Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Dragons, humans just love the idea of them, and Darcy loves the humans' ideas about dragons. She loves their ideas about magic too. Because humans think dragons and magic don't exist, and so dragons and magic can be whatever they want it to be. Actual magic is hard work; Darcy prefers the fantasy stuff.

Bingley, her clutch-brother, thinks her fascination with the humans' fascination with their species is strange. He doesn't understand her fascination with humans at all, actually; he doesn't understand why she would want to crush herself down into a human shape and play at living a human life.

“We are the last ones,” Bingley says to her, when he's consented to visit her tiny apartment in the city and squish his scales down into a human shape to do it.

He looks very handsome – never let it be said dragons were not vain – with the thin form, boyish face, and dark hair he's chosen, but Darcy can already tell that the condensed and limiting, white-skinned, and fleshy body is irking his patience. He could never stand to look like anything but the peak of youthful maturity, unlike the aged body his clutch-sister is wearing, and can barely stand being human anyway. She can practically feel the displeased glare of his inhumanly golden eyes, which she knows he keeps purely to freak people out.

Darcy doesn't reply to his statement. Bingley is simply working himself up into another rant about how it beneath their dignity to pretend to be a part of the species that drove their own into fleeing for the other realms. He doesn't get it, how nice it is to have company and to fit in, even if only superficially. Bingley would probably stay in his cave with his hoard if he didn't feel the need to grumble at her every few decades or add to his hoard.

“We are the last ones,” Bingley repeats, “and you would abandon your true self – your true form and birthright – for this?” He sweeps a hand, curved like a claw, around her parlor. Then he does the same with his eyes and sneers at the knick-knacks that Darcy has filled the small space with.

Darcy puts down her book, a recent story of fantasy by an English professor that she has been enjoying immensely. Smaug, with all his wickedness and cleverness, reminds her of their mother before their egg-bearer decided the filth of humanity's presence was too much to bear. This is the fourteenth time she's re-read it, and she always finds something new to appreciate about it each time.

She casts Bingley an annoyed look as he pokes a clawbent finger at the mobile of flying glass dragons hanging by the window; he pulls away – dragons respect other dragons' property or get their scales plucked – then goes to poke at her umbrella stand carved to look like a dragon instead – curious, nosy things, dragons are.

“For company,” Darcy corrects, scowling. “I would do it for the company.”

Bingley turns his neck and shifts his shoulders in such a way that Darcy knows he is trying to flutter his wings in an expression of displeasure. “And what is to be desired about their company?” her clutch-brother demands. “What is the attraction of being surrounded by such petty, murderous, selfish, self-centered creatures who have no awareness of or respect for the world they are destroying?”

“That described our species' presence on this planet once upon a time too,” Darcy counters. “Just because we knew more and could reach further into the universe did not make us any less petty or murderous or selfish or... or... what was the last one you said?”

“Self-centered,” Bingley bites out with a growl.

“Yes, that. Would you honestly try and claim we're not those things, Bing?” Darcy asks.

Bingley looks away from her intent stare and pouts openly. Darcy is reminded that he is twenty-seven minutes younger than she is; he had such trouble fighting his way out of the egg and their elder-clutch-brothers and elder-clutch-sisters never let him forget it.

“Fine,” he says, “we are petty and murderous, we are selfish and self-centered. But what is the appeal of spending your time among a race that is all those things and small and weak and lacking in knowledge about the greater universe? They are unaware of all the other realms and greater forces, and you have to lie to walk among them! They are so... simple!”

“And there's the appeal,” Darcy tells him, tapping a finger against the cover of her book. “They're so naive, Bing. They're so hopeful. They have such wonderful hopes for the greater universe, for the future and what's waiting behind every corner. Such imaginations and ambitions – so ugly and beautiful all at once.”

Bingley only scowls at the book she's pointing at, ignoring her words entirely. “Is that the human literature you chose these foolish names from? I told you, they are undignified and I dislike them. Especially when you will not even address me by the full foolish name you have given me this time. It is disrespectful.”

“Shut up, Bing,” Darcy replies.

“There! There! That is disrespectful! It is undignified to begin with to adopt human names, but you will not even give me the proper respect of the full title.”

“To be honest, I can't say Bingley Bennet without wanting to laugh.”

Bingley scowls even further. “Then why did you give it to me?”

“A recent book obsession,” Darcy sighs. “I'm looking forward to when I'll get to change mine again. Darcy Bennet seemed like such a good idea at the time, but I'm getting rather sick of the repetitive teasing whenever I introduce myself.”

Bingley finally comes away from where he was inspecting a lampshade - covered in a pattern of East-Asian dragons that Darcy found in an antique shop in Italy. He flops his long frame down across from her on her sofa, just as he would his scales on his cave nest. If he had a tail at the moment, Darcy can tell, it would be flicking back and forth.

“What happened to Carol and Lewis Kingsley?” Bingley asks. “I like those ones... they were... regal. These ones I do not like. Why must you persist in changing names? You always leave a human village when you reach the end of your cycle of pretend human life; the new human villagers would not be suspicious of you.”

“I suppose I just like the idea of starting anew,” Darcy replies tiredly, just about ready to show Bingley the door. Then she gets an idea, and offers Bingley the book. “Here, take this and have it.”

Bingley eyes the small book warily, reaching out a long arm to take it and then looking at the cover with undisguised horror. He flips the paperback around and gestures somewhat incoherently at the picture on its front, of a red dragon rising from a mountain. Darcy has to stifle a giggle at the sheer indignation on his face.

“What sort of mockery is this?” Bingley demands. “What kind of sick pleasure do you derive from these corrupt and baseless imaginings? Why would you offer me this creation of the foolish human mind?”

Dragons, unsurprisingly, are not very willing to part with the possessions they collect. They either want something or they don't, and there is very little in between, so gifts have never become a custom or tradition of their unhappy little family. If their elder-clutch-siblings or parents had ever given them anything, it was because, to them, that thing was worthless. But Darcy has spent too much time among humans and the others have been gone too long for her to care for being very dragon-like.

“Yes, it's for your hoard,” Darcy replies simply. “I'll get another one, don't worry.”

Bingley shifts in his seat and she can almost see her clutch-brother's wings flapping in discomfort and confusion. To try and disguise these vulnerable emotions, he brings another sneer to the handsome human face he does not wear well. “I collect books of true knowledge,” he informs her. “Not... not the fantasy and fiction of common human literature.”

“I think you'll like it actually.”

“Most doubtful,” Bingley insists, shaking his head. Her clutch-brother eyes the book with some curiosity now though; books have always been Bingley's weakness, he just hasn't had much luck in what samples of human creativity he's come across.

“Well, you can complain about how much you hate it on your next visit,” Darcy says, getting to her feet. “I'm kicking you out the door now, I have to get ready for a dinner date with the girls. Beth's daughter just gave her her first grandchild and she's been dying to brag about it.”

Bingley reluctantly stands and the clutch-siblings move towards the door, with Bingley grasping the book awkwardly and walking with the gait of someone who is used to being predatory but with more legs than he currently has. Darcy moves more slowly and steadily, having fallen into the habit of purporting the age her appearance suggests, admiring the carefully crafted wrinkles around her gray eyes in a dragon-framed mirror from Finland.

It's easier, she's realized, to stay in one place if she gives herself the appropriate wrinkles over the years and lets the color fade from her hair. But pretending to age requires more than a fair bit of acting as well, as it's more than a little bit odd for a lady who could be a grandmother to bound up the stairs at an inhuman speed or carry more groceries than several able-bodied men would be able to. Toddling slowly across a street can be great fun, though, especially when she knows she could still walk off with a skip in her step if a car crashed into her.

She opens the door for her clutch-brother and sees Bingley out of the apartment, just as the apartment across the way opens up and her young neighbors step out, a short blond and a taller brunet. They're Brooklyn boys, born and raised here by their immigrant parents (Irish and Romanian, respectively, Darcy thinks they told her once, and she's heard them cursing in both a time or too), and almost always joined at the hip. Today, they appear to be dressed up for some occasion, poking their usual good fun at each other as they close their door behind them. Their mouths button shut when they see her though, like she hasn't heard or used curse words before in her life and might faint dead away if that changes.

“Ms. Bennet!” Steve greets her brightly, as though trying to negate the fact he has a massive bruise on the jaw that's stronger than the rest of him combined and was just insulting his friend with enough sauce to make a sailor faint. He looks at Bingley - who is easily more than two heads taller than him; Bingley never did get normal human heights right – up and down, and Bingley returns the stare with one of faint disbelief at such a tiny and gangly person.

Great, now her clutch-brother is never going to get over his idea of humans as utterly weak creatures.

“Boys,” Darcy returns, making sure to give her voice that extra croak of age. “You look handsome tonight. Where'ya off to?” Her eyes flicker over Steve's partner, dressed in an army uniform she's never seen him wearing before, and gives a licentious grin. “Always did like a fella in uniform.”

James grins back, slinging an arm over Steve's shoulders. “Now, Ms. Bennet, y'know you're too good for the likes'o me. We're off to the Stark Expo for a double date. Could find'ya a fella if you're interested in joining us... unless -” He looks at Bingley, grinning even more widely. “- y'already got one, ya heartbreaker, you.”

Bingley looks so offended and repulsed that Darcy has to give off a cackle. “Oh, now that'll be the day when this one finds himself a dame. Boys, this is my grandson, Bingley. Bingley, these are my neighbors, Steve and James.”

“How do you do,” Bingley says stiffly, and only because Darcy drilled some manners into him and insisted he had to play nice after he gave her last neighbor a nervous breakdown.

Although the nervous breakdown could have been because Bingley, who had been known as Darcy's son in that time, once forgot to age himself after a dozen years without visiting and Darcy's neighbor had been a bit hysterical, superstitious, and extremely religious. It's all fun and games until someone tries to stake Bingley because they're convinced he's a vampire; Bingley never takes that sort of thing with any sense of humor and usually ends up setting the local church on fire.

“Well, thanks,” James replies, eyeing Bingley strangely, while Steve only nods.

Knowing that her clutch-brother is on the verge of bolting, Darcy says, “Bingley was just on his way out. He's got some business to get to.”

“Yeah?” Steve asks.

“I am a historian,” Bingley informs them, still stiffly. It's one of the lines that Darcy gave him if anyone ever asked what he did for a living; the other one is 'I study old books'. He's gotten better at applying them to the situation over time, but not to actually acting human, as he turns away from their group and strides away without another word.

“Nice fella,” Steve mutters below his breath, too low for a regular human old woman to hear.

Darcy smiles apologetically, partly to hide her amusement; Bingley is so shamelessly terrible at being human. “Sorry about him, he'll get to being a real member of civil society one day.”

“That's alright,” Steve drawls, eyeing his best friend with a grin. “Bucky's got far to go too.”

James knocks into his shorter friend with a fond smirk. “I'm not the one who can't walk down the street without runnin' into somebody's fist.”

“Yeah, ya can't even stand on tha' street with your mug.”

“Say that to my face, ya punk.”

“Didn't say anything, jerk.”

“Don't you boys have some dames to go meet?” Darcy interrupts, because these two clowns can and will go on forever like this unless somebody stops them.

James pulls a beaten-up watch from his pocket to check the time, then swears under his breath. “Dammit, Stevie, we gotta get moving.” He grabs his friend by the shoulders and pushes Steve down the hall. “Ms. Bennet, we'll see ya around!”

“Goodbye, boys!” Darcy calls, waving as they go.

“Bye, Ms. Bennet!” Steve yells back, before he's shoved into the stairwell by James and the two of them disappear out of the hall. She can still hear them thumping their way down the creaky old stairs, quips and laughter following as they go, until they go out of even her range and the sounds of them disappear entirely.

Darcy steps back into her apartment and closes the door. Once she does, she straightens from the slumped posture of the elderly that she's been wearing for the past years. James's uniform reminded her of just how long she's been in this building, since before what the humans called the Great War and through Roaring Twenties (what a terrible time that was) and the Great Depression (what an even worse time). Time's been ticking by and it'll probably be time to move again soon, especially if this war gets any worse than it already has.

But first, she's got a dinner date with the girls so Beth can brag about her new granddaughter. Maybe she'll start getting ready to go after they finish their quilting project for the little girl; if Darcy's not there, there'll be no one to add patches of blue dragons, which, she will forever maintain, are absolutely perfect for little girls.

Kittens and ducklings are far too overrated.

~

“Why must you always inflict this suffering upon me?” Bingley demands from being the boxes his clutch-sister has shoved into his arms. “I have done nothing to deserve this. Every time you change human villages, you insist upon my assistance and use me as a pack mule.”

“Shut up, Bing,” Darcy says. “This is the easy part. You didn't have to pack up all this and you're going to fly away to hide in your cave before I even try to open anything. Everyone thinks I'm eighty-seven - or seventy-eight; I can never remember anymore - I can't be carrying around boxes like they're nothing.”

“Physical labor is beneath me,” Bingley insists, his hands loosening as though he intends to just let the boxes drop. “And you insist on making me carry them one or two at a time! It is so slow!”

“If you drop those, I will pluck your scales, don't think I won't.”

“This could be so much faster if you would just let me carry more of them.”

Darcy fixes her clutch-brother with a stern look. “You couldn't balance more than two of them, Bing, you have enough trouble just walking in the human shape.”

“I do not,” Bingley insists with a pout.

“Oh just take those down to the truck, you stubborn lizard.”

“How dare you.”

“Go before I roast you.”

“Fine,” her clutch-brother says, and exits her tiny apartment with two heavy boxes almost weightless in his arms. “But you must be aware that I am humoring you,” he calls.

“Oh, definitely,” Darcy agrees, turning back to her ransacked apartment. All of her books and dragon-themed things have been carefully packed up, all her important knick-knacks and possessions are boxed away, while she leaves the larger furniture behind.

She'll miss that sofa; she hopes the next inhabitants of this tiny apartment will appreciate it.

Slowly, Darcy and Bingley remove all the boxes from her apartment down to the truck she's paying to use. Darcy has more than enough riches to do as she pleases; their egg-bearer left a large hoard of gold hidden away and neither she nor Bingley is interested in keeping or actively hoarding the shiny metal and sparkling jewels.

As Darcy is closing the door to her home for the last time, Bingley standing next to her holding the last box, her clutch-brother asks: “What became of your neighbors?”

“Hmm?”

“Steve and James,” he says. “Their scents are very faint. They have not been here in many months. Human lifespans have not shortened greatly to what they were previously, have they?”

Darcy locks her door and gives a small laugh. “Oh, not in the way of aging, no,” she replies. “But sort of, in a way. There's a war going on.”

Bingley rolls his eyes, something he probably picked up from her. “When are the humans ever not having a war?”

“True enough, but this one is... different,” Darcy says, pocketing her keys. “It's... larger. You should probably avoid Europe and the Mediterranean for awhile. There are battles happening in the air now - planes being shot from the sky.”

Bingley looks confused. “Humans are fighting in their balloons now?”

“No,” Darcy says with a sigh. “No, not balloons.”

She'll have to introduce Bingley to some of the more recent advancements humans have been making, all the technology and machinery that have been born of war and urgency. (She would hesitate to say necessity.) Maybe she can take him to some of the propaganda films.

An idea pops into her head. “Hey, Bing?”

“Yes?”

“Did you read the book I gave you? The one about the hobbit and the dwarves?”

Bingley's pale face goes slightly pink, and he shuffles from one foot to the next; if he had his tail, it would be tucked between his legs. “Yes,” he admits quietly, and then even more quietly says, “It was... interesting. Do you... do you have any more of... some less-pathetic human literature?”

Darcy gives him a knowing look, but doesn't say anything.

“I have not had the opportunity to add many new texts to my hoard,” Bingley insists, face becoming increasingly red. “I would not... balk at some distraction, of weak and fictional substance though human literature may be.”

“I'm sure I can rustle up something up to par,” Darcy says, already thinking of the dozens of texts she's been wanting to have her clutch-brother read, if only to hear his complaints on their foolishness and inaccuracy. Maybe she can take him to some actual films; she'd love to see what he'll think of the cartoon films they've been making.

Bingley nods, face still red like he's trying to swallow back a fireball, and he looks away. His eyes fall once again on the apartment door that used to belong to Steve and James, before James left for war and Steve disappeared and didn't come back very soon after.

“So what became of your neighbors?” Bingley repeats. “Did they die in the human war?”

Darcy shrugs and walks down the hall, her clutch-brother following with a box in his arms.

“I don't know,” she replies simply and honestly. “So... what are you feelings on the historical-romance genre?”

“The genre of what?”

“I'm wondering how well you'll react to the human literature I chose our most recent names from.”

~

“HOW COULD HE DO THAT?” Bingley demands loudly from Darcy's new sofa, in her new apartment in San Francisco. Then yells out to his clutch-sister in the next room: “THIS TEXT MAY BE CURSED; IT IS DOING SOMETHING UNPLEASANT TO MY HEART.”

Darcy, enjoying having smooth skin and thick brown curls again, puts the cap back on her bright-red lipstick. “It's not cursed, you dumb lizard,” she calls back to him. “You're just having feelings over book characters, it's completely normal.”

Then is a brief silence and then Bingley shouts back: “NO, THAT IS FOOLISH; IT IS MOST DEFINITELY CURSED. THIS JANE AUSTEN WAS LIKELY A WITCH. I WILL INVESTIGATE FURTHER.”

Darcy pauses in front of her vanity mirror, thinks about this for a second, and then runs out of the room. “Bingley, if you do anything to my book, I swear to God, I WILL RIP OUT YOUR SCALES! BINGLEY, GIVE ME THE BOOK RIGHT NOW.”

“BUT IT IS CURSED!”

“GIVE IT!”

“NO!”

Chapter Text

Technology, though Darcy loves it, is incredibly annoying. Before, she could appear anywhere she wanted and have no questions asked; now, she needs a birth certificate and a passport and a previous place of residence and a high school graduated certificate. She has no desire to be deported, after all. But placing herself in an orphanage as a child with amnesia just to get inside the system is something she doesn't have any patience for.

She tried that exactly once, got sick of it within the week, and hasn't done it since. Children are monsters.

Luckily, she's been around since computers were being born and she loves them. With some of her jobs, she's raised them. Darcy thinks it's absolutely amazing how humans keep coming up with ways to get around their lack of magic; they're just so smart and ambitious and they never stop trying. Darcy has no real patience for their regular messy machines, but computers are just so brilliant and so useful.

The right sequence in the right combination and you can do anything you want to; it's like magic.

“You're going to get yourself arrested,” Bingley announced, as Darcy bit her lip, face illuminated by the computer screen, and indeed did something very illegal.

It was surprising that Bingley could tell it was illegal, though; he hated computers.

“Hush, I'm getting us new identities. I thought you were keen on the idea of going to university. You know we can't go to university unless we have a nice'n'normal human background and legit identities. Therefore: illegal activities.”

Bingley sighs. It's a very deep, very loud, and very dramatic sigh. There's practically a neon sign hitting her over the head with his disappointment and how much he disapproves.

“Drama lizard,” Darcy mutters.

Her clutch-brother doesn't actually give a shit about what the humans have declared legal. It's just that she got them arrested one time and he's never let her forget it. And with that went the only chance he'd ever appreciate the amount of effort Darcy goes to to cultivating human identities.

Bingley has adapted fairly well to moving among humans. He still spends most of his time hidden away in his cave with his hoard, but he can actually socialize now without people thinking he's a vampire. Now they just think he's an enormous dork because he pretty much does nothing but read and watch movies and that is his entire knowledge of human culture. Going to university to study English Literature is going to be his first venture into spending an extended period of time among humans.

It's probably going to be an utter disaster too, his professors are probably going to try and take out hits on him within the first week. Bingley, who has yet to explain why he is willing or wants to be anywhere near humanity now, is probably going to burn the campus down during exams.

To be fair though, from what she's heard of human university, Darcy is probably going to burn the campus down during exams.

“So,” Darcy announces, as she finishes the final few details, “we are now Darcy and Bingley Lewis. We're twins, eighteen years old, home-schooled by our parents who recently died in a hit and run accident. And congratulations to us, we applied and were accepted to Culver University.”

“Good for us,” says Bingley, not looking up from his book.

“Oh, come on, at least pretend to be grateful.”

~

Although Darcy would say she's adapted well to the changing times – her knack for computers would certainly be evidence of this – she's always a little amazed at how humanity keeps surprising her. As a whole, they don't believe in magic or mystical things in general (except for their whole religion thing), but it seems to Darcy sometimes that something extraordinary is unfolding among humanity, something stepping suddenly into the world with both middle fingers raised at the idea of magic.

Mutants, for one thing. Darcy's been around through the many extremely-public events surrounding mutant-kind, and she's moved around enough to hear some stories and meet some fairly incredible people. To her, it seems pretty magical, but Bingley and mutantkind's world leaders beg to differ on that, so apparently it's not. She's seen some terrible things done to mutants and mutants do terrible and amazing things, but all she can think is that these things weren't happening a hundred years ago.

Or maybe they were, and humans weren't connected enough to let the world know before.

Would the incident where a 'giant, naked green man versus the military' match trashed their university have been forgotten and hushed up if some students hadn't caught it on their phones? Would something have been made up about the Harlem wreckage if there wasn't film evidence of the 'Incredible Hulk' versus some other massive, naked creature? Darcy, as the school gives her and a disgruntled Bingley excuses for the damage and inconvenience, is sure that humanity wasn't doing this kind of thing before.

She thinks she'd remember.

The Iron Man thing, now that had been interesting. She's watched Tony Stark grow up from a baby on the magazine covers to a man on the magazine covers (and tabloid pages, oh god), and when the superhero scandal breaks she tells herself she probably should have expected that. Steve told her about Howard Stark's flying car in the Stark Expo; the Starks have been reaching for the most impossible achievements since someone told them those things were impossible and they took it personally.

And speaking of Steve... well... America sure loved them some Captain America. It had sure as hell shocked Darcy when she picked up a history text and saw Steve and James standing side by side, with Steve taller than James and built like an ox, wearing the stars and stripes and laughing at something unseen. (They were both long dead by then and the war was long over without them - poor boys.) Something happened there – to finally make the size of the dog in the fight match the size of the fight in the dog – and hell if Darcy knows what it is.

Humans are petty and murderous and selfish and self-centered, but...

They evolve like there's no fucking tomorrow.

(If they keep evolving this way, Darcy thinks sometimes, maybe there won't be.)

~

Darcy ends up taking a degree in Political Science; she bumps around a bit but eventually settles on Political Science because she likes studying how people have governed themselves and each other over their existences. Evolving and devolving as the ages go by. A few of her year-mates ask her what she's even going to do with a Political Science degree, but she ignores them; she and Bingley still have plenty of their egg-bearer's hoarded gold to do whatever they wish with and Darcy takes pride in focusing on enjoying herself.

Dragons and selfishness - it's a thing.

Bingley bumps around a lot too, from department to department because he can't decide what language he wants to specialize in or what era he wants to study. He also just skipped out on an entire semester once because he just couldn't take pretending to be human any longer, and needed to get away before he burnt out or burnt things down. Darcy thinks he spent the entire time napping in his cave.

However, just when Darcy thinks she's finally going to graduate, her adviser turns around and informs her that she's missing credits and won't actually, in fact, graduate. For all that Darcy has enjoyed her human university experience, she's been really excited to have it over with entirely, so she searches for any opportunity to get out of having to take another semester of actual science classes.

Darcy isn't as much of an expert on magic as Bingley, but she knows enough to have certain things grate on her as to how humanity studies the greater universe. Also, human science has never been her strong suit and she'd probably flunk out of even their most basic classes. High school graduation certificate of dubious nature aside, Darcy has never actually had anything even remotely to do a human high school science class. And apparently computer science classes are offered through a different department and don't count as science for some reason.

Assholes.

It's Bingley who manages to save her ass, because someone told him he was as nuts in his interpretation of mythology as Dr. Jane Foster was with astrophysics and that he should apply for an internship with her to hang out with crazies like him. He looked this astrophysicist up, out of pure curiosity, and found that her internship was actually everything that his clutch-sister had been looking for. He'd even deigned to use his e-mail to send Darcy a link, even though he thinks digital information is basically devil-spawn and refuses to even acknowledge the existence of Facebook. Online shopping is Bing's best friend, but social media he despises with passion no matter how many times Darcy tries to tempt him.

Darcy sends in an application as a Hail Mary, and has no expectation that anything will come from it. But it turns out that everyone really does think Jane Foster is completely nuts, because Darcy, as the only applicant, gets the internship and to go to Nowhere, New Mexico for it.

“Victory by default is the best kind of victory,” Darcy tells Bingley knowledgeably as she packs up her things. “There's no losers, only winners.”

“I prefer basking victorious in the blood of my enemies,” Bingley deadpans, “but everyone to their own opinions.”

“Aw, you made a funny. I'm so proud.”

“Shut up.”

~

Jane Foster, as far as Darcy is concerned, is the best human ever to exist in the history of humanity. She's nice and pretty and dedicated and so, so smart - like, really smart - and the ambition and desire for knowledge in her is raw and pure and gloriously, shamelessly ugly-human-beautiful. She also offers to help Darcy unpack her things, which helps a lot in forming Darcy's opinion of her as the greatest person to ever exist.

“You... uh... you own a lot of things with dragons on them,” Jane says, as she unpacks a box of Darcy's stuff. The tiny scientist pulls out t-shirts with dragons, bedsheets with dragons, and a dragon-themed alarm-clock that Bingley found her as a return gift for the books she recommends to him.

“Dragons are cool,” Darcy says defensively, carefully pulling out her mobile of flying glass dragons, which she immediately goes to hang by the window.

“Dragons are cool,” Jane immediately agrees.

Darcy and Jane spend the rest of the night watching dragon-themed movies from Darcy's collection, eating more ice-cream than is humanly possible (which is impressive on Jane's part), and Jane lets Darcy part her toenails in a pattern like dragon scales. Blue and violet and silver like Darcy's own scales actually, but she doesn't tell Jane that.

Jane, meanwhile, tells Darcy about the stars. She tells Darcy about just how far the Earth is from everything, even its own planetary neighbors, and how far humanity is from the nearest other solar system. It takes light years to get there, she says, the space between two stars in a galaxy of billions is so big. She talks about light and mass and gravity and the endless expanse of space, some of which Darcy doesn't understand but listens intently to anyway.

Darcy thinks that although she hasn't known Jane for a day, she could listen to the human woman talk for forever. Humanity's ambition is so often about taking or having or destroying; humans (and dragons) are petty and murderous and selfish and self-centered. Jane... Jane just wants to know; Jane Foster looks out into black space and thinks about what's out there; Jane stares at the stars and wants to touch and taste and understand.

Bingley often says that humanity, despite all their technological advances, is still just scrabbling like in the dirt like ever before, thinking about food and mating and nothing else. He doesn't really believe that, Darcy is fairly sure, but he likes to pretend that he does.

Over the next few days, Darcy decides that if what Bingley says is true, then Jane Foster is standing with her tiptoes in the dirt, reaching for the apple in the tree that's just out of her reach and that people tell her she can't have or doesn't exist. Jane Foster tells other people to go fuck themselves as she climbs that goddamn tree, no matter how many times she falls down or how hard it is, so she can grab the apple – the stars – and take a giant, delicious bite.

Darcy likes Jane.

Of course, as Darcy gets to know Jane, she gets to know Erik as well. Erik Selvig is a prof at Culver, but Darcy's never come across him before because he works in Theoretical Astrophysics and Darcy barely knows what that means or what it is. He's the other half of Jane's team, researching something with a long science-y name here in the desert of New Mexico.

Darcy likes him too.

Erik is less optimistic than Jane, slightly more cynical and a little less driven, but he genuinely loves the subject he studies. Whereas Jane simply takes the disrespect she gets for her theories and gets angry, Erik only seems to get tired. He's climbing for that apple too, but quietly and steadily, and occasionally has to convince himself that it exists in the first place. His thirst to know and understand is no less pure or important to him, but it's less hungry than Jane.

Darcy likes Erik because he's a little bit gruff and sometimes grumbles about her total lack of scientific background, but he's ultimately kind and with some prodding from Jane will slow down to explain things so that Darcy can try to understand better. He's a good teacher and an excellent mentor for Jane, and he treats Darcy a little like a long-lost niece against Jane being his long-lost daughter.

It doesn't take long before Darcy finds that she's really comfortable with the position she's found with Jane and Erik. She's been living human life after human life, but she's never really had a human being really need her for anything. The only family she's ever had is Bingley, and he'd spew fire at her if she tried to involve herself in his life beyond the illegal computer things he needs every now and again to keep at his new hobby of human university education.

Darcy patches up their equipment as best she can, sorts their data, changes the oil in the van, calls the plumber because she's the only one who remembers, orders food, makes coffee, starts a dragon-themed movie night for the three of them, and makes Jane take breaks from science to be a human being every now and again. Erik can take care of himself, but when Jane gets on a science-bender, she's somehow even worse at being human than Bingley is.

It takes Darcy awhile to notice, because she thinks at first that she's just become attuned to Jane and Erik's habits and schedule, but eventually she realizes that her relationship with these two humans has become deeper than it should be. She realizes this at the laundromat of all places, as she counts out quarters and measures laundry detergent, because she thinks she's humming and then realizes she's not.

She can feel Jane buzzing in the back of her head, curious about something she's studying and starting to get a bit hungry. Darcy is down the street, but she somehow knows and feels exactly where Jane is, flitting from station to station about the lab, and how she is.

She can feel Erik too, a buzz lower in tone, annoyed and not too far from Jane. When Darcy left, he was talking to someone from Culver on the phone and the conversation, judging by his mood spikes, isn't doing anything to improve the grumpy disposition he had this morning.

She can feel them.

In her head.

Darcy takes a deep breath, tries not to panic, and fails utterly. Sitting against the machines, she puts her head between her knees, pulls out her phone, and calls Bingley.

~

“Well, obviously, you've formed a bond,” Bingley says.

“A what?”

Bingley pauses, and then says, “How do you know so much about how humans perceive us but know utterly nothing about actual dragon lore?”

“Hey, I know dragon lore stuff,” Darcy protests. “I just don't have a hoard of ancient books that I obsess over and have memorized. I know all the normal shit. And it's not like any of that shit's ever been useful for anything, like, at all. What the hell is a bond?”

“...”

“Bingley?”

“Shut up, it's complicated. I'm trying to think of a way to explain it to you.”

Darcy waits, looking around the laundromat and waving to the concerned-looking lady who owned the pet shop. “Seriously, Bingley, I'm not that stupid, just give it a shot.”

“Well, it's not exactly common what's happening with you,” Bingley begins, “so the information on it is sparse to begin with, but it was also considered slightly... shameful among our species.”

“Oh boy, I'm going to love this, I can tell.”

“When we have attachments to things, like our hoards, we develop a bond of sorts with that thing. The more we are attached to something, the deeper the bond. I, for example, can find parts of my hoard if I concentrate. I have a linked awareness of my hoard's location. If it were separated, I would be able to hunt it down and retrieve it piece by piece.”

“This is sounding really simple and common so far, Bing. What's the catch?”

There is a long and awkward pause as her clutch-brother collects himself. “Bonds only form from an emotional attachment,” Bingley admits. “Most of our species didn't allow themselves or didn't have the capability to care that deeply about something.”

Darcy remembers their egg-bearer, who reminded her of Smaug once upon a time. “Right, okay, I get it. So I have an emotional attachment to Jane and Erik like you do to you books? That makes... vague amounts of sense. But why don't I have a bond to you?”

Bingley makes an embarrassed sort of squawking noise. “You... you have enough of an emotional attachment to me that you believe there should be a bond?” he asks, sounding disbelieving and more than a little bit amazed.

“Of course I do, you idiot, you're my brother,” Darcy sighs, leaning her head back against the washing machine. Then adds quietly: “I do illegal things on a computer for you, obviously I love you. I don't do that shit for just anyone, you know.”

She waits for a reply for a bit, but there's only silence on the other end.

“Bingley, you spineless lizard, did you hang up on me?”

“...No.”

“Are you embarrassed because I love you?”

“...Kind of.”

“Are you going to answer my question or not?”

Bingley takes a deep breath. “Yes,” he says roughly. “So, um... well, bonds between our kind seem to be less... intense than between us and something else, and present but generally inactive. We naturally have much better mind-shielding than humans and if a bond existed would have to concentrate deeply to discern even the location of our bondmate, which would be very difficult if they were actively shielding.”

“Do we have a bond, Bingley?” Darcy asks.

Bingley makes another strange, embarrassed noise. “Well, how did you think I kept finding you all those centuries in your crappy lodging choices? Human cities stink like the pits of hell, it certainly wasn't my nose.”

“Aw, Bing, I love you too.”

~

Later that night, because it's movie night and they're watching something with dragons again and Darcy basically went straight for her secret stash of her experimental booze that can get even human-shaped dragons drunk after learning she formed emotional bonds to humans instead of inanimate objects like a normal abnormal bond-forming dragon, Darcy announces drunkenly to Jane, “I am a dragon and you... beautiful Pop-Tart Jane, you, are... my hoard. You are my... my princess! I loooove you - lots'n'lots, you know.”

Because she's chill like that.

Jane, who has Darcy's head in her lap, pats Darcy's forehead sympathetically with the bottom of her beer bottle. “I love you lots and lots too, Darcy,” she says. “My fierce dragon intern.”

“Mmmm,” agrees Darcy, snuggling into Jane's lap, then says to Erik because she can feel his amusement. “You are my princess too, Erik. Even if you're a guy... an' old... an' Swedish, you're still a princess to me. Love you lots too, Erik-princess.”

“Does this mean you'll finally let us watch a movie that's not about dragons?” Erik asks, sounding wholly unimpressed by this whole affair.

Darcy takes a moment to seriously think about the question, because it is definitely a question that deserves serious thinking about. “I'll take it into consideration,” she says. “We need more ones with princesses.”

Chapter Text

So, stuff happened. Jane, to exactly no one's surprise, is a terrible driver and if there had been any cliffs ahead, would have definitely driven them off a cliff in the name of chasing weird weather for science. She's been getting pretty desperate to prove that she's not batshit crazy about her theories, and while Darcy doesn't think chasing storms in their crappy van at high speeds is the way to do that, it would be nice if Jane got to be right about her tunnels through the stars. After a ride like that, Darcy feels that Jane is kind of stuck with crazy - that's stickin' after the whole 'attempting to drive into a death storm' thing.

Anyway, somehow, in the middle of the desert, Jane managed to actually hit someone. Wham! Right against the side of the van and flying through the desert dirt went the mystery guy, who at first seemed more than a little nuts or drunk, and so Darcy tased random dude just to be safe. (He was speaking to the sky. Come on.) Then they got random dude to the hospital while Darcy wondered why he smelled so weird, and then after they dropped him off, Darcy finally managed to connect all the clues.

Having returned to their home base to print out data (Jane) or get some goddamn sleep (Erik and Darcy), Darcy returns to where she's staying and pulls out her phone. She's managed to convinced her clutch-brother to actually use his phone to text her now that he's admitted he loves her, mostly by whining loudly about how: “If you really loved me, you'd text me baaaaack.”

To Bing-a-ling: hey guess what jane hit an asgardian with the van in the desert

Bingley appears to, for once, actually respond to the text sound his phone makes, because he texts back pretty much immediately. He also, since it's approaching dawn from midnight, must have decided sleep is a weak human activity again.

From Bing-a-ling: An actual Asgardian?

To Bing-a-ling: as opposed to a fake one? Yeah there was the rainbow bridge sign thing and everything

To Bing-a-ling: i totally tased him

From Bing-a-ling: You hit an Asgardian with that pathetic little electric thing of yours and they actually went down?

To Bing-a-ling: yeah it was weiiird

To Bing-a-ling: he was acting a couple beans short of a coconut tho

To Bing-a-ling: further investigation to be made

To Bing-a-ling: do u want me to take a pic of the crop circle thing the rainbow bridge made?

From Bing-a-ling: Yes, please.

Darcy makes a note on her phone to go out and get a picture of the alien crop circle thing the Asgardian transportation thing makes – hey, that seems pretty close to what Jane's researching now that she thinks about it – when he phone buzzes with another text from Bingley.

From Bing-a-ling: Be careful.

To Bing-a-ling: always am

From Bing-a-ling: No, you're not.

~

To Bing-a-ling: creepy agents took all our research shit and are creeping us across town

To Bing-a-ling: can see them watching us now

To Bing-a-ling: creepy agents also took my ipod

To Bing-a-ling: i had like thirty new songs on that

To Bing-a-ling: how do u think mib tastes roasted like marshmallows?

To Bing-a-ling: probably like suit

To Bing-a-ling: bingley are u ignoring me again?

~

To Bing-a-ling: jane hit asgardian dude with the van again

~

To Bing-a-ling: so random asgardian dude is actually thor

To Bing-a-ling: and he is sort of human rn for some reason

To Bing-a-ling: in our lab eating our food

From Bing-a-ling: The Crown Prince of Asgard is human and in your kitchen?

From Bing-a-ling: This is one of your April Fool jokes again.

To Bing-a-ling: april fools was like weeks ago you dumbass

To Bing-a-ling: and i wish bc he just ate a whole thing of poptarts

To Bing-a-ling: how can anyone eat a whole thing of poptarts and not wanna puke?

From Bing-a-ling: Has he given any indication as to why he's in the situation he's in?

To Bing-a-ling: no he seems pretty confused himself

To Bing-a-ling: seems to have some rly weird spell on him idk what

To Bing-a-ling: omg cannot believe the amount of lust and curiosity coming off Jane

To Bing-a-ling: prince of asgard is also prince of ass

To Bing-a-ling: and abs

To Bing-a-ling: damn son

From Bing-a-ling: Cease texting me until you have information of actual importance.

~

To Bing-a-ling [image attached]: this is a pic of thor hes like a hot puppy omg

To Bing-a-ling: not kidding about the puppyness he just broke a cup

To Bing-a-ling: puppies eat ur food and break ur shit rite?

To Bing-a-ling: ive never owned a dog

To Bing-a-ling: i should get a dog

To Bing-a-ling: bing if i got a dog would u eat it?

To Bing-a-ling: dont eat my hypothetical dog

To Bing-a-ling: feelings currently leaning towards golden retrievers

~

To Bing-a-ling: jane senses going wild

To Bing-a-ling: think she did the thing with thor that erik said not to do

To Bing-a-ling: i pick dumb humans

To Bing-a-ling: was going to send erik to bail her out but she managed to leave him a voicemail

To Bing-a-ling: my humans are not as dumb as previously assumed

To Bing-a-ling: creepy agents still creeping us tho

To Bing-a-ling: bing are u ignoring me again

To Bing-a-ling: u lizard

~

To Bing-a-ling: jane having squishy feelings for thor

To Bing-a-ling: literally no way for this to end well

To Bing-a-ling: i can hear them talking i gotta find earplugs

To Bing-a-ling: thor is talking science to her shes doomed

To Bing-a-ling: found earplugs but jane squishy feelings not letting me sleep

To Bing-a-ling: bing how do i turn the bond thing off

To Bing-a-ling: love is squishy squish weirdness and i want none of it

To Bing-a-ling: gonna focus on erik instead

To Bing-a-ling: drunk dreaming feeling pref to squishy stuff

To Bing-a-ling: still cant sleep

To Bing-a-ling: bingleyyyy how do i turn this offfff??????

~

To Bing-a-ling: i feel like crap and its ur fault no sleep for me

To Bing-a-ling: thor seems to be staying with us forever

To Bing-a-ling: if i end up feeling the squishy from both sides im gonna roast u

To Bing-a-ling: thors friends showed up

To Bing-a-ling: names are warriors three and lady sif

To Bing-a-ling: seriously three dudes here and thor totally skipped over their names

To Bing-a-ling: asked them myself names are fandral volstagg and hogun

To Bing-a-ling: they like coffee and waffles

To Bing-a-ling: creeper agents creeping on us extra hard now

To Bing-a-ling: u should totally answer me sometime its a thing great thing i promise

To Bing-a-ling: giant robot appeared in town

To Bing-a-ling: giant robot now trying to kill everybody

To Bing-a-ling: gotta save the dogs

To Bing-a-ling: i saved the dogs

To Bing-a-ling: robot still trying to kill everybody shld i kill it

To Bing-a-ling: creeper agents are everywhere tho

To Bing-a-ling: imma give warriors 3 and sif 5 more min to get their shit together

To Bing-a-ling: thor getting his shit together now i think

To Bing-a-ling: holy shit nope jane is sad now imma kill it

To Bing-a-ling: wait weird spell on thor doing something

To Bing-a-ling: thor got his shit together and his hammer back

To Bing-a-ling: rip killer robot

To Bing-a-ling: hellooo sexy armor

To Bing-a-ling: we r going somewhere now

To Bing-a-ling: when r u going to text me back u shitty lizard

To Bing-a-ling: thor and warriors 3 plus sif are leaving to kick loki butt

To Bing-a-ling: loki is his brother and plots nefariously apparently

To Bing-a-ling: jane is sad again and now i have nothing to kill

To Bing-a-ling: fucking asgardians

To Bing-a-ling: creeper agents still being creepers

To Bing-a-ling: no response on me getting my ipod back

To Bing-a-ling: if they take me and jane away to a secret facility i will eat them

To Bing-a-ling: cant find erik lost him between creeper agents and lab

To Bing-a-ling: oh wait there he is

To Bing-a-ling: were getting our shit back yay

To Bing-a-ling: holy shit bing are u getting any of my texts

To Bing-a-ling: PEOPLE NEARLY DIED WHAT IS WRONG WITH U

To Bing-a-ling: i will disown u if u dont answer me

To Bing-a-ling: ur disowned

~

From Bing-a-ling: I lost my phone charger.

From Bing-a-ling: So... you had a busy couple days.

To Bing-a-ling: no shit sherlock

Chapter Text

MISSION STATUS REPORT >REJECTED<

Agent: Yoko Mitobe, Senior Agent

Senior Agent in Charge: >REQUIRES SAIC APPROVAL<

Date: I have no idea. I haven't slept since at least two days before I got shipped out here. I'll fill in the date later or something. >FILL IN DATE<

Mission Code: Also no idea. I can never remember things when I'm this out of it and no one briefed me before about three hours ago. I was supposed to be having vacation time next after a shit mission and then suddenly SHIELD is going to shit or something because all agents are being called out of reserve. I hope they understand that, that they sent me to New fucking Mexico with a bunch of concussed ducklings pretending to be newbie agents when I was supposed to be on the French Riviera. >FILL IN VERIFIED MISSION CODE<

Alright, so this report is already crap but I might as well get my thoughts down. So it's a basic surveillence mission in Puente Antiguo, a half-destroyed town in New Mexico where some super-powered aliens were apparently wrestling or whatever. (Note: Get an agent to actually get me the mission report of what ever the fuck went down here so I can head this survaillance bullshit properly.) This place is probably going to become a ghost town, population is small enough that fleeing is much better choice than rebuilding this mess.

Subjects of surveilliance mission, however, are apparently stubborn jerks, as they have not left some gas station turned science lab since aliens and more important people than me cleared out some weeks ago. (Note: Phil Coulson fucking owes me one for this.) Survieillance equipment (cameras and bugs) are thankfully already installed, so I'll have even more crap to review but at least won't have to organize an installation. Some acne-faced twit who thinks they're hot shit always completely fails to clean after themselves on jobs like these.

Okay, so Agent Waters is telling me that the subjects of surveillaince are Dr. Jane Foster and Darcy Lewis. An astrophysicist who studies space portals and her intern, and apparently Foster got it on with one of the aliens or whatever. I knew this; it was in the briefing, I think. There used to be another one named Selvig, like about a week or two ago, but Fury needs him so Coulson's off playing courier and babysitter with help from Barton.

Oh god, “help from Barton”, that's the most hilarious thing I've ever written, I think.

Foster and Lewis seem depressed without Selvig, according to the notes I'm flipping through. In the past few weeks since shit happened and Coulson cleared out, Foster has (according to Agent Waters) spent her time obsessing over her work or sitting on the roof and staring up at the sky. The latter happens mostly at night. Lewis spends her days either trying to put Foster and Selvig's equipment together or on her phone (Note: Get phones tapped – wait, Coulson, phones are prob already under survevillence. Review communication activity then.)

Alright, I'm done. Fuck it. This report is a mess. I'll deal with this shit after I've slept in a bed and can actually think coherently. Good fucking night.

>REPORT REJECTED FOR EXPLICIT LANGUAGE, INAPPROPRIATE TERM USAGE, LACK OF PROFESSIONAL DEMEANOR, INSUFFICIENT INFORMATION, INSUFFICIENT COMMUNICATION COHERENCY... (see 31 more items)<

~

Agents,

I haven't slept in days. Agent Waters is in charge.

Carry on.

Mitobe

~

Darcy is pissed.

Thor still hasn't returned, in weeks and counting, and it's making Jane increasingly despondent as she slowly loses confidence in herself, while still trying to keep up a peppy I-love-science attitude.

“Don't be silly, Darcy,” she'd say, smiling, “I just had all my theories proven and he said he'd be back. I'm fine.”

Bullshit, Darcy wants to reply, but doesn't because she's not going to push Jane if the tiny scientist wants to pretend that she isn't feeling depressed and self-conscious and unhappy. Jane is a grown human woman, she can handle her own feelings and Darcy is not going to infringe on any boundaries (more than she is already) even though Jane's sadness is driving her nuts.

What's equally bad though is that Erik is gone. SHIELD – like hell Darcy doesn't know who took him, it sure as hell wasn't some random conference, SHIELD agents are so obvious it is actually almost painful – shipped him off somewhere for some super-secret project. Erik doesn't have a phone, so neither Darcy nor Jane has been able to get in contact with him recently and they're both a weird mix of mad and sad about it.

Darcy can still feel Erik of course, who seems to be doing alright, but the increasing distance between them is making his... “emotion signal” (that's a good name for it, right?) fainter and fainter, and it's annoying. She thinks she finally understands hoarding now, and why Bingley will never lend her any of his books, because it's making her twitchy not to have all her humans in a row anymore. She totally wants to stuff Erik and Jane somewhere and feed them cookies until they stop being sad, but she can't because that's definitely not weird.

Without Erik to keep her grounded and Thor to explain weird Asgardian magic-science, Jane is working herself into a burnt-out dead-end and Darcy has no idea how to stop her. Then their research is going extra absolutely nowhere because they have to put all their gear back together and SHIELD is being maddeningly unhelpful about everything. Also, Pop-Tarts are no longer able to fuel Jane's science because the killer robot has wrecked half the town and therefore half the stores and businesses are recovering from being exploded.

Then, because Fate has it out for Darcy or something, Bingley shows up.

~

MISSION STATUS REPORT >REJECTED<

Agent: Yoko Mitobe, Senior Agent

Senior Agent in Charge: >REQUIRES SAIC APPROVAL<

Date: 13/05/2012

Mission Code: L6S-12-10374

Nope. Nope. This won't be an official report either. (Note: Thank Agent Waters for making report forms for me with the date and mission code already filled in. Now that's initiative. We need more agents like that.) I just woke up and I'm on my first coffee and there's some acne-faced twit panicking at me; I need to straighten this shit out first and calm the concussed ducklings and brainstorm as to what the actual fuck is happening here.

So Agent Dawson is panicking because some teenage kid just showed up out of nowhere. They're watching all the roads and monitoring for alien wormholes or whatever, but some guy still managed to pop up and they have no idea how he got here. One of the agents noticed him walking down the street and didn't recognize him as a civilian, then panicked. (Note: Talk to recruiter about the standard of rookies they're letting become agents now. This is disgraceful.)

Agent Waters is running his mug now, but Agent Sanchez seems convinced he's an alien because, and I quote, “he walks strange, is really tall, is wearing sleepwear, and is barefoot”. (Note: Get Coulson to talk to recruiter about standards.) Like, seriously kid, is that it? I've seen stranger shit in people. My apartment's between a drag queen and a drug dealer. Humanity is pretty fucking weird by itself.

Alright, Agent Waters found a facial match on Foster's intern's Facebook. It's Foster's intern's brother apparently. Bingley Lewis. What a name. Poor shit. He's headed right now towards Foster's lab, I'm going to listen to their conversation through the bugs and then yell at Dawson for letting some (according to the profile Waters is reading to me) Medieval Romantic Poetry university student just wander in without pinging our surveillance. (Note: Get Coulson to have Romanoff talk to recruiter about standards.)

>REPORT REJECTED FOR... (see 27 items)<

~

RECORDING DEVICE TRANSCRIPT >REJECTED<

Senior Agent in Charge: >REQUIRES SAIC APPROVAL<

Date: 13/05/2012

Time: 1034 – 1037

Mission Code: L6S-12-10374

START OF EXTRACT – 1034 hrs

Footsteps as J.Foster enters room.

J.Foster screams.

Sound of ceramic object breaking.

Running footsteps as D.Lewis enters room.

D.Lewis (shouted): Nobody move! I have a taser and I will use it!

D.Lewis: Bingley?

D.Lewis: Oh, god. You're cleaning up the coffee cup you made Jane drop. I told you, when I'm staying with other people, you have to knock before you break in.

J.Foster: Darcy, what's going on?

D.Lewis: Yeah... so... Jane, this is my brother, Bingley. Bingley, this is my Jane. Play nice.

B.Lewis: How do you do.

D.Lewis (muttered): Oh my g- I knew there was something I forgot to do this decade. We are so doing a manners update later.

J.Foster: Hey.

D.Lewis: So, Bing... not that it's not great to see you, but what are you doing here?

B.Lewis: There were Asgardians here, I couldn't not investigate.

J.Foster: Asgardians.

D.Lewis: What about school?

B.Lewis: I got bored of it. I don't want to study human poetry anymore. It's dull.

J.Foster: Human poetry.

D.Lewis: So you just hopped on a plane and flew down?

Silence of 3.5 seconds.

B.Lewis: Yes.

D.Lewis: Oh my god, Bing, you didn't even take a plane, did you?

B.Lewis: Those things make me airsick.

J.Foster: Darcy. What's going on?

D.Lewis: Um.

J.Foster: How does he know about Asgard?

B.Lewis: I study old books.

J.Foster: You study old books.

D.Lewis (muttered): Points for effort. Negative points for application.

B.Lewis: You should tell her.

D.Lewis: What?

J.Foster: Tell me what?

B.Lewis: Lasting and stable relationships are built on clear communication and demonstrations of trust. Having insight into another individual's opinions and mind without their knowledge or consent is a breach of trust and respect.

Silence of 5.1 seconds.

D.Lewis: Did you read that in a book?

B.Lewis: Yes.

J.Foster: Darcy, tell me what?

B.Lewis: Is her trust repaid or not?

D.Lewis: Ugh, fine. Lookit you getting all smart about social relationships. I'll do it. But not here. The creeper agents probably have this place bugged to hell and back, they're already watching us like 24/7. We're not talking about this stuff here.

B.Lewis: I'll take care of it.

D.Lewis: What?

D.Lewis (shouted): Oh my god, Bingley, don't-!

ERROR – RECORDING DEVICE FAILURE

END OF EXTRACT – 1037 hrs

~

To: [email protected]

From: [email protected]

Subject: No Subject

Get me everything you can on Darcy and Bingley Lewis. Send me all available communications sent or received by Darcy Lewis and her file and background check. File nothing without my approval. And for god's sake, get Sanchez and Dawson out of my sight.

[sent from my StarkPhone]

To: [email protected]

From: [email protected]

Subject: Re: No Subject

D.Lewis file and retrieved cell-phone communications sent.

Agents Sanchez and Dawson sent on rooftop surveillance.

[sent from my StarkPhone]

~

To: [email protected]

From: [email protected]

Subject: Lewis file

This is the most sparse, half-assed file I've ever seen in my life. Someone verify every single bit of information on it. My bullshit senses are all but throwing up.

[sent from my StarkPhone]

~

COMMUNICATION SURVEILLANCE ANALYSIS >UNFILED<

Agent: Yoko Mitobe, Senior Agent

Senior Agent in Charge: >REQUIRES SAIC APPROVAL<

Date: 13/05/2012

Mission Code: L6S-12-10374

Subject of surveillance: Darcy Lewis's cell-phone use during [Subject: Puente Antiguo Incident]

NOTES:

• Appears to be aware of [Subject: Asgardians] and [Subject: Einstein-Rosen Bridge] from beginning?

• Aware of agent surveillance from beginning?

• Threatened to roast agents like marshmallows?

• Brother recognized [Subject: Thor] as “Crown Prince of Asgard”?

• Asked brother if would EAT hypothetical dog?

• “Dumb humans”?

• “Lizard”???

• Appears to have empathetic connection to Jane Foster and Erik Selvig? Psychic abilities? Love is apparently “squishy”?

• Threatened to roast brother? Fixation on roasting?

• Appeared convinced able to “kill” [Subject: The Destroyer]?

• Threatened to eat SHIELD Agents if taken to secret facility?

• What the fuck?

(Note: Phil needs to start answering his fucking phone.)

 >REPORT UNABLE TO BE ACCEPTED DUE TO... (see 22 items)<

~

MISSION CLEARANCE CHANGE >ACCEPTED<

Agent: Yoko Mitobe

Senior Agent in Charge: Yoko Mitobe – Approved

Date: 13/05/2012

Mission Code: L6S-12-10374

Previous Clearance Level: Level 3

New Clearance Level: Level 6

~

Darcy turned away from her dead computer and whirled on her clutch-brother, who made an appropriately terrified face. “BINGLEY, YOU DUMB LIZARD. YOU BLEW OUT EVERYTHING. LIKE THAT'S NOT IN THE LEAST BIT SUSPICIOUS! I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU!”

“I'm... sorry?” Bingley offers awkwardly, as Darcy goes back to her laptop and coos at it.

“It'll be okay, baby,” Darcy tells the machine with a sniff, running her hands over the smooth surface as warmth seeps from it like blood. “We're gonna fix you up and keep you away from Bingley, I promise. It's gonna be okay.”

Jane crawls out from under the nearby desk, staring up at the blown-out lights. She pulls herself awkwardly to her slipper-wearing feet, and looks more than a little bit manic with her cosmic pj-bottoms, a tank-top from Darcy that says: 'SCIENCE PRINCESS', and wild bedhead as she waves her hands in a sweeping gesture over the darkened room.

“What did he just do?” she demands of the siblings, wide-eyed. “That was... that was... just there was this pulse and the lights flared then... what was that? Darcy, what's going on?”

Darcy freezes, then gives her laptop a final pat, straightens, and turns back to her friend. She thinks about how exactly to tell Jane the truth for a second and... no... no, there's really no good way to say it. On the upside though, Jane fell in love with a hot alien prince pretty recently, so this going to be more believable now than it would be if it had been admitted earlier.

“So I'm a dragon,” Darcy says bluntly, then points at her brother. “Bingley, here, is also a dragon.” Bingley waves obligingly and Darcy, using her other hand to gesture at herself, continues: “We're human-shaped right now to attend university, but are actually giant scaly beasts who are over a thousand years old.”

Jane's eyes have grown progressively wider during these statements, but she doesn't say anything when Darcy pauses. She just sort of stands there and stares, in her pyjamas and bedhead, so Darcy continues with the info-dump. It's probably best to get everything out at once, even if Jane probably thinks she's still dreaming.

“Bingley just blew out the electronics with magic; I think just it was burst of the really scratchy, interfering kind,” Darcy explains, looking at Bingley for confirmation, who nods. “It does not mix well with tech at all, so... bam, I guess.” She gives a shrug. “It's probably for the best we haven't really set anything back up yet.”

Darcy looks back at Jane, who still hasn't said anything... or moved... although Darcy is fairly certain that she's breathing at the least. Waiting for her friend to react, Darcy feels her heart bouncing down to her stomach and springing back up to her throat in cartwheels. It's been ages since she told anyone seriously, and when she had, it was mostly for shits and giggles before she proved it and roasted them for pissing her off somehow.

The difference now is that Darcy actually gives a shit about how Jane will react. Because Jane is her friend... isn't she? Well, that probably doesn't matter so much, what matters is that there's a little Jane-shaped hole somewhere in Darcy's heart now and Darcy hopes desperately that Jane won't react by hitting where it hurts. With her excellent vantage point, it will hurt.

Jane is.. Darcy can feel Jane's emotions spinning about in an almost incoherent mess. Emotions are hard enough to categorize on a good day, much less when someone's been dealt a serious surprise. Jane's face is pure shock, but her emotions a disaster-zone. Darcy thinks, from what she recognizes from past experience with Jane, that there's disbelief and curiosity mostly, followed by surprise, fear, anger, and confusion. But it's hard to tell, because all of it is in a hurtling wreck of frenzied agitation.

After a minute or so – it could have been forever with how Darcy felt – the whirlwind settles into something that Darcy doesn't recognize well. It's something much more calm, almost like resignation, with a layer of Jane's usual state of being – curiosity.

“Dragons?” Jane asks, eyes fixed on Darcy.

Darcy nods, face sober. “Yup.”

“Oh,” says Jane. “Alright then.”

Then something in Jane seems to deflate, as she goes over to the nearest chair – the one across from Darcy's laptop – and sinks into it like a lifeline. She folds her arms on the tabletop, and then burrows her face into her arms like she can block out the universe if she tries hard enough.

“Dragons,” Jane repeats, then groans: “My liiiiife.”

Darcy sits down in the chair across and pats her friend's wild bedhead. “Poor you.”

“Poor me,” Jane agrees, nodding into her arms. “I go out to the middle of nowhere to gather data and somehow end up hitting an alien with a car, getting ransacked by a government agency, and my intern best friend and her brother are dragons.” She looks up and glares weakly at Darcy. “This stuff just didn't happen when I was a grad student. The most exciting thing that happened was me defending my thesis.”

“Thus is the exciting life of a doctor,” Darcy tells her cheerily.

Jane groans again. “I'm a doctor, damn it, not a science-fiction character.”

“Star Trek,” realizes Bingley suddenly, and Darcy and Jane's head snap towards him. Darcy completely forgot her clutch-brother was in the room, and it seems Jane did too.

Bingley blinks in surprise, then makes a face of confusion and displeasure, like he's somehow unhappy with the general existence of everything again. “That was a paraphrasing of a common line from Star Trek: The Original Series, yes?”

“Yes,” Darcy tells her brother. “Yes, it was, Bing. Good catching that.”

Bingley preens slightly, like he does whenever he does when he manages to catch fictional references in everyday conversation. Since his only interaction with humanity is his lectures (which he mostly doesn't go to unless he feels like arguing with his prof) and partaking in pop culture, his entire social ability consists basically of nothing but references and paraphrasings and whatever Darcy's jammed into his head. He likes it when they make appearances.

“You still have to clean up the coffee you made Jane drop,” Darcy tells him.

Bingley scowls. “But I didn't drop it.”

“Yeah, but she wouldn't have dropped it if not for you,” Darcy returns, and her brother huffs in indignation but wanders off to go find paper towels anyway. "And get the glass from the lights, too!" Then Darcy looks back at Jane, who is staring at Bingley and looks back to Darcy with a disbelieving expression.

“Dragons watch Star Trek,” she states.

“Yes,” Darcy confirms.

“You're a dragon,” Jane says, looking Darcy up and down.

Darcy becomes immediately aware that she's wearing fuzzy pj-bottoms with penguins and the bra she slept in. And that Bingley was wearing his usual suave attire of plaid pj-bottoms (he refuses to subject himself to jeans and has convinced himself that everything worn by university students is normal) and stained Culver University hoodie. He's also barefoot; he looks like he should be napping in a library and Darcy looks like she should still be sleeping (which is true).

Neither of them, Darcy or Bingley, look anything like you'd expect human-shaped dragons to look. They're probably disgracing and disappointing the entire dragon-race with their appearances, as per their usual.

“Yes,” answers Darcy.

“That sort of explains the ridiculous amount of dragon-themed stuff you own,” is all Jane says.

“Oh,” Darcy replies, then shrugs and offers: “Well... dragons are cool.”

Jane looks bemused. “Dragons are cool,” she agrees, before thumping her face back into her arms.

Chapter Text

11:01 AM – Call Denied: line already in use – Yoko Mitobe to Phillip Coulson

~

“So, I'd offer you another coffee,” Darcy says later, after she and Jane have both gotten dressed, “but Bingley broke the coffee machine.”

“Shut up,” says Bingley from where he's cleaning mug and glass shards off the floor.

“And I'd offer you a hot breakfast to overcome your shock, but Bing broke the possibility of that too,” Darcy continues, ignoring her grumbling clutch-brother. “Your choices are... orange juice and cereal with or without orange juice, because we're out of milk.”

“How can I possibly choose?” Jane groans, from where she's slumped at the dining table. “I still can't believe that you didn't tell me about dragons... I still can't believe that you made us watch all those movies about dragons when you are a dragon.”

“They were cool,” Darcy argues.

“No, they're not,” Bingley says from the floor.

“Shut up, Bing.”

Jane groans again, this time as her stomach rumbles. “Ugh. Is the fridge working or is it dead too?”

“Nope, it's gone.”

“Just get everything inside it and we'll have whatever we can eat because we toss it.”

Darcy nods. “So, orange juice and cereal then.” She grabs the juice, swings the fridge shut, grabs the cereal, and steps over Bingley to join Jane at the table. “Bingley, bring us bowls.”

“No.”

“I'll tell Professor Kirkland that you left her class because she won.”

“...Fine.”

Bingley gets up to bring them bowls and Jane asks, “Who's Professor Kirkland?”

“Medieval poetry prof and Bingley's arch-nemesis,” Darcy answers. “Basically the only reason Bingley is still attending uni: to piss her off.”

“That's untrue,” Bingley insists, scowling, as he sets bowls, spoons, and cups down on the table.

Darcy rolls her eyes, because it is so true, but leaves it be because Bingley can and will rant about the general ineptitude and incorrectness of Prof. Kirkland far beyond how much anyone should care about the random medieval poetry texts of 10^th century Finland.

“So why would dragons want to attend university?” Jane asks. “And take... Political Science and...”

“Medieval Romantic Poetry,” Bingley supplies as he goes back to the spilled coffee, completely missing the priceless, utterly scandalized look on Jane's face.

Darcy shrugs as she serves orange juice to her and Jane. “Boredom,” she answers. “We've been around for a lot, but we've never really attended university before. We were curious. And Bingley wanted to meet Professor Kirkland and prove her wrong about literally everything she's ever written – so good ol' Culver U it was.”

“Untrue,” Bingley protests.

“Shut up, Bing.”

Jane accepts this with a nod as she crunches into her dry cereal, looking pensive. “So...” she begins warily. “You said you're both over a thousand years old...?”

“Mmhmm,” Darcy confirms. “We've been around since the fine old year of 942 A.D. You can be our first guest to our little birthday party on September 21^st. We turn 1070 years old.”

“A thousand and seventy?” Jane repeats, looking dumbfounded.

Darcy takes a sip of her lukewarm orange juice. “Yup. Hey, I might be older than Thor. I should ask him when he comes back from space. Bing, do you remember when Thor was born?”

“Unrecorded,” Bingley answers.

Jane stares at Darcy for a bit, then at Bingley, and then back at Darcy. “How are you 1070 years old and taking a degree in Political Science?” she demands, with all the indignation and confusion of a physicist when confronted with the social sciences.

“Hey, don't knock Poli Sci,” Darcy says with a frown. “It is a noble and dignified discipline.”

