention to his horse, who apparently had a clearer sense of where the danger was coming from than he did.

“Hold until my mark, Rooftop,” he clearly heard the Crown Prince say, as he said it in his head.

He nodded silently, once.

The horses were still not happy. The path was not particularly wide. Wide enough for a cart, or two horses and riders side by side, but then the greenery began and got dense enough to obscure sight three meters away. Which meant he would likely only get eyes-on when it was far too late.

“Eleven o’clock,” Natasha whispered.

Clint Romanov whipped bow and head in synchronous movement.

It was easily eight foot tall, standing on its hind legs, as it was. But it was just staring at them. It was not blocking their path. But they had yet to actually pass it. It was definitely a bear. Of some sort. But nothing he was actually familiar with. It was the size of a grizzly, without actually looking like one.

“If it charges, shoot,” he heard the Crown Prince say, both aloud and in the quiet of his mind.

Insanely, they continued to ride toward it, slowly. The horses all shied as far off the path as they could, off to the right and into the beginning of the forest, before they had to navigate through tall bushes and all manner of wild, waist-high growing thing.

“It is not the season for unprovoked attacks,” His Highness said quietly, to the group at large as they continued. “And our company is too large for something as intelligent as that to attack. It just shows itself as a courtesy, so that we may know to skirt it and continue on our way. We shall not bother it, and it shall very likely not bother us. So let us continue quietly and gently.”

They rode on, largely in single file, except that when Clint - barely breathing, heart racing - passed it, he did his best to ease his horse out from the single file, allowing Clint to continue to track the bear with a clear sight. His horse didn’t bolt, but that may be because Nat had taken the reins of the poor thing. The horses who were tethered behind the ones with current mounts liked the situation even less.

And then, still turned around in his seat and tracking the creature with his bow drawn, Clint watched it thump back to the ground on all fours and amble past the path they were on as they continued far ahead.

Clint breathed deeply, resheathed his arrow in his quiver, reattached his bow to his belt, took back the reins from his wife and patted his poor horse on the neck, whispering what a fine job the mare had done.

And that was the last of the bear, that day. But it did bring up interesting questions in the evening over dinner about the feasibility of fighting a bear hand-to-hand, and if the opportunity arose, who got first dibs. Borghild turned out to be entirely uninterested. Bucky-boy was willing to fight Natasha for the honor, best two out of three.

He lost.

“But, but, but…” his assistant director spluttered. “I thought, I thought we got excellent video down at the bottom! Did, did something happen to it in transit?”

James Cameron thought of what the Men in Black had told him to say when they came to steal some of his marine-salvaged artifacts, and all of his recordings. Which were all quite legally his according to all applicable laws, particularly those concerning maritime salvage.

He’d pleaded with them. Then threatened them. He was not a man without influence, and this expedition had been very widely publicized, and most importantly, they had already announced on social media that they had gotten some excellent footage, and it was widely known beyond just the crew. This was clearly an illegal search and seizure, and he was not having it.

Finally, there had been a compromise.

They’d put something around his neck and then had him go through the tapes - which were clearly labeled, of course - and pull out all the ones that had recorded the moments at the bottom, and anything showcasing the fascinating blue glowing cube that the MIBs had immediately scooped up and put into a titanium case. 

He indicated the tapes.

They checked the device around his neck and seemed satisfied, and so it must have been some sort of hyper accurate and technologically advanced lie detector, which was a fascinating thing really - no wires. He’d remember that.

Then they watched all the footage together, he and the three Men in Black, and they did something as they went. He didn’t know exactly what at the time, but he dreaded that there would just be giant black censored gaps in his footage. When they’d left, he’d rewatched every minute of those tapes, before calling his AD to come over. It wasn’t the black censoring he’d feared. Things just got fuzzy, like dust in the water, or a digital misfire where things become overwhelmingly pixelated - except that in this pixelation, the blue glowing cube seemed to disappear entirely.

James sighed, crossed his arms over his chest and took a good look at his AD. He was a good man, and if things had been different, if it hadn’t seemed as life-and-death important as the MIBs made it out to be, he would have been truthful. Hell, if James was having a more cynical day, he would have been truthful.

But not today.

So he sighed again and spun a fantastic story, his inner director critiquing his performance as he went, adjusting his affect on the fly based on his AD’s reactions.

There would be only one take of this scene. This was theatre at its most imperative, and he hadn’t practiced his lines.