Bingley scoffs. “No, it's not,” he says, and Jane practically beams at him.

“Oh, and this coming from the Medieval Romantic Poetry student...”

~

SOCIAL MEDIA SURVEILLANCE ANALYSIS >UNFILED<

Agent: Carlos Sanchez, Junior Agent, and Sadie Thomas, Junior Agent

Senior Agent in Charge: >REQUIRES SAIC APPROVAL<

Date: 13/05/2012

Mission Code: L6S-12-10374

Subject of surveillance: Darcy Lewis's social media accounts

Agent: Carlos Sanchez, Junior Agent

Subject: Darcy Lewis's Facebook Account

[Full-report enclosed]

Summary: I have never seen so many pictures of random animals in my life.

Note by Agent Sadie Thomas: One picture of [Subject: Thor] posted during [Subject: Puente Antiguo Incident]. Already removed by SHIELD agents during [Subject: Puente Antiguo Incident].

Agent: Sadie Thomas, Junior Agent

Subject: Darcy Lewis's Twitter Account

[Full-report enclosed]

Summary: Seems ordinary. SHIELD should probably be thankful D.Lewis did not live-tweet the whole [Subject: Puente Antiguo Incident]. There was high risk of this occurring.

Agent: Carlos Sanchez, Junior Agent

Subject: Darcy Lewis's Instagram Account

[Full-report enclosed]

Summary: I stand corrected. I have now never seen so many pictures of random animals in my life.

Agent: Sadie Thomas, Junior Agent

Subject: Darcy Lewis's Tumblr Account

[Full-report enclosed]

Summary: Celebrity pictures, popular culture, and fantasy creatures.

Note by Agent Carlos Sanchez: I have never seen so many pictures of dragons in my life.

~

SOCIAL MEDIA SURVEILLANCE ANALYSIS >UNFILED<

Agent: Carlos Sanchez, Junior Agent

Senior Agent in Charge: >REQUIRES SAIC APPROVAL<

Date: 13/05/2012

Mission Code: L6S-12-10374

Subject of surveillance: Bingley Lewis's social media accounts

Summary: Nothing. This kid lives under a rock.

~

“So...” Darcy says later, when they've all finished off the last of the food in the lab. “What were everybody's plans for today? I had nada.”

“Yeah, pretty much nothing,” Jane admits, staring at her empty bowl.

“Inspect the Bifrost markings,” Bingley says, as if that is a perfectly normal human activity.

Jane looks at Darcy's brother with confusion. “You know about the Bifrost?”

Darcy freezes from where she's clearing up dishes. “Uh... well, better come clean now than never, I guess... we both already knew about... the Bifrost... and Thor... and Asgard.”

It is now, finally,  that Jane looks a bit betrayed; Darcy almost flinches at the mix of hurt she can feel coming off her friend. Bingley looks between them with interest, but wisely scoots his chair backwards out of the line of fire – he somehow manages to pick up on only the most inconvenient (for Darcy) of social cues.

“I didn't make the connection between the Asgard rainbow bridge and your Einstein-Rosen-thingy rainbow bridge of science until Thor showed up,” Darcy protests, throwing her dish-holding hands up in innocence. “I don't think about Asgard on a daily basis and I've never taken a high-school science class! Jane, I swear I would have said something if I had anything actually useful to tell you!”

Jane, who is a rather tiny individual, deflates. She has the most extraordinary ability to make herself seem so much larger when she's angry, like a little blowfish astrophysicist.

“Oh,” Jane says, seeming thoughtful. “Alright... I guess that... I guess I can see why you didn't say anything.” She fixes Darcy with an examining look and says, somewhere between a compliment and something else, “You're a pretty good actor.”

Darcy takes the statement with a nod. “I've gotten pretty good at not being taken seriously,” she says, placing the dishes in the sink – she'll do them later. “If you want somebody to talk rainbow bridge with you, then you should ask Bing.”

Bingley stares at Darcy like she betrayed him to his death, while Jane looks at him curiously.

“He probably won't be able to tell you anything about the science side of what you're trying to do,” Darcy continues, moving to take her seat across from Jane again. “But Bingley's got a pretty giant collection of ancient books, a lot of which are about magic. He can probably offer you a decent opinion on the magical side of Einstein-Rosen-thingies.”

“I can't,” Bingley interjects immediately, desperately grabbing for excuses not to have to interact with an actual human-being. “I'm going to inspect the Bifrost markings.”

“You can talk to Jane later then,” Darcy points out, rolling her eyes. “Jane won't hurt you for data. Well... she might, but you can probably take her. Probably. Bing, all you'd have to do is answer a few questions and give some opinions, then you can fly off to sulk in your cave for months if you like.”

“Fine,” Bingley grumbles, while Jane already looks like she's planning the interrogation.

“No, no, no,” Darcy says, reaching out to bop Jane on the nose. “You can think about that stuff later. Right now, you and I are going outside to get some fresh air. Don't think I haven't noticed you haven't gone outside except to stare at stars; that's not healthy and you know it.”

Jane scowls. “What would we even do?” she demands, as though Darcy isn't already thoroughly aware they're in the middle of a wrecked town in the middle of the New Mexico desert.

Darcy grins and leans in across the table conspiratorially. “You wanna find out how Bing got here all the way from Virginia?”

~

To: [email protected]

From: [email protected]

Subject: Surveillance Report

Foster and the Lewises have gotten in their vehicle and have driven out into the desert. Tracking devices on vehicle have been disabled. Continuing surveillance from long-distance telescope and satellites.

[sent from my StarkPhone]

To: [email protected]

From: [email protected]

Subject: Surveillance Report

Lewis brother has been left by Einstein-Rosen Bridge Site #2. Foster and intern have continued out into desert by vehicle.

[sent from my StarkPhone]

To: [email protected]

From: [email protected]

Subject: Surveillance Report

Lost telescopic visual on Foster and intern. Continuing surveillance by satellite.

[sent from my StarkPhone]

To: [email protected]

From: [email protected]

Subject: Surveillance Report

Lost all visual on Foster and D. Attempting to regain.

[sent from my StarkPhone]

To: [email protected]

From: [email protected]

Subject: Surveillance Report

B. Lewis moving towards Einstein-Rosen Bridge Site #1. Still no visual on Foster and D.

[sent from my StarkPhone]

To: [email protected]

From: [email protected]

Subject: Surveillance Report

B. Lewis returning to Puente Antiguo. Still no visual on Foster and D.

[sent from my StarkPhone]

~

“Okay, okay, okay, give me a minute. It's been awhile since I've gone native,” Darcy said to Jane, shaking out all her limbs and stretching her neck. “I've gotten used to human shape; Bingley's the one who usually keeps scaly. I took off my glasses, right?”

“Yes,” Jane says, determinedly staring at Darcy's face. “You are, in fact, completely naked.”

“It's alright to stare,” Darcy replies, stretching her arms above her head. “The girls are impressive, this is a reality I am aware of. If you're icky about nudity, I'm sorry, but I like that shirt and there isn't a clothing line that fits both my sizes. Women's lines barely do regular human sizes, much less dinosaur.”

“Mmm,” Jane comments, now staring firmly at the sky.

Darcy nods. “Alright, here we go.”

Then Darcy's body gives an enormous shudder and every aspect of her seems to bulge, like there are new limbs and muscle masses growing and shifting beneath her skin. As this happens, there are an inhuman series of snaps and cracks that buckle her frame as her body rearranges itself. A tail and elongated shoulder blades unfold from her back, ugly and pinkish; the tail drops to the ground with a heavy thump but the sharp blades push up towards the sky. And then... she grows.

To Darcy, the change of perspective always a strange feeling, like riding an elevator while being blown up like a heavy balloon. Her growing frame feels like knees cracking and a bloated stomach after sitting too long at an all-you-can-eat buffet. The shiver as her scales come in, folding over neatly from snout to tail like brushed fur, makes her shake from tail tip to massive dragon flank. It feels strange to be tossing around so much booty again.

When the shift is over, she swings her long neck back to Jane, who looks so tiny now and is staring up at Darcy with her mouth wide open. Darcy leans down, her head easily larger than Jane's entire body, and huffs a breath of warm air over Jane like a small breeze.

“Oh my god,” Jane breathes, then tucks in on herself and starts to hyperventilate. “Oh my god, oh my god, oh mygod, ohmygod, ohmygod, ohmygod.” She looks back up at Darcy so quickly than she falls over on her ass, but she still doesn't break eye-contact, planting her hands in the dirt as she stares with wide eyes up and up and up.

“You're actually a dragon,” Jane says. “Oh my god.”

“What?” Darcy asks teasingly in a rumbling voice, much, much deeper than her human one. You can't shift from a human female to being larger than an elephant without a major voice change. “Did you think I was ly~ing?”

“The whole thing stunk a little of a massive prank when you started taking your clothes off,” Jane admits weakly, carefully wobbling to her feet. “I can't believe you're an actual dragon.”

If Darcy were human, she'd raise an eyebrow to that. “Which one of us was getting cozy with an alien prince less than a month ago again?”

“Shut up,” Jane says, reaching out to place a hand on Darcy's snout. One she does, she runs her hands over the blue and silver scales wondrously, before demanding: “Where are you keeping all this mass? It shouldn't work. You'd have to be massively heavy and incredibly dense as a person to be hiding all of this.”

“You haven't seen me on a bathroom scale,” Darcy teases, stretching out her enormous grayish-violet wings. “But as far as Bingley's been able to figure out, it's a pocket dimension thing... or something like that, anyway. We're not sure; we've mostly had to work the dragon thing out for ourselves. We're the last ones.”

Jane frowns up at Darcy. “What happens to the others?”

“They left,” Darcy answers simply, then lifts her head and bounces on her toes a little, making the ground tremble and Jane stumble a bit. “Oops, sorry. So, how do you want to do this? The thing Bing did will only last about an hour longer or so. We could try you holding onto a horn, or a spinal plate, or I could hold you in a hand, but I haven't done my claws in a century or so, so...”

“Horn,” Jane decides firmly, with an inspecting eye. “I don't think you've done your spinal plates in a century either.”

Darcy swings her head around to check and winces. “Ooh, you're right. That's nasty. I wouldn't get near those either.” Then she turns back around and lowers her head to the ground, tilting it sideways to give Jane a better leg up. “Let me know when you're good.”

After a bit of scrabbling, Jane calls, “I'm good! You're going to keep it pretty slow, right?”

“I've been hanging out with physicists for the past bit,” Darcy replies, tilting her head back upright and slowly raising it. “I'm not going any crazy speed. Humans are squishy... in more ways than one. I heard the lecture Erik gives you on what velocities give enough force to kill a person when you drive. I probably heard it better than you did, anyway.”

Jane grumbles something incoherent enough that Darcy doesn't catch it.

“Got a good grip?” Darcy asks, lowering her body and unfolding her wings to their fullest.

“Yep,” Jane calls, a little nervously.

“Thinking happy thoughts?”

“...Sort of.”

“Then here we goooo."

Darcy's entire body ripples as her wings thump down and she pushes up, a familiar burst of extra force giving the extra push that lifts her into the air as her wings continue their massive beat. It seems like it's been forever since Darcy's done this, and she can feel a swell feeling of her own joy against Jane's rising excited fear as the human woman screams in delighted and terrified surprise.

Darcy huffs a laugh against the wind. “Don't worry, princess, I've got you!”

~

To: [email protected]

From: [email protected]

Subject: Surveillance Equipment Installation

Surveillance equipment retrieved and replaced.

[sent from my Starkphone]

~

“So?” Darcy asks, when they're both back on firm ground. They're lying side by side on their backs in the dirt, staring up at the sky, Jane having tumbled back to sweet, sweet earth and Darcy having collapsed down next to her after shuddering back down to human size. “What do you think of flying?”

Jane flops onto her side and stares wild-eyed at Darcy. “That was the most insane thing I've ever done in my entire life,” she says, and then hits Darcy's arm and adds: “And I can't believe you sung 'You Can Fly' from Peter Pan!”

“I thought it suited the mood,” Darcy protests, giggling.

“Oh, put some clothes on already!”

~

To: [email protected]

From: [email protected]

Subject: Surveillance Report

Visual regained on Foster and intern returning in vehicle.

[sent from my Starkphone]

~

The drive back to Puente Antiguo is filled with banter. Darcy and Jane are completely covered in dirt, from their hair to every inch of their skin, and Jane is already on a science-filled rant about the flying experience. She will not give up on her insistence that Darcy should not be able to hide away so much mass in a human form; and also that Darcy should definitely not be able to get and keep so much mass in the air and actually fly.

“Magic,” is Darcy's only answer, usually giggling, which is in turn followed up by: “Ow! Jane! Jane, stop hitting! Bad passenger behavior! Bad passenger! Stop! Bad passenger!”

“Magic,” Jane will always inform her primly, after she's finished her little bursts of science-fueled violence, “is only science we don't understand yet!”

“Well I suck at both those things,” Darcy finally says, once they've completed this cycle four or five times and she's tired of being smacked upside the head by a pissed off astrophysicist. “So you'll just have to ask Bing... or Thor, once he's back.”

Jane goes quiet, and Darcy can feel the swirl of anxiety coming off her friend.

“He's going to come back,” Darcy says firmly. “He promised he would and Princes of Asgard mean the things they promise. Also, he had some psycho brother to take care of or something. Royal messes like that probably take more than a few days to sort out, and then like, another week just to get through the paparazzi and stuff. He'll be back.”

Jane's anxiety stops, but she still doesn't say anything, instead looking out the window at the vast boring-ness of the New Mexico desert.

“Besides,” Darcy adds, in a last-ditch effort to cheer her friend up. “He liiiiked you. Ow! Jane! Stop hitting! That is bad passenger behavior, Jane! Bad passenger behavior!”

~

To: [email protected]

From: [email protected]

Subject: Surveillance Equipment Installation

Surveillance equipment has failed again.

[sent from my Starkphone]

~

Darcy lets Jane ransack Bingley's brain for the magic to her science for the better part of three hours. It is, to be frank, not going well. Bingley knows nothing about science and Jane knows nothing about magic, so the entire time is them arguing or disagreeing over terminology and, what to them, is extremely basic fact in their field of study that everyone should apparently already know.

Darcy seriously thought Jane was going to leap off the couch and strangle her clutch-brother when Bingley asked who the hell Isaac Newton was. Newton, unlike Einstein, as it turns out, doesn't often make it into popular culture.

But when Darcy's clutch-brother starts looking frazzled enough to flee into the sunset, Darcy decides to be merciful on his lizard-butt for once and calls her friend off before Bingley does something drastic to get away, like arson. Bingley looks immensely and intensely relieved at the interruption, while Jane (and the woman will forever deny this) pouts at the stoppage of scientific progress.

“You can pick Bing's brain some other time,” Darcy insists. “Come on. Erik left his laptop behind and it still works. We can watch a movie.”

Jane groans loudly. “No offense – to either of you – but I have really, really had enough of dragons for one day. I cannot watch another dragon-themed movie. We ran out of all half-decent movies about dragons at least three movie nights ago. No more dragons.”

“That is not true at all,” Darcy disagrees, “but no, no dragons. Not tonight. Bingley and I haven't been able to get our Pride and Prejudice on since months before I started this internship.” She pauses to look back and forth between her friend and her clutch-brother, sitting side by side on the couch. “Oh, hey, Bingley and Jane. Hah. I didn't notice that.”

Bingley, in response to this, scoots away from Jane with a wary look as though she will pounce on him at any moment. He nearly got hit by a bus running away from the last human to show any interest in him and will not hesitate to jump out a window if any sudden moves are made. Jane, meanwhile, gives Bingley an unimpressed look that Darcy feels with resounding harmony; her clutch-brother is still wearing his tatty Culver University hoodie and plaid pj-bottoms and (since he's been impersonating a uni student) has spots and none of Thor's impressive physique or grooming. Bingley is neither an excellent specimen of dragon nor human.

“So, anyway,” Darcy says, moving firmly onwards. “We're going to be enjoying something a little different to our regular programming.” She waves a couple DVD cases at her friend, both versions of P&P, and says directly to Bingley with a smirk. “A date with the witch is long overdue!”

“The witch,” Jane repeats in amusement, while Bingley hides his face in a couch pillow.

“Oh man,” Darcy says excitedly. “You're gonna love this story.”

“It does not have to be told,” Bingley growls from his couch pillow.

“No, no, it really does,” Darcy insists with a gleeful grin as she places the disk into the computer. “Okay, see, at first, Bingley totally refused to read any fictional books at all so...”

~

FINANCIAL RECORDS SURVEILLANCE ANALYSIS >UNFILED<

Agent: Jillian Waters, Junior Agent

Senior Agent in Charge: >REQUIRES SAIC APPROVAL<

Date: 13/05/2012

Mission Code: L6S-12-10374

Subject of surveillance: Darcy and Bingley Lewis's Financial History

[Full-report enclosed]

~

They're almost all the way through the Colin Firth version, and Bingley is already crying (though he'll deny any such thing ever happened), when Darcy stops braiding Jane's hair and focuses intently. She has a sudden restless itch over her skin, tugging her in the direction of Erik, far-far-away as he is. So far there's been little from Erik besides a tinge of fear, a lot of frustration, and a boundless amount of determined curiosity, but... Well, the feelings Darcy's been getting from Erik haven't changed. It's just that Darcy has the oddest insistence inside her and can finally understand why everybody in Star Wars was having bad feelings about stuff – there's a disturbance in the force.

And it happened close to where Erik is.

“Darcy?” Jane asks, turning around questioningly after Darcy's pause grows too long. “What is it?”

“I dunno.”

Darcy turns to her clutch-brother, who, through his blotchy eyes and tear tracks, is frowning in the same direction that Darcy was.

“Bing? Do you feel that?”

“I felt something,” he answers instantly. “What did you feel?”

Darcy describes the sensation, and her worry from Erik, who now feels much more fearful than he did a few seconds ago. Bing frowns further, because he felt the 'disturbance in the force' and even agreed with the phrasing, but didn't seem to have felt it with as much strength as Darcy did. He agrees wholeheartedly that it felt... just... wrong, although he doesn't know what. Jane listens to them both with sharp intensity, while the movie plays on, completely forgotten, behind her.

There's a brief tangent as Darcy has to vaguely explain the bond thing to Jane, who takes it well once she learns that all it means is that Darcy has an awareness of her location and her surface emotions, and then mostly only if Darcy actually concentrates. They're going to be talking about this later, Darcy can tell by the expression on Jane's face, but Jane is willing to go with this for now. The astrophysicist has learned some pretty fantastic, unbelievable things in the past week and that she's part of Darcy's tiny hoard of humans is probably near the bottom of the list.

“I don't like it,” Darcy announces, stuck on the worry-fear-curiosity-confusion-frustration coming from Erik. Decisiveness washes over her as Erik's fear takes another surprised spike at the exact same time that the disturbing feeling rises up again. “I'm going to go find out what that is.”

Jane and Bingley both look surprised at this.

“How are you going to get anywhere?” Jane blurts out, before seeming to realize the answer to her own question and sinking back into the cushions. Both she and Bingley stare at Darcy with matching cringing expressions, waiting for the smart-ass reply they know is coming.

Darcy grins, taking a glance at the darkness outside. “Why, I'm going to fly, of course.”

Jane closes her eyes in pain while Bingley's only reaction is to pronounce: “Lame.”

“Shut up, Bing.”

~

MISSION STATUS REPORT >UNFILED<

Agent: Yoko Mitobe, Senior Agent

Senior Agent in Charge: >REQUIRES SAIC APPROVAL<

Date: 14/05/2012

Mission Code: L6S-12-10374

This isn't going anywhere until Phil Coulson actually gets me a reply beyond “Busy, Reply Pending". I have no idea how sensitive this is and I'm surrounded by rookies, the only competent one of which is Waters, so this is all just fan-fucking-tastic. What a perfect time for SHIELD to be going to shit, when things are actually happening.

I could have been on the French Riviera.

But no, I'm on a surveillance mission with unknown variables who have apparently been there the entire time and it's ridiculously late now because I'm the only one here with the clearance to have access to everything. I'm just going to jot down what I've found and then go to sleep, then review all this in the morning and hope to hell things start actually making sense and that the concussed ducklings the recruiters call agents these days haven't done anything.

I'm using this thing like a diary now and it would be hysterical if it didn't stink of dysfunction.

So basically everything in the Lewises' files is bullshit. Someone entered them into the system four years ago and everything about their past is bullshit. The high school they attended has computer records of them, which were also entered by an unknown party, but they never actually attended. Their previous places of residences are all abandoned buildings. Their parents never existed and the “accident” their parents died in never happened. There's an attempt at a depth of paperwork, but it is, pun-intended, paper-thin.

According to what Waters pulled up on their bank records, neither of them have or have had any kind of job but their joint account gets influxes of monetary amounts that range from the hundreds of thousands to the tens of millions. Every time their account gets low, some unknown old guy (who also only exists on the surface and is otherwise bullshit) named Bennet Kingsley shows up at an auction house with some antique piece of treasure and sells it. Outside of the auction house transactions, this guy does not exist at all and makes no appearances; all profit from whatever's sold goes straight to the Lewis account. The account pays for everything the Lewises buy, their school tuition, and the many, many old books that Bingley Lewis buys. He's as obsessive about them as Phil is with Captain America merchandise; people on Ebay hate this kid. However, Bingley Lewis doesn't have a place of residence beyond the tiny apartment he shares with his sister so god knows where he's keeping these hundreds of texts worth millions and millions of dollars.

At least the girl does a decent job of pretending to be normal.

And god knows how the boy even got to Puente Antiguo. He was in class at Culver University in Virginia two days ago and then suddenly he's here. No record of a plane ticket and no record of him at any airport or train station in the area. The only bank account activity he has in the last 48 hours is ordering a large meatlovers pizza online for breakfast two days ago. (Note: Apologize to Dawson for not seeing this guy and Sanchez for suspecting aliens. They're still incompetent twits who need to grow some skin before they get anywhere near Fury or anyone similar, but I'm starting to suspect aliens too.)

I'd make some sort of educated guess as to what's happening, but I really don't want to. Because I'll probably be wrong and they're actually Terminator cyborgs or mutants or aliens or something, because that's just how this shit plays out in this work. (Note: Update resume when this is over and look for less shitty job.) I think I'd prefer one of those things to my guess. Now, miraculously, I could somehow be right, but frankly, I just don't want to be right in what I'm leaning towards. I want to get to the fucking French Riviera sometime before my retirement, damn it, I don't need fairy tale crap suddenly making an appearance on top of Norse God aliens. Seriously, I've only been on this mission and coherent for a day. What even is this?

Summary of this bullshit: this is all like pulling back a perfectly ordinary-looking wall and finding a fuckton of wasp nests. It's like my last apartment all over again. Coulson needs to fucking call me back already. What the hell is he doing? 

>REPORT UNABLE TO BE ACCEPTED DUE TO... (see 41 items)<

Report Edit: Waters has just told me that D. Lewis has gone missing. Fuck this shit.

Chapter Text

It's been awhile since Darcy's flown a serious distance, especially since technology has been on its up and up and it's gotten so dangerous. She starts to feel the burn in her wings pretty quickly, but her worry for Erik gives her the motivation she needs to book it through the sky like a massive, scaly gunshot. Her friend's anxiety-fear-confusion-frustration is getting clearer and clearer with every cloud that Darcy soars past. The spikes of the disturbing feeling are becoming increasingly frequent too, and it's hard not to be terrified.

Dragons and selfishness – it's a thing.

Bingley, with false reluctance (because he had an image to maintain), had agreed to stick by Jane until Darcy gets back. There's a tiny little wyrm in Darcy's head, it seems to her now, demanding that her hoard be kept safe lest the thieves run off with Jane too. Darcy's clutch-brother is probably well-familiar with this feeling and thus agreed to play guard, or maybe decided just to be a helpful sibling for once, although he didn't seem too happy with the idea that he would be left vulnerable at Jane's rainbow-bridge-interrogative mercy.

Willingly moving away from Jane is stretching her nerves almost as much as Erik's confusing mix of emotions is, and only the knowledge that she's steadily growing closer to Erik's location and that Bingley is looking out for Jane is keeping her going. She doesn't know where Erik is or where she's going; Darcy only knows that she's headed west, towards the coast, and hopes desperately that she doesn't end up going all the way to Hawaii or something.

Her dragon booty, like her human one, is not in marathon shape.

Her hours of flight pay off though, when Erik's emotional signature steadily drops across the horizon and she comes across a large base, busy with people running about in the organized chaos of an evacuation. Their shouts and the roar of vehicles echoes up into the sky. Secret facilities, she tells herself with a snort as she circles the lit facility, careful to stay in the cover of the clouds – she fucking knew it.

The disturbing feeling seems to be rippling intensely now, as if a stone is cast into agitated surface waters as soon as they begin to calm, again and again. Darcy can feel Erik's frustration-fear-surprise-confusion rippling in synchronization with the disturbance, and with so much intensity that it pains her not to tuck in her wings in dive down to go find him. But if there's one thing she's learned over her thousand years, it's that trying to sneak in places as a naked human girl doesn't go down well. Like, at all. And trying to sneak in anywhere as a dragon always fails spectacularly, usually with artillery involved.

So she circles over the lit facility, growing increasingly agitated watching hordes of people evacuate like ants fleeing a boot while Erik remains firmly inside. She's almost ready to dive down in a offensive blaze of sharp claws and fiery teeth when there's a sudden rip; something she never knew about is violently torn apart with vicious cruelty and the wrongness of it leaves her aching. And at the same moment, Erik's fear takes a sudden spike, his terror bursting and remaining at a spiraling high.

It takes everything Darcy has just to stay in the air. When she recovers, she circles faster and more desperately than before, searching for a way inside. Because something is happening and it's something bad and Erik is in danger. 'ErikerikERIKerikERIK,' the little wyrm in Darcy's head screams in a repetitive chanting shriek. 'ERIKmineerikerikERIKerIKeRIKMINEERIK.'

But then... just as Erik's fear again suddenly spikes sharply upwards, fierce and fast, it just as suddenly calms to a feeling of perfect... floating... bliss. Erik's anxiety and agitation melts instantly into a pool of contentment, which in itself rings with falseness, and is then further overtaken by something else that feels even worse than the tearing disturbance and Erik's faded fear. This new thing swirls around Erik's bliss with the feel of something conscious and wicked, vicious and victorious, strutting about with arrogant glee and delighted hate.

To Darcy, it feels as though something has gotten between her and her Erik, and has had the unbelievable gall to stake a claim on a piece of a dragon's hoard – she can feel them, this wrong person-thing putting their claws into her Erik. The little wyrm in Darcy's head gives a blood-curdling shriek of rage and screams for 'deathdeathdEATHDEATHDEATH for the thieves who DARE TO TAKE minemiNEMINEmineMINE.'

She tilts and banks across the air currents, swirling in a circle faster and faster, holding herself up but preparing to descend on the wretched thieves. Erik's emotional signature remains blissed out and calmly content as the SHIELD facility begins in to crack and shudder. There is an infected wound of the tearing wrongness rapidly growing at the facility's core, but she doesn't care about that; Erik is moving now, and at increasing speed.

Darcy ignores the pulsing burst of power that comes from the deep center of the SHIELD facility, as all it does is destroy this place where the SHIELD agent thieves took Erik and right the wrongness that had been growing from the tear, obliterating that which should never have been and merely breaking the human building in the process. The collapse's only importance to her is that Erik and the new thief and the thief's sick wrongness, which spikes in snaps and bursts, are staying ahead of it, moving underneath the earth but ahead of the destruction.

Darcy follows their underground movement through the sky, fumes and sparks spitting from beneath her teeth. A helicopter has risen into the sky, but she cares little for that, instead swooping after her stolen Erik and finally spotting a tunnel mouth that he is speeding towards. 'Oh yes,' screams the little wyrm in her head, wings flapping eagerly and its tiny teeth bared. 'Now we make the thief pay. They come under the sky and we teach them why it is unwise to steal from dRAGONS.'

“Yes,” Darcy rumbles in a hiss, as a small black vehicle is spat from the tunnel's mouth and speeds through the night, a beacon of bliss, malicious joy, and wrongness.

Eyes alight and mouth burning, she dives.

This thief will pay.

~

Darcy would normally swear that she had quite a bit of grace in her natural form, and that she was generally a pretty easy-going person. But all her cool goes out the fucking window as she tucks her wings in and descends on the tall, sickly pale, black-haired man in the back of the truck, the thief who smells of sweaty sickness and wields a weapon that shimmers with deep wrongness. Her mouth all but dribbles with heat as the wyrm inside her shrieks how good it will feel to sink her teeth into this man.

The man in question looks up, apparently sensing her hurtling approach, and sends a blast of his weapon's glowing blue wrongness crackling towards her. Darcy tucks and curls out of the way, spinning around the blast with ease. The only thing that prevents her from teaching this scum what true fire is is the fact that Erik is in one of the two front seats of the speeding vehicle – she dearly wants to return this thief's attack and burn him.

She lets out a snarl of frustration as she curves around a series of the sick man's sparking blasts, twisting then spreading her wings to bank hard and swing her dive to come around from the vehicle's left side. Darcy dodges another blast by pure speed and comes around with the force of a very pissed off wrecking ball, ready to scoop up the vehicle or ram into it like a rhino. Her intention was simply to smack the thief from the speeding vehicle, with a claw or a well-placed tail, to get him away from Erik, but the car breaks hard at the last minute and turns left. The dark-haired man grips the side tightly, momentarily incapacitated, while Darcy swoops past the car harmlessly, only barely too high for it.

Thumping hard into the ground, landing in a heavy run and stirring up a tower of dust, Darcy pushes herself immediately back up into the air. Her wings beat furiously and her magic pulses downward with force enough to leave an imprint in the dirt below, sending her shooting back into the sky so she can continue her pursuit of the vehicle fleeing into the darkness.

Oh, so this fucker thinks he can out-drive a dragon, she thinks. We'll see about that.

Darcy pushes her wings faster, hurtling further after the speeding truck, slit pupils fixed on the glowing blue wrongness and herself on the feeling of Erik's mindless bliss. She completely ignores – she doesn't even notice – the helicopter also pursuing her thief at a farther distance, and instead forces herself to fly to the side of her prey and draw level with it from her great height. She ignores in burn this causes in her wings in favor of a different one.

For the first time in what feels like centuries, Darcy lets her chest and stomach swell with bloated, broiling wrath. Fumes spill from her nostrils as sparks drip from her teeth; her mouth fills with thick heat as her rage burns up her throat. This time, she dives to curl around the projected path of the vehicle, and spews all the molten rage that she can muster in a flowering, fiery breath over the ground. Her flames light up the night and she creates a burning wall in a large half-circle around the thief's vehicle before she pushes back into the sky, dodging another burst of blue wrongness as she does.

The vehicle turns to avoid the fire; the driver makes a hard right, changing direction in a swinging U-turn as Darcy does the same. She flips herself in the air to dive again at the thief. The man's sickly skin lit by the flames is almost as much a beacon as his unnatural weapon and diseased scent. He sends a near-wave of crackling blueness to meet her, but she spreads her wings, holds them hard in place, and lifts herself over it, then curves around to continue her dive after the black vehicle trying to get around her barricade of flames.

Only... now there are three vehicles, driving side by side through the darkened desert. The thief, Darcy realizes as she slows her dive to carefully observe, is an illusionist, a magic-user. Each illusion is masterfully done, with each thief wielding a glowing blue staff and moving uniquely compared to the others, but none, she realizes quickly, are real. Darcy abandons them immediately to follow instead an unseen prey, a black shape headed in the opposite direction from the illusions, the space from which she feels Erik's thoughtless bliss and the unnatural weapon the thief wields.

Thieves that can make themselves unseen make little difference to scorned dragons.

Realizing that his trick has failed, the thief ceases keeping up his shadow cloak – it whips away as his grating blue staff swells with a burst of wrongness that makes straight for his pursuer. Darcy twirls around this one only barely, the crackling not-flame almost clipping one of her wings; she settles her fire-breath stomachs to build again her rage as the thief forces her to dodge blast after blast. Each of his attacks is fired with desperate cunning, making a wicked pattern in the sky; as Darcy tucks around one, another one is always there to try and meet her. Then, as the blasts finally cease, the speeding truck cuts an unpredictable, illogical pattern of its own, and Darcy has to twist about in the air to follow it.

Once the vehicle's path straightens, her mouth dripping again with heat and her chest swelled with the same, finally ready, Darcy rolls through the air and prepares to descend again on the thief. He fires once more his sick blue energy at her, but it is a pitiful attempt and she barely has to dodge it at all. She opens her mouth to deliver her flames at her vulnerable target, but, and even at her distance can she see this, all the thief does is smile widely at her - he smirks at her. Then a thunderous sound of an explosion erupts from behind her and the whirring sound she had been ignoring descends upon her.

The helicopter.

You would think humans would be smart enough to stay the hell away from a chase between a magic-wielding madman and a dragon, but apparently not. Darcy turns around midair, clamping her mouth shut against the flame rising in her throat, and the helicopter, spinning wildly and aflame, slams into her stomach, thankfully not blade-side-down. Falling, her mouth full of restrained fire, Darcy grabs the helicopter to keep it from tearing at her and barely has time to try and spread her wings, flapping them once and uselessly, before she slams with great weight into the ground with the struggling aircraft in her claws.

Once she regains her sense beyond ow, pain, her eyes burn from the cloud of dust that blasted up from her impact and the effort to keep her molten breath inside her mouth. Smoke is billowing from her nostrils and it is all she can do to keep the cutting, spinning helicopter in place on her belly. The aircraft shifts and its blades rip into the upper levels of Darcy's scales, and, unable to contain herself, she throws back her head and lets her fire spill from her mouth in a raging spiral across the darkened, desert earth instead of into the human contraption she's holding.

Several pieces of vegetation become charred casualties and the helicopter's frenzy slowly halts. Darcy's scaled frame shudders as she coughs out smoke cloud after smoke cloud, and some truly foul, blackened mucus that sizzles as she spits it. Trying to swallow fire in the process of being spewed is something that she will definitely never try again if she can help it.

Fuck, she thinks, eyes watering, as she squints out into the darkness and can no longer see the thief and his vehicle, or even the blue glow of his weapon. Carefully, she places the halted helicopter to one side and slowly rolls the other way, back onto wobbling legs, her tail making wide lashes and her aching wings spreading out to keep herself standing. Woozily, she looks out into the darkness and around her.

Fucking fuck, she thinks, as she realizes that she can no longer feel the wrongness the thief carries or even her Erik, blissful or otherwise. She can sense nothing and see nothing; the stealing illusionist has availed himself of a much better cloak this time. Fuckity fuck fuck-ing great.

The little wyrm in her head is moaning and groaning now, practically wailing miserably at the loss of her Erik and now that Darcy can no longer feel her friend at all... she feels tired. She sits her scaled hind down in the dirt, and regards the burning and charring that her diverted flames created. The dying fires make lonely lights against the night that has swallowed up the thief and her Erik. Darcy's wings droop with exhaustion and her throat burns from trying to gulp down fire; her surface scales scratch against each other uncomfortably, some falling off entirely, the helicopter blades having messily hacked at them.

She came all this way... and for nothing?

Darcy lazily swings her head towards the human helicopter not far from her and feels an anger rise up in her chest. If these SHIELD humans had not dared to follow so closely, to stick their thoughtless noses into business that was not theirs to interfere with – if they had not dared to take him to begin with – she would not have lost her Erik.

Now who would talk science with Jane? Who would grumble and scold; who would bluster and snap; who would encourage with rough kindness and teach with gentle, genuine love for the universe? How was Erik to reach the top of the tree now? The tree that he'd been climbing so steadily, always pausing to push Jane up or climb back down to plan things again, with the apple at the top that they had only recently managed to brush with their fingertips? It had all been so good, so close, and these thieving little magpies had ruined everything.

Darcy steps towards the helicopter, laying still on its side in the dirt and missing its tail, and lowers her head to peer at the tiny people inside with narrowed eyes. She sneezes at the smell of gunpowder and gasoline, snorting to dispel it. Her slit pupils roams over the intestines of what had felled her, observing a terrified pilot, whimpering as he pushes himself away from her, and a man in black. The pilot she dismisses as unimportant, instead focusing on the man in black. He is black, brown-skinned and bald, with a fresh cut on his head and blood on his clothes, and the most noticeable thing about his physical appearance is the patch over one eye. The most noticeable thing about him truly is that he is holding himself up against the wall, standing as straight and still as he can on the slanted floor, and looks back at her with neither fear nor uncertainty, just an even stare.

Not a challenge - he just looks at her.

And waits.

Darcy pauses for a moment, to see if this man – who is obviously an important man; he holds himself with the certainty of someone who wears authority with grace and experience – will do anything, but he does not. After a couple minutes, she huffs a breath over him, through her nostrils, just to see what he'll do. To his credit, his heart betrays a rapid beat but he shows so other sign of his thoughts save a slight tenseness to his shoulders. He does not flinch; he does not move. It's interesting at first, the display of control, but after about another minute of the standoff, Darcy grows bored of it.

Snorting away the disgusting smell of gunpowder, gasoline, and human blood, Darcy lets a warning rumble up her aching throat.

“Next time,” she tells him with a deep growl, “don't get in my way.”

The man doesn't reply. He doesn't nod. He doesn't even blink.

With an unhappy flick of her tail, warning delivered to this stubborn human whether they liked it or not, Darcy lifts her head and – she'll be embarrassed about this later – stomps away from the helicopter's wreck. The thief is gone, Erik is gone, the wrongness is gone, and the only thing she wants to do is find Jane, then curl around her remaining human in a dark and warm cave, somewhere safe from the world because the world sucks.

She sighs, because it's going to be a long fucking flight back to New Mexico. She doesn't even know what time it is; there's no guarantee that she'll make it back before daylight and she might have to hole up somewhere for the night. Which will be annoying. In either case, she should probably find a way to call Bingley and Jane to let them know what's happened before they kill each other or do something drastic and stupid because neither of them really have a sense of how to be normal. So, she'll have to find a working phone somehow, which is probably going to be more trouble than it's really worth considering she didn't bring clothes or even a few quarters.

Spreading her aching wings, she pushes down with everything she has left and quickly beats herself up into the air. With some more slaps of her wings, she's soaring through the sky. She takes one last look at the burning, charred wreck of desert and helicopter that she and the thief have left in their destructive wake. They really went to town on this stretch of desert, or at least Darcy did; nothing is going to be growing here for awhile. She notices, with little caring, that the man in black has stepped from the fallen aircraft; he becomes an increasingly tiny figure against the ground before Darcy turns her head forward, towards where her Jane is waiting for her, and glides away.

Chapter Text

“Come on, come on. Answer the damn phone...”

Click.

“Damn it, Bing. Really?”

“Bingley Lewis. Don't leave a message; I won't answer it.”

Beep.

“...Oh my fucking god, Bing, is that... is that really your voice-mail message? Tell me I misheard that. No wonder you have no friends, you complete lizard. And do you know – do you even get – how goddamn hard it was to get the change to make this call? This is what I get? I am naked on some random street corner and you can't even – Okay, that's not important. We are so talking about that later, but it's not important right now. I am... uh... well, I'm okay. Alive, you know? So it could definitely be worse. Uh... so... basically, shit happened. Actual, serious shit went down. Got a lot to tell you – but I didn't manage to make it all the way back before dawn, so I'm just going to hang around until it's dark again and I should be back before midnight tonight. Shit, alright, I'm running out of time now, so just relay stuff to Jane and try to act human. Love ya, bye!”

Click.

Beep.

~

Click.

“You ass, it took you this long to answer me? I've been trying to call you since noon yesterday. What is wrong with your phone? What is wrong with you?”

“Agent Mitobe.”

“The French Riviera. I would have been on the French Riviera if not for you and your damn favors. Is this how your mother taught you to treat your friends, Phillip J. Coulson? Is it?”

“Agent Mitobe.”

“Have you forgotten SHIELD initiation? I held your tie while you puked.”

“Yoko...”

“Phil.”

“There was a incident and a mission that interfered with communications, Yoko, I'm sorry. We have a situation on our hands, Level 7.”

“Shit.”

“Doctor Foster needs to be removed from Puente Antiguo to a secured location immediately. We've organized an immediate invitation from the Tromsø Astronomical Association in Norway, all expenses paid. Have the good doctor and her assistant in the air ASAP, continue surveillance with increased security. Your flights go out from the Albuquerque International Sunport, connecting flight details are attached in the package.”

“Right. Stay on the line. Waters, prepare for a cover extraction. Documents are in the bin.”

“Yes, ma'am.”

“So... faint problem with making part of that happen, Phil. You got five minutes?”

“I can spare them.”

“Great. Foster's assistant... Darcy Lewis?”

“Mmm, the one with the iPod. Yes, what about her?”

“Are you just generally overworked or did Barton manage to piss someone off while he was here? Because she went missing last night and actually ripping into her identity, well, Darcy Lewis was created five years ago and everything about her history before university is bullshit. Find whoever did the background check on her and fire them immediately.”

“...It sounds as though I will be doing exactly that. What kind of threat does she present?”

“To Foster? Not sure. To world security? Still not sure. It's hard to tell when I don't even know what she and her brother are – she's got a brother and he's a similar jigsaw puzzle, by the way. I mean, Norse God aliens, right? I get why you pulled me off my vacation time to keep on eye on the ground zero for that. That's some crazy shit and I'm pretty damn good with crazy shit. But... well, this is some crazy, crazy shit, Phil.”

“I have a few hours until I touch down in New York. Hit me.”

“Well... I'm not saying dragons, but... I suspect dragons.”

“...”

“Might be dragon aliens by the way this year is turning out. Wouldn't put it past the universe. It's either that or somebody's delusional and – oh, Jesus Christ – do I hope to god it's not me.”

“...”

“Phil?”

“Let me get Director Fury on the line.”

"...I was kind of kidding."

"..."

"Phil...?"

~

Her throat filled with her wrath like she'd gorged herself on fire, eyes fixed on a fleeing target...

Large teeth close around a jagged scale and, with a pull, the broken armor pops free. A massive head turns slightly, then spits the scale out on a pile of similar blue and silver shards.

The target – the thief – tall and pale and sickly, smelling of inhumanity but absolutely stinking of sweat and illness and pain...

Massive jaws carefully bit, pulled with a yank, then spat with growling disgust.

... wielding a glowing blueness that stood bright against the night and deeply wrong against the balance of the world...

Snap, yank, spit.

...a black shape striking her down from the sky, her fire seizing in her throat, and the thief and her Erik – mindlessly blissful and never-before so happy – disappear into the blackness entirely...

Darcy bites too hard then yanks even harder, pulling out almost as many undamaged scales as damaged ones. “Ow, fuck, ow,” she snarls, mouth full of sharp scales, and tries to spew the silver and blue armor shards into the pile. Most spray over the grass, but she ends up having to pluck a few of them out with her claws in the end, some having gotten caught between her teeth.

Licking the damaged spot with her long tongue, Darcy makes a mental note never to try and pluck scales while thinking angry thoughts. She should probably wait to do her claws and spinal plates until she can think for five minutes straight without pissing herself off. Also until her claws have had the opportunity to make the acquaintance of the thief's flesh – that would be nice, the sharper they are the better in that case.

Hanging around and waiting for it to get dark again is relaxing and stressful in equal measure. While it feels genuinely fantastic to stretch her scaly frame out and sunbathe belly-up again, Darcy really wants nothing more than to be back with Jane already, to have Erik back, and to rip that sick-smelling, thieving piece of shit into pieces with her teeth. She can't really go for longer than five minutes without her thoughts turning back to her missing friend or the fucker who took him, which is definitely ruining her scaly sunbathing experience.

The only piece of comfort Darcy really has is that she can still feel Jane, who buzzes comfortingly in the back of her mind with her usual mix of curiosity-frustration-determination-wonder. There was awhile where Jane had a massive burst of frustrated anger, followed by a period of determination and sharp focus, but Darcy firmly put that down to Bingley probably being his usual charming self and Jane then being her usual science-dedicated self. If it's not, then what's left of Puente Antiguo is going to become a goddamn ashtray by the time Darcy's finished with it.

She's probably back in New Mexico again – although it's hard to judge considering the massive difference in flight speeds between rushing there and barely being able to stay in the air – and has settled herself down in a small bunch of trees and grass. As soon as the sky had started to lighten, Darcy had looked for somewhere to make a phone call and then park her draconian butt away from giving anybody a heart attack. She and Bingley (her clutch-brother especially) have already been the cause of enough mystical-monster-sighting incidents as it is.

Darcy knew she should have bothered to actually learn some magic from Bingley, just so she could fly wherever she wanted during all hours of the day like he could. She hasn't been out here for even half a day and already she feels like she's going nuts from being grounded. There's only so many times she can fantasize about roasting a particular individual, curse the invention of helicopters, or accidentally hurt herself while grooming her scales before it gets repetitive. She misses her Jane; she misses her Erik.

Then, a few hours into the afternoon – because Fate definitely has it out for Darcy or something, for some reason holding the kind of grudge usually held against someone who'd kicked your puppy and regularly knocked over your recycling bins – Bingley shows up.

Darcy's clutch-brother thumps to the ground with little grace and, judging by the upturn of his snout once his disguise-magic fades off him like an exhale of breath, not a single shit open it. As soon as he lands, Darcy is on her feet and advancing on the smaller dragon. Bingley in his dragon form – covered in bright red scales with patches of orange, blue, and green – is shorter and less bulky than she is, and Darcy's primal side pushes her to use her physical advantage against him. Mainly, to look as intimidating as she can manage by pulling herself up to full size and flaring her wings.

“Where is Jane?” she demands angrily of her clutch-brother, furious and frantic – why would Bingley abandon Jane? How dare he? “Why have you left her unprotected? What happened?”

Bingley's tail lashes back and forth in irritation at the interrogation. “The humans that were watching us – the... creeper agents? They came to the door with an invitation for her to go to an astronomy place and she went.”

“And you just let her go?”

“No,” Bingley snaps at his clutch-sister, his own wings – orange in color – rising up and out in response. “I told her immediately what they were and she confronted them about it. Their leader broke the pathetic ruse and informed your human that there was a threat and they wanted to move her to a more secure location. Your Jane heard them speak and decided to go.”

“Why didn't you go with her?”

“I was not invited to go with her. I was strongly not invited,” Bingley growls. “And she instead saw fit to gather your things and send me to you. We decided between us that you should be informed of her decision rather than arrive at an empty building. My apologies.”

“Oh,” Darcy says, deflating. She lowers her wings and settles back into the grass; it's hard to tell but it does seem that Jane has gotten farther away than the human woman had been earlier this morning once she focuses. That explains the burst of seemingly non-sequitur emotions she'd gotten from Jane earlier.

Bingley folds his wings back behind him, then curves his head around to reach for something around his spinal plates. He turns forward again with Darcy's yellow dragon-themed backpack between his teeth, and sets it down in front of her with care. Curious, Darcy leans forward to poke her snout at it – it smells mostly of herself and a bit like Jane. (And Erik.)

“She packed this for you,” Bingley explains unhappily, as though deeply insulted to have used as a messenger and mule by a human (instead of just by his clutch-sister as usual).“It contains your most important belongings and some changes of clothes. Your Jane says to join her as soon as you are able. She is most anxious and extremely impatient to hear what has happened.”

He lets the unspoken question of 'What did happen?' rest between them; Darcy can tell by the tilt of his chin that he's not going anywhere until she tells him. So, with a sigh, she does. She lets the whole goddamn dam of the past few hours break free; she tells him about the thief and the weapon that felt so wrong and her Erik lost to her. Bingley listens quietly, which in itself is more sympathy than he usually gives her when she makes herself a rambling mess of feelings – he used to just get up and leave when he didn't want to talk about something once upon a time.

At least she manages not to break down crying.

“So...” Bingley says later, obviously deep in thought, after she's done pouring all her exhaustion and upset down at his claws. She can already see him running through his library-hoard in his mind, calling up books that whisper to him all the answers he seeks; he has always had their egg-sire's touch with the written word. “He was definitely not human then, your thief?”

“Couldn't have been,” Darcy answers firmly. “He didn't smell human at all.”

“Then what did he smell like?”

Darcy casts her mind back and tries to concentrate on the memory of the thief's smell. It's difficult to recall, as she never really got all that close to him and he really did reek of sickness and pain. But she does remember the smell under those things when she focuses. It was something peculiarly inhuman, and almost as if he was a mix of several things with one scent stronger than the rest thanks to his sweat. With a few ticking swings of her tail as she thinks, she finds a memory from a very, very long time ago.

It has been a long time since this particular scent has haunted her thoughts.

“Son of a snitch,” she realizes aloud.

~

Click.

“What's happening, Agent Mitobe?”

“Even without there really being a standing building left to hide behind and both eyes on him, Lewis B has managed to vanished off the streets of Puente Antiguo. Walked out into the desert – my agents blink and he's gone. He took the bag Foster packed full of Lewis D's things with him.”

“And no sign of Miss Lewis?”

“Not yet. I swear, Agent Coulson, if I don't end up on the French Riviera sipping something extremely alcoholic and horrifically orange after this, I'm coming for you.”

“If the world hasn't ended by then, Yoko, I won't even blame you.”

“Yeah, yeah. I'm getting on the plane behind Foster now. Text me if anything comes up. I'll let you and Hill know if a massive dragon appears out of the sky to take out my plane. See you on the other side of the apocalypse, Phil.”

“Goodbye, Yoko.”

Click.

~

“FROST GIANT?” Bingley screeches, wings flapping in surprised terror and tail cracking one of the trees behind him clean in half. He's always been absolutely terrible about performance under pressure. “THERE ARE FROST GIANTS ON EARTH ONCE MORE?”

“It would seem so,” Darcy answers musingly, seeming immeasurably more calm although she is nothing of the sort. “But only one of them and a magic-user wielding a strange weapon to boot. It's weird. He didn't even look like a Frost Giant, which is probably all part of his illusion magic, but still.”

“FROST GIANTS!” Bingley screeches loudly again, throwing his long neck about in a panic.

“Calm down, drama lizard,” Darcy says as she flicks him with her tail.

Bingley snaps his teeth at it then growls at her. “Do you not remember what happened the last time Frost Giants walked this planet?” he demands. “Do you not remember the screaming and the blood and the endless cold of thousands upon thousands of brutes tearing the earth apart?”

“Of course I do,” Darcy replies, still trying to remain calm. They were so young then, but it's hardly something someone forgets, an invasion of Frost Giants, even as long as over a thousand years ago. Ice and fire do not - did not - mix well.

“I WILL NOT BE LEFT AT THE MERCY OF THOSE BEASTS ONCE MORE,” Bingley screams at her. “NEVER AGAIN, WE PROMISED THAT. NEVER AGAIN.” He throws his head around in worry and agitation, eyes wild and his mouth dripping with sparks. “The last time, Asgardians and Frost Giants were here, they nearly destroyed each other and this planet! And what will happen now that the humans have their great big weapons and can join in? Nothing good will come of this!”

“I know.”

“THEN WHY ARE YOU SO CALM?”

“BECAUSE YOU AREN'T AND SOMEONE NEEDS TO BE,” Darcy roars back, getting to her feet and turning on her clutch-brother. “I don't know why Asgardians and Frost Giants have decided to make Earth their playground again, but I'm going to be fucking CALM about it!”

“Even when your Jane is in Norway?” Bingley sneers.

Darcy freezes where she is, then tilts her head and regards her clutch-brother, who very much looks like he wishes he had not just said that. She steps slowly towards the smaller, red-scaled dragon and leans over him with her greater height and bulk. Bingley seems to shrink back into himself, curling into a ball and peeking up at his clutch-sister from behind his wings. A turtle would be impressed at his display.

“What do you mean Jane's in Norway? You let her go alone to Norway?”Darcy demands icily, in complete contrast to the glow rising from her belly to her throat. “You said you and Jane decided between you that she should go alone. How much of that was just you not wanting to go to Norway? You slimy little lizard!”

“It's not like I knew there were Frost Giants out and abounding at the time!” Bingley protests scornfully, sticking his head out from his wings. “Oh please, do forgive me for not wanting to return to where the worst memories of our life took place! Besides, there's just one Frost Giant, isn't there? And he appeared where again? California? Last time I consulted a map, that's not exactly in of the United States of Norway. She's safe!”

Darcy whirls away from her brother, letting her swinging tail thwack him across the nose. She can't even look at his snout at the moment. “Until the thief rips a gate open to summon an army of fellow monsters to lay waste to the world, that is,” she snarks back at him. “Of course, Jane's perfectly safe. It's not like that's where the Frost Giants came through last time.”

“That gate was sealed!” Bingley argues.

“So we were told,” Darcy scoffs. “It's not like either of us has had the guts to actually check that the Asgardians did a decent job of it. And, coming as someone who's spent the past few months trailing after someone who works in wormholey-gates through the universe, let me tell you, I'm not willing to bet that that sort of sealing doesn't need maintenance! Have they been back to do that in the past thousand years? Hmm?”

“It's not like we'd know if they were,” Bingley mutters, laying his head down on his tail and curling his wings over himself again. “They could be running a day school out of the palace in Oslo and we wouldn't know. It's not like either of us has been to Norway in a thousand years. ”

A brief silence slides in between them.

“Not since the others left,” Darcy agrees quietly.

~

To: [email protected]

From: [email protected]

Subject: Captain America

adsgadflighbs

[sent from my StarkPhone]

To: [email protected]

From: [email protected]

Subject: Re: Captain America

I think I just made the biggest ass out of myself in human history.

[sent from my StarkPhone]

To: [email protected]

From: [email protected]

Subject: Re: Re: Captain America

Ooh. Someone call Stark and tell him he has to give up the trophy you gave him.

[sent from my StarkPhone]

To: [email protected]

From: [email protected]

Subject: Re: Re: Re: Captain America

Foster is too short to be insisting she can handle all those bags on her own. This is sad to watch.

Entertain me. Tell me more about Captain American-Dreamy and you putting your foot in your mouth in front of him.

[sent from my StarkPhone]

To: [email protected]

From: [email protected]

Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Captain America

I will give you anything your heart desires if you can get me a full body shot that includes the ass.

[sent from my StarkPhone]

To: [email protected]

From: [email protected]

Subject: No

[sent from my StarkPhone]

To: [email protected]

From: [email protected]

Subject: Captain America

Agent Coulson is being uncooperative. I will give you anything your heart desires if you can get me a full body shot that includes the ass.

I have a cousin who works with the NBA. Team of your choice front row seats or whatever they call it in basketball. Monthly drinks on me. The firstborn I'll never have. Whatever you want.

[sent from my StarkPhone]

To: [email protected]

From: [email protected]

Subject: D.Lewis

D&B Lewis have made an appearance at the Santa Fe Municipal Airport and are attempting to book a flight to Tromso, Norway for D.Lewis. Anticipate that D.Lewis will likely attempt to make contact with Dr.Foster shortly. Relay information and await instructions.

[sent from my StarkPhone]

To: [email protected]

From: [email protected]

Subject: Re: Captain America

Deal.

[image attached] (preview - download)

[sent from my StarkPhone]

To: [email protected]

From: [email protected]

Subject: Re: Re: Captain America

Damn. For once, Romanoff was not lying.

[sent from my StarkPhone]

~

“You need to start carrying around shoes on top of those raggy pieces of crap you call clothes,” Darcy says, gesturing at her brother's Culver University hoodie and plaid pj-bttoms as they walk towards Santa Fe's airport security. “I don't need a continuing secondary education in how people mean business about those 'No Shirt, No Shoes, No Service' signs.”

“These things are completely impractical,” Bingley mutters, glaring down at the rainbow flip-flops she'd had to buy him so he could follow her into the building. “And you yourself are not much better than I am. Congratulations in finding a human who knows what suits you so well.”

Darcy looks down at herself and grimaces. Jane really wasn't paying attention when she tossed a bunch of clothes into the backpack; Darcy is wearing the worst sleepwear shirt she owns, no bra, and jeans that probably either belonged to Erik or Jane's ex. At least Jane remembered her sneakers, phone, passport, and wallet – although the scientist seemed to have completely forgotten the concepts of socks and hairbrushes. She and Bingley look like two peas who should be in the same pod, but aren't because they're homeless.

“I am going to be doing so much shopping in there, people are going to be thinking I'm coming home for Christmas,” Darcy tells her clutch-brother with sigh. Then she fixes Bingley with a serious stare. “Do not spend all our money without telling me again. Hell if I know what's going to go down, but my scales won't be the only ones recently plucked if I end up broke in Norway.”

Bingley shrugs, studying the security scanners ahead of them with a bored expression. “I'll auction something if I have the time,” he says, and it's probably as close to a promise as she'll get with him. “Inform me if you discover anything new about the weapon or the thief.”

“That'll only work if you keep your stupid phone charged and don't accidentally burn it out again,” Darcy reminds him, rolling her eyes. Then she steps forward and wraps her arms around her clutch-brother, who stiffens like she's just accused him of eating a cat again. “Take care of yourself, Bing. Set an alarm to let you know that time's passing during your research spree and remember to put clothes on when you leave your cave to go to the Waffle House down the street.”

“It's been replaced with a Denny's now,” Bingley informs her awkwardly, settling his long arms around her shoulders. She doesn't even come up to his chin when he's in human form and Darcy knows it unnerves him after they've both released their dragon forms for awhile.

The flight from her little resting clearing to Sante Fe has only solidified the truth that as a dragon, Darcy is more awesome than Bingley in every way (except for the magic thing). She can practically fly circles around her clutch-brother, even when tired. It was awesome. She's not going to try to fly across the Pacific though. As previously stated, her dragon booty is not in any kind of marathon condition. She may win races against Bingley, but that's probably because Bingley hoards books and is an unfit, little nerd-lizard.

Darcy pats his back and then pulls away, giving Bingley a sympathetic look. “That's terrible.”

“I know,” Bingley replies solemnly. “I keep going there anyway.”

“That's even more terrible.”

“I know.”

Darcy shrugs her backpack strap higher on her shoulder. “I'll text you when I land,” she promises, patting her clutch-brother on the arm. “Love you, Bing.”

Bingley goes pink around the cheeks. “I love you too,” he mutters, not meeting her eyes. Then he clears his throat loudly and shoves his hands in his hoodie pocket. “You should probably go catch your flight and let your human know you're on your way... as you haven't done that yet.”

“Oh shit.”

~

To Princess-Scientist Poptart: eyy im on my way to norway now had some trouble buying tickets

To Princess-Scientist Poptart: i think they thought i was homeless thanks for the great clothes btw

To Princess-Scientist Poptart: it might take me awhile to get there i have a stopover at jfk and then i go to dusseldorf and imma try to take a train from there

To Princess-Scientist Poptart: text me when u can ill need your address

To Princess-Scientist Poptart: ill call you about erik when i land in germany

Chapter Text

Darcy noticed the man watching her while she was layering up on clothes in the airport shop.

The options aren't fantastic, and she'll be able to pick up better later, but she grabs a full armful of clothing anyway. She's always preferred layering up when she's wearing human skin; the feel of wool and zippers and buttons and things help her remember to be human. The more skin she shows, the more tempted she is to let her scales feel the sun and breezes for themselves, so the more clothes the better.

But back to the subject of the man... SHIELD agents, for all that Darcy was completely unaware of the existence of their agency before Thor showed up, are kind of really terrible at being secret agents. They're probably trying really hard, she'll give them that, it's just that no one told them that she could hear them muttering into their earpieces from a significant distance. Normally she just tunes everybody out, and therefore wouldn't have noticed, but one of them said her name and that gave the game away quick enough to make a New York minute cry with envy.

Then there was also that she could practically smell the anxiety on the poor agents when she passed too close to them. Which she found out when she tripped over some asshole's suitcase and startled the poor secret agents because of the sudden lunging movement. For a moment, while pulling herself off the floor and cussing out the asshole for leaving his bag unattended, Darcy had been genuinely convinced that the SHIELD agent she'd nearly knocked into was going to have an honest-to-god heart attack.

Which is how she noticed the man watching her – as a SHIELD agent that was, she'd already checked out his butt – because no man that buff and put-together (he'd probably been trying to pass as a traveling businessman) looks like he's going to shit himself because some girl five feet and a few inches tall almost touched him on her way to accidentally glomp the floor.

She should have snapped a picture of his face, it had been hilarious.

Only... now that she thinks about all this, while buying overpriced coffee and waiting to get on her plane, Darcy is slightly concerned. She'd told herself that it was Jane that SHIELD had an interest in, but it's unreasonable to think that SHIELD would track her down so quickly – really, so quickly – after rejoining society and put actual people into following her around unless they had a vested interest in her too. Airports have cameras, like, everywhere, so she's got to be pretty important if there are Men In Black here in person, just for her.

Then on top of that, the agents they have on her seem to be scared shitless of getting anywhere close to her and have been told over their earpieces that she was a special kind of threat in secret agent code-speak or whatever. They haven't necessarily used the word “dragon” yet, but their order-givers over the earpieces have basically hung a sign over her head that reads “DO NOT ENGAGE, POTENTIALLY EXTREMELY DANGEROUS, SUSPECTED NON-HUMAN” in flashing neon lights for the observing agents.

Darcy is, like, 98% certain that the cat is out of the bag.

Shit.

As Darcy sips her distinctly-average-tasting and expensive coffee (she needs it though, the little wyrm in her head is getting antsy again), sitting by her flight gate, she muses what to do about this. This isn't the first time she's been outed to humans and it probably won't be the last considering how people like the Starks are basically running behind technological progress manic-eyed with a whip in one hand and a megaphone in the other – just like Jane with science, actually.

Might as well confirm that final 2%, she decides.

Darcy scrambles through her yellow backpack for her phone and raises it to take a selfie of herself. She gives her coffee cup an exaggerated kiss, making sure to get the SHIELD agent guy who's been the most consistent in following her around in the background of the photo. Then she uploads the photo to Instagram and makes over two dozen hashtags commenting on the “creepy stalker guy” who's been following her around the airport (#therearebetterwaystogetadate) and his poor taste in suits (#maybewhenyouseeatailor).

Within five minutes, the guy in question has some senior SHIELD agent talking into his earpiece, telling him to be more subtle and not to draw any further attention from her. So... she's apparently important enough to have someone actively monitoring her social media activity, possibly all her internet activity.

There goes the final 2%.

Shit.

She doesn't want to have to give up being Darcy Lewis; she likes being Darcy Lewis. If SHIELD tries any crap with her, then BAM! There goes her life.

And not just for her; Bingley will have to give up being Bingley Lewis too. He'd probably only grumble a bit – he's gotten her into far worse shit – but she still doesn't want to do that to her clutch-brother.

And though Bingley would be alright, Darcy doesn't know what she'd do without Jane. Her life as Darcy Lewis had already been in the top ten of her best lives lived before Jane – mostly entirely thanks to the existence of Netflix and that place by her apartment in Virginia that had somehow managed to invent a quadruple-chocolate cupcake, god bless – but Jane and Erik had definitely shot it to the top. They're so curious and fun and perfectly ugly-human-beautiful; Darcy doesn't want to have to leave them because she's managed to blow her cover somehow.

She likes this face, this body. Darcy actually can't remember what her last one had looked like; she's been aging and de-aging this particular visage for hundreds of years now. Thanks to the glory that is facial-recognition software – which is how she'd guess SHIELD found her – if SHIELD decides to be shitty about her inner scaliness, Darcy would have to make herself over entirely whether or not she ever wanted to go anywhere near Jane again.