“It’s bizarre, man. All the footage of the weirdest piece of salvage, the blue one, you know? It’s just all fuzzy. I was rewatching it this morning, and it’s just all gone. Nothing else was damaged. And I went to see if the salvage was still intact, and the box we’d bagged and tagged it in… there’s just sand, now.”

“Do you think it, like, dissolved?” the AD was fascinated.

Hook, line, and sinker.

“I think…” James trailed off choosing his words as if he were considering them very carefully, and not saying as much as he thought, which was both true and misleading, “that we observed and collected something… that didn’t want to be observed, or collected. And I think that if that’s the case, it might be wise if we honored its wishes.”

The AD was silent for a long moment, and James waited, pensive.

“More things, Horatio,” the AD finally said, referencing Hamlet and unexplainable phenomenon at the same time.

James nodded silently and let out a sigh and most of his tension, because his assistant director had bought it, and now they could plan an even more sanitized version to disseminate to the crew.

They retired to the kitchen after that, where the coffee lived, and came up with a plan.

Thor could ride a horse in his sleep. And this horse, his beloved Egil, Egil who knew him despite the geas, which apparently was not attuned to horses, he could and had ridden Egil asleep, half dead, delirious, wounded, concussed, and drunk. Never had Thor ridden and attempted to read, but really, it was much easier than other things he had done, and as he always rode at the center with a bit more space between him and the others, Thor really didn’t have to pay any attention at all. Egil, and his second favorite horse, Magnild, went where they needed to go. Oh, occasionally Thor would look up, often when another horse and rider would come into view in his peripheral vision, but that was usually when it was time to dismount and rest.

At first Thor focused entirely, as the Doctor Foster had recommended, on learning the English language. But he could only do that for eight bells a day, roughly, with breaks in between before he started getting more irritable than he could really blame on the stone, so after the first few days, Thor brought a different book to read for each period of riding. Currently he was focusing on his brother’s not-entirely-dreadful history of Midgard (he was on the second volume, now), one of his books on engineering, and the language program on his tablet. He reserved the algebra for the evenings, when he had the space to work the problems out on paper by the fire, and not just in his head.

He always took the time to set up the charging array across the horse’s flank behind his saddle, and he was really quite proud of that, because at least while he was on the horse it muted the worst of the rage stone. Unfortunately, the solar panels charged his batteries quite slowly, and most days he did not get full charges. Which meant that all the days with forest cover were followed by nights from hell.

The tent was luxurious, by comparison to most of his adventures.

The air mattress was utterly ingenious.

The food supply from the palace made him wonder why Loki had never suggested this before on previous adventures, for they could spend more time relaxing and travelling, and less time hunting and preparing food. Also, the variety was somewhat better.

Pack animals were unnecessary, thanks to his little sister’s trunk.

And Thor was not yet addicted to caffeine, and had no intention to begin - his troubles were manifest already. 

But then halfway through the night, the battery ran out on his last tablet, and his sleep was finished. He’d tried to sleep through it the first three nights, but then had the most tremendous and horrific nightmares he could remember since his youth, since the last time for centuries that he had listened at a door.

The next day after that he skipped his language training and had enough battery power to sleep through the night without tesseract-induced nightmares of death and destruction. This he did for three more days, until the guilt was gnawing at him, and he began practicing English again. If he skipped English training, he slept through the night. But working the language every day was key in becoming fluent, and fluency meant he could be free to meditate and speak with the lightning again for the duration of his banishment on Midgard.

So, halfway through every night since, Thor was roused brutally by the mental screaming of the tesseract, which though he did not know the details, were clearly hateful imprecations and dire threats, given the tone. And Thor would pull to himself Peace of Mind, his beautiful little generator of electricity and twiddle the crank between his fingers. The moment the sun rose, blissfully before he needed to arise, the solar arrays he had spread before the tent he shared with the Winter Soldier, would begin to slowly fill, and the sound of it was enough, provided that Thor did not stray too far away.

The others told stories, played games, grew closer, but Thor was a man determined. He would not let his brother down. He would prove yet again, his complete loyalty, his steadfastness, his trustworthiness in this most important of matters. And if studying helped him to take his mind off what he could hear of the rage stone over the pleasant electrical hum? No one here would fault him for being rude and ignoring the others. They all understood his role in this venture.

And so did he.

The days stretched on in a green and quiet hell. 

Natasha had never spent this much time so inactive while conscious in the last eighty years. Staying on a horse while it was walking, which was largely how she spent her days at present, did not require enough of her focus. Taking care of several horses, how she spent a small fraction of her time, also did not require enough of her focus or physical talent.