Darcy lets out a growl in annoyance and the SHIELD agent (a woman) sitting a few seats away suddenly gets a heart rate going a mile a minute (no outward change). She's seen nothing yet though; if Darcy was scaly again, the agent would be treated to a show of a dragon with fire ready in the belly, a tail lashing back and forth, and a mouth dripping with sparks. Darcy is so pissed off the she feels as though she might go scaly again right here and now, except not because that would be moronic.

That stupid Frost Giant thief has stolen everything from her.

And, she remembers with burning fury, he'd had the gall to smirk as he'd slipped out of her grasp. He'd taken her Erik and now had caused her to lose her grip on her life as well, and he had had the goddamn arrogance to be pleased with himself about it. Oh, that smirk – she will take her pleasure in ripping it off his face if she sees it again.

Her growl, which she isn't keeping track of like she really should be, rumbles higher in volume and lower in tone. If Bingley doesn't find some answers about what it was the thief had been carrying or how he'd managed to hide her Erik from her... Well, she doesn't know what she'll do, but she'll probably give these SHIELD creepers the show of a goddamn lifetime.

God, they took her Erik from her and then lost him.

If they lose her Jane too... well, it'll be a race to see who can fuck up the world first, Darcy or the thieving Frost Giant asshole. She's very rapidly losing limits when it comes to what she'll do to get at that piece of shit, the lack of Erik-ness in her head isn't really helping her anger management or her sanity – the hole where her Erik should be is annoying. If she gets a Jane-shaped hole too...?

Darcy's much bigger and older than the last time she tried to tangle with Frost Giants and they tried to fuck up the planet. This time, winter and ice can try their fucking best to freeze over a pissed off dragon and a world she's set on fire to greet them.

~

To Bing-a-bop: if u got time pls check out bonds again

To Bing-a-bop: im like a paleontologist cuz im literally going nuts over the missing link

To Bing-a-bop: dont contact over phone tho save important stuff for face to face

To Bing-a-bop: let me know if important stuff needs to be said

To Bing-a-bop: getting on the plane to nyc now ttyl

~

Darcy switches planes, the SHIELD agents either switch with her or switch out for different SHIELD agents, and her mood doesn't greatly change. She spends most of her single hour in JFK either silently stewing in her own mind about how she's gonna burn that Frost Giant into a puddle when she finds him again, generally brooding over her missing Erik and her far-away Jane, or very angrily eating the burger and fries she treats herself to.

She tried to scroll through her Twitter for a bit, with the intent of maybe calming herself down a little, but public-speech platforms, Darcy soon was reminded, weren't really the place to go when you wanted reasonable, palliative examples of why not to just set the whole damn and damned human race on fire. Normally she'd be all for inane bullshit as a distraction, but... not today, apparently.

God, when's the last time she slept properly?

She gets on the next plane in a foul temper, heading straight for the seat in the back and making sure she knows where the SHIELD agents are on this international flight. If she has one of them sitting next to her, she's going to make their flying experience a living hell. Hogging the armrest and drooling on stranger's shoulder, here she comes – only, maybe she should keep her drool to herself considering that they'd probably actually really love it if she gave them a saliva sample.

The seat next to her ends up empty though – she gets her own row – and the SHIELD agents are spread among the surrounding half-a-dozen rows. Darcy thinks about how she could just get off this plane, right now, just to fuck with them so a bunch of people would suddenly either have to make up excuses as to why they had to get off the plane or fly all the way to Germany for nothing. If one of them could actually manage to pull the “Left Phalange” excuse, she'd... well, she'd maybe consider forgiving them for losing her Erik.

It's a nice idea in theory, but she'd rather get to Jane as soon as possible because she doesn't want to feel any more itchy and twitchy than she already does. Darcy does have to get to Norway in the end. She's willing to stomach the presence and interest of the SHIELD agents until she's back with her Jane, perhaps until she retrieves her Erik. They haven't done anything yet, after all.

It's been... it's been a long something or rather. Darcy forces herself to stay awake only until they're sailing through the air and the seat-belt sign has been turned out. She rips into the plastic wrapper of the pillow they gave her, flips all the armrests of her row up, and thumps her head down on the window seat. She thinks no more of SHIELD agents save to hope they aren't stupid enough to get close and don't end up making her have to jump out of an airplane or something. At least one of them has to be literate right? They should know how this works.

Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus, morons, Darcy thinks tiredly, just before she doesn't so much fall asleep as black out into the painless world of the exhausted unconscious.

It's just like midterms season all over again – except with aliens and secret agents and shit.

~

“ Disgusting, useless creatures,” snarled the massive violet dragon, tail swinging back and forth as she paced the cave with heavy stomps. The ground shook with every footstep and Darcy felt the trembling in her tiny legs, sending her wobbling and her clumsy little wings flapping desperately for balance.

As the enormous dragon came around again, it was only small teeth snapping down on Darcy's tail and pulling her back that kept the toddling Darcy from being caught underfoot – a good thing, as the violet dragon's claws glinted with jagged sharpness and each foot was at least twice as large as Darcy's whole body. Darcy would have been squished like an ant.

She finds herself swinging her head around to see her rescuer; it is a little male dragonet about half her size with soft, dull-red scales. He must be barely out of his egg shell, Darcy thinks, because his little fleshy wings are bony, his horns are mere stubs, and his teeth had all the sharpness of a mouth full of spoons.

And yet... this babe of a dragon is half her size when she should tower over him.

Darcy desperately wants to demand where she is and what's going on, but her body doesn't obey and instead uses her own tiny, bony wings to herd the smaller dragon into a corner away from the furious violet dragon. Together, they tip themselves into a pile of glittering gold, silver, and jewels, sending coins clinking as they curl up into the priceless riches. Only once settled do tiny snouts poke out to observe with caution.

The violet dragon ignores them, still stomping around, and the beast's purple, sparkling breast swelled with inner orange wrath. Sparks drip from between sharp teeth that could bite Darcy in half with ease; flickers of flame glow up the throat that could swallow Darcy whole.

“ Filthy little wretches,” the violet dragon hissed, eyes mad and unfocused. “How dare they think they can challenge me? Treat with me? Send in little thieves for my hoard? They think they can involve me in their mad scramble for power? I will show them power. I will show them madness.”

And with an earth-shaking roar, the giant dragon let out a bellyful of orange flame at the cave roof, which seemed to billow and curl like waves over the ceiling rock. By the time the last wash of fire melted away, the stone was blackened and the violet dragon was already pacing once more.

“ I will teach humanity true pain. I will make them long for what they know as pain,” the raging dragon snarled. “We should have taught them their place when we fled to this pitiful little planet. I will not bear their filthy presence any further.” The violet dragon whirled as if to confront someone, screaming: “We shall take to a new realm or this one will burn, do you hear me? BURN!”

From the other end of the cave, a heavy mass of silver and green scales slowly gets to its feet. This dragon is smaller in height than the great violet beast, but it is with thick limbs and much more bulk, as well as male. Each step sends the gold coins around the two small dragons clinking about as the green dragon cautiously comes to be snout to snout with the violet.

“ No,” the green dragon says in a calm rumble. “We will not give up our place here simply because you have not the patience to parley with humans or avoid them. Nor will we give up this place because you have taught our clutches your ways." 

The violet dragon sneered back, tail lashing. “You think yourself so clever,” she says, snapping her teeth at her mate, “to have chosen a place of hiding where no one would look. As everyone of course knows that our kind would not lower themselves in dignity to walk among such useless, writhing, stupid creatures!”

“Have you forgotten why we must hide?” the green demanded incredulously.

“Not so much as you have forgotten that we are above this barren rock and childish race. The others fled to different worlds, surely better worlds than this one, and it would better us to find and join them!”

The green dragon loses none of his disbelief. “You would let humanity drive you from this sanctuary? You cannot bear to share this planet with them and so we must take our chances in the abyss? No, I will not have it. Humanity is not the peak of anything, but they are no reason to leave.”

“They are filth ! Grubbing, useless, greedy little scum!” the violet dragon insists, near to roaring, orange glow rises up her sparkling throat. “They spread across the world like a plague, always growing, never having enough! There is nothing here for us but a life too greatly influenced by humanity! By these disgusting ants! We will leave this world-beneath-us behind us! I DEMAND IT.”

The last words are screamed, and the violet's demand echoes around the cave of riches. As it fades away, a heavy silence descends and the green dragon stares at his mate with exhaustion set into his scaled shoulders and his tremendous snout curled with deep derision. After what seems like ages of tense quiet, he replies:

“Oh? And go where? Where would we even begin? Cease your senseless anger. Do not let it control you. You know the insanity of that suggestion. There's nowhere left that you might call better – not anywhere where our blood won't soon bathe the starways courtesy of that madman. I have no desire to rejoin our lost kin.”

Chapter Text

If there was a feeling like watching and listening to pieces of the universe being cut into and ripped apart with a knife, that's how Darcy would describe the feeling that wakes her up. It didn't wake her up instantly, instead making her toss and turn a bit before she groggily came to and blinked blearily down at the bland design of airplane carpet. She sits up and turns her head around searchingly, as though looking for an alarm clock button to press that'll make the awful feeling go away.

She's never been much of a morning person or a waking-up person – she's not a person at all actually, so sue her. Much to her shame, it takes her a little bit to get what exactly the feeling is. She'll never tell Bingley or Jane of the five whole minutes she spends staring blankly at the closed airplane window in not-thought and ragged confusion. 

When she gets it, however, it's all she can do not to kick open an exit and jump out immediately.

It's the thief.

Well... not the thief, but the thief's weapon. It's the same disturbance in the force sensation, along with the same scratching, screeching wrongness of whatever that glowing spear had been. Clearly the thief is making no more effort to cloak himself, as however he's using his weapon, it feels like fingernails across the chalkboard of the world. It almost makes Darcy wince with the sheer noise of it; now that she's awake, she doesn't know how she ever could have slept through that.

Hope swells in Darcy as she tries to make a connection to Erik, but he's still cloaked in whatever the thief had used to block him from her. The feeling of hope falters and stutters as she feels nothing but smoothness and darkness where she should be feeling Erik's grumbling benevolence and cautious curiosity. Fuck, that pisses her off. Damn it, damn it, damn it.

Why would the thief reveal his weapon but keep Erik hidden?

Darcy would ponder this question further except she realizes that not only can she once more feel the wrongness of the thief's weapon, the weapon is drawing closer to her. Slowly and barely noticeably, of course, but advancing in Darcy's direction nevertheless.

It wouldn't be that weird if she opened an emergency hatch and jumped, would it? Okay, no, that would be very weird, she probably shouldn't do that. Not only are there SHIELD agents still on the plane, but actual civilians who don't deserve that kind of shit even if Darcy really needs to rip that Frost Giant into tiny ice cubes so she can put him in a drink with a little umbrella and straw.

How much longer until they land? Because if it's too long then the thief has every chance of going out of her range (whatever that may be) or cloaking himself again, both of which are completely unacceptable options. Darcy has no idea how long she's been sleeping but they have to be close to Düsseldorf, else she's not sure she can really be held accountable for what she might do.

“Half of an hour, madam,” says the stewardess, lips pinched in annoyance because Darcy may or may not have pressed the call button at least a dozen times to get an answer. (It might have been closer to two or three dozen times actually.) “The plane will land in half-an-hour. Flight progress can be tracked on your entertainment screen.”

The stewardess taps the screen on the back of the seat in front of Darcy, which had been previously ignored in favor of sweet unconsciousness, and brings up a display of a CGI airplane flying over Central Europe and drawing closer to their destination. There's even a little display in the corner displaying the estimated time until their landing – a little less than half-an-hour and counting down – and some other much less important times.

“If there is anything else, madam,” the stewardess says as she straightens with a very forced smile, “then you only have to press the button once. Please enjoy the rest of your flight.”

Darcy doesn't even bother to watch the woman leave, eyes instead fixed on the little plane inching closer and closer to the little dot labeled “Düsseldorf”.

Half-an-hour, alright, she can do this.

~

Darcy manages to keep it together only until the seat-belt sign clicks off, then she sprints off the airplane (shoving more than a few people and shouting a “Sorry!” over her shoulder), sprints past all of the airport's gates (more than a few shouted apologies), and onto the streets of Düsseldorf, Germany. She probably looks like a complete nut while doing it, but hey, that's nothing new.

Then she runs out into the street searching for the nearest convenient unpopulated space and hopes to whoever's listening that Bingley's crash-course in cloaking and illusion magic on the way to Sante Fe stuck with her better than her first-year university classes did. Luckily, the sky already seems to be darkening, so she only has to manage enough to get away from any SHIELD agents still on her tail and get aforementioned tail into the air really.

Yeah, she can do that. Probably.

Whatever, she'll manage. Everything in her, however much she wants to return to her Jane, is telling her to chase after the wrongness and that's what she's going to do, however she can. The wrongness had stopped getting closer and instead started to get further away a while ago, and Darcy will have to move fast if she wants to catch up with the thief. The sooner she finds that annoying little Frost Giant and melts him, the sooner she'll have her Erik back.

Hey, for all Darcy knows, she'll be able to retake her Erik and join Jane with little time and fuss.

Darcy doesn't check her phone; she maybe should have checked her phone.

~

From Princess-Scientist Pop-Tart: Sorry about the reply delay, it took me way too long to find an adapter just so I could charge my phone. I've decided that I don't care what Shield says, I can't just stay here while you and Erik are out there. I'm going to try and catch a plane or train to Dusseldorf so I can meet you there.

From Princess-Scientist Pop-Tart: And if you've got problems with this, then you can suck it up.

From Princess-Scientist Pop-Tart: Darcy? Where are you?

~

By the time Darcy is winging through the air, aided by an admittedly shaky piece of illusion magic that makes her blur like a creature of heat haze and moving cloud-mist instead of imperceptible, the little wyrm is practically doing draconian little cartwheels of rolling wings and excited hops.

'Now we make the thief pay,' it squeals, snapping its teeth and blowing sparks. 'Make them pay, make them pay. Now we teach them, teach them, teach them, and burn them. Make the Frost Giant pay for what they did. Burn the vicious brutes! Burn!'

Darcy's thought process, unfortunately, goes mostly along the same lines.

She soars through the darkening sky, feeling a light ache in her wings as she pushes herself after the wrongness and cold wind in the slices the helicopter blades left in her scales. Her thoughts only briefly touch on other tangents, such as whether or not her backpack is staying in place between her spinal plates or whether or not she managed to take off from the roof of the airport's parking garage without being spotted. (She used Bingley's advice to ditch the SHIELD agents, so she's fairly sure she did.)

Soon, she's gliding above a brightly-lit city with the wrongness directly ahead of her and below. Part of her is wondering what exactly the thief's weapon is for her to feel its discordance against the world she knows, but the rest is salivating at the chance at the thief and considering her options. The wrongness is resting in a place that seems tiny from her towering height in the sky, but is in actuality a large, shining, and extremely busy building in the center of a city.

Common sense is telling Darcy that she cannot simply dive down, mouth burning, to confront her thief. She is hardly a match for a magic-using Frost Giant and that horrible weapon in her human form, and to descend in her dragon form would be a whole new world of complications. Even if SHIELD has accurate suspicions as to what she is, to dive down now would be to reveal herself to the world.

This was a terrible idea. This was a really, really terrible idea.

But... she wants to know where her Erik is. The answers presumably lie below her, in that glittery building, if the thief is with his weapon. What is more important to her? Her Erik or keeping the existence of dragons a secret? There is only herself and Bingley, who has his magic to get around with ease in either case, and they can both change their faces if necessary.

How will she explain herself to Jane if she lets this opportunity go?

A Frost Giant has his icy claws into her friend, Erik most definitely needs her desperately.

Why can she still not feel her Erik? Is the thief's magic still shrouding him? Is he dead? Surely she'd know if her Erik was dead, wouldn't she? Oh god, she hadn't considered that. Darcy has so far been assuming that the thief was hiding her Erik from her, but what if he's killed him? What if the Frost Giant cloaked her Erik and then killed him?

Darcy's head swivels as a flash of wrongness suddenly bursts from below, prepared to curl out of the way of the crackling not-flames, and instead watches as human vehicles are viciously destroyed, crashing together outside the building far below. Something is happening and Darcy almost swirls lower in the air to find out what before she remembers that she has let the illusion on her dull greatly since the sky darkened fully. If it is truly nothing, by some unlikely thing, then she doesn't not want to reveal herself for nothing in return; so she reluctantly abstains from diving to gather her magic and what she can remember Bingley telling her.

'No! No! No, no, no, nononononooo!' screams the tiny wyrm. 'Descend now! Descend in flames now, do not wait! The thief! The thief! The thieeeeef!'

Shut up, Darcy wants to tell the draconian part of her. She already failed to bring this Frost Giant under her claws because of human witnesses once, she does not want the same to happen again. About this, she will be cautious; about this, she will be clever.

Even if... even if her Erik could be dead or dying at the thief's hands.

Darcy quickly gathers her magic to become a heat haze against blackness instead of the slightly shiny, dragon-shaped cloud she had probably been. She lowers herself in the sky and takes a closer look at what's happening below her, now better able to see distinct individuals instead of a panicked crowd of humans being hemmed in by glinting figures holding... holding glowing blue spears. Ones of which seems to shine all the brighter for its aura of discordance.

'The thieeeeef!' the little wyrm hisses. 'It's the thieeeeef! Burn him! Burn him, burnhimburnhim!'

What matters more to her? Darcy must ask herself, circling lower in the sky as a hazy mist, brimming with fire and anger at this thief who has wreaked so much damage in merely days of her long life. What is worth more in the end?

Her own poorly-kept secret... or her Erik?

~

Amalie Muhlfeld had picked the absolute worst moment in the world to excuse herself to the restroom, or perhaps the best, considering how you looked at it. She'd never been one for glitzy affairs, although she'd suffer an appearance if her boss insisted, and so she'd excused herself to placate her tiny bladder even though the event was in full swing. She planned to sneak out in twenty minutes to meet up with her grandfather anyway, so what did it matter?

When she stepped out of the restroom, slipping her lipstick back into her purse, the first thing she noticed was the man in the center of the room gushing blood from his face. He was laid out like a sacrifice on the rock sculpture and surrounded by a several of the musicians and some others, but the rest of the room had completely emptied of all the guests.

«Some maniac walked in and assaulted him!» one of the people explains, waving one hand at the bleeding man while trying to enter a number in their phone. «The man stuck something – some strange machine – into his eye! And then everyone ran out screaming!»

«What happened to the guards?» Amalie demands, eyes wide.

The person shrugs, putting their phone to their ear. «Over there on the floor, for what good they were against him!» Amalie turns to look outside and they insist: «Miss, I would not go out there if I were you! The maniac followed the crowd outside! It's probably safer in here! Yes, hello, is this the helpline for emer...»

Amalie doesn't hear the rest of what the person has to say, she's too busy hurrying out the door. Her heels make a quick click-clack against the floor and she swears she'll never wear shoes so impractical again because her grandfather might be out there somewhere and she needs to get to him. He's old, stubborn as hell, and needs someone to help him get by on most days, there's no way him in a runaway crowd will end well. He's the only family she has left.

She gets outside and a ways out of the building, heading towards the crowd of people, when she sees the tall man in the ridiculous golden costume with an enormous horned helmet. Amalie skids to a stop as doppelgangers of the man appear in flashes and watches wide-eyed as the identical, armored men hem in the panicked crowd of people. His scream for the crowd to kneel makes her want to turn around and flee back into the building; she doesn't know what to do; she doesn't even know what she could do against a man like that.

But her grandfather might be in there somewhere. So even though her legs are shaking and her fingers tremble and someone has to have alerted the emergency services, Amalie opens her purse and starts digging for her phone. There has to be someone she can call... someone she can help. Her fingers close around the phone and bring it out, shaking as the man seems to be delivering a speech to the kneeling crowd. Who does she call to come against this... person? This... being?

Amalie looks down at the phone, then back at the man, and gasps as she sees a figure has risen from the kneeling crowd. Her grandfather is at a distance from her, but she'd know his balding head and hobbled figure anywhere. The only person she has left in the world is standing as tall as his bad back can manage, staring down an impossible maniac, only here because she'd asked him to pick her up early tonight.

«Grandfather, why?» Amalie whispers before she can stop herself, raising a hand as the golden-armored man raises his weapon with a glowing blue gem. «No, please don't...»

A loud thump comes from behind Amalie, almost a crash, and the phone slips from her fingers to the ground as she startles. She turns around expecting to see the building fallen down or maybe the ground collapsing, instead she sees a large blurred shape on the roof of the building. A shape that has to be the size of a bus, which she only notices because of the heavy thumping sounds it makes and the blur of movement as it seems to slither down from the roof onto the concrete ground. Amalie stumbles back, unbalanced on her heels, and falls onto the ground in terror as a blurred, shimmering shape of enormous size – no, it's much larger than a bus – passes by her with a deep growl like rolling thunder.

A woman's voice, calm and commanding, suddenly blares out on speakers from somewhere: “Loki, drop the weapon and stand down.”

This is immediately followed by a bright flash of light seen out of the corner of Amalie's eye and then people are suddenly screaming.

Amalie turns from her place on the ground and sees the once-kneeling crowd fleeing, shouting loudly and stampeding in all directions. Through the running people and the walking colossus of haze that seems to be growing larger by the second, she thinks she can see a fight between the man in gold and another man. Amalie scrambles to her feet and tries to look for her grandfather in the chaos, but her eyes unwillingly turn back to the impossible thing appearing in front of her and she finds herself stunned still by the fantastical sight.

The creature's shimmering haze becomes solid, shining scales - blue and violet and silver in every imaginable shade, bristling and smoothing with the movement of its enormous muscle mass. This thing, now fully visible, is at least thirty meters long - and six high, at least from ground to spine, while its horned head at the end of a long neck reached several meters further. Its giant feet would crush the cars it passes; each foot with five sharp claws a meter long. Amalie sees giant violet wings, each one as long as the creature itself, fold away onto its back and a long tail swing out from thin air. Vicious and deadly-looking spikes run all the way up the creature's spine, from the tip of this tail, through the wings, and then all the way up the back of its neck.

Unbeknownst to Amalie, her mouth drops open in shock. She knows what this beast is – what it should be called; she's read her fairy tales like everyone else – and yet... she cannot quite believe her own eyes.

The screams grow louder as people scramble to get out of the beast's path, new terror entering their shrieks. A faint orange glow appears deep in the creature's stomach as it ignores the crowd in favor of the fight ahead. Alerted by the screams, the golden-armored man turns away from the other fighter pulling himself up from the ground, just in time for the creature to swing sideways and smash its heavy tail into the man's side from below.

The man goes flying, crashing into one of the nearby sculptures of the square, and his glowing weapon is knocked into the air. And yet, instead of the alien-looking thing clattering to the ground, the creature's head twists through the air after it. Its long neck snakes out at a deadly speed and its tremendous teeth snap down on the spear, then it raises its head and Amalie can see the swallow go down its throat towards the orange glow. With a gulp, the weapon is gone.

The golden-armored man lets out an unintelligible scream from the stone wreckage of his landing and the creature – the dragon – snarls at him. It leaps forward, the colossal weight of a clawed foot slamming down on him and pushing him further into the rubble. Once it feels appeased by the lack of movement by the man – if the man is even still alive – the blue dragon curves its weight around and plants its hind flank down atop of him, freeing its foreleg so it can smack the limb against its chest, as though the weapon isn't going down quite right. Then it looks around at its surroundings.

With this unintentional reminder, Amalie looks around with buckling legs and shaking fingers. She was, should be, looking for her grandfather. Where has her grandfather gone? Is he alright? This is not her fight; this does not involve her; she should find her grandfather and run away. Oh god. She should find him and run far, far away from the affairs of magical men and dragons.

So she does.

«GRANDFATHER! WHERE ARE YOU? GRANDFATHER!?»

~

Darcy thumps her clawed hand against her scaled belly, eyes watering. Oh, swallowing the wrongness of the thief's weapon was not a good idea. It hadn't even really been an idea, she'd just done it, an instinctual motion almost – she'd used to do this with swords once upon a time, when those had been common. There were few places better for the safe-keeping of things than one of the stomachs of a dragon and it had gotten the horrible thing out of the way.

But, ugh, now the wrongness is inside her and she's going to give herself either a stomachache or a headache from it. Maybe both. Darcy thumps her chest again; bad instinctual motion, bad. She wishes there were a way to somehow double her weight, so she can further squish the Frost Giant thief she's sitting on for having such an awful spear-staff-thing instead of something that tasted better.

Asshole.

Out of the corner of her eye, Darcy sees movement below her and finally realizes that she isn't alone. Once she'd gotten a real idea of what the Frost Giant had been doing, she'd sort of lost her last scraps of common sense. If she hadn't already understood what it meant to "see red", she'd have learned so all over again. God, can Frost Giants go anywhere without trying to take over the world?

But, back to what's happening, back to what's real here and now... There's a man in front of her, tall and muscular (although tiny to her), slowly standing with a circular shield gripped tight in one hand. Her eyes almost bug out of her head once she realizes that that's Captain America's shield and holy fucking shit, that's Captain America. The costume is different, but that kind of completely unstylish red, white, and blue would be obvious anywhere – she was (and technically still is) a Political Science major after all.

What also would be obvious anywhere is the face. It may have been – Oh god, how long has it been? – six or seven decades but that's not a jawline that Darcy would easily forget. He's so much bigger and it's been so long, but Darcy knows that face. She used to see it almost every day once, and she's seen it in countless photos since.

But god, this should be impossible.

In disbelief, unable to help herself, Darcy says, “Steve?”

Chapter Text

Darcy regrets letting that name leave her mouth the second it does, and only barely resists the urge to slap a claw over her dumb mouth afterwards. She shouldn't be able to recognize Steve Rogers, much less on a first-name basis, and now she has definitely gotten herself that whole new world of complications courtesy of her goddamn inability to keep her fucking trap shut. She can feel a pink flush coming over her scales – damn it, damn it, damn it. That was so stupid.

Below her, Steve looks... nonplussed. His expression is too firm and determined to betray shock, but she knows by the clench of his jaw that he is definitely somewhat surprised and very, very confused. God, right, he would have no idea why a dragon would know his name or apparently recognize him, so it's perfectly understandable that he would be staring up at her with a tense wariness in his body, ready to fight or flee.

The silence is... awkward.

“I take it that you two know each other?” a woman quips into Steve's earpiece, sounding relaxed and somewhat amused, in complete contrast to the actual situation.

This is when Darcy looks up and realizes that not only did she do what she did in front of Captain America and completely fuck up with the name thing, she did what she did and completely fucked up while there was some strange aircraft hovering with a BFG – holy shit, is that a big fucking gun – pointed directly at the area. Now, of course, it's pointed at Darcy. Oh, that's going to be hard to get away from; she obviously really, really wasn't thinking this through or paying any attention to put herself in front of that thing. Darcy doesn't want to get shot again, it's not a fun experience and that particular gun looks like it'd hurt.

“I think I'd remember,” Steve mutters back at the woman, still watching Darcy carefully while Darcy keeps staring at the ship in horror.

How did she not see that thing?

She's trying desperately to think about how she's going to get around that ship and its massive BFG, but unfortunately, she keeps coming up with jack squat. She's going to get her butt shot, again. This entire situation is like all her mistakes turning immediately 'round to shoot her in the ass. Bingley is going to laugh himself stupid over this one if he doesn't try to roast her for her stupidity first.

The woman makes a humming noise over the earpiece. “You are getting up in years. There's no shame in your memory not being what it used to be. Any insight into this, Captain?”

“I was hoping you'd be able to give me some,” Steve replies quietly, sounding more than a little ticked off. He punctuates his statement with an angry little huff of breath.

No, wait, not that. His breathing is slightly off, Darcy realizes, like he's hurt and trying to push through it. In concern, she swings her head back to him, ignoring the way he tenses further and his shield is raised higher. Darcy's fairly certain it's not applicable anymore, but she used to have the constant faint concern that Steve would manage to kill himself just going up and down the apartment stairs – James was always terrified of that, though he did his best to treat Steve like a physical equal. Steve had been trying to fight the thief, right? Tangling with Frost Giants never lets anyone come away unscathed, she knows this very well.

Her 'Frost Giants = injuries' point is further proven by how, despite the fact Darcy is currently sitting on the bastard's lower half, she's still got slices of helicopter blades in her belly scales and a glowing spear in one of her stomachs that is not going down right. Darcy breaks the frozen scene to thump at her chest again, puffing out sparks as she does. Ow.

This is probably where Darcy should have introduced herself or Steve would have settled on something to say, or maybe it would have been when the ship opened fire with that BFG. Except none of those things happened. What did happen is that, instead of bullets, the aircraft suddenly began blasting AC/DC's Shoot to Thrill instead.

What the fuck, Darcy thinks, because if they're trying to one-up her in 'things literally no one expected to be said' then that definitely wins. On the list of soothing tunes that could possibly be used to dissolve tense situations and standoffs, Darcy would personally put AC/DC nowhere near it, possibly with a restraining order just for good measure. What the actual fuck.

Looking up in confusion at the aircraft, Darcy sees something curve around a nearby skyscraper like a shooting scar, all breakneck speed and fiery trail. It's absolutely no trouble to work out what it is. Or, more accurately, who it is. There are websites upon blogs upon Youtube channels dedicated to Iron Man sightings and she's seen a hell of a lot of them. She may be an actual dragon, but flying robot-armor-suits are never not cool. Plus, for some reason, literally everything about Tony Stark annoys the fuck out of Bingley, so Darcy has taken hours of enjoyment from shoving the billionaire's existence in her clutch-brother's face.

Iron Man, in all his red and gold metallic glory, blasts to a stop in the air somewhere between the aircraft and Darcy, halting suddenly with hands raised in a ready position. The white circles on said hands and in his chest glow ominously – dangerously – but all Darcy can think about is whether or not it would be inappropriate to ask for Tony Stark's autograph right now.

She probably shouldn't. But if she does though, she should totally ask Steve as well. Opportunity is opportunity, whether or not she's facing down an ex-war profiteer superhero, an aircraft with a BFG, and one of America's greatest figures of propaganda, all while sitting on an unconscious Frost Giant. (She hit that fucker hard, he is out for the fucking count or very good at pretending otherwise.)

Yeah, okay, she probably shouldn't ask for an autograph. Maybe later.

Iron Man looks from Darcy, who stares back evenly, to Steve, who's still busy staring at Darcy, and then up at the aircraft, and then back to Darcy. His glowing hands lower at the total lack of movement. The blaring tunes of AC/DC dribble slowly into silence and then cut out entirely. No one says anything.

Then Iron Man raises a single hand again, points directly at Darcy, and demands indignantly of the aircraft, “What the hell is this?” He turns back again to Darcy, making a brief flailing gesture with his armored hands. “No one thought to mention there were ginormous flying reptiles now?”

“Apparently not,” Steve murmurs under his breath, too low for anyone but Darcy and the earpiece to pick up. Darcy kind of feels for him; she doesn't know how he's still alive, but he was just getting his ass kicked by a Frost Giant and now there are overly familiar dragons about – this is just not his day.

“I only just got the update on the Norse God aliens,” Iron Man continues, thoroughly affronted. “No one thought to include the existence of fire-breathing mythological creatures on top of that? No? Not even a little? Or was I just supposed to infer that they were a thing too?”

“Stark, shut up,” says the woman from over Steve's earpiece, this time over the speakers of the aircraft, as blandly as if she were walking in the park. She sounds impossibly cool – like calm cool – and Darcy isn't sure to be glad or really scared that someone like that has a massive gun pointed at her.

Then the woman switches from the speakers back to Steve's earpiece. “Captain? I've alerted SHIELD as to our situation. As the creature appears to recognize you, we're following your lead on this until further notice. Stark, if you're eavesdropping, do not interfere or engage.”

Steve's jaw clenches again, but he doesn't otherwise move or argue with that. “Any advice?” he asks quietly, staring up at Darcy with no less tension or caution than before.

The woman's cool tone is almost joking as she suggests lightly, “For giant colorful monsters...? Don't make it angry.”

“Seconded," Iron Man adds thoughtfully, also through Steve's earpiece.

Darcy wonders whether or not to tell them that she can hear everything they're saying. She could, but she doesn't really want to lose that advantage. It would make spotting SHIELD creepers so much harder if they knew just how good her hearing is. Man, they'd be so embarrassed though.

Steve takes a firm step forward, clearing his throat, and Darcy belatedly realizes that she's actually going to have to talk to him. Is it too late to pretend she doesn't know English? God, that's been so useful over her centuries of existence. It's probably too late to pretend that she doesn't know English. And it's definitely too late to pretend she's a mindless beast with the brains of a dinosaur. Shit. She should have kept her mouth shut.

As cautiously as Steve, Darcy lowers her massive head down to his level so they're eye to eye. If she's already fucked up this badly, she might as well keep going. Eventually when you're at the bottom of a really deep hole, you might as well keep digging down.

“Hi,” Darcy greets, much more awkwardly than she'd like.

“It says hi,” Iron Man says through the earpiece, sounding deeply outraged. “Mythological creature of legends and it says hi.”

“Stark, shut up,” the woman repeats coldly.

Iron Man makes a scoffing sound through the earpiece, but doesn't say anything else. The armored man continues hovering in the air, slowly circling around Darcy like in orbit. Keeping track of him and the aircraft while focusing on Steve is going to get annoying, she can tell.

Steve waits a few beats, then offers, “Hello.” She can't see his hands through his gloves, but she'd bet they'd be white-knuckled around his shield; his face is like stone. “Have we... met before?”

Darcy considers how to reply to this.

Hole. Digging. Down.

“Yes,” she answers honestly. “It's been awhile though. I looked... different then.” No shit about that; a tinge of surprise enters Steve's face and she can't blame him for it, because how much more different can you even get? She tilts her head to the side, admitting, “It's not important really. We didn't know each other that well.”

Which is true. She used to see him every almost day, but she hadn't been his friend and it had been years since then. She had had a much greater insight into the lives of Steve Rogers and James Barnes than most, but she'd hardly been their confident or their close companion. Two young men in their early twenties hadn't had much interest in admitting the details of their lives to their elderly female next-door neighbor, and Darcy had never really told them much of anything about herself that hadn't been a half-truth or outright lie. He never knew her, that's for sure.

“I feel that this is a significant part of American history that I seriously missed out on,” Iron Man comments into Steve's earpiece, to which the woman in the aircraft immediately warns, “Stark.”

“Anyway,” Darcy says awkwardly, looking between the three of them, then swinging her neck around to check on the unconscious Frost Giant. Yep, still out and thankfully breathing – she still has to interrogate him on what he's done to her Erik – although his golden armor has somehow disappeared. Darcy looks back to Steve and asks, “So – uh – what can I do for you?”

Steve glances at the aircraft, then back at her. God, he is keeping it together outwardly perfectly, but he must really be so lost on this. Did SHIELD just toss him out here to solve their problems without any warning or something? Because that's what this is feeling like – that with Iron Man just deciding to show up.

“Ask the creature its intentions,” the woman in the aircraft advises through the earpiece. She still, Darcy notes unhappily, has not budged that big fucking gun. “SHIELD wants to know what exactly it wants, Captain, so we can negotiate.”

“So SHIELD did know about the dragon,” Iron Man says, also over the earpiece, then sighs dramatically, “Is there no end to the secrets they'll keep from the people?”

Darcy decides to save Steve the trouble of having to rephrase those statements. “I suppose you're probably after an explanation, right?”

Steve gives a small nod. “It would be appreciated,” he replies, almost wryly.

“Uh... well...” Oh shit, how does she actually explain this? “This.... person – um – took something of mine and I'm trying to get it back...?” Darcy eyes the BFG of the aircraft warily and decides that this situation behooves her to be generous about her previous plans. “Look... I just need to ask him a few questions and then he's all yours, alright?”

She doesn't want to give up the Frost Giant – she had and still has a great many plans to turn him into ice cubes if at all possible – but as long as she gets her Erik back... she could probably bring herself to part with him. The little wyrm in her head doesn't want to, but survival is a deeper instinct in Darcy than anger at the moment and the stomachache in her gut is definitely giving her that headache. Maybe... maybe it's for the best that she removes herself from this situation, preferably before she needs anger management therapy or burns a city down. Yeah, wasn't there a lot of brooding about lighting the world on fire or something? Darcy... Darcy probably needs to back off on this. As long as she gets her Erik back, right?

“That looked more than a little personal for someone only after information,” the woman comments drolly over the earpiece. “Alright, thank you, Captain. SHIELD will take it from here.”

Darcy tenses, preparing herself for the open fire of the aircraft's gun, because that doesn't sound good. Fire roils her belly, glowing orange through her scales – just a small bit, just enough to distract the ship and give her reasonable time to grab the unconscious thief and book it. The less bullets she gets in her butt, the better. Those things sting.

Then... a phone rings.

After about thirty awkward seconds of confused silence, Darcy lifts her head and turns her neck about to check on her captive. Then she grasps that no, no it's not coming from the Frost Giant – it's the Kim Possible communicator sound, that would make no sense whatsoever – but from inside the yellow backpack tucked between her spinal plates.

“Oh,” Darcy realizes. “Oh shit, that's mine.”

“What,” says Iron Man, which is ignored by Steve – who by his expression, if Darcy could see under that mask, would have his eyebrows approximately at his hairline – and the woman in the aircraft.

After nearly a minute of nobody saying anything, Darcy gives in and decides to answer it. She turns her head around, softly grasps hold of her backpack with her teeth, and pulls it out from her spinal plates. Then, Darcy turns back around, bag in her teeth like a scruff-held kitten, and suddenly has to ask herself how she's going to answer the phone. She doesn't exactly have hands at the moment and she's not sure she wants to have them. To return to her human form would to be give up every single advantage she has and would only add further confirmation of her identity to SHIELD. Darcy is also sort of busy sitting on the Frost Giant thief at the moment and doesn't exactly want to let up on that. So... uh... options...

Another awkward minute of deliberation and Darcy finally makes a choice, she puts the yellow backpack gently down in front of Steve. Steve looks back at her with further confusion and the tension he's kept all this time – it can't be easy staring down a dragon.

“Can you... would you mind getting that for me?” Darcy asks artlessly, making her best draconian expression of self-depreciation. “Just... um... get it out, answer it, and hold it up? I don't... I don't exactly have – um – hands at the moment.”

Steve Rogers, champion that he is, nods stiffly in agreement. Then he bends down, zips open the little yellow dragon-themed backpack, and rummages efficiently about to find the source of the noise. He pulls out her phone – Unknown Number, the screen says – and stands up. Steve looks at it for a moment, before pulling off a glove with his teeth, selecting the answer button, sliding it across the screen, and smoothly stepping forward to hold it up for Darcy.

“This is literally the strangest thing I've ever seen,” Iron Man comments to no one in particular.

Darcy ignores him and puts her massive head to the tiny phone. “Hello?” she asks.

“Miss Lewis,” says a woman on the phone – not the woman in the aircraft, but just as calm and collected, perhaps even more so. “This is Deputy-Director Maria Hill of the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement, and Logistics Division.”

It takes Darcy a moment to realize that she means SHIELD.

“Oh... uh... hi?”

Then Darcy realizes exactly what she's admitted to by answering to 'Miss Lewis', but then decides that that probably matters for shit when she answered the phone in the first place. There aren't exactly many reasons why a dragon would be carrying about Darcy Lewis's phone unless, in fact, that dragon was Darcy Lewis. Man, she's really bad at this secret identity under pressure thing.

Hole. Digging. Down.

Shit.

Maria Hill proceeds unperturbed, as though talking to dragons over phones is something she does every day, maybe even twice a day. “Miss Lewis, we have our own questions for Loki -”

“Who?” Darcy interrupts before she can help herself. Because Loki? What? She'd thought that was Thor's brother. What?

Darcy swings her head away from the phone to get a better look at the thief she's sitting on. Yeah, alright, there's no family resemblance but his clothes do look fairly similar to those of Thor, Sif, and the Warriors Three. (Wow, yeah, that's so much easier to say than all their names.) But how the fuck did an Asgardian get a Frost Giant – a strange smelling Frost Giant, admittedly – for a brother? How in the fucking hell did a Frost Giant become a Prince of Asgard?

Bingley was going to lose his shit over this one.

She swings her head back to the phone and clears her throat. “Never mind. Continue.”

Maria Hill is briefly silent, then continues, “Miss Lewis, we have our own questions for Loki. If you would oblige to give him up to our team and accompany them back to base, your cooperation would be much appreciated.”

“Uh huh,” Darcy says skeptically, eyeing again the BFG of the aircraft. “And the idea is that you ask him my questions for me? Free of charge? No questions asked?”

“We do have our own questions for you, Miss Lewis,” Maria Hill admits, without a hint of shame. “But we believe we share the same priority of retrieving Erik Selvig from Loki's control. Would we be correct in assuming that Erik Selvig is the something of yours that you are attempting to find?”

Darcy pauses for a beat, then answers, “Yes.”

“SHIELD's best resources and assets are looking for your companion even now, Miss Lewis. If you're looking to find Erik Selvig, then you'll find no one better equipped or committed to finding him than we are.”

“Alright,” Darcy says slowly, “and what is it that you want from me?”

“Your cooperation and whatever answers to our questions you're willing to give,” Maria Hill replies, sounding almost prim. “SHIELD's concern is world security, and unless you're threatening that, Miss Lewis, then we should have no trouble cooperating with each other.”

Darcy resists the urge to glare at the phone. “...Is anything you people do not creepy as all hell?”

“Not really,” Maria Hill says blankly. “And before you make a decision, we'd like to inform you that Jane Foster is currently in Düsseldorf, having decided to join you there instead of remaining in SHIELD protection in Tromsø. If you decide to join us, we can have Jane Foster join you as well.”

Darcy feels her blood run cold and senses very strongly that there should be a second half to that sentence. Something along the lines of: 'and if not... we can have other things done with Jane Foster'. She's not sure if this is true, but Jane definitely does feel closer than the last time Darcy checked. If SHIELD thinks that they can threaten her Jane after losing her Erik then they can think again.

“Is that a threat?” Darcy demands, resisting the urge to let sparks drip only for Steve's sake. He already tenses again at the danger in her tone and he's really doing a wonderful job of holding the phone up for her.

“An offer,” Maria Hill corrects. “If you elect not to join us, then we can arrange for you and Doctor Foster to go somewhere else during this tenuous situation and keep you informed of developments in Doctor Selvig's case.”

She sounds wholly genuine about this, but Darcy imagines that the creeper agents probably get that trained into them at some point. The little wyrm is oddly silent now and Darcy's stomachache is just getting worse; this decision feels slightly... unbalanced to Darcy. And not just because that goddamn aircraft still has the gun pointed at her. Something in her belly shifts oddly at Maria Hill's words and she doesn't like it, not at all.

“And if Jane and I decide to leave after deciding to go with you, then...?”

“Then you leave and we hope to keep in contact,” Maria Hill answers firmly, not missing a beat.

Darcy looks around her, thinking. She's not exactly a fan of SHIELD, considering they lost her Erik, but she too lost once against the thief and Thor had seemed to like them well enough before he'd left. She looks once more at the aircraft – security precaution, she allows begrudgingly – then at Iron Man hovering around her in the air, and then at Steve, standing stone-faced and tall next to her and holding up her phone for her. He meets one of her giant eyes, shield in one hand, phone in the other, and still with his glove in his mouth, and Darcy makes her decision.

She might not have been his friend exactly, but if Steve Rogers is with SHIELD, then Darcy supposes she's willing to give them one more shot. Because if Steve Rogers is still half the man he'd been when he'd been considered half a man, then Darcy could hardly go wrong by following him.

Besides, she has literally no experience with interrogation anyway – not outside of Bingley, who doesn't count – and most of her plans so far have basically involved setting everything on fire. Maybe it's time to hand things over to the professionals before she makes some even worse decisions and mistakes than she's already made recently. Take a big breath and step back. Yeah.

“Alright, I'll follow, ” Darcy agrees finally. “But you should only bring Jane if she wants to come with. Don't cart her around anywhere against her will.”

“Agreed, Miss Lewis. Thank you for choosing to work with us. We hope to see you soon.”

Darcy can't help but scoff at this and pulls her head away from the phone. Damn creeper agents.

“You can hang up now,” she tells Steve.

Steve brings the phone down in front of him, stares at it for a second, and then ends the call with a competent swipe. Without prompting, he steps over to drop it back into her backpack and zips the bag up. Then he's standing at his full height again, pulling his glove back on. Darcy has no doubts that he easily heard both sides of that conversation, but she doesn't much care. It's pretty much all out of the bag for her now.

She swings her head about to take another look at the Frost Giant thief she's sitting on – Loki, apparently; wow, that has got to be five stories and a half at the least – then brings her snout back to next to Steve.

“So – uh – what now?” she asks him.

Steve, fixing the sleeve around his glove, takes his own glance at Loki and then nods up towards the aircraft. Darcy follows his nod and notices that the BFG has finally been tucked away and that the plane-jet-thing is lowering itself to the ground, along with Iron Man himself, who lands with a graceless clunk of metal next to Steve.

“You move your ass,” Iron Man says, clearly enjoying himself, “literally.”

A little reluctantly, Darcy does exactly that and hefts her hind flank off the Frost Giant thief. The shift in her center of balance and what that does to the weapon in one of her stomachs is unpleasant – not painful, just unpleasant – and Darcy inwardly curses him again for having such a horrible thing. The wrongness is lessened now but Darcy... Darcy doesn't feel as though this is likely to be because of anything she's done, however safe a dragon's stomach might be, and that unnerves her.

But still, Darcy walks off of the thief and plants herself down a few steps away, smacking her chest again with a foreleg and watching Steve and Iron Man approach the Frost Giant lying prone in his pile of rubble. Then Darcy turns her eyes to the landed aircraft, the back of which has opened and from which steps a woman clad in black with bright red hair and an extremely confident stride.

“Okay gentlemen and... dragon,” she says, like that's nothing new to say, cool eyes flickering over all of them as she raises one eyebrow and her lips twitch upward. “Let's get this show on the road.”

Chapter Text

“So,” Darcy says finally to the red-haired woman, “I'm not going to be able to fit in that thing.”

The woman from the aircraft with the absurdly large gun (which has thankfully been retracted) regards the landed ship with a non-expression. She hasn't introduced herself, nor said much of anything really, but she has thus far responded to an “Agent” from Steve and a mocking “Miss Rushman” from Iron Man, and Darcy's not entirely how to talk to her either way.

“No,” Agent Rushman agrees. It is more than obvious that Darcy trying to fit her dragon form into that aircraft would be equivalent to trying to fit her human form breasts into an A-cup bra – it's just not physically possible; the laws of physics can't bend like that. (Well... not without some magic at least, which Darcy kind of sucks at.)

Now, Darcy could return to her human form and step into that aircraft with ease – she's fairly certain that she might actually be the shortest one in this odd group – but she doesn't want to. Her egg-bearer might not have believed in nurture, but Darcy's been around the block a few times and knows it's a bad idea to get into vehicles with strangers. She figures that that advice probably goes double for getting into aircrafts with strange government agencies and superheroes. If she's going anywhere with them, then she's doing it with armored scales and the ability to breathe fire.

But on top of that... there's the thief's weapon – wrong, so wrong; and pulsing(?) a little in her stomach. She's crushed down to human shape with filled stomachs before, but she's not entirely sure that this thing will behave. And if it doesn't, the results will surely not be pretty. Darcy wants to risk its misbehavior about as much as she wants to spit the thing up and leave it in easy reach of the thief. For now, she'll stay as she is and keep the strange spear where it is – safely out of Frost Giant hands.

Thinking of the thief, Darcy swivels her large silver eyes to look at him as Steve and Iron Man escort him aboard the aircraft. Her thief cuts a sharp figure, despite the sweaty pallor of his skin; not even a brushing of dust or speck of rubble is on his courtly clothes. He's taller and larger than Iron Man and barely taller than Steve – he looks like a god; a demi-god at the least – and he walks towards the ship with his head held even and only the barest of limps in his stride.

Loki, she ponders, the Frost Giant Prince of Asgard.

As he steps onto the ship's access, he stops and turns his head to look over Agent Rushman and Darcy; in response, the agent tenses barely and Darcy's hackles rise. His gaze lingers briefly on the red-haired woman, then swivels to Darcy and he stares for only a moment with a hard scowl and hateful green eyes before the warning whir of Iron Man's raised hands forces him to move on. Loki turns his head away and steps forward with a faint smile on his face.

Darcy feels a feeling like an exhale in her stomach and knows that something here is as wrong beyond the weapon in her belly. She wants to end this now before it can become something worse; it does not do to leave fire unspewed in the throat – to let rage fester until it hurts you later.

“He's playing us,” Darcy breathes, a hiss through her teeth to the red-haired woman by her side.

“Yes,” Agent Rushman agrees, eyes cold and focused on the Frost Giant's back.

Darcy glances at her and wonders for a moment what rage is held behind this woman's teeth; what sharpness she has to her surely hungry claws; what or who this thief stole from her and which of the two of them will kill him first for it. Darcy may be a dragon, but suddenly she's not sure it'll be her.

Then the red-haired woman's non-expression returns as their willing prisoner turns and allows himself to be settled in and cuffed to one of the aircraft's seats. He looks at them again, muted laughter on his face, and Darcy hopes desperately that Jane chose to stay behind. There is nothing more that Darcy wants than to see her friend, but the dragon cannot help but have the sudden feeling that this hole she's been digging herself in is only a few feet from sudden freefall into a very cold hell.

~

Darcy doesn't know how many times she has to say it: no booty of hers is even remotely in marathon shape. She's not really made for endurance and all this desperate flying after the thief is seriously beginning to wear on her wings – she'll have to gorge herself later to make up for all this energy she's wasting. She totally should have just tossed up the spear; chasing a jet is hard work and without her magic boosting her along, the dragon probably wouldn't be able to manage it. She's pretty sure that the red-haired woman is flying at a slower speed than the jet could reach anyway though, so Darcy makes a mental note to thank her later for it.

There's a faint click and the aforementioned woman's voice says from around Darcy's ear, “We're getting closer. The sky's starting to look bad. Drop if you need to and we'll regroup later – we're tracking you through the earpiece.”

Darcy huffs and wishes she could somehow respond. The earpiece that she'd invited Agent Rushman to wedge in the scales by her ear wasn't designed for dragons and Darcy has neither the position nor the fingers to push the button that would let her bite out something like: “I'm not dead yet.” She's not surprised that SHIELD's using to keep track of her – they're probably doing the same with her phone – but she is surprised that Agent Rushman's pretty much left the communication more or less open between them the entire time.

Then again, if something went wrong or the Frost Giant suddenly stopped playing mouse, Darcy supposes that it makes sense the agent would want to keep the flying fire-breathing dragon who can take him out or potentially rescue the falling ship if necessary (Darcy can feel the wind in those helicopter blade scratches) in the loop.

The dragon surveys the sky around them and has to agree that the sky was starting to look unfriendly. The already dark night had become even darker as thick clouds slowly seemed to be gathering around them no matter how fast they fly; there was a warm thrum rising in the air. Darcy swoops down a little to be under the aircraft instead of beside or behind it, and hopes the gathering storm does not have her being struck by lightning again – it's not a pleasant experience. (Man, she still has to get Bingley back for that.)

Darcy is considering spiraling down to avoid the storm when she hears Steve's voice quietly whispering through the earpiece, “I don't like it.” She pauses and keeps her flight beneath the ship, unwillingly intrigued because Steve and Iron Man have thus far kept as quiet as the Frost Giant thief to Darcy's knowledge.

“What?” Iron Man replies, a little more loudly than Steve and with a surprising bite to his words. “Gothic Reindeer Games coming in so quietly?”

Steve is silent for a moment, likely trying to process that nickname as much as Darcy is. “It didn't start out so quietly,” he says. “This guy packs a wallop.”

“Being sat on by an enormous, flying beast of fire probably does a number on the self-confidence, Cap. Don't take it personally Rock of Ages didn't take you quite so seriously; you're pretty spry for an older fellow. What's your thing? Pilates? Water aerobics? I hear good things about jazzercize.” 

“...Pardon me?” Steve says quietly, his whispering tone turning slightly hard against Iron Man's badgering snark. Darcy has to wonder if Tony Stark really is exactly the fantastic asshole that Bingley's always believed he was and wonders further whether or not Steve's managed to break his lifetime goal of calling out every asshole on the planet yet.

This sounds like it might be a problem.

“It's like calisthenics. You might have missed a couple things, you know, doing time as a Capsicle. You should have asked your walking flame-thrower friend to thaw you out – could have given you some time to stretch first.”

Steve is silent again for a moment and Darcy swears she can hear Agent Rushman make a muttering curse under her breath in what may or may not be Russian. It sounds like Russian.

Capsicle? Darcy wonders.

“Fury didn't tell me he was calling you in,” Steve says finally – coldly.

Iron Man's voice is tight as he replies,“Fury doesn't tell people a lot of things.”

Agent Rushman sighs and her own voice comes back onto Darcy's earpiece. “It looks like -” she says, before dissolving back into Russian swearing as a series of lightning bolts seem to strike down all at once around the aircraft.

The white strikes light up the surrounding sky, which is nothing but thick, dark clouds now, and the thunder of it all is deafening. Darcy ends up wheeling from the near hit, blinded by the flash of power and feeling the roar of thunder roll through her scales. She can't see – she can't see, oh god, fuck, oh god – and the air is hot and heavy against the desperate push of her wings.

“Where's this coming from?” Agent Rushman mutters angrily into her ear while Darcy tries to shake the spots from her eyes and keep herself aloft in the sky. “Lewis? Are you still with us? Get out of the sky and we'll follow you down before we fall down. Rogers, Stark, both eyes on the prisoner.”

Darcy blinks wildly about the aircraft before she loses it, but the swirling dark clouds and contrasting cracks of lightning make it difficult to see anything at all. For a panicked moment of terror Darcy thinks she'll be struck down from the sky entirely. This is that Frost Giant thief's fault, she knows it; the only good magician is a dead one. (Or Bingley.)

“Think this storm's an unnatural one?” Steve asks quietly.

“I don't think anything,” Rushman mutters back, as though her teeth are gritted.

Darcy focuses on the voices in her ear and finally spots the aircraft between the furious bolts and the swirling black clouds. The thunder is still nearly deafening, but she has nothing to fear from the lightning apparently, as it seems to be following the ship's path through the sky. Every time it cracks down, it does so like a cage around the aircraft rather than an attack, but Darcy isn't sure that's at all better as she wings after her ragtag party.

She needs to warn them somehow, but her stupid communicator is one-way and getting close to that far-ahead aircraft looks like a death sentence now. The sky was unfriendly before, but how did it get so black and jagged so quickly? If this isn't somehow Loki's fault, she'll eat her own tail.

“What's the matter?” Iron Man's voice says suddenly, loudly and clearly, brightly unfriendly through the lightning-filled sky. “Scared of a little lightning?”

A new voice, a male one, replies coolly, “I'm not overly fond of what follows.”

Darcy only has the time to realize that a) that that has to be the voice of the Frost Giant, b) holy fucking shit, he sounds British and stupidly posh, and c) gosh, she thought Thor sounded like a dick when they met him, but then there's this asshole. Then the lightning slices down from the sky again, all at once, and through her spotty haze she can see the dark figure slam down atop the moving aircraft, bright red fabric fluttering out behind them.

From her distance and through her dizziness, Darcy watches the figure open the back of the aircraft by grabbing the back and pushing it open with tremendous force. She can hear the crack through the earpiece as well as the electronic echo of storm sounds and the sudden exclamations and noises of surprise from the occupants of the aircraft as the newcomer disappears into the ship, only the reappear seconds later with the Frost Giant thief in hand by the throat. Then the pair are tumbling towards the ground and disappear into the black clouds, followed by a single, final crack of lightning and rumble of thunder - with their exit, the sky becomes instantly quiet.

“Son of a-” Iron Man swears, appearing at the aircraft's ramp. “And now there's that guy. Could the universe just not with this? Dragons? Strange men falling from the sky? Did I sleep through a briefing?”

Darcy agrees with that statement, torn between continuing to follow the ship and chasing the ironically-stolen thief. She didn't give up her prize to SHIELD so they could lose him too and she wouldn't get to kill him or get her Erik back. What the fuck is this. She knew this was going to go to crap somehow.

“Another Asgardian?” Rushman demands.

“Looked human,” Steve tells her. “Is it possible he could be a friendly? Can we follow them?”

Iron Man's voice cuts through any reply Rushman might have given. “I can. If Dramatic Entrance By Storm kills Loki or frees him, the Tesseract's lost either way. See you on the ground.”

“Stark!” Steve calls, but Iron Man blasts out of the aircraft without waiting for another word. Darcy can hear her old neighbor's quiet“Damn it!” through the earpiece as the flying armor goes.

Iron Man rockets down after the thief's thief, and he says, presumably to Darcy as he disappears through the clearing clouds, “Puff, you coming?”

Okay, maybe Bingley was right, Tony Stark probably is just that much of an asshole.

It's probably a sad thing that she still wants his autograph.

“Lewis,” Rushman's voice cuts in. “Follow him if you're still out there.” Then her voice changes in volume and tone as her attention seems to be grabbed by something else. “Cap? I'd sit this one out unless you've got a flying suit of armor somewhere. These guys come from myth, they've got literal legends about them.”

“Good for them. I have limited edition trading cards,” Steve replies, his voice growing oddly distant and familiarly flippant. “See you on the ground.”

Darcy was just about to follow Iron Man's trail when, at Rushman's sudden barrage of Russian curses again, she looks up at the hovering aircraft in time to see her old neighbor jump from the back of it. She does even think as she tucks her wings in and dives after him immediately, leaving a goddamn dent in the clouds from her magic pulsing her forward, because it might have been awhile since she saw a Captain America propaganda video, but she's actually 100% certain that that super-serum thing hadn't given Steve Rogers the ability to fucking fly.

If she had any doubts that this Captain America wasn't her Steve Rogers, they've – pun fucking intended – jumped ship now. Holy fucking shit, Steve didn't change at all.

She spreads her wings at the last minute to try and lessen the impact as she barrels in from the side and her outstretched claws wrap around Steve Rogers, who'd straightened himself to be a little Steve-bullet through the air. Darcy banks hard to follow after Iron Man's trail, clearly visible now through the disappearing storm clouds left above them, and brings America's Sweetheart Hero up to her snout as she trails their targets.

“WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU?” Darcy demands.

Steve wheezes like he's out of breath and stares up at her, unconcerned about how he actually just tried to jump to his death. She has literally no idea whatsoever how James's hair wasn't grey and white by the time he was twenty if this is the kind of shit he had to live with.

“I have a parachute,” he says, weakly, as though that makes it any better. It kind of does, actually.

“Oh,” Darcy replies intelligently, lifting Steve up to let him grab onto one of her horns. “Well... it was still stupid,” she argues as he deftly moves himself onto her head so she can free her hand of him. “I mean, give a girl some warning, you know?”

“I'll keep that in mind,” Steve replies, sounding slightly amused from his new lookout position. “Stark seems to be circling for Loki and the new Asgardian. Any insight on our new player?”

“I have no idea,” Darcy calls back honestly, “I didn't see any features, and I pretty much only know three Asgardians. There's Loki, his brother: Thor, and I met their mom this one time, but that was a long time ago.” A very long time ago; Darcy has so many questions to ask that woman about her sons now and none of them are fit for polite company, much less a queen.

“That's two more than me,” Steve offers, before saying in a much more commanding voice, “Keep after Stark; he looks like he's seen something. Do you know anything about Asgardians in general? Anything about Loki would also be appreciated.”

Darcy does her best to keep after Iron Man's trail, which is the only reason she's managing to follow him at all; he's faster than the jet. The sudden turns he's taking aren't helping either and she's incredibly jealous of his dynamics – all those sharp turns and smooth control. Heavy wings and bursts of magic are probably much more environmentally friendly, but they aren't half as refined.

“I didn't even know the guy's name until someone told it to me,” Darcy admits as they follow Stark's unpredictable path through the sky. “I didn't even know he existed until Thor mentioned him about a month ago. But I can tell you that he's a skilled magician, he wanted us to catch him, and he's not actually Asgardian; he's a Frost Giant.”

“Frost Giant?”

“Yeah – eh... I can't remember the actual name they call themselves, but that's what the Asgardians refer to them as. They're literally icy giants from a planet of ice who once tried to invade the Earth and bring about another Ice Age before the Asgardians intervened and basically grounded them to their own world. I think. That's what the Asgardians said the last time I asked.”

“A completely different species then?”

“I have no idea. I've never taken the time to study their biolo- What in the world is he doing right now?” Because the flying man of iron has suddenly veered off to one side really fast, like Darcy has admittedly done when she's spotted something incredibly shiny with dragons on it or a 75% off sale on super nice shoes. Darcy boosts herself forward to try to catch up, taking out more than a few trees behind and below her from the pulse.

“Stark!” Steve barks suddenly, presumably into his earpiece. “What's happening?”

“Found 'em,” Iron Man replies shortly, drawing closer to a mountain where Darcy thinks she can make out two tall figures arguing on the top of it, one of whom is wearing that long red cape from earlier. “I'll take Superman; you take Dragon Bait.”

Darcy considers being offended, but she'd rather focus on catching up to the metal suit, now seconds away from the arguing pair that has yet to notice his rapid approach. Steve sounds pissed off enough for the both of them anyway.

“Stark! Hold off! Stark! St- oh, va te faire foutre!”

Steve and Darcy watch the metal-suited man, without any further ado, slam into the red-caped one of from the side. Iron Man and their Lightning Thief shoot straight off the mountain and down into a valley of trees below, knocking more than a few over and disappearing completely out of sight. Loki is left on the mountain top alone, looking extremely bemused.

Darcy wants to burn that fucking smirk off his face, but relents in favor of offering to Steve, who she didn't know could swear in French (but supposes it only makes sense), “You take Superman and Superman-wannabe, and I'll take Dragon Bait?”

“Sounds good,” Steve replies, from between gritted teeth. “Land by Loki and I'll make my way from there. Signal the jet when it comes around.”

“Got it. Hold tight.”

Chapter Text

Darcy lands next to the Frost Giant thief with a heavy thump that shakes the mountain, just in time to see a metallic object lift itself up from beside Loki and whiz past them into the trees. It looked vaguely familiar to Darcy, but she eschews pondering why to keep both her eyes on Loki while lowering her head to let Steve disembark. She doesn't even know why she bothered though, because Steve leaps off at a height that would cause most people to break their legs and takes off down the mountain having hit the ground running. Good god, he's nuts.

Out of the corner of her eye, she sees a few trees go down and lightning strike down after, then a few more trees go down. Yeah, definitely nuts; most people run away from that shit. Absentmindedly, she hopes no one starts a forest fire, because she's probably going to be held responsible for anything lighting up. Stereotypes are shit. Hopefully Steve will be able to calm things down somehow; his time as Captain America ought to have taught him how to end a fight by now, right?

But that's not really her concern. What is her concern is the not-man in front of her, who has plopped himself down and is lounging relaxed on the mountain rock, looking down the steep slope with a wide smile. Darcy has to resist the urge to sit on this tiny thief again, because apparently there is literally nothing about him that she doesn't find annoying as all hell. Is he ignoring her? Fucker. Well, two can play at that game.