By the fourth day her skin was crawling. By the sixth day her hands had a tremor.

Even vigorous sex only allowed her to sleep well for a few hours.

And she couldn’t tell that it was affecting Clint in the same manner, which was humiliating. Certainly the Winter Soldier seemed perfectly fine, from what she had seen.

Finally, she caved.

“Will you spar with me?” She whispered to her husband as she lay on top of him, momentarily fine, though it would only last a few hours.

“Right now?” He asked, his voice still low and gravelly.

“No. Later. Before breakfast,” she conceded, really wanting to do it as soon as she woke in the middle of the night, but not wanting to alarm any in the camp. She’d have to alert them first, before doing something like that.

“Mmkay,” he mumbled, squeezing her tightly to him, and pulling up the sleeping bag cover. “Though if you just want a punching bag, I’d like to volunteer Bucky-boy. Best two out of three.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” she said, trying to smile, but somehow, here, with him, it was harder and harder to be anything but honest, and that was terrifying. The walls she had so meticulously created had Clint-sized holes in them, and she couldn’t patch them fast enough.

“Think we could get in on some of the Princess’ meditation sessions?” he asked a little while later, and Natasha should have known better. Of course he saw straight through her. She felt overwhelmed with shame at her own inability to keep it all together without reference to anyone else.

“I wouldn’t want to impose,” Natasha demurred softly.

“Mmm,” Clint responded noncommittally, and she could only hope he would drop it. She didn’t want to ask anyone for help, and particularly not her jolly, semi-ancient, semi-perfect employer. She could just barely ask Clint who was almost as broken as she was.

She shifted away from him, but he cuddled up behind her, snuggling in and making her feel safe all over again.

Clint always had been a snuggler.

Did he realize he had his hand over her lower abdomen, where the baby was? Hard to tell. Maybe that was on purpose.

Natasha tried to quiet her mind so she could get some decent sleep before it all began again, and it was when she shifted her head a bit and her cheek encountered a wet pillowcase that she realized she’d been crying.

Clint had arranged it all by the middle of the next day.

He sparred with her before breakfast, and before bedtime. She sparred rather more vigorously with the Winter Soldier twice mid-day. And twice a day, as they could, they quietly pulled up chairs and silently joined into one of the Prince’s many guided meditations, ostensibly for his wife.

By the middle of the first day, Natasha wasn’t twitching anymore. By the end of the second day at no point was her skin crawling. By the middle of the third day it felt like she could take a deep, calming breath outside of His Highness’ meditation sessions.

She’d noticed by the fifth day of this that while the Winter Soldier didn’t actually join them in meditation, he was close enough to hear, and not doing much all the while.

Natasha had never said anything to the Winter Soldier besides thanking him at the end of each sparring session as she bowed to him, and the first time when she greeted him after the initial bow with, “Don’t hold back.” And he had never said anything in return, merely nodding when she thanked him, and after the first time, bowing when she did.

On the sixth day, after they had bowed, after she had thanked him and he had nodded, she told him, “He won’t mind, you know. He’s not like that.”

The Winter Soldier raised an eyebrow.

Natasha walked away.

On the seventh day, the Winter Soldier brought a chair a little ways away and joined them in meditation.

Somehow, entirely against her will, Natasha liked him a little bit more in that moment.

Borghild was lost in her thoughts again. 

Svanhild was in love with Bucky, the Winter Soldier, who was bonded to serve for quite some time, who was mostly but not entirely healed, and who now seemed to be courting young Dagmar. Prince Thor was both banished and some how present, serving his younger brother and in love with a Midgardian, and if there had been somehow any doubt in Borghild’s mind, the reaction of his horses to him would have confirmed every suspicion. And there, too, was the meaningful way he had said thank you at the start of the trip, when he first saw his horses. And then there was Prince Loki, whom she’d always heard such raucous rumors about. He was doing nothing more interesting than leading assassins in meditation and apparently being quite intimate with his wife whenever possible.

And now they were all playing bizarre Midgardian games. The less physical the game, the more arcane and complex the rules. The games, she had noted, that involved barely a twitch of the hands were largely impossible to win.

Borghild was, indeed, lost in her thoughts and she could make nothing of any of her conclusions. She’d need a map from a better cartographer than her own self to get around any of these obstacles.

There was the love triangle. Did Bucky know of Svanhild’s affections? Did Svanhild, really? Was Dagmar serious about Bucky, or was this her first taste of romance? She was a clever and beautiful young woman, so it might not be. But the Winter Soldier was a particularly bad person to fixate on, and she must know he would not be available, in terms of marriage, until his other obligations were fulfilled. Unless of course, His Highness permitted it.

Which he might. Borghild could now admit that she had known absolutely nothing true about His Royal Highness, Crown Prince Loki, aside from the fact that he was secretly the adopted child of the All-Mother and All-Father, which admittedly she had learned some many days after serving in his household. He was supposed to be the wild one, was Prince Loki. Strong, powerful, wise in the way of Source and Dream, yes, but he was the Master of Chaos and Lies, for the love of the Nine! And her mistress had mentioned in passing the other day that he was a master of the first eight gates! And that he had broken the Ninth!

His Highness seemed now to Borghild to be a gentleman, a scholar, a diplomat of the highest order, very likely the strongest practical sorcerer she would ever meet in her lifetime, and a truly kind person.

Not lightly would, say, the Great Sorceress, Head of the Academy, offer to train her servants in meditation. 

His Highness seemed to take great pleasure in it. He didn’t…

And here Borghild searched her mind out for exactly the sentiment she was looking for.

...he didn’t hoard power, or knowledge. What he had he freely shared.

She paused to think about that. It was what sorceresses were meant to do. The whole system of apprenticeship was based on it. Not every sorceress could - no one expected Borghild, with her responsibilities to guard and protect to take on an apprentice, or the All-Mother, and their slack was picked up by those who regularly took on an apprentice, once every three hundred years or so, like Mistress Oydis and so many others.

Of course, no one would have expected Prince Loki to take on an apprentice. And strictly speaking he hadn’t… Twelve for ten years still didn’t quite equal one for three hundred years.

Proof of that, of course, was in the fact that none of his apprentices were here with them when they travelled. A real apprentice would have been expected to be his shadow, among other things.

Though that was just as well. They were beguiling and precocious things, those twelve. They had yet to prove themselves and were still yet children, really. One would have been manageable. Twelve was like a double litter of kittens underfoot.

Borghild considered that the way His Highness managed them so well was that he had built an Institute, with staff, to deal with them in his place.

It seemed like a dereliction of duty, in a way. And in a way, not. They were still learning, training, meditating, being helpful, and working on their gate progress. If, perhaps, any of those things were missing it might truly be dereliction of duty. As it was, the situation was simply… highly irregular.

Which was an excellent way to describe His Highness, as well.

And the gates he had mastered! Fate! The Body! Pleasure! Death!

Though considering it more closely, as closely as Borghild was personally willing to consider it, perhaps it was not so amazing to consider that His Highness had mastered Pleasure. Or, being a shapeshifter, The Body. But Fate? Death?

To master Death one had to relive over and over the pain of former deaths with all their attendant horror and anguish and agony, in one unceasing round without benefit of dying to make it all stop until it simply didn’t bother you any more.

Borghild shook herself. What horrors he must have felt. To think, all this time he had been on par with the All-Mother, but no one knew! He, too, had outranked the Great Sorceress, and no one knew! She was certain that no one knew how advanced, how mature, how wise and calm the Crown Prince truly was.

Borghild wondered when the last time was that the Crown Prince had presented himself to the gathering of the sorceresses to have his gate progress recorded.

And Borghild wondered if His Highness was drawing out the proclamation of his accomplishments for some reason of his own. Certainly with a reputation for doing whatever he wanted despite the consequences… fewer people would call upon him and fill up his time with tiresome requests.

...Except that the man she was coming to know and respect seemed to be the sort of person who would answer them all carefully.

Borghild sighed and thought of easier things.

There was a love triangle that seemed to be consuming the Winter Soldier and the young maid, plus the absent figure of her finest friend. There was a love diad; also known as the intensely passionate love between the Crown Prince and her Mistress. There was whatever the Romanovs had which seemed to be in turns quite violent and quite considerate. And then there was whatever was going on between the first Prince and the Director, which seemed to be love on a slow simmer, somehow more confident and less sure than the easy friendship that the maid and the Winter Soldier enjoyed.

And then Borghild realized that she was the only one in the company who was entirely unattached to another in a romantic fashion.

Well, that was fine.

Someone needed to keep a clear head around here.

Dagmar was having the time of her life.

She had never had cause to be in the company of so many fascinating people and in such close quarters. Her duties were light and long was the time to lose oneself in conversation and story. She had never had such fine and sturdy clothes, nor such variety! Her banqueting dress was simply the most beautiful garment she had ever owned and the day it came with the evening supplies she could barely contain her rapture. She had tried it on after dinner and at her Mistress’ request, modelled it. She got a smile out of the Winter Soldier for her efforts, and wondered if he knew how to dance.