Rustling her hide, Darcy settles down on the mountaintop in a pile of heavy, scaly limbs and heavier, scaly flank. She folds her wings in, brings her tail around, and crosses her forelegs, keeping her head held high – doing a draconian mimic of the thief's stupid mountain lounging. He cannot possibly be comfortable in that position, Darcy decides as she settles her weight about; she's slept on much nicer mountains than this uneven piece of crap.

(Not that she could get comfortable with the weapon in her gut making her so very inwardly uneasy.)

The thief has watched her resting process with vague curiosity, seemingly fascinated by the shift of her scales. Which he should be, because Darcy's scales are fucking gorgeous. Except for how she's got slices in them from the helicopter that she'll have to grow back and that are entirely this asshole's fault.

“If I see any magic whatsoever,” Darcy informs the man curtly, “I will throw up on you. And it will burn. A lot.”

He raises his eyebrows at her, bright blue eyes crinkled in amusement, then throws his head back and laughs loudly like that's the funniest thing he's ever heard. Darcy bites back the flames she already wants to spew at him for having such a stupid laugh, and finds herself suddenly unnerved by the violent and brutal sounds of fighting getting increasingly distant below them.

She's assumed that Iron Man and Captain America could deal with the newcomer, friendly or otherwise, but maybe Thor's fight with the Destroyer didn't jog her memory enough when it came to the abilities of Frost Giants and Asgardians. She's not sure allies yank allies out of jets by the throat, but Loki seems far too relaxed for someone a lot of people want captured or dead. Maybe she should sit on him again, just for good measure – that'd stop the stupid laughter.

When he finally does stop his mirth, dissolving into silent shaking instead, he stares at her with clear amusement and knowing. “You don't wish to join the battle of heroes?” he asks mockingly, waving a hand towards the valley below where more lightning strikes rain down, followed by crashes of trees and clashes of metal against metal.

“I'll pass,” Darcy replies without taking her eyes off him. “I'll talk with the victor.”

The thief nods at this, looking somewhat approving. “I should warn you that my brother isn't much one for talking when his hammer can do the speaking.” A cold smile worms its way onto his face. “And he isn't much one for dealing with monsters.”

For a moment, Darcy does nothing but cock her head sideways, and then she feels like a colossal idiot. The thunder and lightning, the red cape, suspected Asgardian, and Mew-Mew had passed her when she'd landed. Of course it was Thor! Who else would it be? If Asgard would send someone to deal with their rogue prince, why not the other one? (Except for the massive familial conflict drama problems that would probably require extensive therapy.) Last she'd seen him, Thor had been going to chase down his brother; it looked like Thor had chased Loki here to Earth.

Jane would be happy. That was good.

“I've met your brother before,” Darcy tells him, smiling with all her sharp teeth. “I think he and I can manage to get along long enough to work out something in both our favors. That hammer's got to have a lot to say on the shit you've been up to.”

Loki grins back. “He doesn't have it in him to hurt me in exchange for your precious Doctor Selvig, no matter how many drinks they've shared,” he says tauntingly, grinning even wider when Darcy's tail gives an involuntary, violent flick at the mention of her stolen friend.

“What did you do to him?” Darcy growls.

The Frost Giant lounges even further back onto the rock and waves a hand dismissively. “Oh, he's perfectly healthy and happy. Worry not for him. He remains blissfully ignorant of the truth of you still. I, however, find myself wonderfully enlightened and intrigued.”

“Oh?”

“Oh, yes,” Loki answers conspiratorially. “I never would have expected that the stupid, flighty little girl who followed him and my brother's focus of puppy love about would be a member of an extinct race. Darcy Lewis? What a pathetically human name. All of the records I have read place your kind's final stragglers as eradicated hundreds of years ago, and yet -” He leans back to raise his hands at her like he's presenting a miracle. “- here before me stands a full-grown Fire Lizard very much alive.”

Darcy snorts. “Clearly you can't believe everything you read.”

“Clearly,” he agrees genially, before leaning forward again and putting his arms on his knees, his smile sharp like knives. “Explain to me how a being as legendary being such as yourself finds themselves trailing after humans like a well-trained slave. It must be humiliating.”

Darcy stares at him, because he sounds exactly like Bingley used to (and occasionally still does on his off days). Every aspect of her life she's chosen for herself and helping Jane and Erik makes her happy, so the insult brushes off her scales pretty much instantly. Her clutch-brother has said so much worse, this is seriously nothing compared to some of the shit she's heard. Again, two can play at that game; if he wants to poke around for her soft spots, then she can definitely return the favor.

“Oh, so humiliating,” Darcy replies dramatically. “How humanity forced me to hide among them and make coffee, it's just too much to bear. My dignity has been stolen from me and I sympathize greatly with your quest to conquer them, except how... you know, that's all bullshit. Explain to me how a Frost Giant becomes a Prince of Asgard. It must be interesting.”

Loki's placating smile through her drama freezes on his face and his relaxed lounging instantly becomes rigid. Darcy flashes her teeth at him again, giving him her own amused and knowing look as he obviously has to force himself to relax once more. His smile is tight as he leans back against the rock, and Darcy doesn't give him time to deny it.

“I can smell it on you,” she tells him. “You might stink of Asgardian magic and Asgardian scents, and you can positively reek of whatever otherness you've been rolling in recently, but you can't hide what you really are. Ice sweats in the presence of fire, you know.”

The tight smile tries to turn to an expression of disinterest, but Darcy can see the tenseness to his shoulders and his jaw. Something inside her seems to bubble delightedly at his pain – the little wyrm definitely approves, as does something much larger and older that's just now beginning to stir. How dare he try and make her ashamed of herself when he cannot even admit the truth to himself. If he wants to talk of monsters...

“So how does a Frost Giant get brought into the royal family? Adoption? Fostering? Was it a hostage situation?” Darcy asks, pushing further and further at Loki's cold shoulder. “That would make sense, since the last I knew, your kind was being soundly beaten for trying to take over the Earth. And here you are again. Aren't you a good little Greyjoy?”

Loki says nothing, his cold, green eyes fixed on the distant battle below.

“Who are you doing this for?” Darcy demands. “Why are you doing this? Why are you here? There is nothing to be gained here. The Earth isn't something I'd wish on anyone. Your brother spoke of you with love; is this how you repay him? Is your icy mother proud of you now, Frost Giant? The Lady Frigga must be humiliated.”

With a flash of golden armor, Loki is on his feet, but just as fast, Darcy is on her own and quickly slams him down into the mountain rock with a claw. His attack was clumsy and all emotional, and Darcy feels a sick sense of pride for having hit the nail into his weakness and digging it in. She sneers down at him, feeling a heat in her belly that's just itching to melt something.

“You took something of mine, Frost Giant,” Darcy hisses, blowing hot air into his pale face. “Did you not think of the consequences of laughing at a live dragon? If you were not hiding my Erik from me, I would roast you here and now purely for what you tried to do to your brother.”

Loki looks up at her and suddenly there is a sharp dagger between her claws, one she did not even see him stab into her, digging in beneath her scales. Darcy howls in pain but does not release him, instead only pushing him harder into the rock. Loki's armored head falls back and he wheezes at her weight.

“You know not of what you speak,” he says in a deadly whisper, mismatched eyes cold and hard. One is bright blue and the other is a deep green, and Darcy cannot help but stare at them warily. That sudden blue is far too reminiscent of the weapon breathing deeply in her stomach, inhaling and exhaling with power. Why is everything so very wrong about this thief?

“I don't think you do either,” Darcy replies carefully.

“I know exactly what it is I do,” Loki snaps back, chin held regally even beneath her. “I will be a king as I was raised to be. This world is a wreck of chaos and war. I will set this place free from the burden of freedom; humanity will bow before me and no one will be able to stop me! You are just like my brother, having your head turned by these pathetic creatures.” He sneers up at her. “I must pay this Jane Foster a visit and find the appeal for myself.”

“I WILL BURN YOU IF YOU DARE,” Darcy snarls, her belly swelling with an orange glow that casts shadows around them and reflects brightly off Loki's golden armor. The Frost Giant only laughs at her rage and Darcy prepares to bathe him in flames – not enough to kill him, just enough to teach him why he has been unwise in the foes he has made.

'Finally!' screams the angry little wyrm.

Loki's eyes widen as he sees Darcy is serious in her threat and his armor fades off him immediately – gold dissipates over dark blue patterns that are suddenly spilling all over his skin. The green eye turns entirely red while the bright blue covers all the other, and suddenly Darcy's forefoot is burning. The dragon screams in pain, an inhuman screech that echoes through the mountains, and reels backward, clutching at her claws where the scales have been frozen over. Loki scrabbles up and away from her, his skin dark blue and with mismatched eyes of blood red and bright blue. Darcy blows flames over her iced claws and spits sparks at the undisguised Frost Giant in front of her; there's no change in his size but he's clearly showing his real colors now.

“Oh look,” Darcy says, half-coo and half-snarl as she tends to her injury. “Truth does out after all.”

The Frost Giant stands tall and unarmed on his rocky perch, the blueness fading from his skin as he looks down his nose at her. His eyes return to normal as well, but both irises are now a glowing blue and they are glazed sick and wrong.

“I will be a king,” he tells her coldly. “And no near-extinct beast who plays with humans will stop me; no so-called heroes; there is no shield that will save you now. I have been given an army that will decimate your world and when I wield the true power of the Tesseract, I will show each and every being who dare oppose me the right I have to rule.”

Darcy cannot help but frown in slight confusion when he mentions the Tesseract. It's not the first time that someone has mentioned this thing since she set out to find her Erik – it's not even the fifteenth time, actually – and it annoys her that she doesn't know what he means. Is it the spear resting in her stomach? Or is it something else entirely? The spear is the only thing she has seen so far that crackles with unknown power, but she is certain that the weapon is not what he means.

Unfortunately for her, Loki catches her brief look of confusion and his face breaks out into a wide and triumphant gloat. “And you do not even know of what I speak!” he crows. “You truly do seek only your pet human; you have no regard for the importance or significance of what you have involved yourself in! Oh, how the mighty Fire Lizards have fallen! It would, I think, be a mercy to end your race before you fall to further pitiful lows.”

The dragon growls at him as he stands on the mountain ledge as though he has no more cares in the world, but Loki only ignores her and cackles to himself as he stares off into the distance.

“Oh, I have been a fool,” he sighs. “To think I thought you followed the power of the Tesseract, and it was not that at all, was it? Perhaps...” His sick blue eyes flicker towards her and he smiles with a wicked glint to them. “Perhaps I should present you to him... as a final gift alongside it. He could end what he began. Yes, it would be fitting, wouldn't it?”

Darcy is admittedly no expert in dragon lore, but she knows the basic stuff – the important stuff – and these statements send a shiver through her scales. If this arrogant little snowflake is saying what she thinks he's saying, then she should burn him here and now before he can follow through on that threat. If... if that... person was involved, then... oh, fuck, she has to warn Bingley immediately. Yeah, mental note to self: figure out how to GTFO of Earth.

Loki leers at her from his place on the rock and Darcy stares at him. She can't quite believe how focused she's been on Erik; she wants nothing more than safety, for him and all her loved ones, but this... this obviously goes far beyond... okay, she's not sure what this is going beyond. But there is wrongness here and it runs deep.

“He will show you what it means to burn,” Loki announces with an oddly quiet smile, standing tall against the dark sky, his eyes shining mad and blue.

He looks like a conqueror.

He looks insane.

Darcy supposes the two aren't mutually exclusive. She lets him have his moment, a tense silence descending between them, before falling back on her usual response when Bingley was being particularly stupid about something and she doesn't want to listen to his dumbass arguments anymore. She has no idea what she's doing right now and old habits die hard. Plus, she can see what's waiting at the bottom of the mountain now - they can deal with this.

“And now... a rebuttal,” Darcy states plainly.

Then she steps forward and swings her tail around again – if she hears Loki speak any longer, she's going to kill him, end of the line – sending him flying off the mountaintop without another word. The mythological God of Mischief crashes down the rocky hillside, bouncing and bumping in a crashing mess of limbs. He lands in a sprawl on his back, laughing, at the base of the mountain not far from the feet of the wide-eyed Steve and Thor – Iron Man landing with a heavy clunk between them.

Loki leans his head back, catches sight of their dumbfounded expressions, and just laughs even harder than before. He points up at Darcy, who is looking down at him from the mountain ledge, as though he wants to say something, but he can't seem to get the words out and clutches at his stomach instead, practically rolling around on the ground except for how he's not because it would probably be too undignified. Steve and Thor follow Loki's finger, but Iron Man just keeps staring down at him.

“Oh, great,” the billionaire says. “He's lost it.”

Darcy shrugs her massive shoulders and ruffles her wings. She focuses instead on the crazy's brother, who is staring up at her is disbelief and undisguised awe – unsurprising if Darcy's kind were suspected to be extinct; it seems that the Lady Frigga kept her promise after all. It takes the dragon a moment to decide on what to say to the God of Thunder – her best friend's maybe-sort-of-boyfriend – but eventually Darcy settles on something that sums up her feelings pretty accurately without just screaming for five minutes straight from pure frustration and terror.

“You should sue the adoption center,” Darcy informs him, and while Thor raises his eyebrows, Loki just keeps laughing.

Chapter Text

Darcy doesn't come down from the mountaintop until it's time to wing herself into the air after the jet. She would be reluctant to admit that she was pouting, but the truth of it was really that she was pouting with a rather large side of panicking. She just didn't want to be near Loki anymore - there's something really, really wrong with that guy - so she kept to the top of the mountain, watching from above and thinking, and let the Three Superheroes wave Agent Rushman down and then load Loki up.

Heck, she barely even watches. Instead, she focuses on the frost on her forehand that has thankfully only gone scale-deep, cutting ragged patterns that are slowly melting away. Darcy had... forgotten... how much the freezing bite of a Frost Giant stung. It didn't even come close to the horror of her memories, but it had a peculiar pain that was wholly unique. She may feel sickly proud of how deeply she dug her claws into his soft spots, but the reminder of the consequences when fire and ice mix has made her vaguely wary again.

Pulling her thoughts from their seriousness, Darcy tugs out the dagger Loki stabbed into her with her teeth. Resourceful little fucker. Because she doesn't want to leave a weapon with her blood lying around, Darcy swallows it, sending it down to the same stomach as Loki's horrible other weapon. It goes down much smoother than the spear, but the stench of Frost Giant on it is terrible.

Darcy wants her clutch-brother; she wants her Erik; she wants her Jane. She wants Bingley here so he can panic for her and she can tell him to calm down, and then he could pull out a library's worth of useful information so everything could be okay. She wants her Erik back and not missing and not broken and away from the stupid, insane Frost Giant thief. She wants her Jane so she can curl up around the tiny woman and listen to Jane talk about stars and not have to worry about madmen or extinction of any race or the stupid weapon in her gut.

It obviously unnerves the others that Darcy remains atop the mountain, silent and clearly refusing to come down or associate with any of them, but none of them seem to want to call her out on it. Loki doesn't talk either and that probably unnerves them just as much – not knowing what happened between the two of them besides the last few moments.

The others are pretty quiet themselves. Iron Man makes a few quiet, snarky comments to the world in general, but neither Steve nor Thor seems to want to engage and he tapers off when no one responds. Rushman doesn't leave the front of the jet at all. And if they say anything or throw a party once the jet door closes, Darcy doesn't hear it – maybe Agent Rushman has the communicator off or something.

The rest of the flight is just as silent.

Loki may be their "prisoner" or whatever SHIELD was calling it, but Darcy feels that they should be fully aware that they're dealing with someone who could slip out of their grasp probably about as easily as snapping his fingers if he felt like it. Darcy can keep track of him far better than any human ever could, and Thor probably has his own ways of keeping an eye on his adoptive brother, but... well... who knew? There was nothing truthfully and wholly humorous about this at all, especially if Loki was the only one laughing.

~

By the time they finally approach their destination, Darcy is in a much better mood. Sure, she still has that headache and another stomachache, and she's also incredibly tired and stressed, and has almost entirely convinced herself that the world is ending, but she can feel Jane ahead! Her Jane is waiting ahead of them - for some reason floating in the sky or something, which is strange to say the least - and Darcy is torn between wishing that her Jane had been tucked away safely somewhere and being absolutely delighted to see something familiar (that is not insane or impossible) again.

The little wyrm in Darcy's head is practically rolling around with its front claws on its toes, a scaly little ball that's shrieking a nonstop screech of: 'Jane! JANE! Jane! Janejanejane! JANE! JAAAAAAAAAANE! Jane!' as it tumbles about excitedly.

Somehow – and Darcy isn't exactly sure how, but knows she'll probably regret it later when she collapses from a total lack of energy – Darcy ends up soaring ahead of the jet. She doesn't need to follow it anymore, not when Jane is so close. So when she sees their destination, she gets a full and uninterrupted view of an actual aircraft carrier in the fucking sky. It is both the coolest and most terrifying thing she's ever seen in her life, holy shit.

Man, she should totally go find that one conspiracy-theory kid from her Psychology 101 class and apologize for ever doubting him. He had been sort of right about the “secret lizard people” thing too, if you wanted to ignore the racism and get technical about it.

She doesn't even think as she dives in to land on the airstrip, skidding down to walking speed on the runway and then hurrying towards Jane. There are some people who look either like soldiers or secret agents walking about – dropping things, flailing, trying to become part of the scenery by not moving at all, or looking like they're about to shit themselves – but Darcy categorizes them as unimportant and quickly stomps past them. If anyone shoots at her, she'll just flick them off the convenient death-drops in literally every direction; she's not letting anything stop her from getting to her Jane now.

Unfortunately, what does stop her from getting to her Jane is that Jane is inside the building part of this flying fortress and whoever made SHIELD's doorways on this thing clearly discriminates against dinosaurs and other large lizard-creatures. With an unhappy snarl, Darcy slithers atop the building to try and figure out where her Jane is – to see if she can get to the woman without going human. She probably looks like a very scaly sniffer-hound as she worms her way across the top of the flying aircraft carrier, tail lashing back and forth in uncontrollable delight at being so close.

Soon enough, Darcy finds herself at the edge of a roof right atop where her Jane is – only a dozen yards away at most – and peers over the side. Once she spots windows, the dragon doesn't hesitate in leaning over the ledge, head upside-down, and looking in to find her Jane. The room itself looks like some kind of sci-fi laboratory, all sleek and apparently taken directly from Star Trek, and Darcy finds herself completely unsurprised that this is where her best friend ended up. Jane is sitting in front of a glass screen, flipping through stacks of papers and clearly muttering to herself.

Interestingly though, Jane is not alone in the room. There's a broad-shouldered man walking about from screen to screen, wearing glasses and a very purple dress shirt. He runs a hand through his mop of curly brown hair, graying at the ends, and the first word that comes to mind to describe him is “tired” - he looks as though exhaustion is his perpetual state of being. His awareness is obviously much better than Jane's despite that though, as he appears to spot Darcy out of the corner of his eye, turns to look at her, and promptly drops his writing stylus mid-equation.

It takes five more seconds for his mouth to drop open as well, as he takes a shocked step backwards, raising a hand to point at Darcy's upside-down dragon snout in the window and turning to Jane for confirmation as to what he's seeing. Unfortunately for him, Jane isn't paying any attention whatsoever, so he turns back about for another look and ends up staring soundlessly back at Darcy with wide eyes. Probably convinced he's hallucinating, poor dude.

It'd be hilarious if Darcy weren't so desperate to see her Jane – actually, scratch that, it's pretty hilarious anyway. But to get things moving, Darcy bumps her nose against the windows, knocking with her snout. It takes another few knocks, but Jane eventually looks up, then past the poor man who's now leaning against the nearest table surface and trying very hard to breathe normally. Once she spots Darcy's massive, scaly snout and realizes who it is, her face breaks out into the most brilliant smile and Darcy's heart gets stolen clean away.

Jane quickly gets up, dumps her papers onto the nearest surface, and runs out of the room. Resisting the urge to jump around in excitement (because property damage would be such a thing right now), Darcy quickly slithers back across the rooftop of the aircraft carrier and back onto the runway area. She notes vaguely that the jet has just landed, but ignores that as Jane comes running outside and launches her tiny frame at Darcy's lowered head.

“You're okay!” Jane shouts, shrieking a little as Darcy raises her head a little with the small woman on it. “Oh my god, down! DOWN! Are you alright? What happened? I've been trying to contract you for ages and then SHIELD showed up and said you'd agreed to go with them to this place! Oh – oh my god, right – you'll never believe what Erik was working on! It's absolutely incredible.”

Darcy laughs happily and opens her mouth to answer, but doesn't follow through as she notices the people stepping out of the jet. At least one of those people, Jane would be very happy to see, but Darcy would do a hell of a lot to keep the guy's brother from ever seeing Jane. The dragon puts Jane down fully a little off to the side, with a little bit of snout-nudging, and curves herself protectively around her friend as Loki steps fully out of the aircraft. 

The Frost Giant is met by several SHIELD guards all carrying enormous guns and Loki smiles at them. He moves from Steve, Thor, and Iron Man to his new handlers almost with a skip in his step despite the handcuffs. It didn't matter how good those agents were, they couldn't do jack shit to Loki and he knew it. Darcy knew it too; Thor obviously knew it by his frown; and Steve clearly suspected something was horribly wrong about all this. Loki is immediately escorted – god, what a joke – towards the building, where Darcy and Jane are only just not in the way of the entrance.

“Stay still a moment,” Darcy hisses and Jane does for about three seconds, before moving to peer around Darcy's head at whatever is beyond. With a long-suffering sigh, Darcy lets her friend climb onto her snout using the scales as handholds, then carefully lifts her head and moves entirely out of the way while keeping herself between Jane and Loki and also letting Jane witness Loki's march.

“Is that Loki?” Jane whispers from her clinging perch, hair falling over Darcy's nose scales as she leans. “Everybody's been talking about him. I mean, I'm pretty sure I'm not supposed to know, but... well... is he actually trying to take over the world? Because that's not something that's going to happen by force; the most that'll be achieved is probably nuclear war honestly an-”

“Oh, for the love of your boyfriend, shut up until he's gone.”

Jane zips her mouth shut, probably as much from the mention of Thor as from Darcy's tone. The dragon is much more tired than she originally thought and she probably sounds it, so Jane remains quiet, held high and away, until Loki passes them – with one of his dumbass smirks and even a fucking wink – and disappears into the depths of the flying fortress. Darcy can only hope that the fucker doesn't choose the next few minutes to start a scene or cause whatever shitstorm he's planning.

“Sorry,” Darcy tells her friend quietly, large silver eyes staring apologetically. “He's just really bad news and would probably love to hurt you. Please stay away from him. I mean it very seriously. If you ever see him walking about, please just run.”

“Okay,” Jane agrees quietly, after a brief moment of consideration. “We're talking about him later, though. On top of the whole dragon thing and stuff.”

Darcy sighs, but can't bring herself to argue. When all this is over – if they're still alive at the end of this – she and Jane will have to have a very honest discussion with one another. There's a lot of shitty issues that'll have to be covered now – really deep shit – and Jane probably needs to know if the kind of boyfriends and best friends she manages to find are any indication. They're gonna need so much goddamn ice cream and alcohol.

“Oh, hey,” Darcy realizes. “Not disagreeing and not awkwardly trying to change the subject, but check out what I brought you. Well, what SHIELD brought you, but I think I get a little credit.”

“What-?”

Then Jane breaks off into a shriek, clinging tightly to Darcy's scales as the dragon turns around and ambles back down the runway with her best friend holding onto her snout. Darcy walks up to the jet just as Agent Rushman finally steps from it, and the small group there all turn to look at the odd pair. Steve has removed his helmet and looks vaguely concerned; Rushman just looks considering; Iron Man has vanished entirely somehow; and Thor seems at first confused before his face breaks out into a wide smile.

“JANE!” he yells, striding quickly forward to greet them.

Jane looks down from her precarious position in confusion, then realizes in a stunned shout, “OH MY GOD!”

“Technically correct,” Darcy says teasingly as she lowers her head to let her friend drop to the ground. She ends up wondering why she even bothers with the head-lowering thing again, because Jane doesn't touch the tarmac at all and ungracefully drops herself right into Thor's arms.

It's probably going to go down as one of the cutest, dorkiest things Darcy has ever seen when Thor, laughing in delight (possibly from Jane's shriek as she drops), twirls Jane around and ends up accidentally getting kicked in the guts as Jane flails for a better position. It's giving Darcy major squishy feelings, a substantial amount of which are her own and not just Jane's, just watching their enormous grins and bright eyes. Thor laughs the kick off and puts Jane on the ground, where she immediately hugs him and starts demanding what happened after he left. (Unsurprisingly, Jane asks specifically after the Bifrost and what happened to it pretty quickly.)

Darcy only bothers to pay attention long enough to learn that Thor fought with his brother and broke it before she tunes out to step around the couple. She heads towards Steve and Agent Rushman, who have been watching the reunion with almost identical quiet smiles. They both tense slightly as Darcy approaches them, but the dragon doesn't blame either of them for it – they manage to be pretty subtle about it anyway.

“So...” Darcy says to the both of them, but specifically Agent Rushman, “is there anywhere I could get changed? Without, y'know, being peeked in on? Somewhere vaguely private? And, oh man, a shower would be fantastic if you have those on this thing.”

Steve looks immediately at Rushman for answers and she looks back at him with an amused look and then a small snort. The red-haired woman steps forward and quips as she passes Darcy, “What don't we have on this thing? C'mon, we can find a jet hanger and scare it empty between the two of us. 'Later, Cap.”

“Awesome,” Darcy announces as 'Cap' replies with good-humor, “'Later.”

The dragon trails after Rushman, careful not to take anybody out with her swinging tail. “Jane, I'm going to go get changed,” she says as she passes Jane and Thor's embrace, where the legendary God of Thunder seems to basically be staring at her best friend completely besotted as Jane interrogates him. (Yeah, if there's anyone Darcy can safely leave her best friend with momentarily, it's this guy, and she's taking that opportunity.)

“What?” Jane replies, looking about wildly. “Oh. Oh, alright.” Then she turns back to Thor, mouth open to say something, before her brows furrow in confusion. “What was I saying just now?”

“Live wires,” Thor informs her.

“Right. How did you have any guarantee that taking out the bridge, which I'm assuming is what was conducting the power from the source in the palace to the observatory place, was a safe option? You can't just cut live wires! If it had the power to destroy a planet, how could you be sure that-”

The rest of the conversation fades out as Darcy turns her head away with a snort and focuses instead on the red-haired woman in front of her. Yeah, Darcy is really jealous of that confidence and that hip movement. It takes a few seconds, then the dragon realizes that she's basically staring at the woman's ass and instead looks about at all those soldiers and agents that she'd completely ignored earlier. They're all staring in complete disbelief or like they're about to shit themselves still – man, these creeper agents just seem to be getting worse and worse at keeping their cool.

Unlike Rushman, who doesn't even look back as she says, “Secret agents gossip like grandmothers, so don't be surprised if a few of them stare. You got nearly as much buzz about you as Captain Rogers got when everybody learned he was showing up.”

“Well, darn. But who can really compare with the Captain America?” Darcy quips back.

“In term of limited edition trading cards? I think he's got us all beat,” Rushman replies as she leads Darcy past a whole bunch of SHIELD mechanics (one of whom drops his wrench as Darcy suddenly ducks down) into a hanger. “In terms of superhuman ability?” The red-haired woman stops and turns to face Darcy again with a wry smile. “Well, that's a list that's been getting longer than we'd like.”

Darcy regards the woman for a few moments, tilting her head to one side trying to be sure of the agent's meaning. “Asgardians,” she agrees warily, crouched to fit inside the hanger. Although Thor and Loki (who may or may not count) are just about the cream of the crop, the golden race of Asgard are on average much more durable and deadly than your average humans.

Rushman smiles. “Frost Giants too, apparently,” she says, and on the subject of cream, Darcy can only think of cats, possibly ones that have just gotten their cream and the canary. The red-haired agent steps past the blue-scaled dragon to order all SHIELD agents to exit the area and for the hanger doors to closed – it's rather impressive just how quickly she's obeyed.

Once everybody else is gone, Darcy tells the woman, “Look, I don't give a crap if you stay, but if there are any cameras looking in on this or recording this, I will cause so many tech issues for you people and it will suck.” Then, message delivered, Darcy grabs the yellow backpack from her spinal plates with her teeth and heads straight for the nearest pile of stuff to change behind.

“Oh, wait,” Darcy realizes at the twinge in her stomach, dropping the bag onto the ground and turning to the red-haired woman by the hanger doors. “I'm going to need to throw up now.”

Rushman raises her eyebrows, with a hand to her ear, but doesn't otherwise react.

It takes about a minute for Darcy to decide that she definitely has the right stomach and then another couple to bring the weapon back up. Normally, Darcy could do this a lot faster, but she doesn't want to risk anything with such an unnatural piece of shit and so proceeds carefully. Nothing outwardly visibly really happens, besides some shifting about, and eventually Darcy opens her mouth to let the Frost Giant's spear clatter to the floor and spits out the dagger right after it. They're both a little slimy, but the spear otherwise as glow-y and wrong-looking as ever, and the dragon has to resist the urge to step on the thing just for its horrible aftertaste.

“Eugh,” Darcy says to Rushman. “Okay, don't touch. Be right back.”

There aren't really words to describe the transformation from dragon to human, but when Darcy refers to it as “crushing down”, she really isn't kidding. They're a lot of shrinking and a lot of careful squishing into her human form, like getting into really delicate pantyhose that really shouldn't fit but somehow does anyway. Soon enough, Darcy is shivering from her lack of scales, feeling altogether too big for her body, and her butt almost hits the floor from the shift in shape. With trembling hands and an uneasy lean, the now-human dragon starts to rummage about for some clothes, favoring her left due to the small cut and faint whiteness of her right. Stupid Frost Giant.

“How badly did you want that shower?” Rushman calls, now completely out of view due to the change in size. “The director's going to talk to Loki and he's calling everybody in to listen. Can it wait a conversation with a maniac?”

“I guess,” Darcy answers, pulling on her jeans. Then she pauses. “I count as 'everybody'?”

Rushman makes a vague sound of confirmation, replying, “You might be the most informed person on this helicarrier besides Loki or Thor, and SHIELD could really use some of that information at the moment.” How honest she sounds throws Darcy off for a moment, but the dragon supposes that that's probably true based on certain contexts. Darcy probably knows the most about Asgard besides the Crown Prince and his nutjob brother, neither of which will probably willingly impart information.

Darcy hums agreeably instead of answering, tugging on a hoodie on top of her t-shirt and tying her shoes as the finishing touches. Once she's texted Bingley to call her ASAP, she slips her phone into her jean pocket, slings her backpack over one shoulder, and steps out into the clear space of the hanger, wishing like hell that she had a hairbrush. Transformations always lead to the worst tangles if she leaves things be. As she walks over towards Rushman, scooping up the spear and dagger as she goes, she quickly realizes that she's actually a couple inches shorter than the red-haired woman. Wow... perspective shift.

Rushman looks down at her, seeming a little like she can't quite believe her eyes. “That's quite the change,” is all she says, and it's nice to know that Darcy isn't the only one a little dizzied.

Darcy sticks out a hand, the one not holding Loki's weapons, for a handshake. “Darcy Lewis. Nice to officially meet you.”

“Natasha Romanoff,” the woman says, taking Darcy's hand and shaking it. Thankfully, her hands aren't sweaty and she doesn't insist on being overly firm or strong – her handshake is solid but light, like she's accepting something gracefully. Darcy rather likes it.

“Oh,” Darcy says, as their hands separate, properly registering the name. “Uh... please don't take this the wrong way, but I honestly thought your name was 'Rushman'...?”

Natasha Romanoff frowns and asks, “Stark?”

“Yeeeah.”

The red-haired agent just sighs as she leads Darcy from the hanger. “That was a cover name that I used and met him under, before he was actively cooperating with SHIELD.” She smirks a little as the door opens and they step out into the sun. “If he ever calls me 'Natalie Rushman' or makes a Girl Friday crack, it's because he's still sore that he hired me himself.”

Darcy stares a little. “You're kind of terrifying,” she says, as Agent Natasha Romanoff motions that the SHIELD employees can return to their work and every single one of them moves their asses like they'd been lit on fire and someone was holding an alcohol-hose. (College life and innovation – god bless it.)

Natasha looks back at Darcy and then laughs. Darcy can tell that it's a genuine one too – not because it rings true like a bell or anything, but because it basically sounds like a cackle and ends in the most adorable little series of pig-like snorts that she's ever heard in her life.

“I'm terrifying,” Natasha says, eyes bright with humor as she waves Darcy down creepy secret government agency (literally in the goddamn air) airbase hallways. Pretty much everybody they pass either stares or practically dives out of their way. One guy might have actually given himself a concussion from smacking his head against a door frame.

“Uh, yeah,” Darcy replies, nervously clutching Loki's spear a little closer to herself. It's heavier than she'd thought it would be – she's not sure how easier a regular person could wield it – and it still feels wrong, wrong, wrong, even more so now that it's out in the open.

“Everything's relative,” Natasha murmurs with a smile, before bringing her hand up to her ear and pressing on her earpiece. “Maria? We're on our way. Anybody else I should collect?”

A cool voice clicks into hearing, the same one that Darcy spoke to on her cell phone not too long ago. “No. The captain's bringing in Thor and Foster, Phil's handling Stark, and Banner is already here. He seems to have had a run in with Lewis earlier and had... questions.”

Darcy does her utmost to pretend that her sudden interest in the walls is completely genuine, but she's pretty sure Natasha doesn't buy it in the slightest. Then Darcy remembers the earpiece she had wedged between her scales and her free hand involuntarily flies up for it – except, of course, it's not there. "Ah, shit!"

“Right, see you soon,” Natasha says before hanging up and giving Darcy a curious look, which quickly turned to comprehension. “Your communicator got left behind in the mountains. No one realized until you were in the air and no one had any way to contact you after that.”

“Well, crap. Sorry for losing your equipment. I'd offer to pay somebody back except... well... no," Darcy ends awkwardly with a sheepish grin.

Natasha's answering grin is shark-like. “You should see some of the things I've lost and broken over the years in my line of work,” she says, almost proudly before she appears to suddenly remember something disappointingly downing. “Of course, it does mean that no one seems to want to let me have at the good toys anymore. I make do anyway.”

Darcy stares for a few beats, then has to throw up her free hand in exasperation, accidentally snagging some of her hair along the way. “See? That's terrifying,” the human-shaped dragon insists, tugging her fingers through some tangles – transforming mythical beast problems, ugh.

“Everything's relative,” Natasha repeats with a shrug and a smile, nodding her head towards a rather important looking door at the end of a hallway that's definitely larger and more important-looking than the rest. “Come on, we're assembling in here.”

Chapter Text

The bridge of the – (What was it that Agent Natasha Romanoff had said?) – helicarrier was awesome and it genuinely felt like stepping onto a movie set in the middle of a scene. SHIELD agents bustled about and tapped at their screens, overseen by a tall and striking brunette woman on a center platform and accentuated by large windows that showed nothing but clear, blue sky moving by. It seemed entirely unreal and it finally dawned on Darcy that this was real. This was actually happening, and it was actually happening now.

Everything was so much more believable when she was in her dragon form – the incredible was so much easier to ignore then, and this was incredible. As things went, this was definitely the all-at-once coolest and most terrifying thing she'd ever seen, because secret government agency flying airbases were horrifying – awesome and super cool, but horrifying all the same once the reality of it hits home. Darcy doesn't want to imagine a world where SHIELD secretly surveys the world from the sky and suddenly all the surrounding agents tapping away at screens are unnerving her.

What are they doing? Why do they need to? And who do they think they are to do it?

Darcy's hand unknowingly clenches Loki's spear all the tighter.

Her anxious, skittering thoughts break apart suddenly though, as Darcy notices she's been standing in the doorway for far longer than would be normal and Natasha waves her forward – with an all-too-knowing look – to join an odd collection of people at a round table. Darcy takes a few self-conscious steps forward, really awkwardly, before she realizes that no one's really paying her the slightest bit of attention.

Steve is seated facing the windows, one arm on the table, his fingers silently drumming a slow beat, and the other under his chin as he stares at the screens on the table surface. He's still wearing his Captain America uniform, minus the helmet and shield, and appears to be lost in deep thought. He still gives Natasha a small nod though, which she returns as she slides into a seat two to his right.

The chair on Steve's other side is occupied by a hammer, the owner of which is standing by the next chair over – which is also occupied, but by an actual person – with his arms crossed and his head facing away from the table entirely. Thor looks thoroughly displeased about something as he looks fixedly out the windows to the room's left, watching the clouds if he's seeing anything at all. The next chair over, unsurprisingly, is occupied by Jane, who seems to be switching between staring with a mix of concern and suspicion at Thor or at the screen in front of her.

One empty chair over from Jane is the glasses-wearing man in the purple shirt from earlier, leaning back in his seat and intently watching the screen in front of him as he chews on the end of a pen. He seems even more unnerved than Darcy feels right now and the dragon hopes that she didn't scare him too much when she went to fetch Jane – he already looks like he needs a three-month beach vacation without Darcy making it worse. Is it possible for someone to seem ragged in character rather than clothes?

“Miss Lewis,” says a clear, cool, and definitely familiar voice. Darcy's gaze snaps up at the tall brunette woman who had been standing above everyone else, and Maria Hill steps efficiently from her dais. Her smile seems... well-meaning as she sticks out a hand and says, “Thank you for joining us.”

Darcy sticks out her free hand and blinks as she's treated to a firm, brisk shake. “Sure,” she manages to say, slightly distracted by how most eyes seem to have turned towards her.

Steve has a slight frown to his face as he regards her own, his brows furrowed slightly in concentration as he takes her in – Darcy can't tell whether or not he recognizes her, but she's guessing not. Meanwhile, Jane and the purple-shirted man are staring wide-eyed at the glowing spear and dagger in her hand; Jane looks curious while the man mostly seems nervous that it'll suddenly explode or something. Thor barely glances at her at all.

“If you'd like to take a seat,” Maria Hill says, gesturing at the round table and stepping out of Darcy's path, “then we'd like to get started.” She puts a hand to her ear and says to someone out of sight. “Sir, we've assembled and Coulson's with Stark. Whenever you're ready.”

“How's next week sound?” a man replies in grumbling sarcasm, and Darcy could almost swear that she saw a brief smile pass Maria Hill's terrifyingly smooth face before the dragon moved past the SHIELD agent towards Jane.

Darcy thinks about sitting for a moment, but she's not at ease enough for that, and ends up leaning down over the back of Jane's chair so she can basically stick her face into her friend's hair. Jane doesn't smell like anything special, just her particular Jane-ness and soap, but it's comforting and it lets Darcy hover closely over her Jane – which is also comforting. It does mean that Darcy is standing right next to Thor, but she likes Thor (even if she only knew him briefly and he's apparently currently giving her and everybody else the silent treatment) and at least knows for a fact that he has nothing to do with SHIELD and won't let anyone touch Jane.

Curious as to his quietness, Darcy puts her head on Jane's (who doesn't seem to mind) and stares at up at the tall warrior. Thor, once he realizes she's staring, returns her gaze evenly and gives her a small, barely-noticeable nod. Then his eyes flicker downwards towards the spear being held against the back of Jane's seat, his mouth tightens, he looks to the surface of the table, his jaw clenches, and he returns to staring fixedly out the window.

Now curious as to what's got everybody so intense, Darcy finally takes a look at what's on the table surface screens and understands immediately. SHIELD apparently felt it was their best bet to put Loki in the strangest looking cage she's ever seen, what makes for an unimpressive holding cell judging by the Frost Giant's amused disdain as he stands in the center of the glass box. Darcy is curious how easy it'll be for him to get out of there, or if that confidence is entirely bluffing. Sadly, it's probably not a bluff at all.

Then a familiar, one-eyed man in black steps forward to apparently present himself as the thief's jailer, and all Darcy can think is: oh shit. She leans forward over Jane's shoulder, determined to catch every nuance of this conversation.

“Ahhh, Director Fury,” Loki greets with a toothsome smile, his silky voice still smooth over the electronic static. “How's the chest?” After a few beats without an answer, the thief continues unperturbed, spinning on one heel to survey his glass prison. “Do you have anywhere with a better view perhaps? I find this one a bit dull.”

Fury watches Loki with a mix between blandness and disdain. “I'm afraid I don't take requests from our guests who like to kill 'cause it's fun,” he says, moving to stand in front of a large panel. He stares at the buttons and controls, trailing a finger across one of them and commenting lightly, “It's against our accommodation policies.”

Loki opens his mouth to reply, but Fury interrupts him with a stern look. “In case it's unclear... you try to escape... you so much as breathe on that glass...” The trailing finger presses the button and a whoosh of air crackles over the speakers as the floor beneath the cage drops open.

“Holy shit,” Darcy whispers, unintentionally into her friend's ear.

“Is that a... hole in the ship?” Jane whispers back, wide-eyed. “Why would you even need that?”

“Thirty thousand feet, straight down in a steel trap,” the man in black supplies for them, leaning on the button and cutting off the gushing air. “I think it's clear enough how this works.” He gestures towards Loki, who's grinning like the madman he is. “Ant.” Then the man in black taps the button lightly with a finger – an obvious threat. “Boot.”

Darcy sneaks a glance to her right, where Thor is standing, and thinks for a moment that she saw the warrior's eyes flicker away from the screen. What is he making of all this? Darcy would happily press that button herself, but what does Thor think of the fact that they have his brother in a death trap? They may never know, given the thunder god's sudden and extreme interest in cloud-watching.

On the screen, Loki gives an allowing nod. “It's an impressive cage,” he agrees as he looks it over again, like some fucking connoisseur of the things, “and I am honored to be treated to it, although it was not built, I think, for me.”

“Built for something a lot stronger than you,” Fury replies coolly – ominously – and Darcy has to wonder what he means by that. There aren't many things physically stronger than Asgardians – except maybe Steve, but that'd need an arm-wrestling match to be proven – and it can't be her, because she's pretty sure that SHIELD didn't entire clue in about dragons until pretty recently and that cage might look futuristic, but it doesn't look built yesterday.

Darcy glances up at Steve and sees that her ex-neighbor is staring with wariness at the purple-shirted man to Jane's left. Said purple-shirted man shifts uncomfortably in his seat, the dragon notices, and the man in black's words have made him go slightly pale. Interesting. The knuckles on his hand clutching the pen go white though, as Loki chuckles darkly, looks directly up at the camera, and says:

“Oh – oh, I've heard.”

“Jane?” Darcy murmurs in the beginning of a question, zipping her lip when Jane's head gives a minute shake to either indicate that the woman has no idea what they're talking about or won't share the explanation now.

“The mindless beast who makes play he's still a man,” Loki says, somewhat whimsically, as he turns his blue gaze back on the man in black. “It's almost as hysterical as a scarred old spy who makes play he still knows the game. You call such lost creatures to defend you – greedily grabbing hold of any broken toy or hapless being cast your way. They won't help you. How desperate are you to hold up your shield in humanity's name?”

“How desperate am I?” Fury returns, sounding between anger and disbelief. “You threaten my world with war; you steal a force you cannot hope to control; you talk about peace and then kill for kicks.” He takes a swift step forward, black coat snapping behind him. “You have made me very desperate. We'll see how long it takes you to regret it.”

Loki just laughs, like he's having the time of his life. “Oh, how it burns you! How it hurts you to have your hopes fall so far! So close to power – true power; unlimited power – and to have the Tesseract slip from your grasp,” the Frost Giant says sympathetically. “And what a dream it was, wasn't it? A warm light for all mankind to share?”

Suddenly, Loki's face twists into a hideous sneer. “It never would have happened,” he says coldly – unkindly. “Your so-called freedom would have smothered it or burned you with it soon enough. Be glad that you are being reminded of your insignificance now; be thankful to be learning your pitiful place in the universe; be grateful to be shown what real power is now.”

The man is black looks at the ranting demi-god in front of him, thoroughly unimpressed. “Well,” he says with an oddly knowing and smug expression, stepping back from the cage, “you let me know if Real Power wants a magazine or something. We'll check the policies.” And with that, the SHIELD director walks away, leaving the Frost Giant alone in the death trap of a glass cage.

Loki makes a motion almost like a shrug – like, 'well, I tried' – then flicks his gaze up towards the camera. His eyes are blue, but... a normal shade of the color and don't have the glassy quality from before. As a smirk worms its way onto his face, Darcy furrows her brows at him, wondering if the devices don't pick up the glinting sickness in his eyes, can't display it right, or if Loki is somehow keeping the insane glow at bay.

“Oh, how it hurts to fall and burn, doesn't it?” he says with a smile, before the screen goes black.

~

The silence around the table is terrible and Darcy's mind is too caught in all the Frost Giant's meanings to break it herself. She could hear the unspoken other part to that sentence: it hurts all the more to fall and burn when you have wings on your back and fire in your throat. That was spoken directly to her and he's leaving her very little comforting doubt as to who he associates himself with. There are few things that have managed to burn dragons.

“He really grows on you, doesn't he?” the purple-shirted man says suddenly, getting to his feet and gesturing down at the tabletop with his pen. When nobody answers his sarcasm, he huffs a little and crosses his arms, shifting when he stands in clear discomfort.

“Loki wants to be here,” Steve comments, still drumming his fingers on the table. “He's just waiting for something to happen or for some sign before he makes his move. We have to be ready to respond to his play.” Darcy's ex-neighbor looks towards the thunder god and asks plainly but kindly, “Thor, what can you tell us about that?”

Thor finally tears his eyes from the clouds, turning to face the table with a slightly uncertainty to himself. Darcy can tell that Jane wants to do something, and so, still leaning on the back of Jane's chair, subtly puts her free hand on her friend's shoulder in an encouraging gesture. Jane reaches out a hand to Thor and he takes it gratefully in his own, giving her smaller fingers a light squeeze.

“He has an army called the Chitauri,” Thor announces quietly to the table. “They're not of Asgard, nor of any world known to my people. We know not who gave this army to him, nor what for, but our ears across the realms heard whispers that he means to lead them against your world. They will win him the Earth, and in return, I suspect from the whispers, he has promised to deliver the Tesseract.”

Steve looks like he wants to hit his head against the nearest flat surface. “An army from outer space,” he says, mostly to himself, and next to him, Natasha Romanoff has one eyebrow raised in an expression of clear suspicion.

“I can confirm that,” Darcy says, unintentionally making Jane jump slightly and turning all eyes towards her. “Sorry, Jane. But about the Tesseract thing, Loki said outright to me that he's going to give it, whatever it is, to someone else.”

Jane looks at the dragon over her shoulder curiously and Thor looks no less so as he looks down, still holding Jane's hand loosely as she asks Darcy, “Do you know who?”

“No,” Darcy answers firmly, probably a little too fast. It's... sort of true. She doesn't know entirely for certain and Loki is a lying liar who lies anyway, so anything he says always has the chance of being entirely bullshit. God, she hopes it's bullshit.

Natasha gives Darcy an unreadable look, but moves forward whatever her thoughts. “Do we have an estimated arrival time for the Chitauri threat?” she asks, looking directly at Thor.

“It is difficult to say,” the Asgardian answers, sounding honestly unknowing. “Heimdall, the gatekeeper of Asgard, has found the entire might of their army waiting battle-ready many realms away from this world in some of the deepest and darkest reaches known. They are far from your world and yet have readied themselves for attack as though they have a Bifrost of their own, though we are certain that they do not.”

The purple-shirted man clacks his pen against his teeth. “So he either has a portal device or he's building one. That must be what he needs Erik Selvig for.”

Darcy tenses at the mention of her lost friend; her anger at the theft is ready to burn again at the mere mention of it, so she sticks her nose into Jane's hair again and breathes deeply. Next to her, Thor looks openly worried and holds Jane's hand a little tighter, looking down at the both of them for answers with confusion and concern.

“Loki put Erik under some kind of mind control when he arrived,” Jane answers softly, and Darcy startles because she did not know that and holy shit, that makes a lot of sense. It explains the blissful feeling she got off her friend before Loki hid him away. “Nobody knows where he is now.”

“He's with the Tesseract,” Darcy says firmly. “I have a... way of finding Erik that's... not working at the moment. I think Loki thought I was after the Tesseract – somebody's going to have to explain to me what that is later, by the way – and unintentionally magically blocked Erik from me too.”

“Could your way of finding Erik work with other people under Loki's spell?” Natasha asks, with an intensity that reminds Darcy of her thoughts that this woman had a rage behind her teeth towards Loki as well. “He has one of ours.”

“No, sorry.”

The woman nods, sitting back with no sign of disappointment of resignation. Despite her non-reaction, Steve gives her a regretful glance before putting both arms on the table and leaning forward to speak. His speech is low but clear and certain and Darcy feels a sense of pride in him almost – to see how far that stubborn little Brooklyn boy has come. How he's still alive is a question that needs to be answered though.

“I think the most important things here are figuring out Loki's play and finding the Tesseract. As far as I can tell, not only is he the main player of this plot – information on his unknown army-supplier partner pending – but if we can't work through however he's hiding it, he's the only one who can lead us to it.”

The purple-shirted man snorts slightly. “He's not leading anyone anywhere from inside that cage,” he says with a surprising edge of bitterness. “Much less an army.”

“He let SHIELD put him in there,” Darcy tells the man. “Loki could have escaped at almost any point on the way here and it probably won't take him long to get out. He's in there either because he wants to be, he's humoring us, or both.”

“That cell, as the director said, was built to hold something a lot stronger than Loki,” Maria Hill cuts in. “Loki can't get near that glass without us knowing, much less crack it.”

Darcy resists the urge to roll her eyes. “Wanna bet? It doesn't matter whatever you were planning on putting in there or however strong it is, that cage still wasn't built for Loki and can't hold him. He's a magician – a really good one – and a Frost Giant to boot. I doubt that cage was made specifically to combat those abilities. Thor, back me up on this.”

“It's true,” the warrior agrees. “Loki has ways of getting in and out of places he should not be.”

“I think we should focus on the fact that whoever he's working with has made off with Iridium,” the purple-shirted man – boy, does Darcy need to learn this guy's name – insists, gesturing vaguely in Jane's direction as he does.

“Iridium?” Steve asks.

“Substance used to stabilize specific reactions,” Jane answers, at the same time that another voice – a voice that Darcy must have heard hundreds of times on television and Youtube videos and the radio – loudly supplies: “It's a stabilizing agent.”

The table turns to look at the newcomer and are treated to the sight of Tony Stark striding into the room like he owns it – he might, probably doesn't, but might for all Darcy knows – with the Son of Coul a half-step behind him. He seems to be constantly looking about as he walks, like he needs to see everything all at once while he runs his mouth at Agent Coulson about something to do with cellos.

“I thought he'd be taller,” Darcy mutters into Jane's ear, making the astrophysicist giggle quietly. Darcy can even see Thor crack a slight smirk out of the corner of her eye before the Asgardian clearly forces stoicism onto his face.

“It's to keep the portal from collapsing in on itself, like it did when he arrived,” Stark continues, nodding to the table of people as he steps past Maria Hill onto the command dais, leaving Coulson next to her, who can only shrug at her glare. “This is nice. Big and airy. I like it.” He throws up his hands like a conductor, waving them around for a bit. “I feel like I need a stick, or a sword – no wonder Fury goes with the pirate look. Ship the top sails, storm off the starboard bow! Pull the anchor!”

Across the table, Darcy swears that Natasha has her lips pressed and Steve is biting his lip so they can resist the urge to burst out laughing. They nearly break when they make eye contact and Steve has to duck his head entirely for a second.

Stark lowers his hands, putting them to use poking at the center dais screens instead. Then he frowns, sticks one hand over an eye and turns his head about. “How does Fury even see all of these?”

Maria Hill crosses her arms over her chest. “He turns.”

“That sounds exhausting. Did no one think to get him a chair or does that ruin the cut of his coat?” Stark asks, poking around some more before turning away and stepping off the platform. “Iridium is a precious substance in large-scale energy transfer and transformation, the only one that takes any trouble to get; Loki's going to use it to make a portal and get his space army here. No need to fill me in on that bit, I was listening in.”

“He still needs a high energy density to activate the cube and gets the power source he needs,” Jane points out, clearly interested in the sudden topic-shift to the field of study that she basically lives for. “Unless Erik's suddenly figured out how to stabilize the quantum tunneling effect and bypass needing to heat the cube to over twelve hundred million Kelvin.”

“If he could break through the Coulomb barrier like that, he could achieve Heavy Ion Fusion at any reactor on the planet,” the purple-shirted man says in disbelief, tucking his pen behind his ear. “When was Professor Selvig even close to figuring that out?”

Jane shrugs, jostling Darcy's position slightly. “He had some theory work,” she says. “But we're discounting Asgardian technology and what they're capable of. They have insight into Einstein-Rosen Bridges beyond anything we're close to.”

“Loki is knowledgeable in many subjects,” Thor says, putting in his two-cents. “It's possible he shared some of the Bifrost's secrets to achieve his goals.”

The big guy sounds so quietly reluctant and hurt to even think that his brother could do something like that, and - while Darcy personally thinks Loki is just that kind of a dick - she wants to give Thor a hug and tell him otherwise. Jane gives her sort-of-significant-other-of-myth-and-legends another comforting squeeze of the hand, which he looks grateful for.

This is when Darcy notices that Tony Stark is staring at her and Jane is complete befuddlement.

“Alright,” he says, stepping around to their side of the table and coming up next to the purple-shirted man. “I clearly got the wrong briefing package. Doctor Banner here, I know from his work on anti-electron collisions – unparalleled stuff, by the way.” He shakes purple-shirt's (Banner's) hand, patting him on the back. “Just like the way you lose control and turn into an enormous green rage-monster. Wholly unique.”

“Thanks?”

“But who are these people?” Stark demands, gesturing in flailing motions towards Jane and Darcy. “Brilliant observations, by the way, I mean no offense, but who are you? And why does the one behind you have the Glowstick of Destiny? Why is that being touched by anyone? I thought that got eaten by Maleficent.”

Darcy raises her eyebrows at the attention-grabbing man. “I spit it back up,” she says, and tries not to feel entirely too pleased with herself when Tony Stark – the Iron Man – gawks slightly.

“Doctor Banner is only here to track the cube,” interrupts the man in black, Director Fury from what Darcy remembers, as he strides into the room and the doors slide shut behind him. “And Doctor Foster is the foremost expert in theoretical astrophysics, as well as Doctor Selvig's close associate. They've both agreed to be here as consultants. I was hoping that you might join them in their efforts to track down the Tesseract.”

“Easier said than done,” Jane grumbles under her breath. “Stupid magic.”

“As for Miss Lewis,” the man continues, coming to a stop at the front of the table, directly across from Steve at its head, “She chose to involve herself in the search for Doctor Selvig and has consented to cooperate with us in that matter. We hope she'll agree to answer some of our questions about herself in the meanwhile.”

Darcy wonders if she should say something, but decides that there's really nothing that should be said to follow that up. It sums everything up fairly well, and the man's tone and expression conveyed pretty nicely the message of: 'And I swear to god, Stark, if you piss any of them off, I am throwing you off this flying base personally, armor or no armor.' He means it, Darcy can tell, and looks not-at-all impressed by Stark's indignant expression of hurt at the implications.

“So... that stick,” Steve says after a brief silence. “It's magical?”

Darcy glances down at it. “'Think so.”

“Is it possible it's connected to the cube? Because it seemed to work an awful lot like a HYDRA weapon, which were all powered by the c- the Tesseract. Could the Tesseract be tracked through that?”

The dragon stares at him, a little wide-eyed and definitely stumped. “Uh... Jane?”

Jane peers around her chair, still keeping hold of Thor's hand. “I guess it's possible,” she says. “We could run some tests, but if it's magical, then I don't know if we could manage to crack it in a decent time frame. The last time I had magic in my lab, it took out everything from my laptop to the fridge, remember? Thor, do you know if...?”

Thor's only reaction is to stare at them in a way that clearly states, 'Do not look at me for this.'

The beginning of an idea starts to trickle into Darcy's head, and she instantly knows it's a thoroughly terrible one and that it will go terribly if executed. If they're looking for someone who knows their magic, then Darcy can only name one person who could probably rival Loki in magical talent and knowledge – and that person has red scales and wings and murdered Jane's fridge.

“Shit,” Darcy says, accidentally aloud.

“Do you have a way to figure out for me how Loki managed to turn two of the sharpest and most stubborn men I know into his personal flying monkeys, Lewis?” Director Fury asks, his single eye focused intensely on the odd trio in and surrounding Jane's chair. "If so, I'd like to hear it."

“Monkeys?” Thor repeats in confusion.

“Slaves,” Steve helpfully fills in for him, a little too quickly than could really be considered normal. “Literary reference.”

“Ah.”

Darcy finally stops leaning on Jane's chair and stands to her full height, which is really, really unimpressive when she's standing next to a Prince of Asgard. Tall bastards. With Loki's stupid spear thing in one hand, she fishes her phone out of her pocket with the other and grimaces a little when she sees that the dumb lizard has neither answered nor even seen her most recent texts.

“I guess I could call my brother?”

Chapter Text

“I guess I could call my brother?”

Jane perks up slightly. “That might work.”

“There are two of you?” Tony Stark blurts out and beside him, the Doctor Banner looks somewhat pained. Oh, yeah, she still has to apologize for scaring him earlier. Mental note.

Director Fury doesn't look impressed; in fact, he seems to have suddenly developed a tick in his good eye. “That brother of yours dropped off the grid over twenty-four hours ago,” he informs the-room-but-specifically-Darcy. “After ditching his phone in a local restaurant. So, unless you have a way of contacting him beyond texting, Miss Lewis, then a secondary solution is needed.”

“Oh,” Darcy says, lowering her phone as she registers that. It's not unbelievable that Bingley's gotten separated from his phone; her clutch-brother has gone through a lot of phones in their time. He's burnt some out, burned some outright, stepped on a lot, eaten a few, and just plain lost most of them – but it stings a little that he'd be so careless with his phone when Darcy needs him.

Well, okay, it makes sense he might have felt it necessary if SHIELD had been using it to track him - that he'd casually leave it in a restaurant somewhere so he could slip off to his cave without being followed. But Bingley is sort of oblivious most of the time, and completely oblivious about technology, so...? It just seems slightly off that he would leave her without a way to contact him when there was a Frost Giant about. Also, she's pretty sure she threatened him so he would be readily available for contact.

“Wait,” Darcy realizes. “Did you say he ditched it in a restaurant?”

“Yes,” Fury replies shortly.

“Was that restaurant, by any chance, a Denny's?”

“I wouldn't exactly call that a restaurant,” Natasha mutters under her breath, which only Steve also seems to hear, but he doesn't react beyond looking torn between vaguely confused and slightly amused.

Fury raises his eyebrows. “Hill?”

“I can find out for you, sir.”

“Right. Lewis, stay here so you and Hill can sort this out,” Fury orders, clearly unwilling to put a second longer of his life towards this. Well, so much for gratefulness from the helicopter save. “Doctors Banner and Foster, if you're like to show Stark to the labs, you can get started on examining the scepter. I want to know more about that thing than I know about myself. Thor, you're welcome to join them. Romanoff, Rogers, with me. Coulson, you have the bridge.”

Natasha is the first to get to her feet, which she does a bit like a resigned teenager, quickly followed by Steve, who looks more like the resigned teenager's slightly terrified friend who doesn't really want to be here, and the two of them follow Fury out of the room as he leaves with his black coat flapping out behind him. Natasha grins and wriggles her fingers in a small wave at Darcy as she goes and the dragon awkwardly returns it. Gosh, that woman is too terrifying to be that cute. 

Tony Stark is the next to get a move on, as he turns to Doctor Banner and says, “Shall we play, doctor? Doctors?”

“That phrasing is horrifying,” Doctor Banner answers, but he's smiling as he does.

“Mmm,” is Stark reply as he swivels to face Darcy and the scepter. He opens his mouth, then closes it again, and stares at her with suspicious wariness for a moment, like he's not sure how to address her, before opening his mouth again. “So, we apparently need that? But I don't like being handed things and I'm not touching anything that's been in somebody else's mouth – it's one of my rules; had some enlightening experiences; don't want to repeat them. Banner?”

Doctor Banner looks like someone (Stark) just suggested he poke a corpse with a stick. “I – uh – I think it's better if I don't touch mysterious alien weapons or unknown substances, if you don't mind. It's one of my rules.”

“I'll take it,” Jane volunteers, rising out of her seat. She begins to reach out a hand for it, but Darcy takes a step back – she doesn't really want Jane going anything near the stupid thing, much less holding it – at the same time that Thor puts a massive hand on her friend's shoulder.

“I think it would be best if I took it,” he says. “It may not be entirely safe for mortals to touch.”

“It's kind of heavy anyway,” Darcy puts in.

Jane shrugs. “Sure, whatever. As long as it gets there.”

“To the lab then?” Stark says to Banner beside him.

“To the lab. This way,” Banner replies with a nod, leading the other man out of the room.

Just before the door slides shut behind them, Darcy catches Stark begin a comment of, “So, about the green rage-monster thing...” and can't decide whether or not she wants to hear the rest of it or even the explanation behind that sentence. That sounds important, but what the actual fuck.

Darcy decides to focus instead on the weapon in her grasp as she gingerly gives the scepter over to Thor, watching the swirling blue stone for any sign of change as it switches hands and feeling not-at-all comforted when it doesn't react. She keeps the dagger that Loki stabbed into her scales earlier, slipping it into her hoodie pocket, and tries not to feel too unburdened by the damn spear. There's something horribly wrong with that weapon – Thor knows it too by his grimace – and Darcy doesn't like her thoughts as to how given what she may or may not know of Loki's mysterious partner.

Jane looks between them warily. “Lab?” she offers and when Thor nods, she turns to Darcy and grabs the dragon's hand, squeezing it tightly. “So... I guess we'll see each other soon, right? Five, ten minutes maybe? Good luck.”

“You too,” Darcy says, trying not to choke on the words as Jane's tiny hand slips out of her own and her friend disappears into the unknown bowels of the floating fortress, walking side by side with a Prince of Asgard wielding a weapon of unknown destruction and horror. Darcy feels the loss keenly as soon of the door closely behind her Jane – she's already lost her Erik and isn't sure she'll get him back at all now; she's not sure she can stand to lose her Jane.

Maria Hill's cool voice interrupts the dragon's anxious thoughts. “Miss Lewis? Over here, please.”

“Yeah – uh – sure,” Darcy replies, turning around and following the taller woman's beckoning hand onto the center platform to one of the large screens. On said screen is a familiar looking map that Darcy's seen more than a few times, both on computer screens and from the air in real life.

“It was a Denny's where your brother left his phone,” Maria Hill informs her. “Do you know this area in particular? Does the location have any particular meaning?”

Darcy can't stop her exasperated sigh; she's willing to bet that she knows exactly what went down here, and it definitely isn't that her brother ditched his phone to slip away from creeper agents. “Yeah, it does. Is there any way you can get me the number of that place? Also, if my phone bill shows massive long-distance charges after this, I'm sending SHIELD the bill. Dunno how, but I will.”

~

It turns out that getting the phone number is no trouble at all, and Darcy is listening to the phone ring about fifteen seconds after asking. She takes a deep breath and prepares for an extremely awkward conversation when someone picks up.

“Hi-”

“Yeah, hi,” Darcy cuts in. “Listen, my name is Darcy Lewis and my brother's name is Bingley Lewis. He probably shows up periodically at your restaurant – tall guy, early twenties, Culver University hoodie, probably sweatpants or plaid sleepwear pants? Do you know the guy I'm talking about?”

“Oh my god, yes I do!” the girl on the other end of the line exclaims, way more excitedly than Darcy would ever expect someone to when talking about her brother. “He's mentioned you before! Sorry, he hasn't been in yet today, but he was here yesterday. Do you want to leave a message for him?”

“Yes, yes, I do. But first, I have a question for you... does my brother ever leave his phone at your restaurant? Like, intentionally?”

“Yeah,” the girl answers. “He says it interferes with his work at home, so he leaves it here in our break room and comes in to check it every day when he's in town. I didn't know that cell phones could cause problems with studying old books, though? But whatever, you know? He leaves really good tips.”

Darcy resists the urge to slam her head into the nearest fancy Star Trek screen – they're glass, she'd probably break one. Instead, she settled for slapping a hand against her forehead and breathing deeply because this sounds exactly like the kind of thing Bingley would do. Maria Hill gives her an odd look and Darcy focuses again on the girl on the other end of the phone.

“Well, when you see him, can you tell him that his sister really, really needs him to call her?”

“I totally would, except my shift is over now and I'm going home. You could text him for when he comes by, although – oh fuck.”

“What?”

“The phone's gone. Oh fuck, fuck, fuck. Someone took it cuz it's not here. Shit, I'm sorry about that. We're not responsible for lost or stolen articles... or something. Fuck, sorry. I can't believe it's gone – it must have been Toby, that new asshole. Sorry, damn it, sorry, I-”

“It's okay, it's okay,” Darcy assures the girl, who sounds five seconds away from a panic attack. “Look – hey, what's your name? I never got your name.”

“Steph. Look, I'm really sorry about your brother's phone – nobody's touched it before and -”

Darcy makes a shushing noise. “Hey, hey, Steph, it's fine. Calm down. It's okay, I think I might know what happened to it. Don't worry, it's really fine.” The dragon takes the phone away from her ear and turns to Maria Hill. “Did your dumbass creeper agents take my brother's phone? Because he left it there intentionally and was coming back for it.”

Hill's face turns into a hard scowl. “They better not have done anything that sloppy,” she grits out and immediately turns away to interrogate some poor SHIELD worker, who fumbles to speak into their headset on her behalf.

“Alright, Steph, are you still there?” Darcy asks calmly.

“Yeah.”

“I need you to do me a favor. Can you find a piece of paper and write down a note for my brother for when he comes by? I promise he won't be mad. It's his fault for not looking after his own property anyway; you are totally in the clear. Alright?”

“Yeah – yeah, okay. Sure. I can do that. Just let me find a pen.”

~

“Well, that was an enormous mess,” Darcy comments as she finally hangs up the phone, having had to shush and placate what felt like hundreds of apologies from the poor, panicked employee. “Are you going to return my brother's phone or just appropriate it in the name of national security or whatever?”

Maria Hill sends a glare towards some poor SHIELD agent, who ducks behind their computer screen. “We'll return it,” she says. “Although it may be best if we replaced your phones entirely, given the security threat that they represent. You and your brother know far too much to communicate over unsecured devices and SHIELD might not be the only ones listening in.”

“God, could your agency stop being creepy for, like, five minutes?” Darcy demands tiredly. “We'll think about how many secret organizations we want knowing our personal business and get back to you on that, how about that?”

“Sounds reasonable.”

“Yay.”

Maria Hill snorts slightly at Darcy's dead tone, then looks the shorter woman up and down with a observant eye. “Agent Romanoff said that you wanted a shower earlier. Would you like me to show you to the quarters we have allocated to you and Doctor Foster?”

“Oh my god, yes please.”

~

For a shared room on a secret government agency airbase that actually flies, the space SHIELD's given Darcy and Jane is pretty nice and even has its own bathroom with pretty decent water pressure. Darcy supposes that SHIELD probably wants to stay in her and Jane's good books, considering that the two of them are a fire-breathing dragon and someone who may or may not have the knowledge to prevent alien army invasion respectively. VIP treatment – hell yeah.

Unfortunately, the long and hot shower that Darcy is dreaming of has to be held off in favor of efficiency, because if things could go to shit at any moment, then Darcy doesn't want to be naked when things start blowing up. She's been naked when things start blowing up or bursting into flames before, and it's not a fun experience – it's embarrassing and transforming under stress sucks. So Darcy showers just long enough to get the wake-up it gives, then steps out and quickly steams the water off of her skin and out of her hair. It's too practical a trick not to have forced Bingley to teach it to her and she's never regretted that particular headlock.

Also unfortunately, Darcy realizes once she's dressed in her hoodie and jeans again, she has no idea where to find the lab where Jane and company are. She could follow the bond towards her friend, but following Maria Hill to this room has already proven that this flying base is actually a flying maze and Darcy doesn't want to risk getting horribly lost in it. She'd probably end up breaking through a wall or window to get out, and that will likely win her exactly zero favors with SHIELD. So Darcy decides to return to the bridge instead and either follow her nose or have someone help her from there; she thinks that's where Maria Hill went back to anyway.

As for a third unfortunately, it takes Darcy an embarrassingly long time to locate the bridge again. When she finally does, she steps into the room and spots no one she recognizes by the center area except Agent Coulson, who looks extremely busy arguing with a fellow agent about something on the screens. However, on a second pass, Darcy sees a familiar warrior in a red cape standing alone in front of the windows at the edge of the bridge and below the center platform.

Huh.

“So,” Darcy says as she comes up behind him, “is there something incredibly interesting about the clouds out that window or what? I thought you'd be with Jane still.”

Thor turns around and nods at her in greeting before looking back out towards the clouds. “The magic of the scepter is a power beyond my knowledge and the search for the Tesseract by scientific means is well in hand,” he says in quiet admission, before adding wryly, “I also happened to leave Mjolnir in here and believed that it would not be appreciated if I simply called my hammer to me, regardless of obstacles.”

“Yeah,” Darcy agrees, glancing at the alien hammer still in one of the table's chairs. “That probably wouldn't go down well.” She takes a few steps forward to come up next to Thor, and joins him in staring out the large windows at the clouds drifting by; she can't even see the ground through them.

After about a minute, the human-shaped dragon takes a deep breath. “So, look, about not telling you about what I was... I'm not sorry for pretending to be human – even Jane didn't know then – but I do wish I could have told you myself. And I'm sorry that this visit wasn't under better circumstances.”

Thor looks down at her, a soft and rather sad smile on his face. “As am I. Fear not, I take no offense that you wished to pass as mortal. I am glad that Jane has a companion such as you: fierce, noble, and capable in all forms. And,” he continues, with an almost mischievous look, “it sounds significantly better to say that I was felled by a legendary Fire Lizard rather than a mortal girl with a box of hand-held lightning.”

Darcy can't help but snort. “Technically true embellishment – nice.”

“I do try,” Thor replies with good humor, and then a pained expression crossing his handsome face. “Although it could not be said that I possess my brother's way with words. Loki is the one with the silver tongue – always was.”

“Well, that's... what all the legends say,” Darcy tells him, vaguely agreeing. “Thor, are you – are you alright? I didn't catch what happened between you and your brother when – if – you told Jane, but this can't be easy on you. I'm surprised you haven't taken Loki and left.”

“If what I have been told is true,” Thor replies evenly, “it is just as surprising that you have not killed my brother.”

“Thor-”

“It was not an accusation, and given his crimes against you, I understand you have deep motivation to hold no love for him. You search for your companion and I search for the Tesseract. So long as they remain hidden, so Loki remains here. As soon as they are found, I hope to return my brother to face Asgardian judgment for...” Thor trails off.

“For?” Darcy prompts.

The thunder god ignores the question and peers down curiously at her, a suspicious look to his expression. “How did you know that my brother was not of Asgard?” he asks. “You called him 'Frost Giant', an Asgardian term for the Jotuns, and I find it unlikely he confided such a secret to you. How did you come to know such a thing?”

“I could smell it on him,” Darcy admits with a sheepish shrug. “I've had dealings with Frost Giants – with Jotuns – before and I recognized the scent. I didn't even consider he could be your brother until someone told me his name. How did a Frost Giant become a Prince of Asgard anyway? Oh... sorry, don't answer that if you don't want to, I was just curious. It doesn't matter.”

Thor sighs. “I am afraid that it very likely does,” he says wearily. “Come, let us have this discussion away from prying ears and eyes. We have, I suspect, much to share with each other and no other who could truly understand what of we speak. I wish to know how a Fire Lizard comes to be living a mortal life on Midgard and what my brother said to anger you so on that mountaintop – you are not the only curious one.”

Darcy takes a moment to consider it. She's got nothing all that better to do.

~

Oddly enough, they end up on the same roof above the laboratory that Darcy climbed on top of before when searching for Jane. Thor had had no suggestions for anywhere private, as well as no objections to Darcy's own suggestion – it was the first thing that popped into her head and has the added advantage of letting her be close to Jane. Thor had needed to help her up, but now they have a wide-open space to themselves with a fantastic view of the sky almost all around them.

Thor goes first with his story and it begins oddly close to where Darcy's own would have started, had she been the one to begin their tale-sharing. It starts with that horrible war between the Frost Giants and the Asgardians, as everything seems to recently.

“My father, as he tells it, fought the Jotuns from Midgard back to Jotunheim, all the way to their innermost fortress where their greatest power was held: the Casket of Eternal Winter. It was the source of their might, and to keep them ever from rising again, he took it from them,” Thor says, staring out towards the sky fist clenched in his lap as he sits on the edge of the roof, Darcy on one side of him and his hammer resting on the other. “It is held in the depths of Asgard's treasury currently, but... the true treasure my father says he stole from the Jotuns that day was a child – a runt of babe, he says – obviously abandoned.”

“In their innermost fortress?” Darcy asks curiously, kicking her legs against the open air.

“So says my father,” Thor replies, clearly uncomfortable. “He also says that Loki was the offspring of Laufey, though how he knew this, he did not say. Laufey is – was – the ruler of the Jotuns; he had other sons, but Loki is still then a Prince of Jotunheim as much as one of Asgard. Depending on what has become of Jotunheim, my brother is perhaps even their rightful king.”

Darcy has only bad memories of the name of Laufey and Laufeyson, so she doesn't comment on that, and she doesn't comment on Thor's father's choices because she's not sure what to make of that. An abandoned baby... or a kidnapped one? Thor has obviously asked himself that question and by his grim face, Darcy can guess what he thinks the answer might be.

“My father chose to raise Loki as his own – never telling him of his Jotun heritage and for all Asgard knows, Loki is Odinson – but whatever my father chose, I would hesitate to say that he raised Loki. It was my mother that raised us both truly,” Thor admits. “My brother was closer to her than me though, just as I was closer to our father than him. Although close is perhaps not the truthful term when it comes to our father – I fear that the honest one may be... favorite.”

Darcy looks at the Crown Prince of Asgard and unhappily realizes: “I think I'm a little too sober for this conversation, and also severely underqualified to offer advice on this.”

“The latter is of no matter. I doubt there is anyone who is,” Thor tells her with a snort. “And as for the former, I would not advise it myself, but...” He reaches into some pocket in his armor and pulls out a small, ornate bottle that makes Darcy's eyes widen enormously.

“Holy shit. Are you actually just carrying intoxicating substances? Because dude, that is surprisingly college bro of you. Here, hand it. Don't worry, I can't really get wasted on human stuff, I'm pretty sure it won't kill me,” Darcy assures Thor, who gives the bottle over freely. She pops the cork and sniffs it, then takes a small swig and whistles under her breath. “Okay, wow, that is strong.”

Thor takes it back and then takes a sip of his own, shuddering slightly as he does. “It is supposed to be diluted in lesser liquids,” he explains. “But this is a sorry enough tale that there is little point in diluting anything. Do you know how I came to be on this world the first time?”

“Something about punishment?”

“One that did not even begin to suit the crime,” Thor replies sadly, taking another sip of the liquid before handing it back over. “It began on the day of my interrupted coronation – one that I was not ready for and am thankful was kept from taking place...”

Darcy listens carefully and finds that, in short summary, Thor's family is sort of fucked up. It genuinely sounds like Thor and Loki have been pitted against each other from the beginning, possibly intentionally, and it clearly hasn't been healthy for anyone. That is, if the plots for the throne, assassination attempts (both successful and failed), and attempted genocides are any indication. They have issues; their issues may even have issues.

Darcy hopes that, if their relationship goes anywhere, Jane can deal with Thor's baggage, because it's fucking heavy and Darcy sure as hell isn't picking that shit up. She'll help Jane deal with it, but she's not picking it up herself and would rather not touch it with a ten foot pole. Jane is amazing, Darcy knows that, but she hopes her friend is prepared to keep being the one bright, gloriously uncomplicated constant she seems to have become in this man's life.

“You are royalty with a two-parent family and I got abandoned as a toddler, how am I the one with the less shitty, less dysfunctional upbringing?” Darcy demands with a groan, lying flat on her back and throwing an arm over her face. “You don't not tell a kid they're adopted – everybody knows that.”

“Not my father apparently,” Thor grumbles, finally putting away the small, extremely-fucking-potent bottle because they're already slightly tipsy and that's... well, Darcy sort of wants to go with... really unprofessional? “It was... unwise to hide it, I agree. Had I met you, Lady Darcy, mere months ago, I cannot say I would have even let you speak before I declared you a beast. The world was neatly divided into the worthy and the monsters for me, and for my brother to suddenly learn that he was one of the monsters I had often spoke of eradicating like pests...?”

Darcy groans again. “Therapy. You people need so much therapy.”

“You are not wrong. I find myself wondering now how much else I missed or was willfully observant of. I did not notice the truth of you; I did not notice the truth of my brother; I did not notice that my brother had fallen so far into jealousy and hatred that he would fashion himself the ruler of Midgard!” Thor exclaims out towards the sky, obviously furious with himself. “I begin to fear that I do not know my brother at all now; or that I ever did.”

“I couldn't begin to answer that question,” Darcy replies musingly, “but I'm not entirely certain that your brother got this way without a good push – not from you! Well, not entirely – but from the guy who gave him the army. There's something really wrong with that spear thing, and there's something wr- not right with your brother too. I think it makes his eyes glow blue. That's really not normal.”

Thor's frown is almost audible. “Loki's eyes are green,” he says, sounding confused. “I confess I have not taken the time to study his face, but... that is odd. When you say that there is something wrong with the scepter, and with Loki, what do you mean? How so?”

Darcy furrows her brows and wrinkles her nose, trying to think about it – she shouldn't have had that drink; thinking emotionally might get easier, but thinking logically starts to get tricky. “I don't know, he just smells... sick? He smelled a lot like disease and pain earlier, and there's something unstable about him. The weapon just sort of feels wrong. But maybe that's just what you get from blasting destructo-spears that apparently can mind-control people.”

“Mmm, now that is where I find myself confused. The lore on the Tesseract agrees that powerful sorcerers are capable of working magics of the mind with it,” Thor says thoughtfully, “but if Loki arrived with the weapon, then I doubt that the Tesseract is what it spawned from. Although the similarity to Tesseract-sired weapons and its significant power begs investigation.”

“Ugh, why does everything about this have to be so confusing?” Darcy demands, sitting up and regretting the ache it causes in her head. “I don't suppose that you could – oh, no, wait... you already said something about the power of the thing being beyond your knowledge. Damn it.”

Thor chuckles weakly at her. “I also commented that it was Loki and my mother who had the head and the heart for the magical arts – the cleverer arts in general, truthfully,” he reminds her. “All that I know of the Tesseract has been the result of my lady mother's careful research. It was she who gathered the magics to send me after her lost son and she was the one to create the device that will take us home once the cube is found.”

“Well, alright. So, if that's that, why didn't she just come herself? She's a fearsome warrior – or she was, like, a thousand years ago or so. Okay, I get that she might not be keen to be pitted against Loki in anything, but she's pretty kick-ass. Like Lady Sif... but blonde.”

“You seem... acquainted with my mother,” Thor says, somewhere between curiosity and confusion.

Darcy rubs her eyes and sighs (and also resists the urge to make a joke of that sentence; this is why she should not drink). “Yeah, like, a thousand years ago. I liked her. She... well... she saved my life, actually, and the life of my dumbass little brother during that whole war you guys had with the Frosted Flakes here on Earth.” She glances up at Thor and raises her eyebrows at his stunned look of confused surprise.

“I was unaware that my mother had been present during those battles,” he says and then it's Darcy's turn to be totally without understanding. Because what?

“Are you kidding me? She was the one who sealed the gate they came through in the first place! I mean, I'm not sure what her official job was, but I'm pretty sure she was in charge of the medics and mages at the least. That sounds kind of important, you'd think someone would mention it. Like, a lot. Like, I think she should have gotten at least half the credit for that victory, if not more.”

A look of comprehension flashes onto Thor's face as he seems to realize something. “Not if Loki could be assumed to be Odinson,” he explains. “For Loki to have born when he was to my mother, she would have had to be with child or just rising from the birthing bed during that time.”

“She got her battle prowess covered up to claim Loki as her own?” Darcy asks, somewhat surprised and unsure how to interpret that. No wonder that woman had no trouble keeping Darcy and Bingley's existence to herself. “That sounds oddly... really hardcore. Thor, your mother is a goddamn badass. Is she... is she coping okay? Like, with what's been happening?”

Thor's wondrous look at the praise for his lady mother immediate turns to a pained expression. “No,” he answers resolutely. “She has taken Loki's betrayal – however intentional it was – badly, and yet is determined to have him return to Asgard. She has not spoken to my father outside of public functions without yelling since, and when my father sentences Loki to Asgardian justice-... I am here partly from my father's order, and partly at my mother's behest, and thus am torn between fearing that she will not stand for the punishment or that she will stand by and let it happen.”

“Torn?”

“My lady mother is a very loyal person, and with Loki's return, she will be forced to choose between her husband and her son. If she stands for my father's decision, I suspect it will be irreparably damaging to both her and Loki; if she stands by my brother, I am... uncertain that I will not stand with her,” Thor confesses softly, as though handling something more fragile than glass. “And I do not know what it will do to Asgard to have the queen and heir stand against the king on the behalf of an adopted Jotun traitor.”

And with that final confession, Thor turns back to the clouds and bows his head – if he weren't known as a god himself, Darcy would think that he was praying with his eyes shut so. She's never really felt there was much difference between hoping and praying, especially since she's never believed in any kind of god. But it seems to her that both need a certain amount of trust, and Thor looks like a man who has little of that left. Who do gods pray to for help?

It would figure that the figures of legends were no less infallible or tiny or ugly-human-beautiful than any other being in this stupidly gigantic universe. She should know that better than anyone probably: what it means to be and not to be human.

Darcy silently reaches out a hand to put it on Thor's armored shoulder in a gesture of empathy. He doesn't say anything, but he doesn't shake it off either, and they sit there for awhile on the concrete edge of the sky – solemn, slightly buzzed, and staring out towards the clouds. Darcy watches the world go by below them, makes a decision, and takes a deep breath.

“I think I know who Loki's partner is. You told your story. I think you should hear mine.”

Chapter Text

You never started the day with the expectation that you would be abducted by a dragon, Miranda pondered unhappily as she watched the red-scaled beast in question hastily but neatly flip through book after book. Especially when you yourself were a dragon.

She'd finally been settling into her life as a single, middle-aged clerk in an antique shop and now that was all ruined. Why her clutch-brother had suddenly decided to snatch her off the street after sixteen years of silence was beyond her. Yes, he was excited about something, but he could have just sent a letter. It had better be a good something with an even better explanation, because there was absolutely no way that Miranda would be able to explain anything about this to her (soon-to-be-ex) neighbors.

At that thought, Miranda crossed her arms and the small woman began to tap a rapid tempo of impatience with one foot. It took a few moments, but eventually the enormous red dragon paused, turned to look at her, blinked, and then began searching for his specific book much faster. He clearly understood that if he didn't soon hurry up with his explanation, he would cease having a small, angry woman on his hands and instead have a furious, blue-scaled beast ready to blow flames.

Because really. How dare he make himself so scarce for sixteen years, ruin his clutch-sister's human identity, and then not even have the decency to pull off an organized abduction. If you were going to abduct someone, in Miranda's opinion, then you ought to have prepared and rehearsed your program of monologues and speeches beforehand.

Her clutch-brother's speech, once he finally found the book he needed, left much to be desired.

“Mind magic? You have learned everything that you know of magic from books and you want to try your hand at mind magic? If I had a week I still couldn't list all the reasons why that is a phenomenally terrible idea!” Miranda finds herself near-screaming at her clutch-brother afterwards, making the large red dragon cringe backwards slightly.

“Because you know nothing of magic,” he mutters, not meeting her eyes, too quietly for any regular human to hear but easy enough for her to pick up and he knew it. It felt like a backhanded slap almost. If he'd said it plainly and to her face, then she actually could have taken him seriously.

Miranda snarls at him, gnashing her blunt human teeth. “Because it's the idea of a fool,” she snaps. “I do not have to know anything about magic to know that playing in your own head in idiotic. If your memory is so rotten as to have forgotten something, then you should keep a journal! What memories could possibly be worth chancing making even more of a mess of your head?”

After a beat of silence, Miranda's clutch-brother notices she wants an answer and finally deigns to look her in the eye. The determination there is almost frightening and his answer makes her eyes go wide.

“I want to know why the others left,” he tells her, his scaled chin held high and his stare steady.

Miranda gapes – her mouth opens and closes like a fish at that, and she can't even bring herself to feel embarrassed about it. She had figured that her clutch-brother had taken up some new project or another in his absence from her life, but this...? They haven't talked about that particular subject basically since it happened. He's always after her to be more draconian and talks often about birthrights, but she'd had no idea he still cared that the others were gone. Miranda had gotten over it ages go.

“You what?”

“Do you not wish to know why we were left here?” the red dragon implores, gesturing around at the large hoard-filled cave. “Here, among such pitiful creatures on this useless world? I have learnt all that I can from these texts, but it is not enough. Through our faded memories we could learn where they have gone and how to rejoin our kind! We could go to greater realms and live the life our kind was meant to live! We could finally pull ourselves above humanity's endless destruction and disrespect!”

“I do n-”

“Do you not get tired of their pettiness, sister? Of crushing your true beauty and strength down into that miserable, hideous form? And then watching them destroy themselves and the world again and again with every cycle of their short lifespans? We have a birthright that could be waiting for us; there are secrets of our kind that are ours to know; they could be waiting for us!”

“You don't know that!” Miranda snaps defensively, trying to keep her mind from whirling after the temptation he's trying to offer. “They left. And I've never seen any notes about, have you?”

“What if the notes are in our memories?” her clutch-brother argues. “Our sire left his hoard behind – his hoard. That must have been done with a purpose. All this knowledge – still only the scrapings of our kind's vast wisdom, I am sure – at our clawtips. Should we not use it? It must be expected of us to use such as was left behind for us.”

Miranda bites her lip and folds her arms in front of her chest. “It's... I do not... I cannot believe that these things – that anything – has some greater purpose... or some greater meaning. Life... the world is chaos, brother, and yes, humans are some of the worst perpetrators, but they are not that different to us...”

“They are disgusting.”

“They are not that different! We too can be scared and unpredictable and thoughtless, just like them! You speak of this as though our lives here have been some great test where we prove to all that we were meant for something important,” Miranda insists, scowl deepening as her clutch-brother shakes his massive scaled head.

“No, no-”

“Yes! You are! And I do not believe it! Life is an ugly mess of coincidences and mistakes and scared, prideful people making them happen! Sometimes... sometimes things do not mean anything; sometimes... we just have to get on with things and keep on living... you know?”

Miranda lets her rant trail off softly, hoping desperately that she's managed to communicate her feelings on this. She's witnessed enough of life to realize that there is little difference between her and humanity at the heart of them, and that there is no grand reason why things happen. And if there is, then she wants no part in a predetermined world of purposeful suffering.

The red dragon blinks his great golden eyes down at her. “No,” he replies shortly.

Miranda blinks. No?

“We are beings with greater knowledge of the universe and greater power than either of us truly know, and with so much more to discover,” he tells her, his voice straining with a burst of emotion he doesn't know how to handle. “I will not... I will not get on with things. I will not – I cannot – do what you do. I will not crush myself down into a useless shape and hide any of my glory or temper my knowledge or let those grubbing, hateful, greedy, warring creatures define what I am.”

“Baba-”

“NO! I was meant for greater things than a life in hiding!” the red dragon shouts, the sound echoing down the gold-filled cave. Then, he adds quietly, with only the barest of quivers in his voice, “You were too, sister. You are more than what you pretend to be.”

Miranda stares wide-eyed at him, her pathetically human legs trembling. She wants to protest, she wants to scream, she wants to prove to him somehow that she does not have to be everything all at once to the fullest to be any more or less of herself.

“Please, sister,” her clutch-brother pleads, scaled face remarkably open. He looks young and desperate like he hasn't in... well. “Let me recall our memories,” he asks, and to Miranda's ears it sounds like begging. “Share memories with me and let me prove it. Please. Let us look back to the beginning to find what we could further be.”

Miranda shuts her eyes tightly and takes a deep breath. Just because she's adapted, doesn't mean that her clutch-brother has... it doesn't mean that he can. Just because she's found possibility in her present doesn't mean there isn't potential in her past. Maybe there's something that can help her clutch-brother in some way or another. He deserves happiness.

“Only this once,” she says in a rush of breath, biting back all the insistences that this is a truly terrible idea. “Who am I to think I know what will be seen in the dark backward and abysm of time?”

~

“Seven eggs and only two of them hatch,” comments a hoarse, rasping voice from a white blur that clinks as it moves. “And I believe that the smaller one will not live another season. Tiny wretched things.” A breath blows over her, a warm gust that stinks of rotten food. “They cannot even see rightly, the hapless little wyrms. Not even a mouthful.”

A dark shape nearby shifts, glinting against the surrounding shadows that it doesn't match. “It is difficult to fathom that we were ever that pathetic,” a deep voice agrees slowly. “It is good that there will be no more.”

“When do you think they will be able to talk?” asks a new voice, coming from a grayish blur with a rapid-beat pace to their speak. “Or walk? Or... be able to do anything besides squirm about in their egg shells? They are very boring like this; if this behavior persists, I will not agree to watch them again. I cannot stand such boredom for long.” The gray blur suddenly looms closer; she blinks at it as it says, “Dooooooo sooooomething.”

“Our sire will be back soon enough,” the dark shape snaps. “Back away before you fall and cease your whining, I cannot stand such inanity for long. You are even more annoying than usual. Whyever did you agree to watch the things if you are bored by their incapable state?”

The white blur turns towards the gray mass with a sound like scraping and rattling rocks. “Yes. Do enlighten us, clutch-brother.”

“I have never seen little ones before! The last clutch never hatched at all and the one before that, the few that hatched died within the year – if you would remember. I am taking the chance to see little ones while I have it. I think you are right about the littler one; it seems so weak.”

She doesn't know what is being said in this moment, but in a strike of fateful timing, curls herself further around the warm thing next to her. She does not like these blurs that do not have the right colors; she does not like the horrible smells that they bring and the loud sounds that are interrupting her sleep. It is uncomfortable and so annoying.

The warm thing wriggles as she wraps herself around it, and she crawls further on top of it to make it stop. She just wants to sleep in perfect comfort. Why does everything have to be so very annoying?

A low chuckle thrums through a breath of rotten air. “I think the bigger one takes exception to that. Perhaps you had best watch yourself and where you sleep, Cosukun.”

“Perhaps I would if not for that that thing is the size of my claw and blind! They will not even remember our words, much less understand them by the time they are grown,” the gray blur replies haughtily. “Little ones are so boring that way. And for all we know, these boring things will not even live to have teeth! One of you must let me know when these things begin being interesting.”

“What makes you believe that I will bother to watch their growth?” the dark shape replies coolly, while the white blur answers with clear amusement, “That will be... mmmm... never.”

Then the sounds fold together, the blurs lose all their color, and everything fades away to the sweet warmth of sleep again. Finally.

~

No... no... that's too far back... too close to the very beginning.

~

They don't have names.

For their kind, a name is something you earn and they are too small to have earned anything.

Or so their egg-bearer says anyway. But their egg-bearer says a lot of things that smack of wrongness or don't feel quite right or that don't fit against the egg-sire's words or what they know to be true. Their egg-bearer is spiteful enough to not give them names for some petty reason or another, they know this from a very young age.

They're clever, both of them; too clever and too small for their egg-bearer's liking.

Wastes of eggshells.

But it's not like names really matter, since there's only four individuals who live in these caves. There's their egg-bearer, who speaks at them if she bothers to speak to them at all; there's their egg-sire, who's a bit absent-minded about their existence and doesn't seem to be able to differentiate them even when they're different colors; and then there's them, clutch-brother and clutch-sister.

Who needs names when “Sire”, “Bearer”, “Brother”, or even “Hey, You!” will do? She doesn't exactly even hold conversation with anyone but her clutch-brother anyway, so she mainly has the other individuals in her life separated in her thoughts by color, scent, and the other things that make them up. Names are just excessive. Bearer is purple/metal and fire/anger; Sire is green/leather and ink/exasperation; Brother is red/cave dust/irritation; and she's blue and curious and smells like pond and fish.

It's a lonely place, the long tunnels and caverns filled with gold and books and occasionally parents who don't particularly want to deal with them or spend their time entertaining little ones. The outside of the cave is slightly more interesting, a large glen with trees and a brook that feeds a pond and lots of rocks and puddles. The only ways out are through the deepest tunnels or a steep climb up a cliff or steep fall down a ravine, so since their wings don't work, they can't escape.

That's what all of their elder-clutch-siblings did: escape. Their egg-bearer brings up that awaited time with annoyed impatience whenever they accidentally get underfoot or in her way. As soon as their hatchlings could spit fire and fly, they quickly sought their own lives away from home, very rarely returning to the nest where they were born.

The blue dragonet finds it a shame that their elder-clutch-siblings don't visit more often. Her clutch-brother doesn't care for them, but he likes their egg-sire's boring books and would probably stay inside the caves all the time if she didn't drag him out by the tail to fish or wrestle or do interesting things. Admittedly, it's not like their elder-clutch-siblings care for them either or want to do anything with nameless little ones, but they're always interesting in themselves.

Their elder-clutch-siblings have names and hoards and a life outside and away from this place. How is that not interesting? She can't imagine what it must be like out there with all those other dragons and things, where there's enough others to need something as luxurious as a name.

~

Almost... too unfocused... but getting closer.

~

Blue awakens at the sound of two heavy thumps, one with not enough weight to be Sire or Bearer and the other with too much. Scrabbling over her sleeping clutch-brother, much to his unhappiness by the irritated thwap of his tail he gives her that makes her tumble out of their nest. Scrambling to the edge off the cave, Blue sniffs at the air.

Hmm. The approaching scents are clearly elder-clutch-siblings! And they smell oddly familiar, so they must have visited before, although she cannot place exactly the stench in her memory. Perhaps that is only wishful thinking, though?

“Oh look, it is the blue runt. It has grown slightly,” a deep-voiced dragon greets teasingly as they walk through the cave rock mirage, all slithering stride and smooth black scales. “Almost enough for a whole mouthful this time around.”

The beautiful black dragon, slightly smaller than Sire but far larger than Blue, lunges forward – they smell like flame and sour things. She easily scoops the tiny dragonet up in an iridescent wing and rolls Blue about with easy grace. The world flips and tumbles for Blue and she shrieks for equal joy and terror, much to the clear amusement of the older dragon.

“Efebeyza, come see,” Sister beckons, dumping her tiny sibling belly-up on the cave floor.

Another dragon steps into the cave, a truly enormous one that must be much larger than even Bearer, rattling as they lazily move forward. Curved, asymmetric spikes of all shapes and sizes pepper their entire back; their scales are sharp and ridged and uneven in the strangest ways; and their color is mostly white, oddly sallow, and tinged slightly yellow in places. But what is most noticeable is how this monstrous creature brings with them the most horrible, rotting smell, like a walking pit of dead things.

Efebeyza turns his massive head about to peer at his tiny sibling on the cave floor, all strange spikes and terrible breath. He nips at Blue and grins widely when she squeals, showing the long, sharp teeth of his blood-speckled mouth.

“That is not even half a mouthful,” he replies, his voice hoarse and croaking. “Are you sickly, Banubeste? I see more of an overgrown crocodile... or perhaps a horribly disfigured toad.”

Blue, though dizzy, fumbles to her feet and protests, deeply insulted. “Am not a toad!”

Efebeyza laughs and the sound of it is like claws over rock. Then the white dragon moves past her with his click-clacking scales and flips her back onto the ground with a well-placed swing of his tail. His clutch-sister, the black dragon named Banubeste, gives a deep chuckle of her own before she sashays after him. The elders leave their little sibling in the cave dust, calling out for their parents as they go deeper into the cave, and Blue scrabbles hurriedly after them on her little legs.

“Banubeste, Efebeyza,” comes the cold tones of their egg-bearer.

Heart leaping to her throat, the little blue dragonet skids to an immediate stop beneath the black dragon, her elder-clutch-sister. Blue hurries to hide behind a leg, because Bearer sounds annoyed and unhappy and that never means anything good. She peeks out as the sharp purple beast in question steps into view from around a tunnel corner.

“There had best be good reason that you bring that filthy human stench into my cave. You reek of their spoiled corpses. How revolting.”

“We were collecting for our hoards,” Banubeste replies in a dramatic sigh, her black scales shimmering with the movement. “And Efebeyza just had to play with his food to get at their bones, so he may reek more so than usual, do forgive him. And as the village was emptied, I took the deserted books for our sire. Is he here?”

Their egg-bearer cocks her spiny-head, gesturing deeper into the cave. “As ever,” she says, before her silver eyes narrow dangerous as her two grown spawn. “Did this village not have riches, my little fools? Where is your gift to my hoard?”

Banubeste's black tail lashes dangerously and Efebeyza cuts off whatever her cutting and fight-inducing response will be by stating calmly, “Outside the cave.” He shoots his sister a withering look, which Banubeste returns to him even more fiercely.

Looking between the two, their violet egg-bearer harrumphs at the both of them before turning back into the cave tunnels, likely to go check the truth of the white dragon's statement. If she finds it an unsatisfactory offering or if there is nothing at all, she will soon enough let them know of her displeasure. But it is likely not a lie, as Efebeyza lets out a truly relieved sigh when the spiked purple tail whips around a corner and out of view.

“Overgrown lizard,” Banubeste hisses after it.

Efebeyza's heavy tail smacks against the ground, rattling and clinking with his displeasure. “So goes why I never return to the nest. How humans stand to live so closely is a mystery that I hope never to solve. This story you hope to get of our sire had best be worth it.”

“It will be,” the black-scaled dragon promises lowly, gliding forward into the deeper reaches of the cave where their green-scaled sire is. “Come. You still have that icy creature's skull, do you not?”

Neither of them pay attention to their small blue-scaled sibling underneath them as they move onwards, likely having forgotten entirely of the dragonet's existence. And Blue is too focused on their words to notice the swinging weight of Banubeste's tail coming up fast against her tiny head. With a hard smack, the little dragon does not get to hear Efebeyza's answer.

~

There.

Here we are.

~

In some deep part of her mind, Blue knows that she has more siblings than she and her clutch-brother have claws, but she has only met a few of them and can name only a few more after that. The only elder-clutch-siblings that come to visit with any kind of regularity are Banubeste and Efebeyza, a recent change that seems to be persisting. They come by whenever they've raided enough villages to give Banubeste an excuse to get past and appease their egg-bearer and speak with their egg-sire.

Blue doesn't know what they talk about and Red doesn't know either. Sire shoos Red from his cave areas whenever Banubeste comes by, sometimes with a tail or claw if Red if being particularly stubborn about it. Which means he's serious, since the only other time he does that is if he thinks Blue's clutch-brother is getting too attached to pieces of their sire's hoard.

Efebeyza, who always comes with despite the fact that he clearly has no interest in whatever concerns Banubeste and Sire so, usually ends up getting snapped out of the cave by Bearer for his bloody stench. If he's feeling peculiarly tolerant that day, he'll stick around the glen and let his younger-clutch-siblings climb all over him or ask questions of him.

Today, after many nosy questions, Efebeyza has let himself be begged to reveal what he hoards and has unexpectedly proceeded to proudly show off his collection to the blue and red dragonets. In hindsight, it was more than a little obvious. It turns out that the extraordinarily massive rattle-scale dragon, unlike any other they have known, wears the majority of his hoard – each piece carefully placed and attached to or mixed with his scales by magic.

“What did this come from?” Blue demands, running her claws along one bone that seems far too big to belong to any beast but another dragon. It's huge and there's a lot of them, running all the way down his spine and most of his back like giant quills.

From the other side, Red pokes at it warily, his curiosity having made him reluctantly follow her up onto the white dragon's back. He made such funny faces all the way up and over the uneven, skeletal scales. His snout has been in a perpetual grimace since finding out why Efebeyza clinks, although the rotted smell that clings to the bones was horrid enough this close that it could have been that too.

Efebeyza swings his head around to check which one she's talking about – like any good dragon, he remembers where and when exactly he got each and every single part of his hoard. “A whale,” he answers in his raspy, scratching voice. “Most of the big ones are, some kind or another. Some are from elephants – tusks and ribs.”

“What is a whale?” she demands.

“What is an elephant?” her clutch-brother asks at the same time.

Efebeyza's grin is monstrous. “Animals,” he replies. “Whales are enormous fish and elephants are large land beasts that live in the hot places. The elephants are easier to get, but the sea beasts are much more fun. They have some of the best teeth too.”

“You fight them?” Blue asks her elder-clutch-brother breathlessly.

She likes to fish in the pond – it's her favorite thing to do – but a fish that big would easily eat her. Her mind cannot quite wrap itself around a fish that size or collecting bones from something that big, but this hoard is definitely much more appealing than the useless shining things their egg-bearer hoards or their egg-sire's mounds upon mounds of books.

“Everything I wear, I haven taken from a beast I slew myself,” Efebeyza reveals with obvious pride and suddenly it is much easier to understand the yellowed tinge, blood flecks, and terrible smell that he never seems to be rid of. “It would not be as much of a challenge if I did not – although the humans are not much challenge regardless, but I like their skulls.”

That is... extremely obvious to see once one looks closely at his bone-fused scales.

“One day, little toad, you may perhaps see my collection of skulls and oldest bones. They number in the hundreds, and some come from ancient beasts that lived long before our time, or the occasional visitor. Now those are creatures that would have made for excellent hunting.”

Curiosity for the subject of hoards definitely peaked, Blue asks, “What does Sister hoard?”

Her black-scaled elder-clutch-sister is so sleek and glamorous, so it's a little difficult to understand why Banubeste and the monstrous and foul Efebeyza would keep each other company or what they would have in common. As far as Blue's understood it, most clutch-siblings didn't bother to stay in touch, much less in company.

“Stories,” Efebeyza answers, swinging his head back around to lay it on the grass.

The change in topics from one he cares about to other things has obviously removed his interest in making conversation. They've lost him. He shifts to make himself more comfortable and the two little dragons are instantly unbalanced, sent tumbling down the clattering, chattering bone-scales. Blue rolls with heavy thumps over the ground, while Red goes flying with a splash into the pond.

Not one to be deterred or distracted though, Blue immediately pokes her head back up and hurries to put herself in front of one of Efebeyza's giant silver eyes. “Stories? Like books?”

“If she collected books, she would not give them to Sire,” Red reminds her unhappily, wetly pulling herself onto the bank and flapping his small wings to dry off. “Do not be foolish.”

Blue bares her teeth at him, fleshy wings flared, and manages to spit a small whoosh of fire towards him. He flinches back from it, even though he's dripping wet. Good. He's smaller than her and she can wrestle him easily, he shouldn't be so mean to her in front of their elder-clutch-siblings. Who cares if he uses his head more than she does?

Fortunately, good comes of their arguing instead of the bad that usually does. Their Bearer and Sire have no patience for bickering little ones, but their antics manage to amuse Efebeyza enough to keep him from immediately proceeding with his nap.

“Banubeste collect stories in mind,” the white dragon reveals, chuckling hoarsely. “She listens to spoken tellings or finds written tellings and then remembers them, or watches things happen and remembers those too. Banubeste never forgets anything – never has.”

Hmm, that's... different, but... “Where does she get the stories from?”

“Everything. Humans mostly.”

“Humans?” Red squeaks, sounding as disbelieving as Blue feels.

It's hard to believe anything besides food comes from humans when their purple-scaled parent's favorite subject is how worthless humanity is for anything except food and that the walking rats don't even manage to taste good at that.

“Mmmmmm, from humans,” Efebeyza confirms with a sickening grin as he closes his silver eyes for a nice long nap. “Then crushes them for making her bother with them at all – annoying creatures. It's such... mmmm... a terrible waste of perfectly good bones.”

~

Sire and Bearer are arguing again.

Honestly, by this point, neither Blue nor her clutch-brother can remember any interaction between their parents that didn't end in screaming and occasionally breathing literal fire at each other The dragonets aren't even surprised when their raging egg-bearer strikes up a fight this time – they saw it coming from miles away. Blue just sighs and Red just winces, and then they both scramble to get out of the way when it starts.

(“WRETCHES! MUD CREATURES MADE OF FILTH AND GREED! THIS ARROGANT PLAGUE MUST BURN. DO YOU HEAR ME? IT MUST BURN!”)

It's about the same thing that it always is: Humanity is disgusting and this world is unworthy and their kind should either go somewhere better or kill every human on this world and then go somewhere better. Their egg-bearer is set on leaving always, but whenever she goes out and encounters humans, she becomes extremely focused on leaving immediately instead of the “eventually” that she otherwise holds to. Something about the two-legged creatures just makes her furious – sometimes she becomes so filled with hate that she can't even speak because she finds them so vile.

(“I will not my spend MILLENIA of life watching them GRUB IN THE MUD, BEING SURROUNDED BY THEIR GAWPING IDIOCY AND USELESS, STUPID, FEARFUL, COWADLY – AARGH!”)

Sire, when his purple-scaled mate is out of the cave, will inform them that humanity is fine enough, honestly. They're inferior and mostly useless, according to him, but sometimes they produce amusing attempts at literature – very ignorant stuff, but still amusing. They're nothing worth getting worked up about for him. He probably wouldn't care if they suddenly all died, it's the leaving the world part that he fights her on, while Bearer keeps bringing up humanity again and again as if the mysterious beings will be the end of the world.

(“THOSE BLUNT-TOOTHED GLUTTONS WILL DEVOUR THIS WORLD – THERE IS NOTHING THEY WILL NOT CONSUME IN THEIR AVARICE! HOW LONG WILL IT BE BEFORE THEIR NUMBERS MAKE THEM THINK THEY CAN CHALLENGE US! UNDER THEIR FAITHFUL WATCH WE CAN BE SURE THAT THIS WORLD WILL BECOME HOME TO NOTHING!”)

The arguments follow certain patterns and rarely deviate, just running along the same trek until their egg-bearer gets frustrated enough to need to go kill something or their egg-sire gets frustrated enough to say the only thing that will make Bearer back down. This time, it seems that it's Sire who loses his patience first.

“Just like the world we lost,” the green-scaled dragon cuts in coolly, wholly unimpressed with the breath of sparks his mate sends towards him. “Home to nothing. Do you truly compare these rats to that madman? Are you really so intolerant and uncontrolled now that any little thing will drive you from sanctuary and into death?”

And there it is, the mysterious madman who caused them to flee to this world. Blue wouldn't say that Bearer is scared of whoever this person is, but the dragonet knows of nothing else that will immediately quiet the purple dragon so and thus end the argument. Blue would be scared of someone who could destroy worlds too, though. Even if, perhaps especially because, her whole world is a cave and a glen.

But unlike all those other times, their egg-bearer does not quiet with this reminder. She does not become silent and scowling; she does not go off muttering and mumbling; she does not immediately concede the argument and retreat to fight another day. If anything, she seems only to become even more furious.

“SANCTUARY! You call this sanctuary? I call it a pit! A hole of filth in which we stick our heads in fear! We have hidden here for long enough and it is time we seek out the rest of our people! We must rise up and take to the stars once more!”

“Do you hear any of my words at all?” their egg-sire demands, his golden eyes wide with surprise. “We will be slaughtered like prey beasts. The promise to use our blood to wash the stars was not one made lightly – he has fulfilled it often enough. Be reasonable, Cembulent. Do not let humanity be the end of us. Do not let your discontent feed your madness.”

The violet dragon snorts. “If the end comes to one of us, I will be the end of humanity – those useless fools will never be the end of me. And our time on this realm is ending; can you not feel it? The change that is coming? Do not see the proof that our spawn bring us of the shift in ages? Let us leave the thieving reachers to their cursed filth and the coming winter. We are better than this world! We must leave it.”

“We cannot leave, Cembulent. We have offspring to look after – to keep safe. We cannot risk them on your whims and wants.”

“It is high time those fools learned their legacy. They can prove they are worthy of it.”

“The littlest ones cannot fly,” Sire reminds her tiredly. “They have just barely begun to breathe their first flames and have not even begun to grow their secondary scales yet.”

For the first time in all Blue's memory, their egg-bearer, Cembulent, turns her purple-scaled head about to look for the dragonets during an argument with her mate. She spots them huddled in one of her gold piles. Red startles back under her sudden stare, crashing into Blue and sending them both tumbling back onto a pile of colorful and shining gems. With fast-beating hearts, they scramble and duck away from her cold silver gaze, which seems to glint slightly blue with the reflections of the jeweled hoard they flee through.

Her derisive scoff is... scornful... to be kind about it.

“Those things would not have lived to be named” she says, as though stating the sky was blue – all truth and certainty. “The time it would take to tend to them is better spent leaving this disgusting rock behind us. Your tolerance for weak creatures, Yavuzysim, is admirable... most likely, but put your pride above your pity for once.”

“Perhaps you should put your pity above your pride,” Yavuzysim snaps back, his green scales seeming to bristle with his unhappiness. “Perhaps you should find some pity to begin with, or some control of self, I am beginning to find your complete lack of it pitiful myself.”

Cembulent narrows her sharp blue eyes at him, an orange glow rising between and through her violet scales. “How dare you,” she hisses, rage rising at the back of her throat and illuminating her sharp teeth. Her spiny tail is flickering back and forth with such force that it scrapes deadly gashes into the cave walls.

“HOW DARE YOU!” the purple-scaled dragon roars again with enough force to make the cave shake.

Blue and Red fall over themselves to leave without looking back at this cue, tiny claws scrabbling over the gold as they hurry for the cave entrance. Bearer is an exceptionally angry individual out of all the other dragons that they've met, but they've never seen her that angry before. A bit of fishing, an activity in the safe haven of water, has never looked so appealing.

Chapter Text

Blue is curious – she's always been curious. Sure, there are some things she would rather let lie because the answers aren't worth the trouble getting – like anything that requires getting the answers from their egg-bearer – but if she's curious enough, sometimes even that doesn't stop her.

Red says that her curiosity will be the death of her, as though he doesn't regularly risk life and limb by basically trying to steal Sire's hoard out from under him. He hasn't the wing space to talk about foolish and dangerous curiosity. He never does.

See, what Blue wants to know is who this “madman” is. There's only so many times she can listen to their parents argue about lost worlds and the death of their kind and seeking out the glory they once had without Blue starting to want to hear this story. The only problem with this is that neither Sire nor Bearer ever bring these things up outside of arguments, and Blue has more self-preservation than to ask anything of them then. Especially as they've gotten worse.

And since they've gotten worse, Blue doesn't really want to ask Bearer. That seems like a fast way to rejoin her and her clutch-brother's other clutch-siblings. The ones that didn't hatch. Before she might have done it because the worst thing that could have happened was to get a tail lash, but now... Blue doesn't even know.

Sire has gotten even more reclusive than usual. He spells his section of the caves to keep others out now, which Red is especially upset about, so that takes their egg-sire out of her options.

Red is also out, as he's been all mopey lately and is equally as clueless as she is.

Which is... more or less the end of Blue's list of individuals to ask. Well, there's also always the birds that haven't yet learned to stay away because Blue will eat them, and the pond fish, of course. But Blue has a feeling they won't be helpful, purely because they don't like and are afraid of her if not for because they're stupid and can't talk.

Luckily, Blue is saved from future death at the claws of her egg-bearer because her curiosity overwhelmed her good sense when she's fishing outside and catches a smell instead of food.

(Well, she says fishing, but she's actually complaining about the situation to Whale, who is the fish that she decided on a whim to let grow bigger for better eating and has since become a companion of sorts that eats the other fish with her and has managed not to get eaten by anybody else. Whale is a good listener, although it doesn't have the answers she's after. Her clutch-brother thinks the whole thing is insane, but he hasn't eaten Whale yet.)

Blue catches a horrible scent on the breeze, like a corpse on wings, and excitedly shoos Whale into the depths of the pond so she can watch the skies. Sure enough, familiar white sallow scales and glinting black scales appear almost immediately over the edges of the glen. Blue flaps her wings in eager welcome and manages to burst herself a few feet into the air.

“Look who is growing well!” Efebeyza exclaims laughingly, landed with a heavy thump that leaves his scales rattling. The enormous dragon nips at Blue, flipping her onto her stomach with his snout and licking at her underbelly to make her shriek. “Did you see that, Banubeste? I think this toad will be finding a cave for itself soon enough!”

The black dragon looks amused at her rotten-smelling clutch-brother as she folds away her shimmering black wings. “I think perhaps you are a hundred years ahead of yourself for that. Hello, little crocodile. We are here for the bearer and sire.”

“Bearer is hunting,” Blue informs her elder-clutch-sister as she flops back onto her feet. “And Sire has spelled the way to his caves shut.” The only dragon they'll find available in that cave is Red, who's probably moaning miserably on a pile of gold again.

Banubeste looks surprised, her gold eyes blinking rapidly. “Has he?” she asks, before deciding, “No matter. I will have words with him anyway. Efebeyza, you may rest here until I have need of you. You will only unfocus me with your stench.”

Then without another word, the black dragon walks through the rock mirage into the cave and disappears from tip to tail. Blue looks up at Efebeyza and finds her elder-clutch-brother uninsulted or unangered by those words, which is a decidedly nice difference, since that's been enough to provoke flames between their parents these days.

Efebeyza looks down at her and grins. “So, what has happened with you, toad?”

“Am not a toad!” Blue insists, instantly riled, much as Efebeyza probably intended. The little blue dragonet huffs at her enormous sibling for his meanness, though she doesn't bite him as she might have her clutch-brother. Efebeyza is too big, too armored, and too bad-smelling to bite.

Suddenly, Red comes from the cave rock, pouting and slumped. He spots Efebeyza and ceases looking miserable so he can crinkle his snout and look disgusted instead. Blue's clutch-brother really doesn't like or approve of Efebeyza, especially the smell, although he doesn't say anything because the white dragon is even bigger than Bearer is and Red is easily beaten physically by even Blue.

“Sister shooed me from the cave,” he says grumpily.

“It is not safe for little ones to be around when magic clashes. Banubeste would not see you harmed by her workings,” Efebeyza informs his younger brother. “She was treated to too many lashings of magic in the learning of it to wish it to be inflicted on little ones still with their soft first set of scales. Come and keep company with me, I will show you something.”

Blue and Red both perk up at this. They watch eagerly as Efebeyza turns his massive head and pulls a long spike from his back, setting it in front of them so they may have a better look. It is unlike any he has shown them before, for it is long, straight, sharp, and has a curled pattern from freshly bloody base to tip. A recent catch, obviously.

“It is from another whale,” he explains with raspy-voiced pride. “A sea beast of the northern waters with this protruding from its snout. I had not thought to explore the icy seas until inspired to do so – this little pond in winter should explain why.”

It does. Even Blue won't go fishing when ice starts appearing on the pond surface. The cold is bad enough, even when you can breathe fire, maybe especially because they're beings of heat and rage, but ice is a horrible, horrible thing. Cold in general bites at the touch; it's best to sleep through it.

Efebeyza continues, using a claw to smack Blue away from touching it. He might be happy to show it off, but doesn't seem to be at the stage where he's willing to let them run their claws all over it. “I have found that the whales there are even better than their southern siblings. There are some who are both black and white, and they have a taste for blood as well.”

Blood, thinks Blue, suddenly plucked from the adventure Efebeyza is laying before her in favor of her original curiosity. It always seems to come down to blood in the end.

(“ There's nowhere left that you might call better – not anywhere where our blood won't soon bathe the starways courtesy of that madman. I have no desire to rejoin our lost kin. ”)

The worst thing that Efebeyza will probably say is no, right?

(Or, if it is terrible enough to strike fear into their egg-bearer, the worst thing he could say is perhaps the truth.)

~

“...Banubeste is the one who hoards stories,” is what Efebeyza says, after he's gotten over being surprised at Blue's graceless blurt of a demand for answers. But then the white dragon seems to come to a decision and continues with, “but perhaps that only means she is not the one to share it. How did you hear of such things?”

Red looks extremely unimpressed, which is ridiculous and Blue wants to shove him into the pond because he looked struck stupid from surprise not five seconds ago. He has no business looking as smug and knowing as he does. That'll deserve a tail smack later.

“It is only the constant subject of all of Sire and Bearer's arguments,” he informs their elder-clutch-sibling pompously and Efebeyza concedes this with a nod.

The white dragon heaves a sigh, his skeletal scales rattling as he does. “The times are becoming uncertain. Perhaps you ought to know the story, lest you lose the chance to learn it, though Sire should certainly be telling you this himself. Here, listen carefully and remember that this is only the tale as I know it – as Sire told me, so I tell you....”

Red and Blue quickly settle down on the grass, ready to listen to whatever Efebeyza will tell them. They are curious creatures and the both of them have been dying to know, finally and properly, what excites and angers and frustrates and terrifies Bearer and Sire so. Efebeyza watches them with amusement before he begins to speak his story on gusts of corpse-breath.

“We were hatched on this world, all the clutches from mine to yours were, but this world, as you must know, is not where our kind was first hatched,” Efebeyza explains hoarsely. “The realm of our kind was called Aslicem and it once prospered with the vast wealth and wisdom of our people, who were said to have been forged from its very rock and left molten at our cores in honor of its fires.

“The greatest pride of all of Aslicem, the reason for which it prospered, was the Stone of Stars. Wielded in claws of the First-Bearer, it brought peace to the hearts of our kind and protection to the realm. Its power, so it is claimed, was comparable to that of the stars themselves. It was greatly worshiped and jealously guarded by our people, but also coveted by our envious enemies.

“One such enemy desired the Stone so fiercely that he swore would have it even if he had to bathe the starways in Aslicem blood to have it. He came under the guise of an envoy of another realm, a guest, and in the deepest and darkest of shadows, he stole the Stone away from Aslicem's Great Hoard for his own. With it, he announced himself as the death of our world and declared war on peace and life and freedom, beginning a slaughter of Aslicem as a sacrifice to his deathly god.

“Aslicem fell to his wrath and the fire of the Stone of Stars. It is said that in the chaos, clutch-siblings turned claw on clutch-siblings, mates ripped one another apart with their teeth and magics, and egg-bearers and egg-sires swallowed their hatchlings whole. And when the flames of Aslicem had been quenched with the blood of its people, the madman, who was then known as Jahandar, released the full power of the Stone and tore the world apart from rock to core.”

Efebeyza pauses, as though considering something. “It has been discovered recently,” he tells them slowly, “that where Aslicem once was is a wasteland of rocks in the void of space, shards of the once-proud world. In one realm, that place is known as the Brukkeht Space-Wastes and their legends say from the wreckage once came terrible, crazed lizard-beasts of fire.

“All of Aslicem that was not slaughtered fled, of course, though this was very few of what was once a numerous and united race. To this realm came our Sire and Bearer, the young Yavuzysim and Cembulent, some of the last remnants of Aslicem. Here, in this haven from Jahandar, they have made their home and chosen to raise their clutches to prove that Aslicem lives on.”

The silence after Efebeyza speaks these last words lasts more than a minute, as Blue and Red are too busy staring, wide-eyed and open-mouth, to speak. The white dragon looks between them with lazy concern, then remembers his whale horn is still on the ground and smoothly replaces it on the skeletal armory of his spine. When he turns back, Blue and Red are still silent.

“That is the end of the story,” Efebeyza informs them in his rasping voice, slightly awkwardly, as though trying to reinforce the idea that he really isn't one for this story-telling business and it's not his problem if they're disappointed by his performance. For a murderous beast with an armor of bones and nothing to fear, he looks incredibly uncomfortable and uncertain.

He opens his blood-speckled mouth to say something else, but is interrupted by a bang that would drown out thunder coming from inside the cave. It is quickly followed by a rushing wind that smells like burning and a deep-voiced, desperate-sounding bellow.

“EFEBEEEEEYZAAAAAAAAAA!”

Which, of course, could have been no one besides Banubeste.

“Stay here and do not enter the cave,” the white dragon orders his younger siblings, moving forward, scales chattering and clattering, into the cave rock. His bonemail tail disappears through the mirage with a rattle just as another thunderous sound booms from inside the cave.

Blue and Red watch him go, then exchange incredulous looks.

“Did you know any of that?” Blue finally manages to ask.

“No,” Red replies, looking completely stunned.

Blue groans and then flops onto her belly, unable to keep her head up from the sheer weight of what's just been tossed at her mind. “No one tells us anything,” she declares to her clutch-brother. “Whale gets told more than we are told.”

“Yes,” Red agrees, probably not really listening as he's instead focused on the black smoke that's started pouring out of the mirage where the cave mouth is. Which is followed by loud bang, a thunderous roar, and then a tremble that makes the whole glen pond ripple fiercely.

“If we hide in the trees by the ravine then we can avoid Bearer when she comes back,” Blue suggests, having noticed a purplish speck in the sky that's getting larger quite quickly. “Which is right at this very moment. I will race you to the trees.”

Red doesn't even wait for her to say 'go'.

~

Almost at the end point... but where are the answers? No... this is not it. Where are they?

~

“What did the Stone of Stars look like?” Blue asks her elder-clutch-sibling when Banubeste is soothing her rage-sore throat by drinking up the brook that runs into the glen. She's had a few hours to think about Efebezya's story, it's nighttime now, and her curiosity has turned towards the coveted stone that destroyed a world.

The two sisters are more or less alone in the glen, and Banubeste has been excused from whatever's going on in there so that tempers (and temperatures) can cool. Efebeyza is inside the cave, keeping Sire and Bearer occupied or at least from another argument after the horrible, hours-long one that just took place. Red is still hidden up a tree, sleeping, and he'll probably stay there until it's safe to go back inside the cave again.

Banubeste spits a mouthful of water and gives Blue a curious look, the elegant black-scaled dragon studying her younger-clutch-sibling carefully. Blue tries to meet the stare evenly and tries further not to feel too inadequate next to this beautifully deadly creature who knows magic and remembers everything she hears and flies so smoothly and has the nicest scales that Blue has ever seen.

“Do you know?” Blue asks.

The black dragon does not reply for a long moment, then answers, “...Like fire. It looked like a piece of the sun made a gem and shined just as bright when it was wielded, though it was small enough to sit spaciously in the palm of your little paw.”

As unconsciously bid, Blue lifts a foreclaw to look at it. Her feet are tiny in comparison to Banubeste's, the smallest grown dragon they know, and Blue does not see how such a small thing could be held by a grown dragon – you'd think they'd lose it. Bearer has gems that are much bigger. How could something so small rip a whole world to pieces?

“Or so the stories say,” Banubeste adds thoughtfully, her golden eyes glowing knowingly in the darkness. “It is unwise to trust in stories, little crocodile, but I am assured that any of Aslicem would know it when they laid eyes upon it... if only because it came to herald their approaching death at the hands of Jahandar.”

Then the beautiful black dragon smiles, his white teeth sharp and bright even shrouded in full shadow, and rises from the trickling waters. “If you are fortunate, Little Sister, your story will not contain such things as the Stone of Stars,” she says as she moves back towards the rock mirage of the cave entrance, sashaying heavily away without looking behind her. “If life be kind to you.”

~

No, no, no, nonononono... this is not it! Surely there must be... it does not make sense... there should be something here. Where is it? Where is it?! It must be... it has to be...

~

Bearer's anger and bad mood completely vanished soon after that. Her raging fires and scornful rants were replaced by crowing speeches on humanity's worthlessness and how this world was beneath them. She seemed to bask in her self-assured rightness and Sire, strangely enough, did not argue with her as things otherwise returned to what they once had been.

That was the only sign they were given.

And since they were too busy being grateful that they did not have to fear being roasted in their own nest, they did not take the time to think anything amiss. What did it matter to them why their egg-bearer had suddenly become almost jubilant while their egg-sire wearily came out of seclusion? It was strange, no question about that, but questioning the strangeness and pushing their fortune was not a thing either of them cared to do.

Survival first, after all.

~

Maybe there is nothing...?

No, that cannot be so. There must... closer... near the end... it must be at the end...

~

The last one she sees is not Bearer or Sire, it is Efebeyza who is the last other dragon that she lays eyes on besides her clutch-brother. She and the clutch-brother in question are by the edge of the pond on a sunny day when that corpse stench comes up behind them, as Blue is showing Red how she can toss little fish to Whale and Whale will catch them at the water's surface and swallow them up.

(She thinks it's a neat trick, but Red isn't so impressed.)

Blue immediately flings herself in front of Whale, trying to keep the fat fish from the view of her elder-clutch-brother. It doesn't work of course, because Efebezya is so enormous that he only has to lean forward ever-so-slightly to see over Blue. The bone-scaled dragon might have even ignored Whale if Blue has acted normally, but her protection of it ruins that and Efebeyza looks more startled to see Whale than Whale is to see him.

“How in the world did a fish that big manage to make its way into this pond?” he demands, peering down at the the lazy, unafraid fish that blows bubbles at the deadly predator. “It could not have possibly fit up the stream.”

“Sister has been keeping it and feeding it,” Red answers, because he's a tattler-lizard.

Blue shoves her clutch-brother, who snaps at her, so she shoves him again, this time into the pond with Whale. The splash is finally enough to send the large fish into the depths of the waters, though still in easy reach if Efebeyza decides to get himself a snack.

“Please do not eat it!” Blue blurts out.

Efebeyza blinks down at her with his silver eyes, an amused twist to his yellowed, blood-speckled snout. “Eat it? That thing is less of a mouthful than you, toad. It would not fill even the first of my stomachs.”

“Oh,” Blue replies, folding her flared wings back in. “Good.”

(Behind her, Red pulls himself out of the water, already grumpily but efficiently steaming the water off his soaking scales. Drying himself is the main use of his fire, since he doesn't like hunting, would never risk burning their Sire's precious books, and Blue shoves him into the pond so often.)

“Mmmmm... why are you keeping a fish, toad?” Efebeyza rasps, sounding curious. “I hope you are not thinking of hoarding such things. As Banubeste is fond of saying: 'Living things keep terribly.'” He shakes slightly, making his bony hide chatter and clatter (and his smell worsen). “I am proof enough of that.”