No. Silliness. He was Midgardian. How would he know how to dance? She would have to teach him, at some point. If not her, who?

They did not dance in the evenings, and there was no music to speak of, nor any bard with an epic to tell, but save that Dagmar could not have asked for finer nights or better entertainment. They often played games, and of such stunning variety! Partway through the trip the warriors all began sparring each other, and though Mr. Romanov and the Winter Soldier never seemed to go up against each other, Mrs. Romanov - who would have thought it! And of so slight a shieldmaiden! - sparred her husband twice a day in a manner Dagmar would not have considered sedate, had she not then seen her spar rather more vigorously twice more a day with the Winter Soldier. And at first His Highness did weapons training alone, but with little encouragement each night he sparred with a different warrior. With Borghild a variety of blades were used. With Mr. Romanov, staves. With the Winter Soldier, grappling, and wasn’t that just a daunting prospect? With Mrs. Romanov, the widest variety of weapons and grappling and in the most confounding combination. Sometimes they ended up in the trees!

Thor never joined in, of course. But his was a solitary guard duty, and no one could begrudge him, Dagmar considered.

Still. It was the best entertainment Dagmar had ever had.

And through most all of this, her Mistress would read. Read! Oh, she watched well enough when His Highness was training, but then her chair would turn around to face away from the fire so she could see clearly and into the book she would go. And she would mutter. Dagmar always listened with half an ear in case she should be addressed, or her presence required, but mostly her Mistress was commenting on her reading, whatever it was.

All considered, Dagmar had firmly decided that she quite liked adventures as had with her Mistress and would no longer doubt her ability to be the maid she needed.

Clint (Undaunted) Romanov was living the dream. Possibly.

It was a little unnerving to be constantly in the thick of things. He much preferred the longer view, to be observing rather than participating. But if he had to be participating… This wasn’t a bad way to be doing it.

Much of his day was spent in quiet. And the rest? Food. Sex. Violence. They weren’t allowed to play poker anymore, and Monopoly had its flaws, but the arguments over which house rules were best did have the aspect of a spectator sport. There was no alcohol, music, or movies, but it was novel to be playing baseball again.

Clint didn’t really expect that, on his first trip to Asgard.

Really, Asgard was not what Clint had expected in the slightest. When the Princess had first brought him on and described his compensation package - it wasn’t much of a negotiation, and Clint couldn’t bring himself to even pretend. Nat was staying. He was staying. But all the same, there were the same sort of in-house medical benefits he was used to. Nothing so pedestrian as health insurances like was being debated in the news. Just the clear confidence that your health would be taken care of, and whatever you needed, you got. Which seemed really fair, given how strenuous the role of bodyguard might end up being. Which is to say less strenuous than his previous job.

Or not. It was hard to tell, as nothing strenuous had happened on his watch, save skipping out on the daily morning marathon, and the occasional bear he didn’t have dib on.

Of course, the clinic wasn’t actually built yet. Clint wasn’t perfectly clear on what would happen until then. 911, likely. Or teleportation, depending on who was involved.

And so the medical spa in the castle was a bit of a surprise. It was like no clinic he’d ever been in. And the healing was the least invasive he’d ever experienced.

Well, in a way.

In a way it was ending up being so much more invasive than he could have imagined. They didn’t cut him open, or operate on his ears, or pour drugs down his throat or in his veins. But they did seem to drain away things he thought were essential about who he was, and drain away some of the side effects about who he hated being. 

He’d asked. Asked if they had done all of this before, augmented people, and then reversed the process bit by bit. It seemed obvious, but he wanted to know, and wanted to know if it was a state secret or not.

They had, sort of. And it was no secret.

They talked to him about Beserkers, and he wondered just how much of what they mentioned correlated to the legends he barely remembered. 

It was a hard life, apparently. There was a place - a monastery or sanctuary of sorts led by what the nurse simply called the Master - but still, it was a hard life. And some after a time wished to give up their vows, and there was no shame in doing so. They were meant for war, and not always called up when there was war, and war was seldom in these peaceful days. 

Apparently, to be a Beserker in the time of war was the greatest thing, honor above honor, and the fulfillment of your destiny. And to be a Beserker in the time of peace was an exercise in futility and patience building.

And so some gave up the life in stages, stayed on at the sanctuary and remained moderating forces and trainers, even as they trained in esoterics.