Blue shakes her little head. “No! Not hoarding it. It is just... I wanted to see how big a fish could get, if I fed it instead of feeding on it. This is my big fish,” she informs her elder-clutch-brother, before sticking her snout to the rippling waters. “Whale, come meet Brother.”

“Whale?” Efebeyza asks, his hoarse voice on the edge of laughter.

“Sister named it,” Red tells him, unfortunately too far away for Blue to shove into the pond again.

Blue pokes her nose into the water a few times, the gesture she's taught Whale is the sign to come up to the surface, and tries to keep herself from shifting uncomfortably. “I have to call it something,” she says in defense of herself. “It is a fish and a big one, so that makes it the whale of our pond. That is right... yes?”

“I believe I may need to work on my explanations of things,” is all Efebeyza offers to that, but he does come closer when Whale's gaping mouth touches the water surface so that his younger-clutch-sister can introduce him to the fish. “Hello, Whale.”

Whale bubbles back at the dragon, before swimming off to chase some of the other pond fish – ever hungry is Whale. Efebeyza laughs at the fish's antics, huffing his foul breath over the water's surface, sounding genuinely amused and delighted by it. Blue feels a lightness to her wings at this subtle assurance that her Whale is safe from Efebeyza's hoard.

“Besides,” Blue adds as a small afterthought, watching Whale hurry after the swimming food that lives in its pond. “Whale is different to the other fish, and fish do not live very long even when they are not eaten, so it needed a name so it would not die without one.”

Efebeyza's rasping laughing cuts off, turning immediately into a hacking cough that makes him rattle all over. Red and Blue both look at him, Blue with confusion and Red like her clutch-brother half-expects their elder sibling to cough up a rib – his own or something else's – at any moment. It wouldn't be the first time for the latter of those two choices. (Efebeyza did it on purpose to make his younger-clutch-siblings scream though.)

Once the enormous white dragon manages to stop coughing, he looks between the little dragonets as though stricken by something. He sits, his hind thumping heavily against the ground, making his scales clatter, and then reaches out faster than something his size should be able to. Efebeyza grabs Blue with one forehand and uses his mouth to snatch Red up by the tail, putting them both down in front of them and clearing his throat loudly to drown out their protests and whines and shrieks.

“Cease your noise!” Efebeyza snaps, sending rotted breath over them both, which makes Blue's eyes water and Red gag. “I have something of import to bestow upon you if you would be silent!”

This shuts them up, since gifts aren't something that dragons do. Offerings happen, as Banubeste and Efebeyza do to gain access to the caves, but there is no reason why the white dragon would give something to two little dragonets. The only things they got were things others considered useless or unwanted by the others; Banubeste once gave them a human fishing net that she'd used to transport books, but they left it in the open and Bearer burnt it for its human stink.

“I am going to give you names,” Efebeyza tells them quietly, barely more than a whisper.

Blue openly gapes, because they aren't nearly old enough to be getting those. Their Bearer was of the opinion that they wouldn't live long enough to be named and their Sire had once said that it might happen when they were half-a-hundred and had made something of themselves. They hadn't expected to get names for a very long time... or at least not now.

Next to her, Red sputters out something that could either be a confused statement of these facts or a demand for explanations - it's hard to understand. Efebezya stares at his golden-eyed younger brother for a moment before snorting some of his terrible breath at Red to get the dragonet to stop. Red shuts his mouth immediately, if only to block out the awful smell.

“Let me think a moment,” Efebeyza asks of them. “I am not adept with words and naming is an important thing. Oh, and you cannot tell anyone. You must wait a few days for the names to settle in properly.” He says this last bit with a slightly wobbly cadence, but both of the dragonets are too excited to notice that.

(Or the wet glaze to his giant silver eyes.)

They don't argue with him; they don't know how names work, after all.

~

...that cannot be it... No, that cannot be it...

Perhaps it is...

No! NO! It cannot..!

~

Blue holds her new name tight to her that night, whispering it soundlessly again and again, teaching the shape of it to her tongue. It doesn't sound right – not yet, because it's new and feels strange and unfamiliar in her mouth - but it is entirely hers.

And, she realizes with unbridled and breathless joy just before she falls asleep, it is something that cannot be taken from her. (Not without a fight, at least.)

~

What are you even searching for now? What's done is done!

But not over! ...Not yet.

Baba-

There is still a little left! Please, there is still... still yet...

~

“A sleeping spell?” demands a scornful voice. “Why bother?”

A gentle sigh and a soft reprimand. “It would be cruel to force them to watch us leave. You know this.”

“Che. At least it will keep them quiet; I have already nearly had enough whining from the other whelps. Impertinent little smoke-breathers should learn respect. The others will be unimpressed if all we have to present are such odious toads...”

Not a toad... she thinks, before all her thoughts are slurred together by a shapeless hand.

~

They wake up and there is no one. Sire and Bearer are gone and their hoards have been left behind, protected by nothing more than the cave entrance mirage. There is nothing left inside the cave besides two small dragonets, a cave of books, and tunnels upon tunnels of glittering gold.

There must be something... there is always something...

Time passes and they lose track of it – no one ever comes back. Blue screams some and cries a lot, more out of terror and how lost she feels rather than because she misses Sire or Bearer. As time passes, she alternates between mad or sad, but she gives up on that eventually. There are more important things to concern herself with.

Like hunger. She tries to sate her growing hunger on the stream water, but it doesn't work, so she teaches herself flying, climbs the tallest tree, and then launches herself across the massive ravine. Someone has to bring food back to Ba... (“DO NOT CALL ME THAT! I DO NOT WANT THAT NAME! I WANT... I... do not wish to be called that.”) Red, who's curled up in Sire's books, and Whale, who's mouthing hungrily at the pond surface now.

Something... anything...

Blue – because the name Efebeyza gave her means little when there's no one left and it's still an unfamiliar thing – puts herself towards hunting. It's not that hard, because her sense of smell is good and she's fast and her claws are sharp and her growing fire-spit helps. She catches them a four-legged antlered thing that smells like what Sire used to call “deer” and drags it back to the ravine, then tosses it over piece by piece, climbs another tree, and hurdles herself over the gap.

Anything... ANYTHING... anything at all...

It becomes a common routine. It gets easier or harder depending on things, and it's never painless, but it keeps them fed. Sometimes she even manages to drag Red along – he'll have to learn how to fly properly sometime and he might as well learn with her – and he's appropriately terrible at it after so long sleeping and moping and trying to make sense of Sire's hoard of books (which is now his) and the disappearance of all the others.

Blue teaches herself not to think too much about the why of what's happened, though she argues with Red about it a lot. That's never painless either, but it keeps her going. Besides, the others could be out there somewhere, as much as she tells herself that that's stupid hope, and they'll never know unless they manage to expand their little world.

...there is not...

Survival first, after all.

... anything at all... there is nothing...nothing...

Every day of life is grueling, some better than others and some worse as is the way of life, and the days start adding up. In them there is hunger and pain and thirst and exertion and determination; there is fire and rain and cold and cave dust and blizzards and sleep; there is sun and flight and joy and growth and wind under wings. There are thousands of memories, all full and empty of so many different things.

We have come all the way to the end and there is nothing...?

But that was only the beginning, Brother, remember? There was so much more that came after that...

Like fear and death and ice and screaming and eyes red like blood against skin frozen blue; like human-shaped warriors wearing gold and the clash of blades and death and storms of magic; like mud and terror and a box with the world in it and desperate flight away and a resolution to never return.

They left us for dead.

~

Miranda doesn't say anything as she shifts back to human and pulls on the dress it took her several months to save up for. It's soft and pretty and blue like her scales, and it makes her happy, if only because she's of the opinion that the world needs more people in bright colors in it. She ties up the laces herself, as she always has, and when she's tied up her boots, she finally looks back at her worryingly-still clutch-brother.

“You know, there's going to be gossip when I get back to my town,” Miranda comments thoughtfully, her loud voice echoing down the caves her brother has found for himself – they're rather nice actually. “It's not every day that a woman gets kidnapped off the streets by a dragon; I'll have to move again now because of you. I can hear the whispers already... 'Did you hear the story of Miranda Prosper? She got abducted by a dragon and then came back for her things!'”

Her clutch-brother doesn't answer her, not even to make a comment about the inanity of humanity.

Miranda moves to put herself at the side of the red dragon's ground-laid head. “Let us not burden our remembrance with a heaviness that's gone,” she says, placing a small hand against the brilliant red scales just next to her clutch-brother's great golden eye, which turns to look at her, although her clutch-brother stays silent.

“You are welcome to come live with me, you know,” Miranda offers quietly. “If you are lonely.”

He scoffs. “I am not lonely, I am sickened. Sickened to know that everyone has thought so little of me. Bearer and Sire thought I would die; the elder-clutch-siblings thought so from the moment I hatched; and all of them left us on this wretched planet to die, likely surprised we lived long enough to be abandoned. Such pathetic, hapless little wyrms as we were.”

Miranda swallows against the lump in her throat. “Babakaltan...” she chances, as the name will either anger or immediately soothe her clutch-brother's anger when it comes to these arguments. His opinion on it changes on a random schedule, and by the narrowing of his eye, Miranda realizes that she has lost the gamble she has made.

“Do not call me that!” her clutch-brother hisses. “You know that was given solely out of pity! Brother thought we would die and had just enough pity to give us names so we would not die without them – we were fish to him! If he had had any more pity, he might have just killed us and spared us the fate he believed he was leaving us to!”

“He would not!” Miranda yells back, although some dark part of her recognizes that this was a possibility. A small one, perhaps, for the white dragon, but a coin flip or higher for their egg-bearer, who was more likely to have spared them because she found them too insignificant to recall existing rather than any sort of twisted caring.

“Yes, he would have and you know it! They left us with the filth of humanity with the full expectation that we would die! I am sickened with you as well, you know, because you have lost yourself so greatly that you have thrived in humanity's foulness like you are born to it. They at least had the decency to despise me for being a wanting dragon; you have the indignity to think little of me for being a wanting human! But I suppose you always liked the pitiful creatures best...”

Miranda punches her clutch-brother in the eye, uncaring of the slime she gets on her fist and the howls and thrashes of pain that the red dragon makes. Her teeth are gritted shut against all the horrible things she wants to reply with so she can hurt him equally with barbed insults, but she's also angry enough that she's not sure she can form words from her fury at the moment.

“I DON'T KNOW WHY I BOTHER WITH YOU!” Miranda screams finally, interrupting her clutch-brother as turns on her angrily with a mouth open to hurl more abuse. “GOD, YOU DON'T RECEIVE COMFORT AT ALL, DO YOU? WELL, FINE! YOU CAN HAVE NO MORE OF THAT FROM ME!”

“Where are you going?” her clutch-brother demands angrily after her as she storms out of his cave.

“AWAY FROM YOU! HOME, PROBABLY! I HAVE TO PACK MY THINGS AND MOVE MY HOUSE BECAUSE OF THE MESS YOU MADE OF MY LIFE!”

“That was not a life worth living!”

Miranda screams in pure frustration, spinning around to fix the red dragon with a cold, silver stare. “Speak for yourself, you... you... you overgrown lizard! I'll do what I damn well please and live how I damn well like on this wretched planet! And if you ever have to speak to me again, have the decency to be human-shaped when you drop by or I won't be speaking to you!”

“Omi-”

“Weren't you meant for a greater life than one in hiding?” Miranda sneers, before she spins on one heel and calls over her shoulder as she walks out: “Get out of your memories and someone else's hoard then, Babakaltan, and prove it.”

Chapter Text

Thor is a good sort-of friend, as he listens quietly and with a kind expression to the brief overview of how Darcy's family is kind of fucked up. She doesn't get too into it though. Darcy just explains that her parents didn't care for her, left her be as long as she stayed out of their way, and never actively tried to kill her (which is more than can be said for Thor's family); that her siblings stayed far away and basically never came to visit; and that her childhood basically consisted of hanging out with her brother and a fat, cannibalistic fish named Whale.

Man, even slightly tipsy, it sounds pathetic and weird. But hey, Thor is probably the perfect audience for strange and crazy anecdotes about family history if even a quarter of that Norse mythology stuff has any actual basis. (On that note, Darcy desperately hopes for everyone's sake, especially Jane's, that none of that stuff has any actual basis. Please no.)

Mostly, Darcy just uses that as lead up to explain the story of the realm of Aslicem and Jahandar, the conqueror who killed it for the Stone of Stars. Bingley's pulled up quite a few books by their egg-sire on the subject over the years, and Darcy's a sucker for dragon stories, so she knows it better than most other dragon lore. The more she talks about it, the more it makes sense.

Like, how many madmen are connected to the slaughter of an entire race and have a thing for shiny rocks? There cannot be that many out there.

“I have never heard of this 'Jahandar' of whom you speak,” Thor says once Darcy finishes her story, looking extremely pensive. “But perhaps that is because that name was one given by your kind, and is not the one commonly used by my people or the other realms.”

“Could be,” Darcy agrees easily. “But the destruction of an entire planet had to have made the intergalatic news or something, there's got to be a lot of information someone that megalomaniacal out there somewhere. I mean, I don't think Asgard has old newspapers lyin' around exactly, but...”

Thor nods. “I am unfamiliar with the history of your kind myself, but it is likely that we have some knowledge on the subject. I heard many tales as a child of the Fire Lizards from the Brukkeht Space-Wastes, which I now know from you to truly be the Ruins of Aslicem; there will be a trail to follow, I am sure of it.” He turns to Darcy with an assuring look of promise in his eyes. “Finding the identity of Loki's ally will be one of my foremost priorities when we return to Asgard, as if it is someone that powerful, they cannot be left to their own devices.”

“Not if they're handing out armies left and right,” Darcy acknowledges, voice vague as she's caught on the tail end of a thought that's been bothering her. Thor remains respectfully silent, letting her focus in on this thing on the edge of her head – on the tip of her tongue – as she stares out into space.

Brukkeht Space -Wastes.

Darcy whirls on Thor, as much as she can while sitting at the edge of a helicarrier. “Fire Lizards is an Asgardian name for dragons, right? Like Frost Giants?” she asks, before getting side-tracked by also realizing that: “Wow, you guys are pretty literal when you name stuff, huh?”

“A recurring theme is beginning to appear to me,” Thor agrees with a good-humored smile. “But yes, Frost Giants is the Asgardian name. Jotuns and... Aslicem... are the native names of your people. What is your inquiry?”

“Where did the term Brukkeht Space-Wastes come from?” Darcy asks slowly, not because she thinks the question is difficult to understand, but because she feels that there may be more hinging on the answer than she knows.

Thor's brows furrow as he thinks about the answer. “Asgard as well, I believe. Is there significance to the name? It means 'broken' in one of the many tongues spoken in the realm of my people.”

“I figured. It's just that... I learned what a Frost Giant was when they invaded the Earth – from some Asgardian soldier or another,” Darcy reveals thoughtfully. “But I don't think that's where I first heard 'Brukkeht Space-Wastes' for the first time; I think I heard the term before that... which shouldn't be possible because that's when I first had contact with Asgard ever.”

“That is strange.”

“I mean, I don't think it's relevant to Jahandar or anything, but... ugh, something about it bothers me.”

“Perhaps time will give the matter some clarity,” Thor says comfortingly, patting Darcy's shoulder with one of his enormous hands. “The subject I am more concerned with is this Stone of Stars. I have not heard of it before, but I fear such power can only be another Infinity Stone.”

“A what?”

Thor gives Darcy a rather hilarious, wide-eyed look, as if he can't quite believe she doesn't know what he's talking about. “Ah,” he says awkwardly. “I had not been planning on telling anyone of Midgard the truth of the Tesseract...”

“I still don't know what that is,” Darcy inputs honestly, maybe more than a little just to hear the strangled noise that Thor makes in the back of his throat from surprise. “But if everyone's after it and it's anything like the Stone of Stars, then maybe...?”

“Yes, you will need to know. Listen carefully and... perhaps do not repeat this information to any of our Midgardian allies,” Thor says solemnly, “until we can be assured of their trustworthiness. I have yet to see any reason to distrust SHIELD, but the amount of omission in the face they present makes me unwilling to share some of the more dangerous information.”

Darcy nods, making a little criss-cross motion over her heart that Thor watches with confusion, although he does seem to grasp the overall meaning when she follows up with, “Your secrets are safe with me. Promise.”

Because she doesn't trust SHIELD either, not at all, much less not really. Darcy is willing to work with them while Loki presents a worse threat, but they're still really creepy and Darcy is a Poli Sci student – she's never known any of humanity's government agencies not to have skeletons of some kind of another in their closets. She's known few humans who don't.

“The Infinity Stones,” Thor begins, like he's recalling something he was told, “are six relics of immense, seemingly-infinite power that are said to be remnants of singularities that predate the universe itself. The Tesseract is one of these six, which is why Loki cannot be allowed to possess it in this mad state of his, whether he acts freely or under the influence of another. To destroy an entire planet is well within their renounced capabilities, each one of them, and thus if this Jahandar is to gain the Tesseract when he already possesses what is most likely one of its brethen...”

“Not good,” Darcy breathes fearfully.

“Very not good,” Thor agrees grimly. “What little on the Infinity Stones that I have told you, I know only from the stories of my youth and what information my lady mother collected before she sent me to this world. The possibilities of each one are supposedly endless when wielded by those born or made worthy of them, and I shudder to think what could be accomplished with one for each hand.”

Darcy wants to shudder, but she can't even think about what someone could manage with two Stones of Stars. One of those things managed to tear a flippin' planet apart, like shattering a marble with a hammer, reducing a massive life-sustaining globe to a wasteland in the void of space. She can't even begin to comprehend the destruction two of those things could wreak on the world – on entire solar systems probably.

“Does Loki even know what he has at the moment?” Darcy asks quietly.

She cannot quite decide which situation would be worse – yes or no. Loki is a rather unpredictable character at the moment and he's playing some sort of game where he hasn't told anyone else they're playing and he's making up the rules as he goes. Both options are terrible.

Thor's eyes go wide at this possibility. “I am uncertain,” he confesses easily. “He is more knowledgeable than I and cleverer by half – it is possible that he is well aware of what he has. But he, if what you have told me is true, may not be of his own mind. I would suggest that we do not bring the idea up to him, until we have ascertained his state and intentions.”

“Yeah, that sounds like a good idea.”

They definitely don't want to accidentally clue him in if he doesn't know. Like, he probably already knows, the sneaky bastard, but on the off-chance that he doesn't... they just shouldn't risk it.

“Man, why did you put the alcohol away again?” Darcy near-whines, leaning her head against the Asgardian's armored shoulder. She needs to down that whole thing, like, immediately, even though it would probably kill like ten regular people easy. Her buzz is wearing off and she needs a new one like she needs free pizza: all the time even when she doesn't and probably shouldn't.

“I have sworn to be more responsible than I was of previous,” Thor informs her with a grimace that tells her he really regrets that decision at the moment. He wraps an arm – wow, that's a lot of muscle – around her in an warm side-embrace as they look out at the slowly darkening sky.

Darcy sighs. It's been a long day.

“I am glad to have found such friends on Midgard,” Thor tells her genuinely. “I would never have dreamed that I would meet people such as you and Jane and Erik. I believe that being banished was the greatest betterment of me that I will ever know. My only regret is that I seem to have lost a brother along the way... although I fear I would have lost him regardless.”

“There's hope yet,” Darcy says, thinking back to her long list of memories. “I don't know what'll happen or how things will go, but I can tell you from experience... there's hope yet for things to turn out in the end. And for the record... I'm glad I met you too.”

~

They sit there for awhile longer, but not much longer, as they get interrupted by a voice familiar and dear to both of them. It comes from below and follows the sound of what's most likely a window being opened. Darcy would know that voice anywhere, the owner has been screeching and shouting and shrieking and screaming at her for the past several months after all.

“DARCYYYYYY!”

Darcy grabs onto Thor for support, he holds her human form weight with ease (wow, those arms, hot damn, good for Jane), and leans over the edge to get a better look at where the hell that's coming from. They're right above the lab, right? So it only makes sense that...

“JANE?”

“OH, THERE YOU ARE!” Jane yells against the wind, which had been pretty ignorable until now – it's a good thing Darcy has such good hearing and can bellow with the best of them (Jane). “SHIELD'S BEEN LOOKING FOR YOU AND SOMEONE SAID YOU WENT UP ON THE ROOF WITH THOR; IS HE WITH YOU?!”

“YEAH, HE'S RIGHT HERE! WHAT'S UP?”

“I WANT TO ASK YOU A FEW THINGS ABOUT THIS SCEPTER! CAN YOU COME DOWN HERE TO ANSWER THEM?! WAIT, THERE'S SOMETHING ELSE... WHAT?” Jane voice tones down a few (dozen) volumes for a moment, then she yells, “OH, AND ALSO SHIELD WANTS YOU OFF THE ROOF OR SOMETHING! WHAT? OKAY, SURE. AND THEY'D LIKE IT IF YOU COULD TELL THEM... WAIT, REPEAT THAT? ...WHEN OR IF YOU'RE GOING SOMEWHERE.”

“OH, RIGHT, TELL THEM SORRY ABOUT THAT!” Darcy shouts back, resisting the urge to facepalm because she'll probably fall off the roof if she does that. “I DIDN'T EXPECT TO BE GONE FOR SO LONG.” Then she recalls her pathetic phone battery levels from earlier – it's a miracle her phone lasted as long as it did. “I THINK MY PHONE DIED.”

“I KNOW! I TRIED TO TEXT AND CALL YOU BUT YOU DIDN'T ANSWER!”

“SORRY!”

“THAT'S OKAY, BUT... WHAT? WHAT?” Jane breaks off again and someone presumably interrupts her to ask that Darcy and Thor just get the fuck off the roof already. “OH. PLEASE JUST GET DOWN HERE THEN, I'LL TELL YOU ABOUT THIS THING LATER.”

“OKAY! SEE YOU IN A BIT!” Darcy shouts back, before turning to Thor to make some comment about getting moving, but his pained expression gives her pause.

“I have known revelries that were not as resounding,” he says with an obvious wince.

It takes Darcy a moment to translate that into proper Midgardian English, but once she gets it, suddenly a lot of things make a lot more sense. “Ohhhh, so that's why Erik's kept randomly passively-aggressively mentioning how he was going deaf. I thought he was just being weirdly crotchety about getting old.”

~

A pair of random SHIELD agents flag them down as Thor and Darcy are getting off the roof, having apparently been sent by the Son of Coul himself to escort them to confer with the Director on something or rather and to the laboratory respectively. Darcy, now confronted with what she's been up to, feels a little embarrassed by herself and uncomfortable being back under SHIELD scrutiny, but Thor makes her feel better by just being... Thor.

Thor has absolutely no shame, like his business is just his business and that's that, and he walks in all cool and composed like he's doing them a favor by getting off their roof. He is over a thousand years old and the Crown Prince of Asgard after all; it must be one of those things you get from being royalty. Darcy remembers how casually Thor blew SHIELD off just before he left Earth for the first time, Thor doesn't answer to SHIELD and probably never will.

Man, Asgardians must piss SHIELD off, like, so much.

They part ways inside, Thor's hand slipping off Darcy's shoulder after a warm squeeze as they're led down different ends of one of the airbase's many hallways. Just watching him go with confidence like that is enough to give Darcy some confidence of her own, because it's nice to know that here was someone who could and would take all her scales and secrets in stride – who had magic and mythology as an accepted and understood part of their life – who actually had her and Jane's backs.

Thor was right. It's good to have friends.

Darcy gets led through the complicated maze of hallways towards the lab, and now that's she's more familiar with them and the concept of a flying airbase, the maze starts to make a little more sense. She takes care to memorize the route she's being shown now and where other things seem to be respectively to it; SHIELD doesn't seem keen on landmarks much, but with her sense of scent and the constant whir of the engines, Darcy is pretty sure she'll manage if need be.

Because... by how things are going? Need will most definitely be.

Chapter Text

Actually walking into the lab she knocked on earlier, Darcy is pretty wowed. It looks even more fancy tech-y and futuristic in the full human-sized experience. If someone wearing a Starfleet uniform walked in right now, she'd just accept it – no questions asked, that made sense, no issues here. Helicarrier going into warp speed? Sure.

Stark is doing something on one of those fancy screens that basically looks like flashy numbers and symbols and things, tapping away at it like a game app, while Banner is at another, busy pouring over what looks like graphs and data of something, a readings meter of some kind in one hand. Past them, by a window, is that horrible blue spear-thing, which just sits there... glowing ominously... making the back of Darcy's neck prickle. Jane is thankfully far from it, sitting on the other side of the room with a computer tablet and a spread of papers in front of her.

Darcy immediately plops herself down across from her friend. “So what's up, buttercup?”

Jane's head snaps up like she's just now noticed Darcy's entered the room, which is probably true. On the other side of the lab, Banner's head whips about similarly, but Stark barely glances in their direction. Darcy has a feeling he noticed her come into view – he's a little too tense to not have.

“We're trying to establish common ground between that thing and the Tesseract,” Jane answers in a grumble, looking back at her papers and waving a hand towards the scepter. “But the most we've managed to get is that the gamma radiation readings -” She waves the same hand at Doctor Banner now. “- so far seem consistent with SHIELD and Erik's research on the Tesseract.”

“Seem consistent?”

Jane nods, shuffling through a few papers of familiar handwriting (Erik's) and then looking expectantly towards Banner for a better explanation. It takes the frazzled man a second to catch on, but he awkwardly hurries to put the readings meter down and swing his screen around once he does, pulling up a large line graph and clearing his throat.

“According to the recorded data, the Tesseract's radiation levels seem to have... a pattern to them,” Banner says, tapping a part of his screen to make the graph slowly move along the x-axis, the levels changing up and down. There's nothing exactly consistent about it, and sometimes there are random spikes or drops, but... Darcy's eyes narrow.

“That looks kinda like a heartbeat,” she says, and then when Jane and Doctor Banner both look at her strangely, tacks on, “Well... not a human one... obviously.”

Banner stares at the screen for awhile, tapping it to make the graph's sliding speed up. “It sort of does,” he says, mostly to himself. Then he looks back at Darcy and Jane. “Right, so, SHIELD's had the Tesseract for... well... this is years of data, and we've had the scepter for... about a couple hours maybe? Its radiation levels are definitely in line with what the Tesseract's produced, but they're a lot more... lively.”

With a few quick taps, he pulls up what looks like a spreadsheet and stares at it in confusion for a few moments, before tapping on the screen again and pulling up what he had before. With his brow furrowing, he taps again, and then again with a little more force, and then he turns to Stark and says, “Uh... I can't... it's... again...”

Tony Stark, the Iron Man himself, who has definitely been pretending (badly) not to be listening to this entire conversation, sighs and steps over to Banner's screen. With a tap, a slide, and another tap, a second line graph appears on the fancy glass display, moving like the first one was. Then he steps smoothly back to his own screen with a pat on Doctor Banner's shoulder as he goes.

“I swear, it's like neither of you have ever worked in the twenty-first century before,” Stark mutters, loudly enough for the entire room to hear, his fingers deftly moving over his own screen like he's playing a whole symphony with one hand.

Banner's cheeks color slightly while Jane ducks her head and mumbles something about how it's not exactly easy to get decent funding when everyone thinks you're crazy even when you were actually right all along and are going to prove it with or without fancy-schmancy equipment. Hah. Bitter much?

“Right, so, um, as you can see here, the brief readings we've taken from the scepter so far have the same sort of... heartbeat, if you will, but at some sort of accelerated rate,” Banner says, a hand pointing at what is clearly a brief loop of readings – like the Tesseract's graph but extremely sped up. “From what we can tell, just by looking at the data, it's actually most similar to the readings from the Tesseract right before... well... it was stolen.”

Banner trails off awkwardly, looking at Darcy warily, and Jane, who (bless her little heart) is blissfully oblivious to this, picks up his scientific explanation slack.

“We're trying to get other sorts of readings for comparisons,” she continues, flipping through a few more papers, “but the gamma readings are Bruce's specialty and they're the strongest and most consistent emission identified from the Tesseract.”

Banner nods. “Unfortunately, any actual, in-depth research would need weeks of readings and testing. This little we have alone is going to take weeks to process, less if we actually had a program ready to do it and the processing power to run it.”

“Which I do and am in the middle of bringing together,” Stark interrupts, proving that yes, he was definitely listening the entire time. He somehow manages to slide the graphs and data from Banner's screen onto his own, which startles the other man slightly, and then punches a button on a briefcase that flips open to reveal yet another fancy piece of future tech, with a screen that immediately comes to life, blinking brightly.

Doctor Banner stares at it with a rather bewildered smile. “All I packed was a toothbrush.”

Stark grins over his shoulder before he goes back to his numbers and data. “SHIELD's not a very good host, but Stark Tower, on the other hand, has better tech and complimentary toothbrushes. You should come for a stay sometime. You too,” he adds, with a look towards Jane and a brief glance at Darcy before looking back at Banner. “Top ten floors are all R&D. You'd love it, it's a candy-land – tech so sweet you need that complimentary toothbrush.”

Banner grabs his pen from the table, nervously fiddling it as he swings his screen back to where it was before. “Thanks, but the last time I was in New York, I got into a fight and kind of broke...” He pauses for a moment to find the right word. “...Harlem.”

If Darcy had a drink, she would have done a spit-take. The words 'fight' and 'Harlem' come together in her head and the only incident she can come up with is the Harlem wreckage where the giant, naked green man that fought the military on Culver campus went toe to toe with some other massive creature. She stares at this frumpy-looking man with wide-eyes and something in her head just kind of clicks.

( “Just like the way you lose control and turn into an enormous green rage-monster. Wholly unique.”)

“Holy shit, you're the Incredible Hulk,” Darcy says loudly, still more than a little stunned because this adorable mop of a human being looks nothing like the thing in the shaky videos she watched before they got taken down off all the streaming sites.

God, she must have seen those videos a thousand times, they got passed around the Culver campus like a bottle of booze during the Roaring Twenties. Darcy would know. They weren't supposed to, but damned if they'd be stopped and everyone was doing it because 'wow, no' to not. Even Bingley had seen them a few times, and not just because of Darcy, although he was of the opinion that 'this is obviously just what happens when humans try to do things'. That whole thing was now Culver legend and Darcy's must've heard hundreds of theories on it by now.

She might know better than anyone that appearances mean jack, but... wow. How even-?

Banner drops his pen and fumbles with it for a few moments for getting a handle on it again. He stares, startled, at her for a few moments afterwards, lost for words, before looking towards Stark for... well, who knows what. Unfortunately for him, Stark just stares back unhelpfully with a raised eyebrow, not stopping his screen-tapping for a second as he does.

Jane, meanwhile, is staring at Darcy with shrewd eyes. “They didn't give you a briefing package at all, did they?” her friend asks knowingly.

“I honestly didn't know what the Tesseract was until, like, ten minutes ago when Thor told me.”

Jane tsks, dropping the papers in her hands like hot potatoes in favor of picking up some more. Darcy automatically reaches over to straighten the mess that her friend's made of the table she's been given, ordering things a little so they at least won't fall to the ground and so the table's still visible.

Then Darcy remembers that she just sort of dropped a bomb on the poor dude she has yet to say sorry to; she turns to look at him and grimaces apologetically. “I... uh... sorry, I just realized that and um... I'm a Culver student, sort of... actually let's just pretend I never said anything. And I'm also sorry that I startled you earlier when I knocked on the window, that had to be a... surprise.”

“Yes,” Banner agrees faintly, still looking a little startled.

He clearly forces himself to take a deep breath and Darcy immediately stomps down on the urge to ask him what this green rage-monster thing is all about because he looks so damn tired and stressed, even though she's desperately curious because wow... what the hell... wow. She'll just ask Jane later.

“It's cool though,” Darcy assures him, grabbing Jane's computer tablet thing before her friend can knock it off the table. “I mean, I can't exactly comment on people turning into giant, destructive monster-like things. It'd be way hypocritical, dude.”

Jane rolls her eyes, while Stark snorts, maybe a little despite himself, and Banner visibly calms down at their relaxed cues. He tucks his pen back behind his ears and picks up the readings meter again, pulling up something else on his screen and turning away, obviously prepared to go back to work.

Stark ruins that though, as his whole body seems to become charged with the beginnings of a rant. “Now, what I can't understand,” he comments almost conversationally, “is just why everyone is just so accepting of the dragon thing. I mean, I get the alien Norse Gods thing – it doesn't make sense to me, but I can roll with it – but dragons? Color me confused... and curious.”

He finally turns away from his screen, pinning Darcy with a surprisingly sharp and intense stare as the human-shaped dragon tries to make order of one of the paper stacks. Next to him, Banner is watching everything, meter held uselessly over nothing as if he's forgotten its there. Next to Darcy, Jane gives Stark a disinterested look before looking about for her computer tablet thing, which Darcy immediately hands to her.

“How does this even work?” Stark demands, waving a hand over Darcy's entire body.

“If you say magic, I'll smack you,” Jane says before Darcy can even open her mouth, grabbing the tablet and making some kind of incoherent note on it that Darcy knows she'll end up having to translate into English for the astrophysicist later.

Darcy sighs. “Well, what else can I say?”

“Something actually scientifically and logically viable?” Stark suggests with false brightness.

“Magic is plenty those things,” Darcy argues half-heartedly, mostly because she can feel Bingley's righteous offense at that statement and her clutch-brother wasn't even here to hear it. “It's just that I don't know how it works and probably wouldn't tell you even if I knew. Would it help if I told you that like Thor, I'm also kind of an alien? I mean, first generation Earth citizen, but-”

“You didn't tell me that,” Jane says, looking up with a frown.

“It didn't really come up? I mean, I've never actually left the planet or anything, so it's not really something that I regularly think about. Like, I don't normally go about thinking about how dragons are a thing from space and I am one – it's mostly all where did I leave my phone and we're out of coffee, better add it to the list again up in here.”

“You are distressingly normal for a beast of myth,” Stark announces, like he's lost faith in hope, dreams, and all ideals ever. “I thought dragons were supposed to be fierce and fiery beasts, not... Culver University students? God, Culver, the shame.”

Jane and Banner both give him this look, immediately offended.

“Oh wait, you two both got paychecks from Culver,” Stark seems to realize, a little too late but completely without shame. “I never said anything then, ignore that last bit. But the point before that bit stands. What's a dragon doing tangling with SHIELD and Norse Gods?”

“They started it,” Darcy answers in a knee-jerk response, because absolutely nothing about this conversation really feels real to her. Tony Stark is talking to her and she's on the Enterprise and what has her life even become. She shrugs and follows up with, “Loki took one of my friends – kind of a coincidence and series of random happenstances sort of thing. At least, I hope so. Anyway, what's a guy who works in clean energy doing trying to cut in-?”

Darcy cuts herself off by lunging for a slew of papers before they can slide off the table. “Jane, holy mother of Thor, what the hell are all these papers? And why can't you go through them at a speed that would actually make me believe that you're reading them?”

“I am reading them!” Jane protests. “They're just... there's not that much that can actually be read. These are Erik's notes from his work with the Tesseract, which is what SHIELD took him to go do in the first place, and they just sort of... the only reason we have easy, workable data on the Tesseract at the moment is because of all of SHIELD's stuff and I basically stumbled on some of Erik's more legible notes right off the bat.”

Banner speaks up here. “I wish she'd been here when I first got here,” he says, like an admiring confession of sorts. “It took me fifteen minutes just to get a packet of Professor Selvig's notes in order, much less start to make sense of his shorthand.”

“We're been trying to get him to type things up, but it's a work in progress,” Jane says apologetically, putting down some papers neatly for once before reaching for a previous packet and flipping it open and making another note on her tablet.

Darcy eyes the future machine of torture with hatred. “You're pretty bad too.”

“Not half as bad as he is.”

“...alright,” Darcy allows, because that's more or less mostly true.

Banner sighs, finally moving to use the readings meter on the scepter again. “It was like having to edit the prof's papers in grad school all over again!” he states passionately, clearly glad to be on the other side of the room from Jane and her terrible table of papers.

“Say it, brother,” says Jane.

Stark looks between them with amusement, specifically focusing on Banner. “Is this really all it takes for you to get worked up? Paperwork? I mean, electric shocks are nothing against your fearsome yoga routine, but reading through another person's notes? Really?”

Banner looks at Stark with an expression akin to pity. “Show him,” he tells Jane.

The tiny woman immediately grabs a specific paper and stands – not that there's much of a difference – to shove the sheet in Stark's face. Tony Stark backs up like Darcy imagines a vampire might cringe away from a holy cross, or Bingley might and has from the Facebook sign-up page.

“I don't like being handed things in general,” Stark says, “much less paper. I have traumatic memories of being handed pape- Is that diagram supposed to have five different planes?”

Jane flips the paper back around and frowns at it. “Oh god,” she realizes in horror. “I thought there were only four. You're right, there are supposed to be five. Damn it, Erik!” She sits back down to make another note on her tablet, jabbing at the poor screen angrily as she does.

“Wait, are you telling me that we need to sort through this to get needed data?” Stark asks, staring at the pile of papers with what's either new respect or new horror. It's probably new horror.

Banner snorts, still taking readings from the scepter. “Thankfully no,” he says. “Well, probably not. SHIELD has more than enough years of data on the cube's radiation – decades even – that we probably won't need the scepter at all to find it. I've got the signature readings set, all I have to do now is work out a tracking algorithm to find that signature, which is... coming along.” He looks at his screen and sighs. “Sort of. It's been awhile since I've coded anything.”

“Now that's something I can do. Why didn't you tell me?” Stark steps up to Banner's glass screen without waiting for a response, immediately poking around and sliding things about. “Gimme, gimme, where is this? Where is the code? Show me the code.”

“Here,” Banner says, stepping over to point at something on the screen.

Darcy looks over at Jane, who's still tapping angrily into her tablet.

“Scientific progress is kind of a mess,” Darcy says to her.

Jane gives a small huffing laugh. “You say that like you didn't know that already.”

“Yeah... so, what did you want to ask me?”

“Mostly I just wanted your take on this, given your... unique perspective on all this,” the other woman says, finally setting down the paper and looking up from the tablet. “I mean, I checked the timing of the Tesseract's energy surges that became Loki's portal here... they basically line up perfectly with your and your brother's sensing that something was up. You felt it from miles and miles away, you've got to have something to tell us about all this.”

Darcy chances a looking at the glowing blue piece of crap she had in her stomach, staring at it's sickly shine with an obvious grimace. That thing is still making the back of her neck prickle uncomfortably, and she kind of wants to tell Stark and Banner to get the fuck away from it before it somehow manages to kill somebody just by being in the room.

“I don't know,” Darcy mumbles, folding her arms on the table surface and putting her head on them so she care stare at the spear more comfortably. “If I ever sensed anything from the Tesseract, I didn't know what it was at the time, and pretty much the only thing I can tell you about that thing is that it tastes like crap and it just feels wrong.”

“Wrong how?”

“It just gives off this thing like nails on a chalkboard or a bad aftertaste you can't get rid of or something. Like, it's like that thing shouldn't even exist – it's like magic but sick, and I mean, like, ill and perverse – but does and it's just... squicky.”

“Hmmm,” comments Jane, giving the blue spear a studying look of her own. “It does have an... odd feel to it, since you gave it over at least. Do you think that thing has the same portal-making capabilities as the Tesseract apparently does?”

Darcy takes a moment to consider it. “No,” she answers finally. “I don't think so. I couldn't tell you why, but it's just... that thing's too malicious and not the right type for that sort of thing, I think. It's... If you tried to make anything from that thing, it'd come out broken, I guarantee it.”

The two of them stare at the eerie blue glow to the thing for a bit, and Darcy's thoughts wander warily towards the thought that this thing might be powered by an Infinity Stone. Hell, that thing could be powered by the Stone of Stars itself for all she knows, especially if everyone's saying that it's just so damn like that cube everyone's after.

“Tell me about the Tesseract,” Darcy asks, turning her head away from the scepter to look up at her friend imploringly, but with enough solemnity to let Jane know she's serious about this. “What'd'you know about it? Why would people want it?”

Jane gives the dragon a fathomless look, then brings up a picture on her tablet, an objects that slowly rotates in places on an otherwise black screen. It's a cube, an actual six-sided, x-cubed, six-times-x-squared cube. And the stupid thing glows, very nearly the same way the scepter seems to.

“I don't know much, SHIELD's had it for years but they're either not sharing everything or their database people are useless.”

“Go with both, it's safest.”

Jane cracks a small smile before continuing. “They're got years of radiation and energy readings – huge amounts of data on it and I mean huge – but the only project that it says it's been tied to is Spacial Transportation. The weird thing is, it's only very recently been brought into their Spacial Transportation research for some reason.”

“Is the reason six foot plus and blond?”

“Probably. So apparently Spacial Transportation was its own thing, and Erik comes in to tie them together. In his notes, Erik says here that SHIELD originally just wanted to use the Tesseract as a power source, but then comes to the kinda random conclusion that this cube is actually a door to the other end of space. It's strange, I've never known Erik to be this... well, incoherent... all of a sudden he states making hypotheses and coming to conclusions left and right. He thinks that something like this was what fueling the Bifrost, which makes sense, I guess.”

“Something had to be,” Darcy agrees, eyes still fixed on that rotating image of the cube.

“Right, so he and SHIELD were trying to experiment with that... small scale in the beginning, although it seems to escalate really quickly. Judging by some of these results, it's no wonder Loki stole the iridium. Trying to utilize the cube as a power source and getting usable energy out of it needs a stabilizing agent. SHIELD had some that it'd been offering up and using for Erik's project, probably from whatever else I'm guessing they've been using the cube to power, but-”

“What?”

Darcy and Jane both turn to look at their interruption, who is unsurprisingly none other than Tony Stark, who's a lot closer than the last time Darcy looked. He and Banner are both a lot closer, seemingly having abandoned whatever they'd been working on to listen to Jane, although Banner is hanging back slightly while Tony Stark is advancing on their table with a finger pointed intensely at Jane.

“Sorry,” Stark says, “but repeat that?”

Jane gives him a bewildered look, glancing at all the notes in front of her like what she just said was the easiest conclusion in the world to come to. She looks at Stark with a mixture of disbelief and wariness, like she's not entirely sure she wants to get into this.

“Well, just looking through all of this, it talks a bit about the difficulty of extracting usable power from the cube. The data here... wait, no, here... says it's extremely unstable and Erik's notes agree, and there's... well, a lot of stuff on stabilizing agents. Which ones failed horribly and which ones worked... a bit. Efficiency, deterioration, radiation emissions, bad reactions. It's all a lot more than Erik would have been able to test, and he's got no notes on most of them, not even a mention,” Jane explains, pulling a few papers to the top to point at Erik's terrible scribble. She shrugs and concludes:

“So I just have to think that SHIELD looks like it knows a lot more about trying to get useful energy out of the Tesseract – energy that can actually power human-made things – than they should unless they've been trying to use the cube to power something else. This isn't just readings, this is planned results.”

Darcy can't help but stare, and out of the corner of her eye, she can see that Stark and Banner are doing the exact same thing. Jane might have seemed like a madwoman, flipping through papers and basically flinging them left and right, but goddamn. The woman's no gamma-radiation-physicist or poly-field engineer and inventor or whatever, but she's still a physicist and she's clearly still been keeping herself busy all the same.

“I like you,” Stark announces suddenly, like he honestly might present Jane with a friendship bracelet at any moment that declares them bound for all eternity. “I'm keeping you.” He turns to Banner with a rather accusing look, even pointing a finger. “I knew SHIELD was up to something! See? I'm always right about these things!”

Banner doesn't even try to argue, staring at the mess of papers like he already knew his life sucked, but he just got professional confirmation and a signed certificate to show to people so he can prove that it sucks. He bows his head and pinches his nose, his pen slipping to the floor in a clatter as Stark strides (bounds) across the room and quickly works to pull something up on one of the fancy glass screens.

“Up top, sister,” Darcy says to her friend, holding her hand out for a high-five that Jane returns immediately with a bashfully-proud little grin, because she's an adorable badass like that apparently. Man, forget anything said earlier, Darcy picks awesome humans.

Then someone purposefully clears their throat, and all four of them swivel to the doorway to stare at the person standing in it.

“This sounds like it might be a bad time,” Steve says calmly, stepping into the room and closing the door behind him. “But please, don't stop on my account.”

Chapter Text

“This sounds like it might be a bad time,” Steve says calmly, stepping into the room and closing the door behind him. “But please, don't stop on my account.”

For a long moment, none of them move or speak, much less answer that prompt.

Steve steps further into the room, settling into a tense standing rest. He looks around at all of them, who are mostly at a loss for words Darcy is pretty sure (all her thoughts and answers have completely vanished from her head, the assholes), his expression undecipherable. Then he turns his head to focus his stare on Stark, who's standing at his screen with a hand frozen in the air.

“...And here I thought those golden olden days were the epitome of manners,” Stark says finally, breaking eye contact to continue tapping at the screen, a little more carefully this time. “Didn't anyone ever teach you that it's rude to enter a room without knocking, Mister Rogers?”

“They might have, but I also got taught that it gives people time to reach for their guns,” Steve replies evenly, folding his arms over his star-spangled chest. “You think SHIELD is hiding something.”

It's not a question.

Stark snorts. “Have you met Fury? He's a spy, Cap; he's the spy. His secrets have secrets their other secrets don't know about – of course he's hiding something. Everything about this Tesseract mess has been suspicious from the beginning.” He nods towards Banner as he works. “Bruce, you've been here the longest. It's been bugging you too, hasn't it?”

Banner – Bruce – grimaces as Steve's attention turns to him, bending down to snatch up his pen from the floor, and then fiddling it his hands as he stands again – slouching slightly, like he's trying to make himself smaller. “It has,” he confesses under Steve's (hopefully unintentionally) intense stare. “Doctor Foster-”

“Jane,” the woman in question immediately corrects.

“Jane,” Bruce amends, “has just said that all the data points towards SHIELD trying to get energy from the cube – Professor Selvig's experiments definitely prove it – but for what?” He pauses then, like he's uncertain how to phrase himself. “I'd... I'd even say that Loki made a jab about it to Fury earlier. Um... 'True power; unlimited power' – and then he mocked Fury for having some sort of ambition for that power – for the cube.”

“'A warm light for all mankind to share',” Steve replies, sounding softer than before. “I heard.”

Bruce nods, as if that single sentence proves his point entirely. “Exactly. So if SHIELD's been using the Tesseract just for energy purposes – altruistic purposes – why wouldn't Fury bring in the man who's been making all the breakthroughs in self-sustaining energy? It doesn't add up.” He gestures towards Stark, adding thoughtfully, “I think part of that jab was meant for you too, by the way.”

“Mmm, you're making me blush,” Stark replies with a small grin, before looking back at Steve with an impersonal distance. “I'm kind of the only name in clean energy right now. Which -” he looks specifically at Darcy, less unfriendly. “- is what the guy who works in clean energy is doing trying to cut in. First rule of business is to know your competition.”

Darcy has to put her hands up in an unspoken gesture of 'alright, you win on that point' at that, because things are all starting to make a little more sense now. It's interesting – all of this is just fascinating – to watch, to listen, and to observe. Especially because she's not really getting answers, mostly just a whole lot of questions, but she knows questions have a habit of becoming answers themselves if you pay them some mind.

Stark turns away, looking satisfied, focusing on Jane instead. “Jane the dragon-tamer, come show me this Tesseract data of SHIELD's,” he beckons. “I bet I can follow it back to the sensitive stuff Fury has under a parental control block. We'll be able to figure out what SHIELD's been doing with the cube a lot faster if my decryption program knows exactly which of his secure files have the goodies.”

“Decryption program?” Jane echoes warily, even as she pulls up the files in question on her tablet. “What decryption program?” she asks, getting up to hand it over, cautiously peering at the glass screen as she puts the tablet down on the counter next to the man.

Stark snatches it up and attaches some small device to it that Darcy's pretty sure he pulled out of his shirt sleeve somehow. Then puts it back down, the tiny attachment blinking away.

She'd suspect wizardry of some kind if not for the fact she doesn't catch a whiff of magic and Stark, from what she's gathered of his personality so far, would probably be so offended at the idea that he'd clutch a hand over his heart, give a gasp of outrage, and stumble so far backwards that he'd tumble off the edge of the helicarrier. Then get his Iron Man suit to catch him so he could come back and be offended to her face.

Man, she hopes Bingley shows up soon. She misses his stupid lizard-butt way more than she should.

“JARVIS has been running since I hit the bridge,” Stark tells Jane more than a little proudly.

Who the hell is Jarvis? Darcy wonders, but doesn't interrupt because the reminder of her clutch-brother has made her a little melancholy and this feels like Capital-M Moment of some kind. Tony effing Stark and Captain goddamn America are... well, it doesn't really get more modern-day American mythical and legendary than this.

“In a few short hours, we'll know every dirty secret SHIELD has ever tried to hide from us,” Stark announces to the room at large. He looks at Steve, saying in obvious challenge, “Do we have a problem here... Captain?”

Steve doesn't answer immediately. Instead, he just gives Stark this look and then tears his eyes away from Stark to look at the small woman standing next to him. Both Stark and Jane are visibly surprised by the sudden focus shift – Stark probably from being ignored (not something that happens to him often, Darcy would wager) and Jane probably because Captain America is looking at her.

“You're absolutely certain that SHIELD's been trying to power human-made machines with the cube?” Steve asks – not unkindly, just... intense – as he focuses entirely on Darcy's friend.

Jane sticks out out her chin and stands a little taller, which is kind of pointless considering she's the shortest person in the room, and Darcy carefully (almost unconsciously) slides from her seat to her feet so she can move to Jane's side if necessary. They can be short and argumentative side by side together, or maybe Darcy can boost Jane up on her shoulders (she's certainly strong enough) and the little astrophysicist can tower over everyone else for once.

But, then again, Jane's never let the fact that she's tiny and often outnumbered stop her from saying whatever the hell needs to be said.

“Absolutely,” Jane replies without a shadow of doubt in her tone.

Steve nods in acceptance and looks back at Stark. “Those files are secure for a reason,” he says with decided firmness (although there's something that might be a faint waver of uncertainty, just maybe), gesturing towards the screen. “But as long as you can guarantee their security, then I'd rather know what the cube's been used for than not.”

That sounds like the Steve that Darcy knows, so his response seems more or less unsurprising to her, but Stark basically gapes like the sky just fell down. The man's mouth opens and closes a few times, like he had several sarcastic and snarky responses prepared but, running through the loop of them, Steve's answer made them all invalid. Jane and Bruce both look at him with concern.

“That was not what I was expecting you'd say,” Stark mumbles finally, tucking one hand under the other arm's elbow and that arm's hand on his chin. He looks Steve's terrible red, white, and blue outfit up and down like he's reevaluating Steve entirely – horrible fashion choices possibly included.

Steve raises an eyebrow and waits.

“You don't trust SHIELD,” Stark concludes finally, like he's discovered something impossible.

“SHIELD probably doesn't trust SHIELD,” Steve answers without missing a beat, unfolding and refolding his arms, clearly making a challenge of his own. “I don't know who you think I am, Mister Stark, but I'd appreciate it if you stopped confusing me with them. Loki's trying to wind us all up; you don't need to help him.”

Darcy wants to wince – so she does – because ouch, damnit, Steve, ouch. Next to Stark, Jane subtly bites the inside of her cheek and starts scooting her way back to where Bruce and Darcy are standing, out of the possible line of fire. Bruce, meanwhile, has his eyebrows basically at his hairline and stares completely unhelpfully back at the disbelieving Tony Stark, whose face is saying, 'did I honestly just hear that?'

Darcy can hear the answering 'you got yourself into this, you get yourself out'.

And Stark clearly accepts this challenge. Straightening his shoulders, he steps up to start widely circling Steve slowly, switching direction when he's run out of space and very seriously paying attention now.

“So-! What has SHIELD done to lose the trust of the guy who carries around their namesake?” Stark asks with cutting casualness. “Was it the spangly outfit? It was, wasn't it?”

“Losing it implies they had it in the first place,” Steve answers, just as cuttingly, and Darcy notices that his fists are clenched. He's obviously uncomfortable with Stark's vulture-like tendencies here.

Stark, because he's got a natural talent for assholery apparently, stops, but only to step further into Steve's space. “Well said,” he congratulates with a falsely sympathetic grin, “but that didn't really answer the question. You're a living legend, Cap, it's hard to imagine that SHIELD hasn't been on their very bestest behavior for you since they pulled you out of the ice.”

“You'd be surprised,” Steve replies coldly, any warmth disappearing completely at the mention of ice.

Darcy turns away from their little face-off to look at Jane, who has now reached her side of the table again, opposite Darcy but close, as the dragon wished she could be always for her peace of mind.

“Ice?” Darcy whispers curiously, thinking back on some previous comments-

( “You might have missed a couple things, you know, doing time as a Capsicle. You should have asked your walking flame-thrower friend to thaw you out – could have given you some time to stretch first.” )

- and desperately wishing that someone had thought to give her that briefing. She wants to defuse this confrontation because it gets worse – leave it to Steve to start something anytime, anyplace – but she doesn't know Tony Stark beyond the tabloids (which are a good character reference for nobody) and she doesn't have a clue what's happened to Steve in the seventy-something years since she's seen him last. Plus, she wasn't exactly his friend then.

Jane looks back at Darcy with an expression somewhere between I'll tell you later and something has to be done here, then looks back at the confrontation in front of them with a little sigh and determined resolve that immediately makes Darcy think oh no. The tiny astrophysicist dodges Darcy subtle attempt at a grab across the table (which isn't very subtle at all), stepping around the baffled/bemused Bruce, putting herself right in between Steve and Stark, and then shoves hard with her small hands.

Both men are surprised enough at the intervention and impact that they actually take a few steps back.

Darcy dismally remembers that this is the woman who actually ran towards the Destroyer and isn't even surprised really. Jane would probably go punch Loki in the face herself if nobody stopped her – wait, who is Darcy kidding? Jane would definitely do that, there's no 'probably' about it. Which is why she loves Jane, she really does, it's just that it drives her instincts a little wild and Darcy doesn't want to pick up a nervous twitch or something.

“What was that,” Jane demands bluntly of the both of them, “about not letting Loki wind people up?”

“Nice,” Darcy murmurs, unable to help herself. That's a really good one.

Stark and Steve, both still seeming a little surprised (at what, Darcy can only guess, but it seems more at themselves than anything), exchange a carefully look between them. They appear to deflate slightly, the both of them, as the tension visibly sinks out of their shoulders.

Job done, Jane approvingly steps back to stand by Bruce and Darcy again. Darcy is all ready to congratulate her friend for being a boss, but that gets cut off, as Jane moving suddenly gives Darcy a clear look at the scepter on the other side of the room again.

If it were possible for a questionably-animate weapon to look innocent, that's the sort of vibe the hideous thing was giving off. She feels like all her hairs are standing on end watching its sick blue glow shine. Darcy instantly glares at it threateningly, instinctively, just in case, trying her utmost to intimidate and silently communicate that she's going to do something if she catches it trying anything.

She doesn't care what SHIELD says, that wrong thing is getting handed straight over to her clutch-brother when he shows up. (If he shows up. No, no, Bing will definitely show up. He won't leave her to a fight with Frost Giants and planet-destroyers about, even if he only knows about the first.)

Jane pokes her in the ribs.

“Ow, Jane. What?” Darcy hisses, smacking her friend's very pointy, jabby fingers away.

This is when Darcy stops her staring contest with the scepter because she's realized that everyone in the room – Jane, Stark, Steve, and Bruce – is staring at her. Stark and Steve have very wide eyes, eyebrows raised high, and Bruce has even backed away from her a little. Jane, on the other hand, has sidled closer, but she looks nervous. They all look nervous, or at least wary.

“You were, um, snarling,” says Jane. “Very, uh, loudly. And it didn't sound very... human. ”

“Oh. Uh... sorry? Wait, what?”

Jane stares at her like she's utterly incomprehensible. “You just started growling all of a sudden,” the other woman explains, not slowly, but carefully. “And glaring at the scepter.” She glances at the horrible thing worriedly, stepping closely into Darcy's space. “Is – is something wrong?”

Not that she's certain she can coherently explain.

“It's nothing,” Darcy answers reflexively before she realizes that not sharing her feelings is a damn stupid thing to do. “Just... it's just that everybody might want to, um, check their anger?”

By the unimpressed, polite confusion on the faces around her, that's definitely not coherent enough.

Darcy sighs and gestures towards the Frost Giant's weapon. “That thing is... doing something, I think,” she tells them with an honest shrug. “I don't know how to contain it or do something about it without blowing out all the tech in this room -”

Stark makes a choking noise.

“- so just... check your anger? If you start feeling agitated, ask yourself why?” Darcy suggests with another shrug, slipping her fingers through Jane's at her side in an act of reassurance for the both of them. Then she looks out at the three men they're in the room with and eyes the scepter again. “And... okay, look, can we just not have this extremely manly posturing thing, please?”

“Please,” Jane echoes immediately.

“Yeah, it's, like, really captivating to watch, but if Loki's trying to wind people up, then that's not the kind of conversations that should be being had,” Darcy tells the room, focusing specifically on Steve and Stark, because if she's going to talk, then she's going to speak up all the way on this. Go big or go home, damn it. “Whatever you guys have to work out, this is a lot bigger than that.”

( “The Infinity Stones are six relics of immense, seemingly-infinite power that are said to be remnants of singularities that predate the universe itself... To destroy an entire planet is well within their renounced capabilities, each one of them...” )

“I promise you,” Darcy says, warily watching the scepter on the other side of the room, “that SHIELD is messing with something that is a whole other level of dangerous.” She looks around at all of them, doing her best to be earnest. “I know I said that I didn't know what the Tesseract was until very recently and I'm not sure what could even be made from it, b-”

“Weapons.”

Darcy fixes her focus on Steve, just like everyone else in the room. “What?”

“The cube – the Tesseract – can be used to make weapons,” Steve answers grimly, looking around at them stone-faced. “The last thing anyone was making out of the Tesseract was weapons. Using that cube to power anything... it didn't go well the last time... and it doesn't look to be going well this time either.”

“I suppose you would be a pretty good judge of that,” Stark mutters under his breath, which Steve obviously hears by the way he tenses up, although the the other man is currently too lost in his own thoughts to notice.

“Doctor Foster and Miss Lewis are right,” Steve continues stiffly, with an acknowledging nod in their direction, “this isn't a time for arguing about things needlessly.” He looks at Stark straight on and tells him, “I don't distrust SHIELD... exactly, but I definitely don't trust anything from that cube not to be destructive. I've been shot at with energy from that thing enough times. If there's... anything I can do to help...”

Stark snorts disbelievingly, although he looks like he just couldn't help himself rather than derisive at the offer. “Sorry, Cap,” he says with a grin, gesturing around at all the screens and tech around the room. “But I think you might be a few years out of date in this area of investigation.”

Instead of getting offended, Steve raises an eyebrow and looks around with a glint of good humor and humility. “Just a few,” he agrees, before he gets a serious look on his face again. “Secure files are still secure files though, Mister Stark, and usually for good reason. They shouldn't be handled... impulsively.”

“There's an insult towards me in there somewhere, I can sense it.”

“Maybe,” Steve agrees flatly, much to Stark's intrigued surprise.

Then he, Mister Captain America himself, abruptly turns to the rest of them. “Doctors Banner and Foster,” he acknowledges like a goodbye, and Darcy realizes that he's making to leave. Except, for some reason, he's paused right on her, clearly thinking through something.

She waits.

“Miss Lewis,” he says finally. “A word?”

~

C'mon, how could Darcy have refused Captain America? For one thing, he's Captain effing America. For another, he's Steve Rogers, and telling Steve Rogers 'no' is a fight that is just too much effort. It used to be that James could win just because Steve's body had fine limits, despite his friend's unbelievable amounts of stubbornness, but now... well, this is the guy some people are (mostly wrongly) convinced single-handedly won World War II.

And Darcy's actually been wanting to talk to him anyway.

“So... what's this about?” Darcy asks to start the conversation after she's briefly excused herself from the Scientists Three, as Steve leads her out of sight of the lab's windows.

He holds up a hand to indicate his inability to answer at the moment, but she doesn't have to wait for long or walk very far. They stop halfway down the helicarrier hall just around the corner, in the groove of a doorway, partly out of sight and easily able to see anyone approaching.

“Okaaay. So... what's this about?” Darcy repeats once they're stopped, more than a little intrigued.

Steve's mouth twitches downwards slightly. “Thor and Agent Romanoff are collaborating with Director Fury to extract information from Loki,” he answers, which is not the subject that Darcy was at all expecting. “I've been tasked with inquiring if you had any information on Loki to contribute.”

“Not that Thor wouldn't already know or I haven't already told him,” Darcy replies immediately - thoughtlessly, although her thoughts are currently soaring a mile a second.

Hmm... it's interesting and unsurprising that they're trying to get information out of Loki – that just makes sense – but it's just as interesting and a bit strange that they've turned to her for assistance. While it is true that she has a talent for ticking people off if she's feeling like it, and that she's already demonstrated this ability on Loki, and that Loki seems to spew information while he's unhinged and angry and spiteful, she feels wary of sharing here. She doesn't trust SHIELD not to scrounge for every bit of information they can, and she doesn't want to break Thor's trust by sharing things he hasn't or possibly contradict anything he's told SHIELD that might not be true.

SHIELD seems to be pulling all kinds of sketchy crap with the Tesseract; she doesn't want to accidentally give them any clues as to the Infinity Stones with how creepy and generally shady they are. Plus, Asgardian family dynamics are kind of fragile and Loki's sort of unstable and now that Thor's here, she's not infringing on her friend's territory with or for SHIELD. (At least, not without damn good reason. If it got her her Erik back, maybe.)

Also interestingly, Steve looks a little bit relieved at her answer.

“How'd you come to be the one tasked with asking me?” Darcy asks him curiously, folding her arms and looking him up and down a little and peering inquisitively up. (It makes people self-conscious and occasionally intimidated and/or uncomfortable, she's found.) “I mean, if they wanted a consult, they could have just messaged the labs or something, I'm sure.”

Steve sighs the muted sigh of the quietly long-suffering. “I asked that,” he tells her. “Agent Romanoff said it was because the regular agents are afraid you'll eat them and that, as a fellow dinosaur, I might be able to properly communicate.”

Darcy can't help but grin widely, mostly from amused disbelief. “She what?”

“It's an age joke... I think. She keeps making them.”

“Oh my god, that's amazing.”

Steve smiles wryly, but then his face becomes more serious. “Our 'previous acquaintance' may have also been mentioned,” he says. “Which...”

“You're still in the dark on,” Darcy finishes for him, biting the inside of her cheek as she contemplates how to go about this. Blunt is probably the best approach – it worked for coming clean to Jane – and it's basically Darcy's MO by this point. Besides, she's a goddamn shape-shifting dragon, there's not really a gentle way to hint at these sorts of things to people.

She sticks out her hand. “Okay, proper introduction time. My name is Darcy Lewis, intern to Doctor Jane Foster, scientist-wrangler extraordinaire, also secretly a giant blue dragon,” she says plainly, shaking a bemused Steve's hand. “A while back, I coincidentally used to be Darcy Bennet of Brooklyn and your next-door neighbor. It's nice to see you this turn of the century, although I'm confused as to how since it doesn't seem like you got here the long way.”

At the mention of her previous name, Steve's eyes have gone wide with surprise, and by halfway through the latter bit, he's frozen in the middle of a handshake. For a few seconds of silence, he stares, his eyes roaming over her face in mounting realization.

Darcy waits.

Finally, he open his mouth to say something. “That... explains your apartment,” he decides, brow furrowed and still looking extremely thoughtful.

Oh my fucking god.

Darcy throws up her hands. “Why does everybody keep saying that? It's not that weird to own dragon stuff! Dragons are cool! I bet lots of people own bunches of dragon stuff! Eccentric old ladies can have collections of dragon stuff without being dragons!”

Steve just blinks at her, eyebrows raised.

Darcy deflates. “Okay, it does sort of explain my apartment,” she admits, “but my previous statements still stand.” She looks up to properly meet Steve's eyes. “I'm – I'm a lot older than I look. I've lived a lot of human lives, mostly incomplete – I think Darcy Bennet was actually the longest, honestly." Then she turns her expression a bit mockingly accusatory. "And wow. Let me tell you, it surprised the heck out of me when I found out you ran off to war and became Captain America, Star-Spangled Man with a Plan.”

“It's the sort of thing you expect your neighbors to do as much as you expect them to be dragons,” Steve says very seriously with an extremely solemn face.

Darcy narrows her eyes suspiciously at him and it takes about three seconds for him to break out in the grin she knew he was hiding.

“You are a brat, ” she announces with a sniff, falling back into the elderly croak that she now only uses to prank call people when Jane's research is fucking compiling again. “No respect for your elders, these young people today, no manners either.”

Steve looks like he's on the verge of cracking up, but lowers his voice and grumbles, “Back in my day, we treated our elders right. Said our 'please's and our 'thank you's, and we were grateful. Dunno what for, but we were grateful.”

Okay, no, can't not – Darcy bursts out laughing. She laughs so hard that she has to lean against the wall to keep from falling over. She nearly falls over anyway, choking out, “Oh my god.” Damn it, this is why Steve's not allowed to make jokes.

“I can never say anything like that in front of Agent Romanoff,” Steve comments absentmindedly, like he's making a mental note, ignoring the fact that Darcy is dying against the wall. “Or Mister Stark.”

“Never in front of Stark,” Darcy agrees, wiping what might actually be a tear away from her eye. “Oh, it's great to see you again, Steve, even if it's been a while. How the hell are you still alive? I thought you died just before the war ended.”

Steve's grin falters immediately and watching that effectively punches Darcy in the guts with guilt – shit, she just ruined a good moment.

“I thought I was going to,” Steve says quietly, taking a deep breath. “There was an enemy plane filled with bombs headed for America and no way to stop it but to crash it into the arctic. I went down with the plane, didn't expect to get back up -”

Darcy's heart constricts. Just a little. Maybe a lot.

“- but the enhancement that did this -” He gestures over himself, which is definitely nothing like the last Steve Rogers Darcy saw in person. “- kept me in something that SHIELD's doctors are calling 'suspended animation' while I was frozen in the ice. It was... a bit like sleeping... almost.”

Something in his face makes her doubt that.

“But I woke up a couple months ago,” Steve continues with a bit of a shrug, “they tell me the war's long over and that we won.” His jaw clenches slightly as he adds grimly, “They didn't see fit to mention what we lost.”

Darcy's shoulders sag a little under that thought, but she keeps her focus on her ex-neighbor, tilting her head slightly in curiosity. “Times... times tend to change quite a bit over the ages, more often without you than not,” she tells his softly, at least half to herself.

She's seen buildings rise and fall, people's great-great-grandchildren grow old and die, and the occasional city burn down, and the worst part is that she's barely an adult by dragon standards. Being out of time is terrible; she and Bingley have each other and horribly unhealthy coping methods – he removes himself from a human life entirely and she puts herself entirely (too much, far too much) into it – but it's not and never has been easy. Darcy isn't sure how she's going to survive being Darcy Lewis, she'll manage somehow, she guesses, with Bingley's help, but she's not looking forward to it.

Darcy wouldn't wish being touched by time differently to the world around you on her worst enemy, much less Steve Rogers of all people.

“...What did you lose, Steve?”

“Nothing that can be found again,” he answers immediately, with a hard look in his eye. Then he looks away, no longer meeting her gaze. “We've... we've lost track of the conversation,” he says, looking further away as she reaches out to touch his arm.

“Steve...”

“I'll inform Director Fury that Thor has any and all pertinent intelligence,” he tells her blandly, stone-faced. Then he looks at her properly, his mouth twitching upwards for just a moment as he says, “I'll see ya around, Ms. Bennet. You're looking good for a woman your age, ya heartbreaker, you.”

Then he steps away, and with a brief nod, he's walking away before Darcy can work past the catch in her throat. But even when she can speak again, she doesn't call after him.

( “Goodbye, boys!” )

She wouldn't have wanted to answer either.

Chapter Text

“I can't believe Stark has anyone working for him. He's unbearable!”

“I can't believe none of you were even considering the idea of sleep before I called it,” Darcy mumbles, stretched out on her bed and contemplating the ceiling of their helicarrier room. SHIELD went for function over fashion and her eyes are starting to hurt from the artificial lights and the sheer amount of grey. Ow.

Jane pokes her toweled head out of the bathroom, frowning. “What was that?”

Darcy sighs. “I said: 'He's also rich and he probably doesn't interact with most of his employees.' Plus, people are always willing to put up with weird shit from celebrities. I'm not saying I can be bought, but I'd put up with a lot for an autograph and a pretty penny... or several million a year.”

“Well I wouldn't,” Jane replies with a sniff, disappearing back into the bathroom. The whush of a running tap comes to life a second later. “Having his undivided, nosy attention for the five minutes you were out of the room was terrible – like I'd know how you know Captain America.”

“I used to be his neighbor.”

The sound of the gushing water stops.

“Hell of a coincidence, huh?” Darcy asks, smiling a little.

Jane is silent for a few seconds longer before answering, “By this point, I'm convinced that utterly nothing happening is coincidental in the slightest. We were discussing conspiracy theories, like, what? Ten minutes ago? We've already got aliens for crying out loud!”

Darcy feels her lips break into a wide grin, because her friend's got a point and it's more than a little hilarious. “Feeling paranoid?”

“Says the fantasy creature currently masquerading as my intern.”

Darcy cackles.

“Anyway, being a little bit paranoid seems like the safer choice,” Jane continues. “But cyptozoology conspiracies and government cover-ups aside – for the moment – Stark is still annoying. That growl of yours completely freaked him out and now he's asking me all his invasive or joking questions whenever you walk out of the room!”

“Oh?”

“Like how exactly I ended up with a fantasy creature for an intern! I don't know! It was completely accidental! There's not exactly a temp agency number I can give him for unemployed dragons!”

Darcy snorts. If the dragons she's known ever lowered themselves to work, it would be a disaster to say the least.

“I mean, I know it's a joke, but it's not that funny -”

It's kind of funny.

“- and it's kind of hard to do work while having Tony Stark leaning over your shoulder bemoaning the fact that he's Iron Man and he doesn't get a 'badass personal assistant that breathes fire'!” Jane says, hands gesturing wildly as she steps out of the bathroom, wet hair clinging to her neck and soaking her sleep-shirt. “I mean, fine, it's cool, but can you please let me focus on my work?”

“That man's capability to multitask is terrifying,” Darcy comments agreeably, watching her friend putter around their room a bit, hands running over Loki's knife (the one he'd stabbed into her foreclaw on the mountaintop) on their side table. “...Did he really seem freaked out by my growling? I'm not that unnerving, am I? I'm really trying not to be.”

Jane fixes Darcy with a look. “Darcy, you're going to be unnerving no matter how you act. You're a dragon. Plus, that growling was pretty freaky. And I heard about some of the things you did from SHIELD. Not wanting to test your temper was probably the smartest thing I saw Stark do today and that's saying something.”

That... that makes Darcy go quiet. Not just silent, but it feels like something inside her just sort of... stops and goes quiet. The little wyrm maybe.

Jane notices.

“Darcy?” she says, moving away from her bed to sit on the edge of Darcy's. “...What is it?”

Darcy looks her in the eyes and asks, “Do I freak you out?”

Jane startles slightly. “What?”

“Jane, I'm a dragon.”

“I've noticed.”

“No, I mean, you just said I freaked out fucking Iron Man. I know things have been moving fast and it's sort of hard to keep up, but... I'm a fucking dragon. Doesn't that freak you out? Even slightly? That dragons are a thing? You jumped on my snout earlier and that doesn't scare you at all?”

Jane blinks. “Well...” she begins slowly, taking Darcy's hand in hers, “not really. Sort of, but I know you, Darcy. You're my friend. I was mostly just worried that you were going to try and taser Iron Man or Captain America or something. Or breathe fire at them, I guess.”

The quiet space in Darcy's chest floods with warmth again and she tightens her hand around Jane's slightly. “Oh,” she says.

“It's sort of weird actually, the dragon thing. I mean, you're still you. Two days ago, I saw you pour orange juice into cereal because 'why not?' and eat it for the same reason. You're still the person who does the laundry and makes us watch dumb movies and swears at the coffee machine when it's being demonic again and sorts all our papers even though I know astrophysics isn't your thing.

“So you're a dragon. Alright. I got through Thor and the Destroyer. Dragons are a thing. So are Norse God aliens apparently, and I made out with one.”

Darcy giggles, because Jane sounds like she's just realizing that now and is scandalized at herself.

“Plus, your brother is the least intimidating creature I've ever met in my life. Like, he's infuriating and oh my god is he the most condescending person imaginable, but he also cried watching a Jane Austen movie for apparently the fiftieth time or something,” Jane says thoughtfully. “It's really hard to imagine either of you being dangerous to me when you're so... human.”

Human... Darcy likes the sound of that. It makes wyrm in her heart purr a little bit. She and Bingley aren't a part of humanity and there really needs to be a better word for it, but she gets everything that was really behind that word. They're not human at all really, but they also are.

Jane brings Darcy's hand into her lap and admits more quietly, “Also, I kind of did freak out about the dragon thing. The entire flight to Norway was me making the steward worried I was going to have a medical emergency. But...” She shrugs. “I got over it. There's a lot of weird, insane, dangerous, and freaky things in the world already, happening with or without my being okay with it -”

Loki, Darcy thinks. Iron Man, the Incredible Hulk, Thor, Steve Rogers the super-soldier from World War II, War Machine, that guy from the Monaco Historic Grand Prix, that creature from the Harlem wreckage, mutants, magic, Infinity Stones, and god only knows what else is unfolding amongst humanity or if the world will survive it.

“- so it's kind of nice to know that some of them are on our side too,” Jane finishes with an adorable little smile. “I have a dragon for a best friend? Nope. My best friend just happens to be a dragon – along with her weird complete dick of a brother. Okay then. What else is new?”

Darcy can't take it anyone, she lunges up and wraps her arms around the other woman. Jane shrieks as they fall back onto the bed in an awkward mess of limbs, trapped in Darcy's hug. It's not really comfortable, because it happened a little too suddenly and Jane has sharp limbs and Darcy now has wet hair stuck to her face, but once they shift a bit, it's nice.

“Thank you,” says Darcy.

“No problem,” Jane replies.

They stay there for awhile.

Then Jane adds, “Oh yeah, I forgot to mention earlier. Your brother called. That's why I called you down from the roof or whatever before.”

Darcy releases Jane partly, so they're laying side by side, facing each other. “What?”

“Your brother called to say that he's on his way.”

“How? ”

“Um... by phone.”

Darcy shakes her head. “No, his phone got taken -”

“He's mad about that, by the way.”

“Noted – but the only phone number he's ever memorized is the pizza place's. Which he promptly forgot as soon as he found out about online-ordering. How did he even get your number?”

“I asked that. Apparently you e-mailed him all sorts of contact information when you came to Puente Antiguo. So he borrowed someone's phone, found the e-mail, and then asked to make a call.”

Darcy opens her mouth. Then closes it.

“He said that I was to specifically tell you this to prove that 'he's not incapable',” Jane continues, with a bit of a cheeky grin. “And to charge your phone. He tried to call you first with news and was very put out that he had to go through so much effort to contact you. He says that 'it's very lucky he figured you'd be following me around like some imprinted, mentally-challenged duckling'.”

Darcy tries to mull this over properly and fails. “Wow.”

“Believe me, it was the most interesting phone conversation that I've ever had.”

“I bet. I just can't believe that he actually did that just because I left a note that said to call ahead so that he didn't freak anybody out. Jane, he talked to someone for me. He really must love me.”

Jane gives her a bemused look. “Was that ever in doubt?”

“Not really. It's just always nice to get proof about these things,” Darcy counters, smiling stupidly fondly at her friend.

The way Jane smiles back makes a little part of her heart go squish. There's just so much goodness radiating off of Jane – curiosity and respect and wholehearted feeling – and it's an honest point of pride to be called human by someone like Jane.

“Jane?” Darcy whispers, barely audible.

“Yeah?”

“Are you planning on sleeping soon?”

“Honestly, I don't think I can.”

“Fair enough. How do you feel about bedtime stories?” Darcy asks, thinking over everything she told Thor that she desperately wants to tell Jane now. She trusts Jane – she won't mention the Infinity Stones yet; she's a Poli Sci major, she knows how omission works – and she thinks Jane deserves to know.

Jane's lips twitch. “Does it have dragons in it?”

“Yeah. Hah. No surprise, right? But... I have... some things I want you to know.”

“I can't wait to hear them.”

Darcy grins briefly, then takes a deep breath. “You'll like this one,” she assures Jane quietly. “See... it starts out in the stars – way, way out in space – a long time ago... on a place called Aslicem.”

Chapter Text

"Please tell me that you didn't sleep in here,” Darcy says to Bruce Banner once she walks back into the helicarrier laboratory the next morning at what basically feels like the crack of dawn.

The man looks perpetually tired so she honestly just can't tell with him. He might even be in the same spot as before. Darcy would be worried that he'd never moved at all if his clothes weren't different, although they're somehow even more rumpled than the ones from yesterday.

Bruce turns away from staring at the screen, seeming to register what she said, and then his lips twitch up slightly before he turns back. “No, no – I, uh, didn't sleep in here,” he assures her as she comes up next to him. “This place isn't exactly Stark-Tower-complimentary-toothbrush comfortable, but I got a few hours.”

Darcy hums in approval. “Good, because I have seen overtired science and the only thing that happens is illegibly-written sticky notes and keyboard-imprints on faces. And on that subject, Jane'll be around after she finishes talking with Thor.”

"Mmmm,” Bruce comments indifferently.

"You seen Stark yet today?” Darcy asks as she moves away to poke around the lab for the tablet Jane was using yesterday. Stark had kept borrowing the thing, and now Jane wants to use it to go over Erik's notes again but neither of them can remember where it had last been left. 

They'd passed a rather restless night, since Jane had been too full of thoughts and questions to sleep and Darcy was wary of sleeping any way but extremely lightly in the depths of SHIELD's flying base with Loki on board. Without the knowledge that Thor had stayed awake to keep an eye on his brother and the scepter (and generally everything), Darcy doubts she would have been able to close her eyes at all. She basically spent the night cat-napping, eyes flicking open, immediately alert, whenever Jane rolled over or someone walked past the door of their room.

“Mmm mmn,” Bruce replies, which Darcy easily interprets as a negative. Erik before morning coffee had been pretty bad with non-physics-related communication too, and her clutch-brother in one of his moods is even worse, so she's had more one-sided conversations before.

She digs through the stacks of papers, lifting up a folder to reveal Jane's tablet, and stifles the urge to crow in success. Instead, she snatches it up and casually asks, “Any news on anything?”

“Hmm..? No, the search program is still running,” Bruce answers, staring with his brow furrowed at the screen in front of him. “We'll have the Tesseract's location within half a mile once we get a hit on its signature... that is... if Loki isn't masking it somehow.”

“Yeah, that's definitely a problem,” Darcy agrees, thinking of her Erik being hidden from her with a slight tick of annoyance. Magic is cool when you can do it, but it's hard to do in the first place, and it's really annoying and awful when other people have it, are good at it, and use it against you.

As the gospel says, 'The trouble is, the other side can do magic too, Prime Minister.'

Darcy wants to punch that other side in its stupid, smug face.

Instead, she asks, “Do you know if Stark slept?”

“I... don't, no,” Bruce replies slowly, as though this is a thought that hadn't occurred to him and he doesn't like it much. “I hope so.”

This makes sense. Darcy thinks she's gotten along pretty well with Tony Stark so far – she has yet to have a one-on-one conversation with him and will probably at some point ask for his autograph – but he's still a really intense personality and she can't even imagine what he's like when sleep-deprived. As previously stated, nothing worthwhile is achieved during overtired science in Darcy's experience.

Bruce pauses the readings on the screen, then reaches up to his ear, probably for the pen that isn't there so he can fiddle with it as she's so far seen him do when nervous or concerned about something, and rather awkwardly turns the motion into brushing his hair back. Darcy scans Jane's worktable for a writing utensil and hands him a pen, which he accepts it with a rather confused look, as though he's not sure what he's supposed to do with it. But he soon begins playing with it as he stares at the screen and thinks, and Darcy quietly leaves him to it.

She likes him... mostly. Even with the whole green rage-monster thing, maybe especially because of that, she likes him. Bruce Banner seems like a genuinely kind person, and he can clearly take care of himself with a muted self-discipline that she admires. Her only issue with him is that his train of thought is the most difficult to predict of the Scientists Three (she knows Jane like the back of her hand and Tony Stark, while she doesn't know him either, is neither subtle nor self-contained), and how he's obviously insanely intelligent. He's scary-smart, which is clear to see by how easily he picks up and then continues to carry Jane and Stark's thoughts despite the massive difference in fields, and a bit of an unknown, and the combination of these things sets Darcy just a teeny bit on edge.

Darcy eyes the scepter, glowing normally at the end of the lab, and casually puts herself between it and Bruce Banner while pretending to go through Jane's tablet. Glaring at the weapon, its wrongness seems to be staying very close to its metal, and Darcy decides that it's behaving for the moment. Good.

The lab door slides open. “Darcy, did you find the tab-? Oh, thank you,” Jane says as she walks in, with Thor stopping in the doorway behind her. She steps forward to take it. “Where was it?”

“Suffocation by papers, where else?”

“Ah,” Jane answers, already bent over the device and sliding into her seat at her table of papers.

Knowing that they've lost Jane to the same brainstorming clouds that Bruce Banner has lifted himself off to, Darcy leaves her to it and turns to Thor in the doorway. Thor is looking around the high-tech room with an odd mix of curiosity, fascination, and bemusement, and Darcy is left to wonder what the technology on Asgard looks like now – she only got to see the weapons they brought to Earth for the Frost Giant war, which she doesn't remember all that well besides them being fucking terrifying.

Thor notices her looking and, with a brief glance to Jane and Bruce, subtly and silently beckons her over to just outside the lab door. Intrigued and with nothing else to do, Darcy goes.

“So, how went the watch of the night?” Darcy asks once the door's closed behind them.

Thor smiles faintly. “Dull,” he answers honestly. “I would make a poor guardsman.”

“Dude, I don't think anybody avidly enjoys standing around and staring at people in boxes. Oh. How'd that... interrogation... thing go? I heard you and Agent Romanoff were collaborating to get information. How'd – how'd that work out? What happened?”

“That is what I wish to speak to you of,” Thor tells her in hushed tones. “The agent, Lady Romanoff, is a skilled player and through her questioning of Loki, believes that he will attempt to bring forth the beast from within Doctor Banner.”

Darcy turns her head to glance at Bruce's drawn-in posture as he twirls his pen, and she tries very hard to process this information. Romanoff managed to get information from Loki, alright, Darcy managed that too, and Fury too to a degree. Loki is a bit loose-lipped when he's feeling spiteful, and he likes to gloat – the monologuing-villain-cliché walking pretty much.

And she knew he was insane – there's something very wrong with Thor's brother – but the Incredible Hulk? Seriously? Jane gave Darcy a very brief run-down on that last night. Bruce transforms when he gets stressed or angry or attacked, and SHIELD's briefing files say that the Hulk is basically uncontrollable and highly volatile so... that sort of seems... right up Loki's alley actually.

“Right,” Darcy says, taking a deep breath and turning back to Thor. “What do you want me to do?”

“Prevent it, if possible,” Thor answers solemnly. “You have a position of trust and respect with Jane and have a trustworthy demeanor, which endears you better to the doctor's sense of ease and gives you a stronger vantage point over his well-being than I. I intend to keep close watch over Loki, and would ask you to bear guard at this end, being likely to notice any of my brother's foul play as you are.”

Darcy blinks for a few seconds, then nods. “Right,” she says again. “Alright, that – that makes a lot of sense. I... I think I can do that. Jane is still my priority, but sure, I can give it my best shot.”

“That is all I would ask,” Thor accepts. Then he turns his eyes towards Jane and Bruce in the lab and asks, “What comes of the search for the Tesseract? Has any progress been made?”

“I think so..? I mean, they're running a search for the Tesseract's energy signature right now. Unless their detecting method is also blocked by Loki's magic – which it could be for all I know – then they should get something sooner or later. I have no idea how late later is though.”

Thor frowns and says, “Loki will make his move soon, so our time is-”

An alien sound interrupts the constant whir of the helicarrier engines, making Thor pause and the both of them turn their heads in the direction it came from. It was faint and could have been nothing, but they wait and are soon rewarded with a louder repeat of the sound. Thor's eyes widen, because that is unmistakably a roar, and Darcy thinks she might know the owner of it.

“Okay, I'm totally all for doing the guarding thing, but I have to go. Be right back,” she barely manages to blurt out, and then takes off running through the halls.

~

Darcy passes a very harried-looking SHIELD agent on her sprint through the helicarrier, who tries to stop her for a word, but she just ducks by them and shouts, “I KNOW! I'M ON MY WAY!” And just continues towards where she's, like, maybe 80% sure the helicarrier airstrip is because the roaring is getting increasingly loud and frequent.

She belatedly hopes in the moments afterwards that what she knows was what that SHIELD agent was going to tell her, but quickly decides, while skidding around a corner, that she doesn't give a shit if it wasn't. There are few truly important things on this helicarrier for Darcy and the rest can either wait five goddamn minutes or find someone who's actually on SHIELD payroll.

Bursting through the exit to SHIELD's helicarrier maze is intense, because suddenly there's a rather endless expanse of vivid blue sky and the blindingly bright morning sun overtaking her vision. Darcy puts one hand to her forehead and the other over her head – her hair is attempting to smother her in the chilled, high-sky wind – as she walks out onto the airstrip, searching the sky.

Another roar sounds – the loudest yet and definitely magically-magnified – and Darcy's head whips around to finally catch sight of the source. Familiar, brilliant red scales wheel into view, contrasting magnificently against the sky, aloft on orange wings as her clutch-brother circles above the helicarrier and roars ferociously and repeatedly.

“OH MY GOD, BINGLEY, SHUT UP!” Darcy bellows up at him.

Far above, Bing's massive snout immediately snaps shut and swings towards her, tiny on the helicarrier deck. His bright gold eyes narrow in on her, she can see that even from this distance, and his neck curls in clear unhappiness and disdain. He roars again, not magically-magnified this time, but still grating as hell.

Darcy does not grind her teeth at him.

“SHUT UP AND GET YOUR ASS DOWN HERE, YOU RIDICULOUS LIZARD! HOLY SHIT, BING; THERE ARE BETTER WAYS OF GETTING SOMEONE'S ATTENTION!”

Bingley's derisive snort is loud enough that Darcy can hear it even as he glides regally downwards onto the helicarrier's convenient runway. He lands with barely a sound and not a single tremor to the landing strip, which definitely does not at all make Darcy envious – what a fucking show off. Then Bing doesn't so much walk up to her as he does sashay, his head held high, and it's a miracle Darcy isn't jumping off the side of the helicarrier. 

She has to admit though, her clutch-brother makes for a rather impressive sight. He's not quite as big as she is – in size or bulk, he's quite a bit leaner – but twenty-five meters long and five high from ground to spine is still plenty big. His scales and his spinal plates are also better kept and generally smoother, like sea-polished, shining stone. And he holds himself so damn gracefully, his black-horned head reaching eight meters high and his half-folded wings held on colorful display, fluttering beautifully open and then folding fully in once he reaches her.

It's when he opens his mouth that he ruins the image.

“I liked it better when they had balloons,” Bingley informs her contemptuously.

Darcy sighs deeply and puts her head in her hands. “Bing, what the fuck are you even talking about?”

Bingley leans his massive head down to put them face to snout. “Balloons,” he repeats. “When the humans could only fly in balloons. The early ones, where you didn't even have to light them on fire because they'd do that themselves if you waited for a bit. I liked those ones.”

Darcy doesn't remove her head from her hands. “Oh my god, Bing.”

“These things have weapons. Have you seen them?” Bingley demands, his scaled neck curling in affront. “What was I supposed to do to get your attention? Just land and hope they didn't fire and throw my carcass in one of the enormous blenders they have attached to the sides?”

“Blenders?” Darcy repeats, finally looking up at her clutch-brother again. “What blen- Are you talking about the engines? The things that make this helicarrier fly?”

Bingley's golden eyes go wide and he looks over at the nearest engine. “Those things couldn't possibly make anything fly,” he insists blithely, in the tone that lets Darcy that he will not be hearing otherwise without serious arguing. Then he turns back to her and disbelievingly asks, “Did you call this thing a 'helicarrier'?”

“I didn't name it,” Darcy sighs, throwing her hands up in innocence.

Bingley snorts. “I should hope not.”

Darcy is just about to open her mouth and say something, probably a snappy comeback of some kind, when Bingley quickly lifts his scaled head away and turns towards the helicarrier doors that Darcy came out of. She follows his motion to see an approaching figure, shoulders straight and stride sure, dressed in black from his boots to his flapping coat to his eye-patch.

Director Fury stops a good twenty yards from her and her clutch-brother, with his hands folded behind his back and Agent Son of Coul a few yards behind him. The SHIELD agent looks as placid as ever, staring up at Bingley with an expression of calm interest, while Fury doesn't even glance at Darcy's enormous clutch-brother.

“Miss Lewis,” he calls across the distance. “Is this your magical expert?”

Darcy is starkly reminded that she totally forgot to inform SHIELD that Bingley was on his way. To be fair, she'd kind of been under the impression that Jane had said something, but... then again... Jane is easily distracted and doesn't like SHIELD. So that probably wouldn't fly as an excuse. But... then again... that probably doesn't matter, because Fury seems like the kind of person who has a permanent no-flight order on excuses that's enforced by heavy artillery.

“Ah,” Darcy replies, “Um... yes.”

“Eloquence,” Bingley mutters snidely.

Darcy kicks the claw nearest to her and pretends not to notice the way Bingley hisses at her, forked tongue and all, or the way Agent Coulson raises his eyebrows at them in reaction.

“So, um, Bing, this is Director Fury and Agent Coulson of SHIELD,” Darcy introduces the men to her clutch-brother, gesturing to each of them respectively. Then she turns her head so that her hair is hiding her mouth and whispers, “They have the thief and his weapon in custody and want an analysis of the weapon from the magical side. SHIELD is kind of sketchy and the thief is definitely up to something, but I want your opinion on this thing, so please play nice.”

“...Fine.”

“Thank you. I'll fill you in as we go,” Darcy says, before she looks back to Fury and Coulson, bouncing at her toes a bit in the pleasure of success. It's not everyday that Bingley is so cooperative and she'll bask in the glow of no-arguing (and expect at least some mild complaining) for as long as it lasts.

Then she realizes: “Oh, Bing, you should probably be human-shaped.”

And then: “Oh god, please tell me that you brought clothes.”

“Of course I brought clothes!” Bingley snaps indignantly. Then continues mulishly, “But I'm not changing in front of these people.”

Darcy looks about at the SHIELD agents and workers, all at quite significant distances, but all doing a terrible job at being subtle with their staring if they're trying at all. Yeah, she wouldn't want to shift out here either – and she didn't – but it shouldn't be too much trouble to borrow an aircraft hanger or something again. She turns to Bingley to say as much, but he isn't there any longer. There's only thickly hazy and shimmering air where her clutch-brother has raised an illusion to give himself some privacy.

Darcy sighs. “Well, you kind of technically are .”

“Thissss dOe-doesssn't co-OWu-unt,” the hazy air replies, rapidly shrinking in size.

Darcy just sighs again, puts her hands on her hips, hangs her head, and gives up on arguing. Even while being cooperative, Bingley still manages to be utterly impossible. Fucking younger siblings, she grouses inwardly, stretches her neck up to squint at the sun while she waits for him to finish. She doesn't even want to look at Fury or the Son of Coul right now.

Then the shimmering illusion gives a small pop and a human-shaped Bingley steps out of thin air, in the middle of shrugging into a clean Culver University hoodie. He pulls it down with an impressive amount of dignity considering he's still as gangly and his hair is as unkempt as ever and – Darcy looks him over with a wince – he's wearing skinny jeans and – oh god – the rainbow flip-flops from the airport.

She supposes this is effort... for him.

“I hate you,” Darcy tells him.

Bingley just looks at her with incredibly smug disdain. “No, you don't,” he answers knowingly, stuffing his hands into his hoodie pocket and looking over to the SHIELD agents they've left waiting. He immediately makes to close the distance between them, his stupid long legs forcing Darcy to scurry after him to keep up – she hates scurrying.

Once Bingley's reached them, he stops just short of looming, then looks down at his clutch-sister expectantly. He's never once introduced himself to anyone their entire lives, instead letting Darcy or a name-tag or his student ID do all the work. Lazy lizard.

“Gentlemen, this is my brother, Bingley Lewis,” Darcy introduces. “He knows more magic and more about it than I ever will. Bingley... wait, I already did this bit.”

“How do you do?” Bingley says plainly to Director Fury and Agent Coulson, who still look absolutely unruffled by everything.

Darcy is seriously envious of that kind of chill.

Director Fury stares up at Bingley, seeming somewhat unimpressed. “I've been better,” he answers coolly. “I'm told, Mister Lewis, that you might be able to provide us with information on what we're dealing with and another way to find the Tesseract.”

Bingley stares unblinkingly for a few moments, then turns to Darcy and demands, “What the hell is the 'Tesseract'?”

Darcy ignores him. “I'll fill him in,” she exasperatedly promises Fury, whose expression has somehow become even more unimpressed than before

“See that you do, Miss Lewis,” Fury tells her, his single eye focused intimidatingly on her. “And see that you keep me filled in as well this time. I don't run a dragon drive-through. I expect to be fully informed of the comings and goings aboard my helicarrier.”

“Yep. Sorry,” Darcy apologizes, giving a careless one-handed salute on some unknown reflex. She's not really scared of this man, it's just that his one-eyed staring sort of really creeps her out and she's willing to agree to almost anything just to make him stop and go away.

She'd bet he practices it.

“I called first,” Bingley mutters confusedly, more to himself than anyone else, and Darcy elbows him in the side before he can object any further or louder.

Fury looks between them, stare hard. “Keep it that way,” he says, before turning on his heel, coat flapping around him, and striding back towards the interior of the helicarrier.

Agent Coulson nods to both of them, smile vaguely friendly. “Welcome to SHIELD,” he says, then turns to follow Fury's... well... furious march inside.

Bingley watches them go disinterestedly. “Odd people,” he comments.

Darcy sighs again, looking up to the sky for who knows what. “While you honestly have zero room to say that, you're not actually wrong.”

~

They stand on the helicarrier landing strip for awhile, far away from anyone who might potentially listen to their conversation, although Bingley tosses up a few privacy spells at Darcy's request. She feels it's probably best to get the sensitive stuff out quickly and away from SHIELD.

Bingley listens carefully as Darcy details the barest bones of the conflict between the Asgardian Princes, at first stiffening at any mention of Frost Giants but then ceasing as he becomes more and more interested. The Bifrost and the Lady Frigga are obviously the points that intrigue him most, but he lets her quickly explain things without question.

He tenses once she explains what the Tesseract is (“an energy source in the shape of a cube... which may be extremely similar to the Stone of Stars”), and his eyes go wide when she brings up Jahandar possibly being Loki's ally and providing the Frost Giant with an army. Darcy has to grab his hands to keep him from freaking out and keeps talking at him so he doesn't have the time to.

Bingley nods along to Darcy's insistence that SHIELD not know about the Stone of Stars or Aslicem just yet, just that Loki has a powerful, mysterious ally, and bluntly agrees that Jahandar cannot have the Tesseract. He frowns when she mentions she's told Thor a bit about their origins, but he doesn't argue with her decision, probably holding judgment until he's actually met the Asgardian Prince.

It's when Darcy starts to tell him what she knows of the scepter and its abilities that Bingley gets a truly strange expression, one she can't interpret. His eyes lose focus, turning inwards to deep thoughts, at her rushed explanation of how wrong it feels and how it took her Erik from her and how she's fairly certain that it's having some sort of effect on Loki's mind on top of everybody else. When she mentions the weird shit that was going on with Loki's eyes, his attention comes back to her and stays there until she wraps up their little briefing session.

All in all, it didn't take longer than five minutes. If there's one thing that Darcy can do, it's babble at ridiculous speeds, and Bingley's gotten pretty damn good at keeping up with her information dumps when he bothers to listen. Thankfully, he's bothering now.

“Is that everything?” he asks once she's stopped to actually take in air again.

Darcy nods breathlessly.

Bingley drops her hands and stands tall, having leaned down for her talking. “I need to see the Frost Giant thief,” he tells her.

Darcy stares at him. “You what?”

“I need to see your Frost Giant thief,” Bingley repeats, then clarifies, “Face to face.”

Darcy just keeps staring at him, because that makes no sense. Bingley hates Frost Giants; Bingley is terrified of Frost Giants; Bingley hates and fears the memory of them so much that he hasn't gone to Norway in over a thousand years and basically lost his shit when Darcy told him one had come back to Earth.

Bingley looks back at his stunned clutch-sister with growing concern and confusion at her lack of response.

“...Please?” he tries, as though not asking politely was the problem with his previous sentence.

Darcy opens and closes her mouth a few times before she settles on something neutral. “I'm not exactly the person you need to ask about that, Bing.”

Bingley's face crunches in impatience. “Well, who is?”

~

Fury looks between them, stare hard, and Darcy feels distinctly like they've been here before very, very recently. It's so much easier to cope with staring when she's got scales on, because then it just sort of feels like her due instead of slightly uncomfortable.

Bingley, true to character, is making for pitiful backup at the moment, because as soon as he'd asked the question, he went back to staring curiously about at the helicarrier bridge and all its SHIELD agents. Every time he catches a SHIELD agent looking at him, he fixes them with an imperious glare until they duck away, which they do very quickly.

Darcy looks behind Fury to see Agent Natasha Romanoff, Deputy-Director Maria Hill, and Thor watching all this. Romanoff looks amused at the whole situation, Hill's focus is half on the agents she clearly feels shouldn't be distracted for anything, and Thor just doesn't seem to know what to think of Bingley. Which is fair, because Darcy doesn't know what to think of Bingley either and she's in her 11 ^th century of knowing his scaled lizard-butt.

“Why,” Fury demands flatly.

Darcy opens her mouth and finds that she honestly has to admit: “I have no idea.” She turns to her useless clutch-brother. “Bing, why do you need to see Loki? Tell me again?”

“Hmmm?”

“Frost Giant visitation. Why?”

Bingley finally turns back at her, his expression undecipherable, and then he looks up at Fury on his dais. “I need to get a feel for his magical signature,” Bingley explains, matching Fury unwavering stare for unwavering stare. “It won't take more than a minute or so.”

Fury stares at Bingley for a few beats, then says, “I'll be counting.”

“Fine by me,” Bingley replies.

“Coulson?” Fury calls, not breaking eye contact. “See the Lewises to our guest.”

~

“Thor, this is my brother Bingley. Bingley, this is Thor,” Darcy says as Agent Son of Coul leads them through the helicarrier halls in a rather awkward collection of people.

Coulson's in front with Darcy behind him to his right and Bingley and Thor, who tagged along and no one's told him (or is going to tell him) not to (because it is his brother they're going to see, adoption be damned), behind her. Bingley's only just a bit shorter than Thor, but their body types couldn't be more different, and they look really strange walking side by side.

“How do you do?” Bingley says.

“I am in good health, thank you for inquiring.”

“Oh my god, Bing, get a new greeting.”

“No. It works.”

“I see nothing wrong with his address.”

“You would if it's the only one he's used for the past hundred years.”

“I have used many greetings and other phrases for longer.”

“See?”

“Bing, no.”

Bingley only sniffs indignantly and Darcy gets the sudden horrible feeling that now her clutch-brother is going to refuse to get with the times purely out of spite. If the Asgardians don't have to change, then neither does he.

“And how do you fare, my friend?” Thor asks Bingley politely, and Bingley looks at him with such a bewildered expression that Darcy nearly walks into a wall watching their interaction.

“...Well, thank you,” Bingley replies cautiously. “Despite the situation.”

“These are very troubled times,” Thor agrees conversationally. “Good health in such times is always a blessing. May you retain your good fortune throughout them.”

“...Thanks,” Bingley says, looking away with pinked cheeks and a pleased curve to his neck.

Darcy realizes then that for all the people she's ever introduced her brother to, no one has ever returned Bingley's greeting in kind or so kindly. Bingley has the unfortunate tendency to weird people out, usually because he's a stranger somewhere he really shouldn't be (which is what happened with Jane) or is obviously extremely uncomfortable. She's not sure he's ever been asked how he's doing by someone other than her before.

“Miss Lewis, we're here,” Agent Coulson says, interrupting her thought-stream, and Darcy realizes that they've stopped.

She takes a big step back to give the man his personal-space bubble back. “Sorry.”

“No harm done,” he replies, then taps a code into a keypad to open the door they're standing in front of. “After you.”

Darcy warily leads the way into the holding cell that she saw through the cameras before, eyes narrowing as Loki turns in his massive glass cage and greets her with an all-too-pleased smile. Then she has to resist the urge to growl as he turns his gaze to Bingley, head tilting in clear curiosity and amiable intrigue. Then he looks at the rest of their party.

“Brother,” he welcomes warmly, hands folded behind his back. “Accompanied by the agent, the Fire Lizard, and... someone who I have not had the pleasure of meeting yet...”

Darcy looks to Bingley, who has a masterfully blank expression, then eyes Agent Coulson, standing just inside the door, and Thor, who's stopped only a few steps further. She turns back to Loki, eyeing the long-drop placed threateningly beneath him, and tugs Bingley's sleeve. Bingley obligingly leans down for her, not taking his calculating eyes off the Frost Giant.

“SHIELD's watching and listening in, he's dangerous as all hell, and I want to get back to Jane,” she breathes into his ear, barely making any sound at all. “Whatever the heck you're actually up to here, make it quick.”

Bingley nods understandingly and then stands tall once more. He walks up to the glass wall of the cage without any hesitation, stopping about a foot away and then leaning in the rest of the way, his nose almost touching the glass as he stares unblinkingly at the person within.

Loki watches this happen with cordial confusion, then looks beyond Bingley and asks, “Is no one going to introduce me?”

Having stepped back to stand next to Thor, Darcy just shrugs at him. Her other answer would be along the lines of 'hell the fuck no, you walking killer-popsicle', so she feels this is probably the more mature-ish, high-road, appropriate-like response.

Loki adopts a slightly peeved expression and then regards Bingley with open concern as the human-shaped dragon just stares at Loki, silently and unmoving. After about fifteen seconds of drawn-out staring between them, Loki removes his hands from the small of his back and makes a gesture of spread arms and upturned palms.

“Am I meant to sing and dance for your entertainment now?” he demands.

Bingley doesn't answer.

Another few seconds and Loki's peeved pinch becomes full-blown annoyance. He steps up to the glass of his prison, not bothering to lean in and put himself face to face with Bingley, instead looking down at Darcy's clutch-brother with open disdain.

“I am not an exhibit to be gawked at, you tongueless idiot,” Loki states in freezing tones.

Bingley straightens, putting himself almost exactly on eye-level with Loki, still staring closely. Then, after another moment, without another word, Bingley steps away from the cell and turns his back on Loki entirely. He walks back to Darcy and Thor, leaving Loki behind as though entirely inconsequential, which Darcy can see with a glance pisses the Frost Giant off.

“I'm done,” Bingley informs them quietly, subtly pulling at Darcy's shirt and non-subtly eyeing the door.

At his tugging insistence, Darcy lets her clutch-brother lead her out of the room, Agent Coulson opening the door for them and with Thor close behind. Darcy imagines Loki's glare is attempting to light the backs of their necks on fire as they leave without so much as a word to him. Agent Coulson is quick to close the door behind their group, cutting off Darcy's final glimpse of Loki over her shoulder – that is definitely a hateful expression if she's ever seen one.

The silence after the door whooshes shut is... awkward.

Darcy looks up at her clutch-brother, who has not relinquished his grip on her top. “So... got a feel for his magical signature then?” she asks, as matter-of-fact as she can manage at the moment.

“Yes,” Bingley says.

“Then we are going to be off to the lab to see the scepter now,” Darcy says aloud, though she's not entirely sure for who's benefit that she's saying it exactly. “Thanks for the escort, agent,” she says to Coulson, grabbing Bingley's hoodie pocket and pulling him down the helicarrier hall with Thor following.

Once they've turned a corner, having left Coulson behind them, Darcy moves her hand from Bingley's hoodie's pocket to the hood and pulls her clutch-brother's head down as they walk.

“Bing, what the hell is going on?” she hisses.

Bingley looks suspiciously at Thor behind them, who returns the look with raised brows.

“You can tell him anything you'd tell me about this, Bing.”

“Fine,” Bingley says, stopping suddenly. He beckons Thor closer and whispers to them both, looking at Darcy as he speaks, “You said you think there's something wrong with him... with his mind... I think I know what.”

Thor's eyes go wide and Darcy feels hers do the same.

“...You what?” she breathes. "Bing, how-"

Bingley ignores this. “But I can't be certain without a closer look at his mind,” he tells them decisively, chin held high. “And I want to see this weapon of his first, so where's this lab of yours?”

Chapter Text

Bingley steps into the helicarrier laboratory, takes one look at the people inside, and immediately tries to walk back out. It's too late for him of course, because the Scientists Three all looked up from the screen they were all gathered around on the far side of the room – Tony sitting on a counter, Jane leaning on it to his left, Bruce standing to his right – as soon as the door opened. They've all seen him now, and Bingley couldn't exactly pretend he was a lost SHIELD agent. Firstly, the flip-flops and hoodie; secondly, even if Jane hadn't met him already, the family resemblance is rather striking – Bingley's always molded his human faces and colorings off of the ones his clutch-sister uses.

Darcy, having suspected something along these lines would happen and been ready for it, stops Bingley's attempted escape bodily, blocking the door and shoving. Anyone watching wouldn't have been able to tell, with their odd human forms and closely matched strengths, but the wrestling between them in that doorway probably would have totaled a truck, much less a human being.

Darcy wins, of course. Being closer to the ground gives her a better angle to budge Bingley's lanky bones, and she's stronger than him anyway. Darcy shoves her clutch-brother fully inside the lab and Bingley's shoulders slump in annoyed defeat at the door closes behind him.

“You don't have to talk to him,” Darcy promises, hands raised as though to calm a wild animal, but also to catch him if he tried to slip around her somehow.

She steps to one side at the same time that he does, staying between him and the door. Meanwhile, Bingley perks up significantly as her promise registers with him. He doesn't stop trying to get a better shot towards the door, but he stops looking at though he might tackle her to get to it.

“He may – may, mind you – talk to you though,” Darcy admits with a wince. “But I expect you to be an adult about this and just tell people to fuck off instead of trying to run away.” Then she points suddenly towards one end of the room. “Also, check it out! The scepter – the thief's weapon – is literally right there!”

Bingley gives her a look that unquestionably states he's aware of this being a distraction, and that he finds it a paltry one at that, but as Darcy knew it would, it still works on him. Bingley straightens and turns to look at the glowing blue deathstick, sitting innocently on a table at the end of the room, with open curiosity and intrigued disgust. He walks towards it cautiously, moving past the Scientists Three as though they're a particularly uninteresting bit of wall instead of people.

Darcy sighs pointedly in his direction.

He just flicks her the middle finger behind his back as he sniffs the scepter.

“What,” Tony Stark says after a brief silence, hand paused midair, staring in horrified fascination at the horrible fascination that is Bingley Lewis.

Bruce, standing to Tony's right, pen in hand, has an expression that is only mildly horrified (but much more confused) as he demands of no one in particular, “Is that a undergrad?”

“Where'd Thor go?” Jane asks from Tony's left, no interest or fucks given for Darcy's clutch-brother.

Darcy decides to address those questions in order of the importance of the people asking them.

“Thor's watching over his brother at the moment,” Darcy explains to Jane, wishing that her phone was charged so that she could jot down reminders of all the things she had to keep track of.

Like: keep Thor updated on what's up with Loki, throttle information out of Bingley (note: after scepter analysis), find out how Bingley even knows that shit to begin with, keep Thor updated on his brother (v. important!), annoy Fury about how the search for Erik's going, keep Bingley away from Stark, get various autographs eventually, introduce Bingley to Steve just to see the reactions, etc.

Darcy turns to Bruce and Stark. “This is my brother, Bingley, who is also a dragon-”

“Fire and blood,” Bingley recites suddenly, fist raised momentarily before he goes back to sniffing and literally poking at Loki's scepter.

Darcy doesn't know how she keeps a straight face, but she somehow does. “Fire and blood,” she repeats back to him immediately, solemnly, one fist raised, because they've both been waiting to make that joke to actual other people for fucking forever and holy shit has it been worth it.

Stark's face is the most hilarious thing that Darcy has ever seen – ever. He gapes. That is the most gaping of gaping expressions in the history of gaping expressions. He gets it, Darcy can see it in his eyes, but he can't seem to believe it, and is therefore gaping.

Unlike Stark, Bruce doesn't get it at all, and understandably looks deeply, deeply concerned.

Jane just looks surprised that they went there, and maybe a little like she wants to hit her head against the nearest anything because she's apparently (rightly) realized that the references and bad jokes are going to be nonstop from here on out. A lot of jokes Darcy's made throughout their acquaintance are probably making a lot more sense to her now; the amount of dragon puns Jane's heard is kind of ridiculous, honestly, even by Darcy's standards.

“- and a magical expert, which I am not,” Darcy continues, dropping her fist as though they'd said nothing at all. Which everyone knows is the best part of playing this game. “He actually is an undergrad at Culver, but that's mostly just for funsies.”

“Funsies,” Bruce repeats disbelievingly, which is pretty fair considering that Culver is one of the top scientific schools in the country. He seems to be the only one to have regained the powers of speech, which was pretty fair considering that Darcy and Bingley went there.

And Bingley started it.

Darcy considers the various ways she could answer Bruce's prompt, but she just goes with shrugging. She and Bingley have had a long time to perfect things like SAT scores and work their way around various systems. She doesn't particularly want to get into it though, and tactfully decides not to mention their respective majors just to save them all the headache from the reactions.

She looks to her clutch-brother. “Whatcha got, Bing?”

“Fuck off,” he replies succinctly, which Darcy supposes she kind of asked for.

At that reminder, Darcy turns her gaze on Stark. “You... should probably not talk to him,” she says, unsure how to approach this issue exactly. How do you say 'My brother thinks you're the worst humanity has to offer' without offending? “He... doesn't li- approve of you.”

Nailed it.

Stark raises his brows, then looks Bingley over head to toe, lingering on the colorful flip-flops. “Despite my dubious memory of the many terrible first, second, and third-impressions I've made on people,” he says, “I am... mostly sure that we have never met before.”

“I am mostly sure that you haven't too,” Darcy replies, because she doesn't think Bingley could have actually met Tony Stark without ranting at her afterwards for at least three hours. For the first round. The phrase 'and another thing' is coming to mind here.

She waves a hand, brushing annoying thoughts away. “It's more like... he doesn't approve of some of the things you've done... in the past.” Stark's face shutters slightly. “Really! Don't worry about it, it's... just one of those 'Magic versus Science' things.”

“No, it's not.”

“Shut up, Bing. ... Just ignore him.”

Unfortunately, ordering people of science away from a puzzle came with about as much success as trying to herd cats. Stark thankfully doesn't look at all offended now, but he does look extremely interested in not-ignoring Bingley. Bruce still looks slightly disturbed, but also intrigued, and Jane, being told to get away from something, suddenly seems deeply interested too.

But Darcy hadn't spent so much time around a magic-user and scientists for nothing. She knew their greatest weakness: tangents into an area of their interest.

“So what are you guys doing?” Darcy prompts, gesturing towards the screen in front of them. Now that she's thinking about it, it's kind of odd that they were all gathered around a single space; at most she's seen them work in groups of two. “That... that does... The screens aren't meant to be flashing big red things, right?”

Stark tears his eyes away from Bingley's hypnotizing footwear. "Shit,” he says eloquently, immediately attacking the interface with his fingers. “SHIELD's finally realized someone's snooping in their system. Took them long enough. Should I be worried or flattered?”

Next to him, Bruce snorts, attention on the alarmingly flashing windows in front of them. “Worried. Definitely worried.”

“Now that's just mean,” Stark mumbles, busy focusing intently.

Jane looks over at Darcy with a complex expression that could most accurately be described as a grimace. “Remember that decryption program and the secure files?” she asks, half an eye on Stark, whose looks to be playing the most intense game app ever. “It worked.”

“Oh boy,” Darcy manages to muster.

Jane nods. “Exactly.”

Darcy doesn't know where this is going, but she has a feeling that it's not about to make her life any easier, so she checks back in with Bingley. Her clutch-brother has just licked the scepter. Which, hey, isn't all that bad; it's not like Darcy didn't eat the thing earlier – and dragon magic is a surprising tactile thing – but it still looks really weird. Especially since Bingley's shifted his tongue to something between his human and his black, forked dragon one.

“Uh... Find anything interesting?” Darcy says, hoping dearly that no one looks up soon.

“Many, many anythings,” Stark answers gleefully, his tone ringing painfully false. “SHIELD seems to think that I have the clean energy crisis well in hand, and have, by the looks of things, apparently decided to compete in my previous field of business.”

It's not hard to connect those dots if you'd turned on a television in the year following Stark's disappearance in Afghanistan. Or picked up any of the endless editions of everything with his face on it. Or visited the glorious disaster of social media even once. There'd even been some auto-tuned remix of the infamous, original press conference; Darcy might actually have it on her iPod.

“Oh boy,” she repeats, because there's really not much else to say.

Except maybe something along the lines of... ' Has anyone told Steve yet? I volunteer for it not to be me, because reasons.'

Speaking of which, she hasn't seen Steve for awhile – she hasn't seen him at all this morning, actually. She hopes he hasn't jumped out of another plane or something. Maybe he's hanging out with Agent Romanoff? They seemed like they had some sort of working relationship, so maybe they're off being unfairly good-looking and taking names or whatever it is that SHIELD agents and superheroes do.

“Here, Bruce, have a look at these ones,” Stark says, swiping something on his screen that causes a window of files to open on the one nearby. “They look like your thing, green-man. And Hiccup! Spacial Transportation in all it's unedited glory – you want?” He doesn't wait for Jane to stop looking and answer; Jane's tablet lights up with a similar window of files. “Meanwhile, I am going to see if I can keep them looking in all the wrong places...”

Jane looks like she wants to argue the nickname, but can't quite resist the temptation of SHIELD's secure files long enough to do it. Bruce seems to make some sort of facial shrugging motion at her and goes to see what goodies Stark has given him, stepping past Bingley. Bingley, who is watching the interaction with a curious look on face, which becomes pinched as Stark keeps speaking.

“I can't decide what's more annoying, that they've finally caught on and are still being sluggish about it, or that they're somehow managing to actually block things even turtle-paced. It's a delicate – oh, oh, that was dumb – balance between disapproving of their – honestly, this is blatantly offensive – incompetence and -”

Bingley looks up at Darcy, head tilted as though in question. Darcy raises her eyebrows back at him, and he glances towards Bruce for a moment. Shifting uncertainly, Darcy bites her lip and mimes tapping a watch before subtle pointing towards the scepter. Whatever's gotten him interested can wait until after he starts sharing what he knows about Loki; the faster they solve that particular problem, the happier pretty much everybody will be.

Except Loki maybe, and who he's working for, but Darcy doesn't care much about that.

“- wishing they were still incompetent enough to let me snoop in my own time. If they weren't learning about these loopholes now, then it'd probably be someone worse. Yes, yes, go look over there. Those files – go protect whatever those are. Go. Shoo.”

Bingley frowns deeply at her blow-off, then looks down at the scepter, sweeping his eyes over it, and back up to her. Darcy widens her eyes and purses her lips to ask him what she's supposed to get from that, and Bingley tilts his head slightly towards the door. Darcy shifts her head slightly and splays one hand palm-down, asking if he's done, because that was damn quick if he was. Bingley nods minutely, so Darcy shifts her head slightly and bites the side of her lip closer to the door; her clutch-brother stands tall to leave, but he stops mid-first-step and backs up as he sees something through the lab glass. Darcy faintly furrows her brows and takes a glance.

Shit.

~

She coughs into her hand. “Fury's coming in.”

Jane eyes widen and she tilts her tablet towards her chest, while Bruce subtly pushes his screen to an angle that's close to unreadable for anyone walking in. Behind him, Bingley goes back to studying the spear, waving his hands over it and muttering (which is complete bullshit, that's not how dragons do magic, but it looks reasonable). Stark only looks up as the door whooshes open, and doesn't bother to do anything to hide what he's looking at.

Darcy sidles closer to Jane, standing by Stark, leaving room for Fury to take center-stage.

It doesn't take long for the man to zero in on the fact that Stark is doing something Fury would rather he wasn't. And oh, hot damn, does he look pissed about it.

“What are you doing, Mr. Stark?” Fury demands flatly.

Stark cocks his head but doesn't take his eyes off his screen. “You know,” he says, sounding considering. “I could ask you the same thing.”

“You're supposed to be locating the Tesseract.”

“We are,” Bruce answers before Stark can. “We're sweeping for the locked model now. When we get a hit – if we get a hit, considering all the... intricacies involved –" How to avoid saying the word 'magic': a course by Dr. Bruce Banner apparently. “- then we'll have the location within half a mile.”

“And you'll get your cube back,” Tony says, taking over with obvious relish, “no muss, no fuss -”

Is her face straight? Darcy's not sure her face is straight; she hopes it is. It would probably not be good if her face were betraying the fact that the second she gets her claws on that thing – she's not actually touching it, though; god, no – it's getting handed directly off to Thor to take to Asgard. She's going to wave goodbye, and get Bingley to wave too, as it disappears forever out of SHIELD's reach. Which would probably get her in trouble with SHIELD if they got wind of it, so she hopes her face is straight.

“- to continue...” Tony pauses, slipping off the counter as he flips through SHIELD's previously-secure files seemingly without a care in the world. Then he tilts his head and looks at Fury with vicious curiosity. “... What is Phase Two?”

Darcy sees the figure coming in the door besides everyone else except her brother, who gets a wide-eyed look on his face that would be hilarious in any other situation. She sighs; Bingley looks at her with his most demanding scowl; and Steve Rogers drops an enormous gun on the table that looks like it belongs in a science-fiction action blockbuster. It lands with a heavy thunk that attracts everyone's attention, except Bingley, who's still giving Darcy a 'what the actual fuck' look.

What's even more eye-catching though, is Steve's expression. He looks murderous.

“I've got a guess,” Steve says, tone flat.

On the opposite side of the room, Bingley's eyes are still wide enough that they might pop out of his head. Her clutch-brother is leaning heavily on the table for support, subtly-not-subtly pointing at Steve so hard that his hand is shaking. Bingley finally opens his mouth to say something to his clutch-sister, and silently forms the words, 'What is THAT?'

Steve looks towards Tony. “Sorry; I couldn't wait for the computer,” he says stiffly. “I thought I'd try things a more old-fashioned way. It seemed to work.” Then he turns back to Fury, eyes hard. “Some things never seem to change.”

'Is that STEVE?' Bingley silently demands of Darcy, jabbing a finger at the man in question. He looks so confused, Darcy can't decide whether to coo, laugh at her sibling's suffering, or just be honestly surprised that Bingley remembers who Steve is.

Okay, so maybe she's said 'Hey look, it's Steve' literally every single time they've seen any representation of Captain America for the past fifty years – and there have been a lot of those – and Steve is still wearing the horrible costume that got puked out of the American flag... So it's kind of obvious. But she can still be impressed that Bingley was actually paying any sort of attention, which is a hilariously low bar, but still impressive.

Darcy nods minutely at him, while rolling her eyes, which makes his eyes seem to bug out even more.

Somehow reminded, Darcy checks on Jane next to her. The other woman has stepped a little ways away from Stark and closer to Darcy, and seems to be torn between watching this confrontation and being fully consumed by the files Stark sent to her tablet. Eh, she's fine.

Fury sighs as though he just does not have time for this shit. “Rogers, we gathered everything related to the Tesseract, that does not mean that-”

“Ohhh, oh, oh,” Tony interrupts giddily, “how committed are you to finishing that sentence, Nick?” He swings his screen around to show Fury his own not-so-secure files right-side round, pulling up blueprints that even at first glance are obviously Version 2.0 of the gun acting as paperweight to Jane's work. “Because unless you have a backup lie, then you might want to bail.”

'Wasn't he dead?' Bingley demands, flicking a finger across his throat to emphasize the point.

Darcy purses her lips in a facial shrug and mouths back, 'Evidently not.'

This is when Steve seems to properly take notice of Bingley, frowning as he looks Darcy's clutch-brother over. Bingley stares warily back at Steve, and Darcy wonders if Steve'll make the connection. Bingley's changed his face a bit over the years – he looks younger, for one – and he seriously does look like an undergrad. But Steve quickly refocuses on Fury, who is probably more important to him at the moment.

'How?' Bingley mouths, not letting up.

He can tell she vaguely knows something about this, but Darcy would rather just let him stew in confusion on human lifespans until he starts spilling secrets himself. So she puts down the ultimatum of 'Weapon first' with a significant glance at the scepter to make sure he can't misinterpret her meaning. He frowns at her again, opening his mouth to say something, before cutting himself off, attention suddenly captured by said weapon.

“I repeat, director: some things never seem to change,” Steve says coldly.

Fury stares back, his expression a mixture of neutrality and resignation, standing silently, as the door slides smoothly open and Agent Natasha Romanoff walks into the room. She's as she seems to perpetually be: cool as a cucumber. And her expression doesn't change a bit at the obvious tension in the room.

“Thor's not moving off watching his brother,” Natasha informs Fury.

“With good reason,” Jane mutters near-silently by Darcy's side.

Which is a pretty inarguable point against whyever anybody wants Thor not watching Loki. Admittedly, the situation is dubious healthy for the both of them, but Thor is the only one of the three people who are likely to notice magical foul-play that isn't currently in this room. And is also the person most likely to recognize when Loki was making his move.

“Did you know about this?” Banner asks Natasha quietly, fists clenching and unclenching as he gestures to the gun on the table and the blueprints on the screen.

Natasha looks at him, expression blank. Or, possibly, she looks behind him to Bingley, who's running his long fingers over the scepter and breathing in strange patterns. Darcy recognizes it as some sort of containing magic, meant to hide something away as wholly as possible from the outside world – she's seen him do it often enough, and the scent currently on his breath is pretty memorable.

“You wanna consider removing yourself from this environment, doctor?” Natasha asks coolly, avoiding an actual answer. Darcy can't tell whether or not she did know; from listening faintly, the woman's heartbeat is impressively steady.

Jane pokes Darcy's elbow and whispers uncertainly, “What's your brother doing?”

“Containment magic of some kind,” Darcy murmurs. “I know it looks weird. Trust me, it looks so much better when there's scales.” Gosh, how she hopes he doesn't blow anything up or anything out, because then Stark might blow a gasket and Bingley won't react well to that.

Jane huffs slightly. "I bet."

“I was well removed before,” Bruce replies, switching his calm, accusing look on Fury. “I was well out of this, and I probably should have stayed there judging by the -” He gestures vaguely to find the phrasing. “- 'nervous twitch' everyone's suddenly developed overnight. But now that SHIELD's brought me in, I'd like to know why the Tesseract is being used to build weapons of mass destruction.”

“Seconded,” Stark chimes in.

Fury ignores Stark, instead keeping an intense, even stare on Bruce. Bruce meets the stare with relative ease, folding his arms over his chest as he waits for the explanation behind SHIELD playing with a power that could – and has, if it really is the Infinity Stone that Thor thinks it might be – level the planet with even more ease than nuclear warheads.

“...Because of you,” Fury answers.

What.

~

Bruce pales immediately, his expression a mess of confusion and surprise that quickly becomes one of acceptance and resignation. He unfolds an arm to lean on the nearest counter, keeping the hand holding his pen tucked under his elbow.

“Me,” he says.

Fury surveys them all with a critical eye, lingering for a moment on Bingley before focusing back on Bruce Banner. “The Harlem wreckage,” he explains to the room at large, “was the inevitable breaking point in an exponential rise in superhuman -” Fury looks a Darcy. “- and non-human people, abilities, and incidents.”

(- but it seems to Darcy sometimes that something extraordinary is unfolding among humanity -)

“For all I know, there's another crackpot cooking up his own version of the Super Soldier Serum somewhere that'll make you and Emil Blonsky look like wrestling kittens in comparison,” Fury tells Bruce. “Your match nearly leveled a dozen city blocks. We cannot afford to hope to hell that you feel like helping the next time that we're so hopelessly, hilariously outgunned.”

Bingley looks up at Darcy midway through and mouths 'Who?'. Darcy can only make another facial shrug at him, because she has no idea who 'Blondie' is. Bingley goes back to his spellwork with another disgruntled expression, and then it occurs to Darcy that, out of the process of elimination, he probably means-

“If you have something to say, then by all means say it, Lewis,” Fury says, interrupting Darcy's thought process as he turns to look fully towards her. “You're even worse than he is.”

Darcy blinks at him; Bingley's head snaps up with a heated scowl towards Fury that doesn't bode well; Jane finally looks up from her tablet with a scowl that bodes even worse.

“Excuse me?” Darcy says reflexively. Because what?

“You appear from nowhere, after at least a lifetime of being undetected. If Norse Gods who tear apart small towns in grudge matches weren't enough, we get fantasy beasts who raze desert roads in car chases too. And -” Fury gestures towards Bingley. “- in pairs. With magic, with ulterior motives, and with no compunction in keeping as many secrets as you personally see fit.”

Bingley stands up tall, to his full height, which, with Thor not here, makes him the tallest person in the room. His eyes are almost glowing gold and whatever he's breathing out right now feels angry as all hell, and Darcy preemptively cringes, because she can tell this won't help their case.

“We're only a threat to those who threaten us first,” Bingley snarls – literally snarls. Making Stark and Bruce take a step away from him, and Natasha, Steve, and Jane tense. “We want nothing but to be left in peace and live peacefully on this planet.”

Fury looks back at him, seemingly unimpressed, but his heart rate is bounding. “But you're not the only ones out there, are you?” he asks, making Bingley stiffen. “Not the only threat. The Asgardians talk about alliances and peace, and bring their infighting over for a visit. Loki has an alien army ready to show up on our doorstop. It's a crowded place out there, and it's getting crowded in here too. The world's filling up with people who can't be matched, who can't be stopped, who can't be controlled when they feel threatened, Mister Lewis.”