Or at least, that is what Clint thought the situation might be, given the picture he was painted.

And Clint wondered if he would ever get the chance to talk with the Master of the Beserker Sanctuary.

It was easier to think about such things, and wonder about them, than to consider whether or not his wife was going to quietly have an abortion, or to consider how he felt about being a father.

His stomach bottomed as he considered it. Miscarriage. Abortion. Adoption. Raising their child. Sure, it might grow up with Loki and Darcy’s kids, and they could afford a nanny, but they’d still be parents. And probably not great ones. And if something happened to them? Less likely now than previously, maybe, but still perfectly likely. Neither one of them had family. And they couldn’t expect Loki and Darcy to actually raise their child in their absence.

So many questions. So many decisions. And Nat was in a particularly bad place right now.

Clint had no idea what to do and was entirely too close to the situation to have the sort of perspective he preferred. 

He had no intel. He couldn’t get perspective. And his partner was compromised. If this was a mission, they’d all be dead. As it was, he was just totally fucked. How the hell was he supposed to handle this?

Alone?

He blinked, and the deep anxiety was gone again. And Clint was back to wondering what the Beserker Step-Down Program was like, and thinking about how much he liked riding horses.

Compartmentalization accomplished.

Loki was in a decidedly odd place. He spent as much time as he could meditating in some form or another, and never had he been so grateful for his practice as he was on this adventure. It meant that he could, almost entirely, meditate exclusively. He carried on conversation, and meditated at the same time. He had sex, which when he was focused was much like a form of meditation anyway, he trained, which if he tried very hard was like a form of meditation, and still when he left the party and quietly sought the door that would take him directly to the Embassy without use of the bifrost, he still breathed a sigh of relief.

The Tessaract created obsession and Loki was trying very hard not to be obsessed.

And there were times when he slipped, and before he knew it he was considering how to get the stone away from his brother, how to slip away from Darcy, from the entire party and just examine it.

In the first four days Loki had come up with no fewer than 37 variations in total on four basic schemes. But each time he caught himself and redoubled his focus; on his meditation, on his wife, on lies, or on chaos, depending on the moment.

There weren’t many lies, nor much chaos in the in the wilderness, and there never was. What little there was, Loki was well familiar with, and like it or not, he meddled.

It kept him sane.

The Romanovs were having strange and unfamiliar moments of emotional clarity with themselves, for instance. By the time they arrived at their destination, they should be able to actually face a conversation with each other, if Loki was not mistaken. They weren’t fighting his interference as much as he would have thought.

Dagmar, not entirely within his ken, was laboring under no more minor illusions about herself, her worth, her capabilities, his wife’s regard for her, or her friendship with his second guard.

Bucky was positively glowing. He might not remember all of his past, but he certainly didn’t believe any more lies about himself.

Borghild was much like his wife, but less interesting, and there were few lies to consider, at least at those times when he was considering them.

And Darcy no longer believed she was incapable of taking proper care of herself, an insidious and dangerous lie under the circumstances, for all that it seemed small.

Loki, for his part, seemed no closer to mastering his last gate, and meanwhile all of this meddling was weakening his mastery over the third gate. At least he would have plenty of time to meditate through that issue.

He had time for many things, on this trip. And he’d just realized another way to get a moment alone with…

Damn.

38.

She should be there. She should be there, with him. They all should, really. But no, this was a twin sapling and she should take advantage of the opportunity afforded her.

Precisely at 11 o’clock at night she snapped her reading light off and bathed in the darkness. Her housemates called their goodnights to her, and she to them, all in a cheery voice. There was no quaver, nothing to betray her racing heart or how much she had looked forward to this and only this all day long.

She had goosebumps up and down her skin and for a moment she hyperventilated before she calmed down and took deep breaths again.

She pulled the thick drapes over the windows that she was so kindly provided with and wondered if they already knew. They must already know. Why else would they enforce such long periods of darkness, so much sleep?

She giggled, and was dimly aware of how manic it sounded.

Her mother would disown her, eventually.

She would be banished from her home world.

She pushed away the surface concerns and slipped out of those clothes she had been given to sleep in.

So many clothes!

Naked and trembling, she lay in the darkness on her bed. It had only ever been as bad as this three other times, but it looked like she would go farther this time, so much farther.

So much darkness.

So much sleep.

Nanna trembled, as she might under a lover’s touch, and succumbed to yet another overdose on dark sleep. Her body twitched as she fell and fell.

No one caught her.