Bingley snarls again, without words, just an antagonized growl towards Fury, and Darcy hisses at him to make him back down before he causes more problems. Her clutch-brother scowls at her, she makes a quiet rumble in her throat, then Bingley crosses his arms, looks away, and goes silent. Darcy breathes out in relief, taking comfort in Jane's hand on her arm.

“And who's going to make sure you're controlled?” Jane demands angrily of Fury, somehow managing that thing where she looks down on someone even though she's shorter than them. “Because you sound pretty threatened to me, director.”

Good ol' Jane.

Fury sighs in tired exasperation again, and Steve steps in to speak to him.

“The SSR never stopped wanting HYDRA's weapons for our side – to win the war and permanently end the Nazi threat. But I've seen what that cube can do; it's not the answer, sir. It's the problem.”

Natasha looks at him, then cocks her head slightly. “Loki opened a portal with it from across space, even with our best watching,” she says, as though considering something. She looks at Fury. “A weapon we don't know how to use is going to kill us; and it looks like this is one that always belonged to our enemies.”

Fury mutters something under his breath that sounds suspiciously like, “You too.”

“Even if you did know how to work the Tesseract – even if you could – it would still kill you,” Bingley says, because apparently he can not shut up. Darcy rubs her hand over her cheeks and resigns herself to an astounding amount of damage control. She's going to get a headache at this rate.

“And how is that, Mister Lewis?”

Bingley points down at the scepter in front of him. “This weapon has a connection directly to the Frost Giant, and was attempting to emotionally aggravate the occupants of this room. The only reason it probably hasn't sent you -” He points directly at Fury. “- even further into your infighting and discordance is our -” He gestures at himself and Darcy. “- presence. Powers like these ones are completely beyond you.”

“Oh god, could he be more disdainful and condescending?” Darcy mumbles into Jane's hair, hiding her face from having to witness her clutch-brother's well-honed antisocial skills.

Jane shrugs slightly. “Probably.”

“The most that you would accomplish with your fumbling,” Bingley continues unheeded, his chest heaving with rage to the point where Darcy thinks she might actually be smelling smoke, “would be to alert those out there who seek such powers that the Tesseract is here and ripe for the taking. And you've already done that. Through your journey for control, you've courted chaos! The Frost Giant is only a foot soldier in the war coming to consume the world -”

“Bingley! Can it! Now!” Darcy snaps, lifting her head away from Jane's. Fury is making an extremely good point, but they don't have confirmation (actual substantial proof) as to Loki's allies and they don't need to escalate the situation here by blurting out bedtime stories about a planet-destroying maniac.

Bingley growls at her, but obligingly shuts up.

“Is there something we should be worried about?” Fury asks flatly.

“Not anymore than your immediate problems,” Darcy answers, which is the most she'll give him.

“Got a lot of those,” Stark mumbles, loud enough for everyone in the room to hear.

Fury's eye twitches slightly, and Darcy can hear the unspoken 'You are my immediate problem' that he probably wants to yell at the both of them - maybe the entire room. Instead, he says:

“Our hand is being forced.” Fury looks at Stark. “Do you expect us to twiddle our thumbs when someone starts mass-producing War Machines? Do you expect us to just sit here and pray that the next mutant with enough power to sink the East Coast decides they'd rather teach kindergarteners? We had to come up with something.”

“Because a nuclear deterrent always calms everything right down,” Stark says sarcastically.

By the wall, Bingley snorts loudly. Darcy closes her eyes briefly and hopes to hell that he doesn't try to rip into Stark for the things he's always hated about the man. Shoving Tony Stark in her clutch-brother's face was funny until they got the real thing.

“Don't you dare,” she mutters, loud enough so that she knows Bingley will catch it. By the tilt of his head, Steve does too, but that doesn't matter so long as Stark doesn't catch on.

“Remind me again how you made your fortune, Stark,” Fury says.

Bingley's face screws up again, but he thankfully keeps his mouth closed.

“Remind me again how much I learned to regret that!” Stark snaps back at Fury, which makes Bingley and Steve both give the man an interested look.

Bingley still turns away, but he looks like he's thinking more than pouting or brooding, which is a relief. What isn't so relieving is when Darcy notices that, next to her clutch-brother, Bruce Banner seems to either be having trouble breathing or calming the fuck down. Bruce transforms when he gets stressed or angry or attacked. Shit.

“The Iron Man suit suggests differently, Stark.”

This is exactly the kind of crap that Loki probably wants.

“Bruce,” she says, intentionally drawing the attention of the entire room. “Are you alright?”

Because if there's anyone on this helicarrier who doesn't know the risk of the Hulk and isn't terrified (or at least wary, in Bingley and Thor's cases) of bringing it out, then Loki is her best friend and it's another fucking universe. At the very least it's guaranteed to make Fury back down a bit, given that he probably doesn't want a second Harlem wreckage on his helicarrier.

“Hmm? Oh, oh, it's nothing,” Bruce says, lying plainly as he looks around the room with a reassuring smile that's actually a grimace. “I'm just trying to cope with the fact that I'm apparently the reason the world is facing interplanetary war and the destruction of mankind as we know it.”

~

“661 Bravo, please relay your pass code. What is your hull, over?”

“Arms to ammunition, over.”

~

“Doctor Banner, I was speaking in a g-”

The man in question laughs; it sounds dead.

“No, no, it's... it's almost flattering, isn't it? I'm so scary that people would rather play with something apparently with the potential to destroy the planet than actually... say... I don't know... consider anything else? 'Because of me.' Wow, you should know how to make a guy feel at home, director.”

Darcy wants to bang her head against the nearest available surface. She should have known that letting Bingley talk would only escalate the situation. How the fuck did she forget how much this shit – Frost Giants, Jahandar – terrifies her clutch-brother? Bingley always overreacts when he gets emotional; who fucking needs an emotionally-manipulative scepter with him around to induce panicking and paranoia?

Around the room, the stupid-lizard-butt at fault is watching Bruce warily, Stark looks interested and vaguely surprised at this development, and Jane looks like she'd rather be literally anywhere else right now. Steve has a concerned expression, stance tense, while Natasha Romanoff's face is blank and her body suspiciously relaxed for her thrumming heartbeat.

Fury is a wall, but like Romanoff, he's not totally calm in this confrontation. His heart is racing like it did in the desert, like he's facing a dragon again, here and now. It quickens slightly as Bruce takes a step towards him and Darcy can't help but step slightly in front of Jane at the heady mix of fear and agitation in the room.

Calling attention to Bruce did not drop the level of animosity in this room like she'd hoped it would.

“You describe the world like it's some chemical mixture set to explode with one wrong move, like... like... we're all... Me, him, them...” Bruce points at himself, Stark, and Darcy and Bingley respectively. “Like we're... we're a kind of time-bomb ticking down. How is adding those -” He jabs the accusing finger at Stark's screen of weapons schematics. “- going to control the situation?”

“You need to step away from this, doctor.”

“I don't see how I can.”

“I don't see why he should,” Stark pipes up, moving to stand next to Bruce and jostling the man lightly with his shoulder. Stark looks at Fury with amused accusing. “Really! Why shouldn't he?”

“Maybe because this is a point that should be argued when there isn't a known mass murderer trying to rile people up to help whatever he's planning?” Jane offers bitingly back, which is a pretty fair point in itself. This is a situation that needs to be defused, not incited further.

Stark snorts. “So when? When the Tesseract's tucked away in a secret base again to start the factory line? That seems a little counterproductive to the point trying to be made here.”

“Hypocrite,” Bingley mutters, too low to be heard by human ears.

Bruce seems to ignore this arguing entirely, keeping his focus solely on Fury. “I know I'm a convenient scapegoat, director, and I understand your position, but I don't think this kind of shaky handling is helping to keep the chemical mixture from getting agitated. Doctor Foster said it: who's going to make sure these are controlled? Where – exactly – are you going to draw the line of 'threat'?”

Darcy feels a shiver go down her spine at those words; if that's not a phrase that hasn't haunted some of history's worst, then there are very few of them out there. If SHIELD can use an Infinity Stone to craft weapons, they will without a doubt be unstoppable. Nuclear deterrents may not exactly calm everything down, but there's still something to be said for 'mutually assured destruction'.

All eyes are on SHIELD's director and Bruce, whose chest is heaving slightly after his demands. Bingley has shoved his hands in his hoodie pocket and is actually paying full attention, and Steve and Stark, no matter how they try to mute it, both look more than a little bit invested in getting answers.

“...Agent Romanoff,” Fury says, moving backwards to the door as though beginning to leave, “would you escort Doctor Banner back to his-”

“Ouch,” Darcy breathes out, as Jane sharply inhales at what may be the worst conversation drop either of them has ever witnessed.

Stark seems to agree. “ What? Y-”

“Director -” Steve begins in objection.

“Where?” Bruce questions angrily, stepping forward again, with Romanoff subtly moving herself a little between Fury and Banner. “You've filled my room already. Are we time-bombs meant to share storage now?”

“The cell, Doctor Banner, was just in case-”

“You needed to kill me, I know, but you can't. I know! I TRIED!" 

Darcy freezes, chilled at the admission, and she can see Bingley's face losing color on the other side of the room. Stark is staring at Bruce in front of him with a vaguely agonized look, while Steve's expression has turned somber and Natasha's seems ever-so-slightly guarded. Fury just looks heavyhearted and grim, as though he isn't even surprised. Maybe he's not.

Bruce looks around at all of them, but specifically towards Fury again as he explains, “I got low. I didn't see an end to all the suffering happening because of me... so I put a bullet in my mouth. ... And guess what? The other guy spit it out. If that won't do the trick, then I doubt that 'Phase Two' will.

“But I moved on. Thought I had to unless I wanted a guest room with someone else – to avoid another Blonsky. I focused on helping other people, doing bits of good where I could. I was good. Until you dragged me back to toss me into the chemical mixture too! I feel like bait. Bait that you brought to dangle in front of Loki, putting everyone on this ship at risk!”

Then Bruce goes silent, breathing heavily before he takes a deep breath and says, “I -”

Beep.

He turns to look at the screens behind him, so does everyone else.

Bingley, who is strangely the closest to the computer, peers at the flashing letters with a frown. “Match located?” he reads, as though sounding out the letters. His frown gets deeper as a window appears on the screen with several bright red squares depicting the located area.

“The Tesseract...” Jane says, making Darcy's heart skip a beat and soar.

They found it. Maybe her Erik's with it.

“...It got a hit?”

“I can get there the fastest,” Stark volunteers, stepping past Bruce to leave the lab, but Steve steps forward and puts a hand in the way before the door can open.

“You have no idea what's waiting there.”

“You have no idea if we can afford to wait at all,” Stark returns. “Portal? Alien threat? Remember those? I know minds tend to go with old age, but -”

Steve scowls. “Just charging ahead is liable to get someone killed, Mister Stark.”

“Sitting on our asses and taking the slow lane could be liable to get a lot of someones killed, Mister Rogers. I'm putting on the suit and -”

While Fury, Natasha, and a wearied Bruce are watching Steve vs. Stark, Bingley is still frowning at the map on the screen.

“I have seen this city before,” Darcy's clutch-brother says.

“- heading out to stop the end of the world as we know it -”

“Stark, that's n-”

“City?” Jane repeats, alarmed.

Darcy groans. Fucking hell, Loki just has to keep making this worse.

“Gentlemen, if you c-”

“- before it starts, thanks very much.”

Bruce, with a disturbed frown towards Bingley, takes a step towards the screen Tony was using to display secret weapon blueprints, which is now displaying the same visual as the one Bingley's looking at. He leans in and squints at it, disgruntled, and then his eyes go wide as he seems to realize what he's looking at.

“Oh my god.”

Chapter Text

Bruce, with a disturbed frown towards Bingley, takes a step towards the screen Tony was using to display secret weapon blueprints, which is now displaying the same visual as the one Bingley's looking at. He squints at it, disgruntled, and then his eyes go wide.

“Oh my god.”

The next thing Darcy knew was fire – flames and glass and metal flying up and going everywhere – because the room had exploded. She didn't see what happened to the others; Darcy was busy grabbing Jane, turning her back, and holding tight like there was no tomorrow. Everyone and everything else got swallowed in the chaos as the floor fell out beneath them.

The thing that Darcy knew after that was darkness, pain, and breathing that was unfairly at least three times more difficult as normal. She opened her eyes to a dimly-lit area beneath the lab, smoke and a missing ceiling above her as someone with small hands frantically shook at her shoulders. Loud, discordant noises sounded all around them -

“Stark! Rogers!”

“Yep!”

- which manages to snap Darcy out of her moment of stunned half-consciousness back into full, winded, aching awareness.

There are two people down here next to Darcy and her armful of Jane, two people still up in the laboratory, two more running away with their footsteps and bounding heartbeats growing fainter. One of the people above is Bingley, Darcy would know him anywhere; the other is injured. Out of the two down here, one has a heartbeat like a rabbit, the other has a... well, it doesn't sound healthy.

Everything understandably smells like burning.

“-e a favor and don't be dead, Darcy,” Jane is babbling angrily – and doesn't that phrase ring a few bells – still held moderately tightly to Darcy's front, in her arms, and thumping at her shoulders to smack her out of her daze.

“Hill?”

“Turn up that engine! Number 3 engine is down!”

“Reduce, re-use, recycle,” Darcy groans at the line repeat and releases Jane, hissing in pain as her friend scrabbles off her and inadvertently puts weight on some sore spots. It's not the worst, it's not even really unbearable, but it fucking hurts, like her back's suddenly made of nothing but papercuts.

“Can we get a run in? Talk to me!”

“I think – I think I have shrapnel in my back,” she confesses to Jane as she forces herself to sit up.

“You what?”

“Turbine's loose. Mostly intact, but -”

Darcy stretches a little to test the bad spots, wincing as she does. “Okay, yes, I am definitely part pincushion right now. No, Jane, no manhandlin- holyfuckingshit! Ow, ow, ow, ow. Son of a motherf-”

“- it's impossible to get out there and make repairs while we're in the air.”

Jane gasps. “Darcy, your back -!”

But Darcy's not paying any mind – she's had worse; she'll be able to fix it – because Jane's tiny-physicist-handling has whirled Darcy around the face the two who've fallen with them. It's Romanoff and Banner; Natasha looks more or less fine (single piece of shrapnel in one shoulder; Darcy can see and smell it) but seriously unnerved, half-crouched almost over Bruce, who is groaning in pain under a pile of debris, caught beneath a large, broken pipe that's lying across his back.

That's... that's not an insignificant amount of blood.

“We lose one more engine, we won't be.”

“Oh my god, Darcy, we need to get you medical assistance. You nee-”

“Doctor Banner,” Natasha is saying, voice calm but eyes urgent, “Doctor Banner, I need you to fight this. This is exactly what Loki wants. Look at me; listen to me: we're -”

“Somebody's got to get inside and patch that engine.”

Darcy swats Jane's hands away gently, more than once as she struggles to her feet and Jane tries to stop her. “Jane, I'll be fine. Seriously, I'm tough like nails. ...Actually... if you could pull out the piece just above my- fuck, Jane. GIVE A GIRL SOME WARNING!”

“- going to be okay. Fight it, Banner, we need you to fight it.”

“Stark! You copy that?!”

Darcy whirls on Jane only to see that the woman's face is almost white; she's holding a bloody piece of scrap metal and looks like she's about to faint. The vulnerability on her face makes Darcy soften, and she squeezes Jane's hand slightly as she takes back the bloody metal and sticks it in her pocket.

“I'm on it!”

Then Darcy tears herself away and staggers over to Romanoff and Banner, trying to let Jane help her along (it's so much less hassle not to fight her on this) without actually putting any real weight on the other woman. Darcy is kind of heavier than she looks and Jane wasn't exactly the one who loaded Thor into the van when she hit him – that was a combination of Erik and Darcy, thank you very much. (Mostly Darcy, actually, with a lot of effort on her part to pretend otherwise; Erik could have thrown out his back or something.)

Above them, someone half-strides-half-limps out of the lab and down the hall, footsteps and voice slowly being lost to the alarms and chaos. “Coulson! Initiate official lock down in the detention section th-” Fury, of course; who else could those dulcet tones be?

Darcy stumbles off of Jane, down next to Bruce with Natasha, who's still reciting soothing platitudes and shoots Darcy a wary, warning look as she approaches. Romanoff is hovering like she's concerned, but Darcy's really getting the vibe that she would rather be anywhere else than where she is right now. And Darcy can't really blame her, because the shaking in Bruce's shoulders is ominous and really unnatural in someone being crushed under a pipe. Jane gasps slightly and Natasha flinches oh-so-barely when an inhuman ripple runs under Bruce Banner's skin, which has a green tinge Darcy can only hope she's imagining, followed by a guttural moan of agony.

Darcy pauses mid-motion, one hand under the pipe to lift it off the good doctor. Her heart has leaped to her throat with the dawning realization of 'oh shit, this is happening', the ever-cool Agent Romanoff's heartbeat is pounding, and Jane is no better – she's terrified. Darcy tries to scramble through the options in her mind, but there are very few here and 'improvisation' is going to be the word of the day no matter which one she picks.

“I got this,” her mouth chooses for her, always skipping several steps ahead of her brain.

Jane starts to protest, but all Darcy's attention is caught up in the rush in her ears and the tremors wracking Bruce's body at her side. He writhes; the heavy pipe pressing him down moves with him even though it probably should have broken his back; his head turns just enough for Darcy to catch a glimpse of desperate, toxic-green eyes.

She can't tell whose fear she's tasting anymore; it might belong to all of them.

“I got this,” Darcy repeats immediately, with far more surety than she's feeling right now. She looks up at Romanoff and Jane. “Go. Get out of here.”

Natasha's heartbeat is wild and her fingers are trembling, but her face is still cool and her eyebrows twitch upward for a moment. She's standing up more now, body nearly vibrating with tension, and Darcy can read what the woman's projecting loud and clear.

Are you sure?

Absolutely not about so many things. But about this...? Definitely.

Sort of.

Darcy grins, probably more grimly than she'd like. “I'm kind of on top of the giant colorful monster thing,” she points out. “Bit of an expert.”

“Right,” Romanoff agrees, lips twitching with a ghost of humor.

The woman doesn't wait another second to make her move; Natasha takes Jane by the arm and leads her efficiently away into the guts of the helicarrier at a limping run. Jane, still pale and slightly shaky, goes easily enough, keeping eye contact with Darcy for as long as she can before she disappears behind pipes and machinery. She mouths something as she goes, but Darcy only catches something that looks like 'stay safe' – or so Darcy's dreamer side interprets.

For Jane's sake, Darcy keeps her cool for as long as the woman's in view before the first round of stressed-induced respiratory problems sets in. Breath hitching a little, Darcy turns back to Bruce and tosses the crushing pipe off him like it's made of Styrofoam. It clangs heavily as it lands on the metal floor, and, relieved of the pressure, Bruce lets out a long, low groan of relief. But the sound is quickly cut short by a pop like a gunshot that coordinates perfectly with a spasm through Bruce's body and followed by a strangled scream from his lips that probably would have torn Darcy's heart in two if the vital organ didn't feel like it was trying to escape through her mouth and she wasn't freaked out beyond all her record levels of freaked.

“Just so you know, I tased the last guy who was freaking me out this much,” Darcy mutters, voice hitting a revealingly high pitch as she clears some of the sharper debris away from Banner before he cuts himself further than he has already. “And he was a god. And it was before I came clean about the dragon thing, so you can only imagine what I might do now, right? Oh my god, Iamsooutofmydepth. Bruce – Bruce Banner – please, please calm down before more bad shit goe-”

Another pop like a gunshot sounds, along with a brief series of click-clacks, all from Bruce. Oh fucking hell, Darcy realizes, wide-eyed, as she watches his shoulders move in a way that shoulders should not move. She recognizes that staggered knitting sound coming from under his skin as he tosses and turns upwards, back arching slightly off the floor now; she hears it every time she changes her shape. Those are his bones.

Ignoring the blood seeping into her jacket and the slices in her back, Darcy grabs Bruce by the self-rearranging shoulders and leans into his green-mottled face, trying to catch the inhuman glow of his eyes. “Bruce Banner! Bruce, you need to stay human, alright?” she unashamedly begs, more to any higher power that is listening than the man who is probably in wa~y too much pain to hear her.

Bruce groans and thrashes restlessly; Darcy reaches out to grab his hand and hopefully his attention, pressing her other palm against his chest and keeping her breathing as steady as she can. It's a little bit tricky though, feeling the blood and twitching muscles under her palms.

“Can you hear me? We need you to not... Hulk out. We really, really need you not to do that. Even though you are more than justified in freaking out just as much as I am right now! Please, just breathe; here, with me... in... out... in... out... Bruce. Bruce. You cannot give Loki w-”

Oh fuckity fuck.

Some rational part of her knows many things. Firstly, what is happening here is a lost cause and she couldn't prevent it even if she actually knew how. Secondly, this isn't Loki's end game, it's a statement mixed with a distraction made with the intention to cripple severely probably. There are other things that have to be prioritized now, above Bruce and Jane and helicarriers, much as she hates it.

So Darcy tosses her head back, up towards the lab, squinting through the hazy smoke and steam, and shouts: “BING!”

Her clutch-brother's head pops into view almost immediately, hair and face thoroughly frazzled. “I AM NEVER GOING ANYWHERE FOR YOU EVER AGAIN!” he shouts down at her, fingers clinging to the edges of where the floor's fallen through. “Wait, is he-”

“Take the scepter and run, Bing!”

“...What?”

“Take t- AAAAH!”

Darcy screams as Bruce's hand finally takes a grip on hers and he squeezes, probably involuntarily, groaning as his color flushes deeply and his shirt starts to tear at the seams. The muscles under her other hand spasm and bulge unnaturally; his heartbeat is going insane; but all she can focus on is the pain he's inflicting on her, which is weird and, frankly, terrifying. Darcy is strong and durable even in her human form – she's got shrapnel is her back and it's pretty easily bearable – but it feels like he's breaking her fingers.

It hurts; it hurts a lot.

“I'm coming down there,” Bingley says urgently.

“NO, YOU AREN'T!” Darcy shouts back at him, trying to extract her hand and hold Bruce down as though that's going to somehow prevent the inevitable horror of what's happening. “BINGLEY! BINGLEY, LISTEN TO ME.”

“I'm co-”

“Listen to me for fucking once in your life!”

Above, Bingley freezes and says in a small, offended voice, “I always listen to you.”

“I – I know. Oh god f- I know you do, Bing,” Darcy says, voice straining as Bruce squeezes down on her hand again, his own hand swollen and his veins bulging. “I know you do; I have the greatest brother in the whole goddamn world – aarghhh – and I need – I need him to do me one more favor. Take the scepter and run, Bing.”

“But -”

Another explosion rocks the helicarrier, one that finally gets Bruce to release her hand and sends them both slamming into the nearest piece of wall – they dent it, and then the lights flicker out. Darcy manages to scramble herself upright quickly enough, but Bruce goes stumbling off, away from her like she's got the plague – like he's got the plague. The cracking sounds under his skin are getting more frequent; Darcy can't tell if his bones are breaking apart or snapping together or both. Probably both.

“Bingley, that thing is dangerous, right? Loki should not get his hands on it again, right?”

“Well, ye-”

“Then take that thing and run. Bingley, take it and get as far away as you can as fast you can, and don't let Loki have it. Fly away from this carrier and don't look back,” Darcy orders, swaying on her feet as she focuses on Bruce hunching in on himself.

Even in the now darkened helicarrier depths, he's looking... well... green.

“I got this,” Darcy tells her clutch-brother firmly, sliding into a ready position that pulls uncomfortably at her injured back.

She's never been so aware of her heartbeat in her life, it's beating almost as fast as Bruce's suddenly rushing one as his pained groans change into something much deeper and snarling. His heart sounds set to burst; hers feels like it at the mutating sounds he's making.

Bingley snorts. “No, you don't,” he says, but she hears him scramble to his feet anyway.

He, by the sound of it, grabs the scepter and runs out the lab door. The muted wrongness of the scepter disappears entirely and a faint prickle of warmth, one that Darcy's hadn't noticed until now, fades away with the endearing flip-flop of her clutch-brother's footsteps.

“No, I don't,” Darcy admits under her breath to herself.

And then Bruce Banner grows.

~

There is no other way to describe Bruce Banner's not-so-mild-mannered alter-ego than 'hulking', so the name 'The Incredible Hulk' is an extraordinarily apt one for the creature in front of her. Even through the dim light, Darcy could see the way its enormous, green muscles moved with every heavy, heaving breath. Its veins bulged; its back looked nearly rigid with tension; the descriptor 'compressed rage' came to mind with far too much ease for Darcy's own ease.

Her heart stuttered painfully with each piece of shrapnel that clattered to the floor from the Hulk, those last few bits that hadn't been pushed out during the transformation. It was the only sound that interrupted the endless hiss of gas that escaped the pipes the Hulk was leaning on – and was crushing slowly under its immense weight.

She understands a bit better what it must be like to be around her and her clutch-brother now. She's seen more unbelievable transformations, but she's never had reason to fear them before. The videos of the Harlem wreckage and match at Culver really didn't do the Hulk justice.

There is nothing Darcy would like more than to shift into a shape with scales, but this place is too small for that. She'd probably get stuck instead of doing any actual good. At best, Darcy wouldn't be able to turn around without gutting this helicarrier's insides and, given that they're apparently out an engine, that would probably be really bad for everybody.

So, instead of running like she really wants to, Darcy takes a hesitant step forward towards the hulking, heaving creature in the dark.

“Bruce?” she prompts, voice mostly steady.

The Hulk's head snaps towards her terrifyingly fast, toxic-green eyes glowing. There's no recognition there, Darcy realizes headily, just pain and anger, now fixated on her. She takes an unconscious step backwards as the Hulk takes a staggering step forward, huge fists clenched at its sides.

“Bruce, if you are in there at all, could you please give me some si-”

The Hulk roars, impossibly loud and completely inhuman, interrupting Darcy's words and sending goosebumps over her skin. It's nothing like Bingley's draconian roar, which had been the dragon version of a bird's call to another, or a human's 'where are you, get your ass the fuck out here'. This sound is the one Darcy will now permanently file under 'primal rage' and never forget for the rest of her life, however long that's now going to be.

Then the Hulk lunges and Darcy only barely manages to duck under its massive arm, which tears through the machinery behind her like wet paper. She doesn't have to think about running, she just sprints, directionless except to get away from this thing – somewhere she can transform and get out of her hideously vulnerable human shape; somewhere that is the opposite direction of Jane. But despite her fairly mindless terror, she is still horribly aware of the metal structures getting smashed apart behind her, crumpling to pieces, seemingly close enough to clip the ends of her hair.

So much for not gutting the helicarrier.

She's never been much of a runner though, so it doesn't really surprise her all that much when an enormous knuckle almost brushes her side and then backhands her into a wall.

Ow.

The air whooshes out of her lungs; the wall crunches slightly with her impact; the Hulk roars, not even in victory, only in never-ending rage; and fuck, does it hurt. The world is jarred... fragmented... blaring alarms and distant explosions that make her head ache. The impact does her back no favors either, and the pain sends her straight through 'freaked out and terrified' to 'pissed the fuck off'.

Darcy gets the ground back under her feet fast, because she's always done what has to be done, and right now she has to stand because to fucking hell with this shit. She might not be able to be her dragon form in this inconvenient time and inconvenient place, but her human shape really isn't fucking cutting it against Bruce Banner gone Incredible Hulk. He needs to be stopped for the sake of literally everybody on this breaking helicarrier piece of crap – Bingley and Jane; those are the important ones – and for his own if nothing else.

Beneath her skin, Darcy can feel her stomach churning with fire that isn't there and scales bristling over bulk she doesn't have. Something inside of her – something much more massive and ancient than the angry little wyrm; something that brings to mind black scales and clattering bones; something that spends most of its time dormant except for flickers when chasing and challenging that horrible Asgardian Frost Giant Prince – is enraged.

I am bigger than you, Darcy thinks seethingly in a second that seems to last so much longer. I am stronger than you. I am older than you will ever be. I come from myth; I come from stars; I have legends about me too. I am the original beast, the first monster, and just because I have crushed myself down, to play at being human, does not mean you can knock me around like I am one.

The next green fist that lunges for her, unfairly fast for something so large and powerful, Darcy dodges with the disdainful thought that it seems a little slow. She steps aside and in, eyes narrowed on the bared teeth of the creature in front of her, and the fabric of her jacket and top rip under the bulging, shifting, growing mass of her arm as she draws it back, stomping her foot down hard enough to crack the floor, and punches the Hulk across the jaw with an enlarged, blue-tinged, scale-patterned fist.

It's like punching a fucking brick wall, or a slab of concrete, except with that heavy smack of inhuman fist on superhuman flesh, the brick wall gives. As much as she tries to avoid violence in her human shape, she's thrown more than a few punches in her time. Darcy feels that ancient thing in her practically humming with satisfaction as the Hulk is knocked back a good few stumbling steps.

Darcy feels her shoulders resettling with armored bulk and stretching wings that she doesn't have and her mouth grinding with the need for fangs. Her teeth are sharpening in her mouth and her fingernails are growing sharp and black, but she tamps down on the transformation before it can go further. It's by no means easy nor perfect nor painless – you're not supposed to stop mid-shift and Darcy's never tried anything like this before; she hasn't worked out a functional shape.

It hurts far more than being smacked into the wall did.

She has to stay small but she needs to fight big; she needs human agility and size and dragon strength and edges. Which is, frankly, fucking impossible, even by the really hypocritical standard that Darcy's been living by for hundreds of years, but she needs to make it happen and damn it if she won't. Even if her magic is all but screaming at the deformed unnaturalness, writhing at the sheer wrongness...

The Hulk's head snaps back to her, surprised first, then eyes narrowed with bloodshot anger. Its heavy fists punch forward with the likely intention of crushing every click-clacking, reforming bone in her body. Darcy dodges awkwardly, movements stilted as she tries to keep control of her straining muscles and misshapen skeleton while staying upright while not getting smashed.

It doesn't work. She puts weight on a shaky leg at the wrong moment – trying to get away from the Hulk's rampage, which is wrecking a lot of expensive-looking shit – and it snaps. Her left leg has a bulging calf and an elongated foot, both of which are scale-patterned and have torn her lower seams, and the shin underneath all that just snaps with a sickening crack. Clean in two.

Bones during a transformation are delicate things; it makes sense that they'd be pretty fucked up while Darcy intentionally fucked herself up. That it makes sense doesn't stop her from being caught off guard though, and it definitely doesn't stop it from hurting like all hell. If she could focus, she could fix it easy, but it's hard to do that when, seconds after her leg snaps and halts her movement, the Hulk's fist slams into her.

It's like getting hit by a car, or maybe an eighteen-wheeler truck. The world blurs; everything blurs. Darcy recognizes the feel and sound of what is several more bones snapping as she loses her grip on her transformation, hits a wall, smashes through the wall, and skids, flipping head over heels, muscles squishing and bones snapping, through a SHIELD hanger and several stacks of crates.

Darcy slides to a painful stop – oh goody, that's definitely more shrapnel – and seizes tight control of her sliding transformation while doing her damnedest to breathe regularly again. Her lungs thankfully still work, but not much else does. She can't help but gasp painfully as she forces her malformed bones to knit back together and her misshapen muscles to settle properly, struggling to clawed feet (fucking hell, there goes that pair of shoes) and building her body into some semblance of a functional, fighting-fit form. There's no time for perfection – for the careful craftsmanship that made the human form she's stretching apart into something else.

I am bigger than you.

She can hear SHIELD workers around her, running and panicking as the wall with the Darcy-shaped hole gets torn apart by a raging beast intent on pursuit. With the scale-patterned skin of her feet and palms flush against the floor, she can feel each heavy stomp of the Hulk's charging run too.

It's such a destructive thing; some part of her doesn't even believe Bruce Banner is in there at all – that such a contained, careful man, with his tight smile and gentle touch, could become a mindless, raging monster that lashes out at everything around it. All emotions and no intentions, except that Darcy's only counted one emotion and, to be frank, to call it that feels wrong somehow.

I am stronger than you. I am older than you will ever be.

The Hulk is almost upon her – only steps away, really – and Darcy pulls herself tall and slots that last misplaced bone where it ought to be. It's not a natural shape; it's probably the most horribly unhealthy thing she's done to her body, trying to fuse it with the puppet human shape she hides in; her howling magic and straining shape resist her every painful step of the way.

But, to be real about this horribly unreal situation which has her in a half-human-half-dragon form fighting a radiation-made anger-monster on a secret government helicarrier, Darcy's life is a very long list of terrible and insensible decisions. This is only barely the worst, probably. She's pretty sure. Mostly, anyway.

You chose to be impossible, Lewis, she thinks, see it fucking through.

The Hulk's arm comes down; Darcy steps back and lets it smash down in front of her. In its crouching position over where she used to be, it's all too easy to swing a heavy, fixed and sturdy, scaly leg in torn jeans up and across in a powerful kick that uppercuts the Hulk's jaw. Her clawed feet leave scratches across its face – which, oops, unintentional – and it's hard enough to make the green creature stumble back, off its feet, and the more human part of Darcy can't help but crow in terrified glee at the memory moment.

She made the Incredible Hulk sit the fuck down. Army tanks couldn't knock this massive thing off its feet, but she did. Holy shit, she's going to remember this for forever. (Not that anything that's happened in the past seventy-two hours or so is actually even slightly forgettable though.)

The dragon part of her is too busy snarling and snapping, baring a mouth of pointed teeth just the wrong side of human. If she let her wings escape her back right now, they'd be flared wide, tail lashing, to tell this thing that its out of its league. Only, that's not the case, and she has to snap her mouth shut and leap back further when the Hulk doesn't take a hint and lunges for her again.

The Hulk hasn't gotten back on its feet, simply throwing its massive bulk forward in its own snarling rage, crushing hands clawed and reaching. As though everything – all its anger, all its fury, and all its all-too-obvious pain – will stop if only it can manage to tear her to shreds. It doesn't manage to catch her though, she keeps leaping back and out of the way on powerful legs that still feel far too brittle, and tears up the floor instead as Darcy leads the angry creature towards the edges of the aircraft – towards the walls and glass that, if smashed through, will lead only to open sky.

It's said the best defense is a good offense, but Darcy a) doesn't want the helicarrier wrecked to compete shit in a way that could actually be her fault, b) doesn't want to endanger the fleeing SHIELD employees by engaging fully in a free-for-all wrestling match, and c) can fucking fly. If they get out of here, Darcy can go supersize and fight this green fucker on what could be considered her home turf. She might be feeling feral, but there's fighting to prove something, like the little wyrm favors, and then there's fighting to actually win.

Come on, Jekyll-turned-Hyde, Darcy thinks savagely, feinting forward and gnashing her fangs in provocation. Show me what you fucking got already. I'll show you what it means to try and fight fire with fire. I'll show you why humans have always remembered not to piss of a dragon. Bring your fire; I'll bring mine.

It's just like asking an asshole to step outside so they can finish some shit, except... totally different.

Frustrated at the charging stumble-crawl, the Hulk roars at her again and gets to its feet, coming up swinging. Darcy shifts her stance – shoulders squared, clawed hands half-up and ready, knees bent, feet light – and ducks around the heavy-handed punch, still-backing up.

The Hulk follows her, pulling its fist back and stepping forward with surprising caution for the deep lines on its face and trembling anger to its shoulders. It eyes her, still furious and bloodshot, but with a glimmer of something that might be a thought, like it's finally realized that it's not going to catch her so easily again. Then, in a motion that surprises Darcy's human-minded side, it slides its heaving muscles into a stance that mimics her own – heavy arms half-raised, shoulders squared up and knees bent as much as it can while already hunched over.

Darcy tilts her head, tightening her own fighting stance and some of her constantly-straining muscles and bones – still resisting her totally unnatural transformation, what the fuck, not cool. She keeps her guard up. This is different; different doesn't mean better.

The Hulk leans forward suddenly and Darcy instantly backs away, only to realize that it didn't throw a punch. It made a feint – a clumsy feint, but something much more than mindless anger nonetheless. It surprises her enough that she's a little slow to dodge away from its actual punch, which comes close enough for Darcy to reflexively knock the thick-skinned green arm away from her to avoid getting backhanded again, jabbing powerfully at just the right angle to off-balance the Hulk and make it stagger, palm of its punching hand crunching into the floor.

It grunts lowly at the impact and comes up swinging again, one that misses by significantly more than the last one. Darcy snaps her teeth in challenge at it again, moving towards the outer walls of the now-deserted helicarrier as the Hulk swings and misses several times over in response. Duck; duck; dodge. There are a few more leanings and slight lunges that might be feints, and Darcy thinks she can see more glimmers of thought in the Hulk's narrowed eyes as it's forced to think about what it's doing.

As usual, the more human-minded side of Darcy comes up with a smartass idea in this instance.

“BrAH-Ohhouss-ah,” she says, garbled through her hybrid mouth and slithering strangely off the forked-tongue she hasn't been able to keep from happening.

No visual response; the Hulk seems to simply ignore her words entirely and makes another grab for her instead. Which, y'know, kinda pisses the more dragon-minded side of her off – because she's a fucking dragon, goddamnit, people should listen when she's talking – so she grabs that meaty arm with both arms and holds it there, swinging up her leg to crack the Hulk across the face again.

“BRUouSA,” Darcy growls out again, more firmly.

The Hulk swings its face back around, a new scratch across one cheek, narrowed eyes widening. The push of the arm Darcy's holding becomes less forceful, and, for a single moment, Darcy's human-minded side does a little jig of partial victory. Then the Hulk's other arm comes around and Darcy finds herself ripped away, flying back into the hanger and, with a heavy and painful smash, straight through the wing of a nearby fighter jet while she's at it.

Ow, ow, ow. She flips herself out of the debris and, feeling the heavy and unmistakable thump of a charging Hulk, ducks and spins out of the reach of its massive green hands at the last second. In her movement, Darcy latches onto the outside of a giant bicep as it passes her, digging in one hand of black claws and using her self-made hold to grab into the Hulk's upper shoulder with her other sharp-clawed hand.

The Hulk doesn't want to play nice, okay, so there goes any last bit of pull her human side had for that.

The creature roars in pain at how Darcy clambered onto its back, hands reaching up to tear her off, but she's already used her momentum from swinging up to wrap a leg around its throat and delivers a painful heel just above its collarbone. The Hulk makes a choking sound, arms flailing slightly, giving her the time she needs to add her other leg and squeeze. She's willing to bet this thing needs oxygen to stay conscious, even if it can take bullets to the brain without problem.

The Hulk sputters and makes more choking sounds, reaching up its hands again to rip her legs away, but Darcy's got a tight grip with her legs and sharp claws on her hands. The second those heavy hands make towards her, she claws them ruthlessly, using her straining form's muscles to stay on the bucking creature's back and keep up her constricting assault, fanged teeth gritted with the effort.

Unfortunately for her, the Hulk prioritizes getting choked over getting clawed. It slams a palm onto the floor, making horrible gagging sounds, and reaches up with the other hand, one that lets Darcy gouges it all she wants to as it goes for her head. Then, at the same time, with something that's a little bit groan and a lot of snarl, the Hulk throws itself backwards and Darcy finds herself unbalanced enough to be thrown off by a heavy fist. She rolls as she lands – just like she's always done, really – and switches back to the plan of leading the Hulk off the helicarrier.

Not too far away, the Hulk gasps air down its freed throat and turns to Darcy with a strangled growl, ready to resume a fight that Darcy's getting really sick of – this is pointless, dangerous, and her bones ache with a fire in them. Still, when the Hulk takes a step forward, Darcy slides into a stance to meet it.

But they're interrupted by a mechanical click and whir, and then the smash of glass by heavy gunfire. Darcy reflexively dives for cover, catching sight of one of the fighter jets hovering not too far outside the helicarrier. Its open fire is trained on on the Hulk, the thick bullets smacking into the Hulk's broad back, punching only the barest of holes before falling to the floor, and even with a completely clear view, Darcy still can't see what the hell they're doing.

If it was the Hulk's attention they wanted, they've got it. The Hulk shields its face from the bullets' spray, which probably sting like hell at the least, and roars furiously at the jet, newly angered and loud enough to shake the already-shaking walls.

Under the constant attack, it seems to forget entirely about Darcy, which annoys her a little given how much effort she put into keeping its attention. She feels like she should intervene, but it's hard to pin that feeling down when she doesn't know what the hell is going on. Every unstable bone in her unnatural body knows this is going to end horribly, but she'll definitely get hit by the BFG on that jet if she takes advantage of its distraction – bullets hurt and she's taken enough wear and tear as it is.

Inevitably, only seconds later, the Hulk lets out a terrible snarl and charges. It runs, a hand in front of its face, the floor crunching under its gait, and leaps out of the helicarrier onto the jet before Darcy can get halfway to it - to try and stop it or... something. The Hulk lands on the nose of the jet; the jet's gunfire ceases immediately; and the two of the spiral down and out of view just as Darcy reaches the edges of the hanger.

Her wing bones are ready to pull free from her back, but Darcy is certain that she won't be able to keep back her full dragon form if she lets them go. And both here and in the air (though badass, not actually as fun as it sounds usually) are terrible places to transform anyhow.

Darcy eyes the helicarrier structures and corners visible, then makes a decision. She backtracks several steps as quickly as she can and makes a running leap into the wind, practically slamming into the metal walls and sills of the helicarrier's outsides. One of the massive blender-engines. Elongating her claws as much as she can without triggering a need to shift fully, Darcy climbs her way across the outside of the helicarrier and searches the skies for a green and gray shape, listening for the sweet sound of angry smashing and raging roars.

They're not hard to spot, but too far away for Darcy to reach it without wings. The jet is going down and going down fast, in a spiral of quickly-blackening smoke, the green being on its back tearing it to pieces in the air. She spots it just in time to see the pilot eject themselves, their seat reflexively smacked away by the furious Hulk, and then the speeding seat slow as its parachute bursts out while the Hulk goes down with the jet in a fast-falling, smoking spiral.

Which... explodes and sends the green giant falling towards the ground in an angry roar that quickly becomes more distant. The green giant quickly becomes the green speck, and then falls out of sight entirely.

Watching it go, Darcy isn't sure she can transform and fly fast enough to catch him – no, no, she definitely can't. Upside is that Darcy pretty sure that it's not going to kill Bruce Banner, because apparently nothing will, but she's a little worried that its landing won't go well. Not really enough to follow, because the helicarrier is very definitely moving down at a significant speed and Darcy has an astrophysicist that she needs to find stat, and she puts it out of mind to favor of half-climbing-half-jumping her way back to the hanger.

That... that ends that, her more practical, dragon-minded side supposes. Bye, Doctor Banner.

One she's on arguably solid ground again, Darcy immediately pulls herself back into her human form and it's... she doesn't have a good metaphor for it. It's relief, like she didn't know she was even in pain until it stopped, except how she very much knew she was in pain. Her aching bones shrink down and click-clack back, reducing her height by more than a foot – apparently she grew; some things have to give, she supposes – and her sore muscles wrap around them feeling a little weak compared to seconds ago.

The relief and shift is enough to send Darcy to her knees, gasping a little. Oh god, she'd vow in this moment never to do anything like that ever again if someone asked her. Ow, ow, ow. And then the pain comes back to kick the relief out as her strained shape tries to fix all the damage she sustained, while being very unhappy about being squished back down to human size.

She's going to have bruises in her dragon form, holy shit.

Darcy just lets it happen ("Shit, shit, fucking shit hell on a Pop-tart!"), promising herself that she'll spend some quality time in her real shape as soon as she finds Jane. She's had worse, probably; she can grit her teeth and bear this too.

Once it stops being a little overwhelming, she puts her shaking legs back under her and wobbles to her bare feet. There's no time to sit on your ass, Lewis, c'mon. 

Spotting her lack of shoes prompts her to check the rest of herself over, and she quickly finds that her clothes are ruined, and her human form is too. Her jeans are torn at the seams up to the upper thigh, save for a few straggling threads, and have more than a few tears and holes. The arms of her top and jacket are completely gone, the rest is holey and ripped enough that Darcy just tears the remaining jacket pieces off entirely, dropping it on the floor.

She doesn't even want to know what's up with her hair right now.

But what's the most surprising is her skin. The faint lines of a scaled pattern cover every inch of skin she can see, running from faint lines that shine in the light to dark ones that are ridged and uneven. The skin around the darker areas is blue in far-too familiar shades, and hard to the touch instead of soft. She can't tell without a mirror, but she looks like a walking, scaly bruise. Some of her fingernails and toenails are still pointed and black, and some of her teeth, which she tongues in inspection with a slightly forked tongue, are still pointed.

When she tries to take a step, she finds that her human muscles feel far weaker than usual and her bones feel unusually brittle. This isn't normal; this can't be normal, even for a regular human. Did she actually break this human shape? Fuck. She might actually have to make a new one, clearly having destroyed parts of this one by forcing it into an unnatural hybrid shape. Double fuck.

Bingley is going to try and tears strips out of her hide for this one, which he won't be able to manage, but there's still going to be a lot of screaming – when she catches up with him after this is all over of course. Since he is, hopefully, miles and miles away from this falling, burning disaster. Turns out this thing isn't so different to the balloons after all.

Darcy snorts a laugh out at that thought. It hurts, ow, but it's worth it.

Okay, okay, okay, she needs to pull herself together figuratively... as well as literally. Oh god, seriously, it hurts to laugh, she needs to stop and find Jane. Yes, that's the goal. She finds Jane, makes sure Jane is safe, maybe finds Thor too, and goes to find Bingley and regroups to get her Erik back.

Possible other objectives include: saving SHIELD's flying base if she has to and actually can manage it, stopping Loki's evil plot (and punching the fucker in the face if the opportunity arises), checking in on Steve wherever the guy's gone, letting someone know what the hell happened to Bruce Banner and his angry alter-ego, and... maybe some other stuff if she can think of it.

Right. Okay. Oh god, everything hurts. Why does absolutely everything have to hurt?

Darcy stumbles, limps, and then jogs her way out of the hanger towards where she can feel the sharp taste of Jane's fear. Which is pretty understandable given the situation; Darcy hates that her friend feels afraid, but it's actually kind of nice to be assured that Jane actually does feel fear. Plus, it leaves a strong signal to follow – few emotions are as... loud... as fear is.

As Darcy works up to a decent speed, heading for the doors at the end of the hanger bay, the more dragon-minded side of her, this one closer to the angry little wyrm, readily offers up a sub-plan for how to make sure Jane is safe: find what's causing the fear and kill it. Kill it, kill it, kill it, killitkillit. Which sounds disturbingly like an awfully good idea right now, even if it's actually completely terrible.

Right. Okay. Shit to get done. A lot of shit, which may or may not be a little impossible, actually.

But hey, Darcy just fought the fucking Hulk, she can do anything.

Chapter Text

Darcy takes it back.

'It' being the lazy thought that SHIELD's flying airbase desperately needed some color and life in its design, however it came about. Because Darcy hadn't taken into consideration that coming in the form of flashing lights and blaring alarms and general end-of-the-world stuff (see: Hulk). Like, sure, they liven the place up, in the sort of way that would make neighbors hate your guts with a fiery passion, but Darcy's going to start ripping the walls apart if she doesn't get through this hellish maze to her Jane soon.

Because not only are the lights and alarms annoying as all hell, the feeling of Jane's fear is somehow infinitely more grating. The more Darcy focuses on it, the louder it seems to get, and while it makes a convenient beacon, she actually really, really hates it.

Firstly, Jane should never have to be afraid because reasons, so there. Secondly, fear is by nature loud and consuming and floods out everything else, but... this seems like a little much. A lot too much.

It's loud... too loud. Which leaves Darcy to wonder what has Jane so afraid and only makes her want to rip the walls open to make all this goddamn noise stop even more than before, both the actual and the emotional. It's enough that she'd probably be inclined to try if she wasn't slightly concerned that she might actually break something – and she's not talking about the wall.

Darcy jogs and limps her way down SHIELD's minimalist corridors, trying to plot out the fastest path towards Jane from what she can remember and guess of the helicarrier layout. This place really is like a maze, and a bid could be made for full deathly-labyrinth status even, going by the occasional sound of gunfire and explosions partly hidden under the alarms. It relieves and worries Darcy equally that Jane's fear draws her in a different direction to the desperate shouting, pained yells, and hurried footsteps.

Yes, something is very, very wrong here. Darcy still doesn't know who or what caused the explosion that brought out the Hulk, but she's willing to bet that they're still around and kicking. She hasn't seen Thor or Steve or Stark since this mess started, which means they're probably occupied with engines or Frost Giants or fuck knows what else that's gone wrong recently. Whatever is up, Darcy'd also be willing to be that it's probably Loki's fault.

Part of her is hopefully assured that the combined might of Iron Man, Captain America, and Thor can kick his ass with no problem. The rest of her thinks this thought is idiocy and that everything's definitely gone to shit, but she's sort of ignoring that at the moment because that would really suck and surely SHIELD and several superheroes are well-qualified to save the day.

They're superheroes. What could happen?

So Darcy's going to find Jane and Agent Romanoff – who's doubtlessly protecting Jane, kicking ass, and taking names; also, holy shit, did these gals manage to cover ground quick – and find out what's happening from there because those two probably (hopefully) know almost everything between them. If the situation's gone to shit in a way that can't be salvaged, then she'll take the ladies and find Bingley and kick ass from there.

The dragon siblings may not have put their best foot forward here, but she and Bingley individually are both forces to be reckoned with when they get serious. Together, full-sized, and pissed off, they're a whole new level of dangerous that she just can't wait to introduce Loki to with a vengeance.

If he's at fault for Jane's fear right now, she'll make him feel every last drop of it.

Focused on her friend, distracted by the alarms and various sounds of fighting, Darcy didn't pay much mind to the beginnings of a sneeze tickling at her as she drew closer to the end of the corridor. There was a prickle around her nose and tongue, a subtle itch in the air over her skin that she regularly would have categorized as unnatural and something to be wary of. But the feeling was lost among the ache in her bones and the scratch of skin moving over sharp-edged scales, hidden in the unnatural twist and needling of her ruined shape and the haze of her battle-addled brain.

She brushed all those feelings aside to focus on keeping together, keeping in motion, and finding her fearful friend. Agent Romanoff had obviously intelligently led Jane away from the action, but Darcy couldn't understand why the woman would have brought Jane this way. All SHIELD corridors looked similar, but Darcy could swear that this particular door would lead to the outside – to the helicarrier's deck – which just didn't make sense.

Darcy steps through the sliding door, out into the blue sky and sunshine, bewildered and aching and angry. The wind over her skin makes her scales bristle with the need to change because no, something is very, very wrong here. She knows it from the second she runs out, from the angry little wyrm to the ancient dormant creature, from the claws on her bare feet to the fire wanting to brew in her belly, there's a terrible screech in her head like nails down a chalkboard as she skids to a stop.

"Don't change on my account...” an easily recognizable tone calls across the wind, a not-quite-familiar and smarmy drawl that makes Darcy's stomach drop and hair stand on end, “...but you look terrible.”

Loki ends the statement with concern in his voice and sympathy in his expression that looks terrifyingly genuine. It's too apparently honest to be real, considering their history of acquaintance, but his charm and mimicry are chilling. His act would work better if he could keep that smug half-smirk off his face afterwards, though.

Loki is standing a little over ten meters away, in front of three figures by a jet just starting its engines, looking remarkably casual for someone on a falling airbase and not at a cocktail party. His eyes are bright blue and his green coat stays still in the wind, and.... oh, Darcy realizes distantly as the smiling Frost Giant flickers gold and white for a moment, he's an illusion.

But the figures behind him aren't, and that's what stops Darcy's transformation, started the moment Loki started speaking and stopped alongside her heart once she looked past his shoulder at the small woman held between two men in heavy, black tactical gear free of any insignia or identification. One has a knife to the woman's throat and ah, that's why Jane's been so afraid. Okay.

"Really, don't change on my account,” Illusion-Loki says, smile turning sharp with threat. He flickers over to Jane, who flinches away from his reaching hand and is so terrified that Darcy could have tasted it from the other side of the helicarrier.

And had.

Doesn't she look lovely as she is, Doctor?” Illusion-Loki asks.

"Jane...” Darcy whispers, heart restarting with skittering beats and lungs seizing painfully. She stomps down on her shift for the second time in too short a time, at least this time halting and reversing it as completely as she can instead of trying to play with her shape, because... well...

That's Jane; that's really Jane. Darcy would recognize Jane from the curve of her ear to the jut of her jaw, from the twitch of the woman's fingers to the crease of every expression. From the widening of Jane's eyes as Loki leans closer to the grit of her teeth as Jane keeps herself still instead of kicking him in the shins like she obviously wants to. And if Darcy didn't recognize that, she'd still be able to tell from the familiar bond between them, strong and terrified.

Illusion-Loki runs the tips of his fingers over Jane's neck as she swallows nervously, the men holding her solid and unmoving and poised to kill on an order. The satisfied look Illusion-Loki shot her as he flickered out in front of the others again made rage billow inside Darcy's chest, her tongue licking at her teeth for sparks that didn't come in her broken human form.

"I thought that it was about time that I introduced myself to the woman making fools of my brother and other beasts alike,” Illusion-Loki says, almost conversationally, glancing back over his shoulder at Jane for a moment before smiling apologetically at Darcy. “I'm afraid that I don't see the peculiar appeal.”

Darcy feels her hackles ready to heave in frustration and fury. Loki as good as has her by the throat and he knows it. How did this happen? Where was Agent Romanoff? If this was an illusion, where was the real one? How did this happen? How was a nightmare even allowed step into reality this easily?

“Let her go,” Darcy hisses, the clawed fingernails on her hands flexing with the urge to wrap them around Loki's throat and choke the life out of him, illusion or not. She takes a step forward before she's even realized what she's doing, but freezes when the man with the knife to Jane's throat moves the knife closer to Jane's neck.

Illusion-Loki smiles. “Ah, ah, ah,” he scolds benignly. “Let us not make violence here. Someone could be hurt.”

With a hiss that comes from a combination of the furious and frightened little wyrm and the ancient thing that never stirs for anything less than fellow monsters, Darcy takes a hateful step back. Her lips curl to let the hiss out, which itself curls into the beginnings of a snarl as the knife moves only every-so-slightly away as she does.

"Jane, you okay?” Darcy calls after a moment of calming herself.

"I've been better,” Jane answers, voice pitched higher than usual and edged with a heady and confusing cocktail mix of relief and anxiety and fear.

Darcy hates it, hates it, hates it.

"...What do you want?” Darcy demands of Illusion-Loki, because this wouldn't be happening if he didn't want something. If he just wanted to kill Jane, Darcy knows that her friend would be dead already, though the thought chills her. No, Jane is leverage right now, against her.

Illusion-Loki tilts his head in whatever the classy and elegant version of a shrug is. “To make conversation,” he answers casually – infuriatingly, Darcy thinks. “While away some time with me, oh Fire Lizard of Midgard. Our last conversation was so very interesting, don't you agree?”

"I liked the part where I hit you off a mountain,” Darcy agrees, baring her sharpened teeth in what could only very generously be called a smile. How can she get Jane out of this? Everything that comes to mind will have Jane dead before Darcy can reach her.

Illusion-Loki laughs delightedly, like he had on the mountain top, like she's just the funniest thing he's ever seen or heard of. “I'm afraid that you won't be able to so simply deposit me at my brother's feet this time around, however,” he says, eyes blue and bright with mirth. “Thirty thousand feet, straight down in a steel trap, wasn't it? That's quite a way to fall.”

Jane gasps and Darcy feels her stomach drop again . Oh no, no, no. Asgardians are hardy and pretty damn godlike in comparison with humans, but they're hardly immortal. She remembers the bodies when they warred against the Frost Giants on Earth; she remembers the golden-haired corpses in golden armor made a dime-a-dozen in the blood and mud. It's not something she thinks about often, but it's not something she's ever been able to forget.

Fuck, she liked Thor.

Darcy remembers the tall woman in golden armor and the long red cape, with the long blonde hair and the firm but gentle hands, with the wicked grin and soft smile and clever magic. Darcy had never spoken the promise aloud, or thought about it more than passingly, but something in her feels like she broke an important oath. She's failed the woman who saved her life, just like she's failed her dear friend in fragile love and the new friend she's lost forever.

"You sick bastard,” Darcy spits furiously, unable in this moment to separate her own devastation and Jane's. “You sick, traitorous murderer. What the fuck is wrong with you?”

The smile on Illusion-Loki's face is frozen as he flickers wildly for a moment before stabilizing, giving a grin that Darcy would recognize as a grimace if she wasn't so goddamn angry.

Thor loved his brother deeply, had hoped so dearly that Loki was under the influence of something else, had been prepared to go against his father and king for Loki whatever the case, had wanted to atone for his mistakes so badly that Darcy could almost see the worlds on his shoulders, and it doesn't fucking matter anymore because Thor is dead. Thor is dead and Loki's killed him, either in his own mind or not, and fuck if Darcy knows which one is worse.

Fuck it. Just fuck everything.

"A great many things in your mind, I imagine,” Illusion-Loki replies, seemingly carelessly. “I had thought that he would fight the monster, but your disposal of it was just as well. I hoped that it would dispose of one of the more difficult ones in the process.”

He pauses for a moment, as if thinking, ignoring Jane's burning glare at his back and Darcy's seething anger held back only by the knife at Jane's throat.

"...Which leaves the soldier and the inventor, should they survive the fall of this fortress. Oh, that is perfect.”

Steve and Stark are still alive then, which relieves Darcy and angers her. Because Loki can't be bothered to use their names – they're not people to him, they're just pawns – and he's discounting the entire rest of the human race and all the extraordinary people among them.

"You won't win,” Darcy informs him, because he won't.

Illusion-Loki tilts his head at her, smiling condescendingly as if inviting what he's sure will be futile and furious nonsense.

Hah, alien army or not, people won't roll over and show belly for him; against a common enemy, united, they can do incredible things, and... well... they will actually blow up the world before they let Loki have it. Also, if Loki's working with or for who she thinks he is, then he's really not coming out on top of this. No one is; no one will win except Jahandar... again.

"You won't win,” Darcy repeats slowly, anger bubbling alongside something else, something new, in her throat. She's angry enough that she feels like she's reaching disbelieving laughter from the other side, because if Loki actually thinks he'll be coming out on top of this mess, then he's got another thing coming.

For example: actual hell that will rain down on him once Bingley finds out about all this and comes for his head.

"Oh, I think I will,” Illusion-Loki replies knowingly (wrongly), shaking his head at her. “It's the unspoken truth of humanity that they crave subjugation; they need to be ordered; they were made to be ruled. They will kneel and give up their freedom gratefully... it's in their nature.”

Okay, she's angry and seething and wants desperately to free Jane and avenge Thor, but hell if Darcy doesn't want to burst out laughing at that. She feels hysterical enough to bust a gut here. That's vaguely true to various degrees, but Loki is in for the biggest surprise of his life if he thinks he can have that by force, and, if Darcy's learned anything by her thousand years on Earth, that surprise will go boom.

In his face.

"And even if they still desire to follow the bright lure of freedom,” Illusion-Loki continues, eyes brighter blue than ever, “their will to fight will crumble once they watch their greatest symbols fall in battle. The Man Out of Time and the Man of Iron will fight and fall in front of the whole world and humanity will fall with their heroes.” 

Or, judging by the hateful glare Jane is still shooting at Loki's back, which hasn't let up since he admitted to killing his brother, they're just going to really, really want to avenge them. People are almost as vindictive as dragons are, which is a lot; Darcy is going to rip off this fucker's limbs and head and then burn him alive for all the crap he's pulled if she has to do it from beyond the grave.

Darcy shakes her head. “No, that's not how people work,” she tells him, raging and exasperated and tired, because she's sick of his constant wrongness about everything. “Half the world doesn't know who Captain America is or who Iron Man is! There's no one swift blow that's going to destroy humanity's morale completely; the world's not united like that! All you're going to do is make a lot of people very scared and very angry and that's a very, very bad idea.”

"We'll see,” Illusion-Loki replies, another smug half-smirk pulling at his lips. “Well... I will. You, I don't think will get the opportunity.”

Darcy's eyes narrow as he looks back towards Jane again, and feels like lightheaded coldness move through her, because he... might not be wrong about that one. She's in a broken form, incredibly tired, and he has a knife to her Achilles' heel. Oh yes, the overwhelming fear is coming back. Wonderful.

"I must say,” Illusion-Loki says, “I am impressed by you, honestly. I can't tell who you are... where the lie is... what parts you're playing and what's real of you. It's remarkable, really. You're an incredible creature.”

"The feeling's really not mutual.”

Illusion-Loki laughs again. “Oh, no. You misunderstand me. If only you could have seen yourself among them. Clumsy... childish... flighty...”

Oh no, this annoying crap again. Fuck, she stepped on him and smacked him off a mountain the last time he tried this kind of thing and she can't do that now however much she really wants to. Time to settle in and listen to some classical bullshit; maybe he'll monologue long enough for backup to show up or something.

"Hapless...” Illusion-Loki continues, like he's writing poetry, “helpless... hopeless...”

Yep, just gonna keep ignoring him.

"Human,” Illusion-Loki finishes, almost curiously. “I don't quite understand. Is it to make them underestimate you? Like you? This persona of a blithering, blathering, bumbling little girl who doesn't know anything, who can't keep her mouth shut, who can't articulate a coherent thought, who is so utterly, incredibly normal that it's pathetic?”

Darcy snarls at him again. She'll show him pathetic. Like fuck if she cares what the murdering bastard thinks of how she acts, being underestimated and normal is the life she chose and she doesn't regret a minute of it. Sure, she acts sillier and friendlier than she probably should, but it's her method of coping with shit and he has no idea how much she really knows.

"Oh, there's no need to fear me! I don't even know what the Tesseract is! Please. What happened to the fearsome Fire Lizard who threatened to burn me alive on that mountain? The stupid but giant being that was at least a semblance of a once-legendary species? Given up to present this? It's laughable.”

You're a Frost Giant runt most likely under the control of a power-mad, planet-destroying maniac, Darcy thinks as she sneers back at him. And if he's not, then he's far more pathetic than she could ever be because trying to conquer the world is a fucking stupid thing to do and he's completely, hilariously out-of-his-depth whatever his game is.

"Or... it would be laughable, if what had become of your kind wasn't so completely pathetic. You play at being mortal, and you make a moronic one at that, with a bleeding heart that breaks for creatures that barely last for any time at all in an effort to feel anything at all.”

Seriously, if he didn't have Jane by the throat, this would be hilarious. She's been hearing more or less the exact same things from Bingley on his bad days for hundreds of years. And Bingley at his worst is mean – far crueler than this. This means all but nothing coming from someone who's opinion means less than nothing to her.

"Stop playing games, you sniveling thing; stop play-acting. It's far too evident that your time on Earth has reduced you to a fool, to wretched limits and desperation... If this is what love of humans reduces one to, then my brother truly is better off dead. ”

A sharp voice cuts through Darcy's response before she can open her mouth.

"Funny, considering he's dead because he loved you, ” Jane snaps at Illusion-Loki's back, and it's probably a good thing that Jane can't see the illusion's expression else Darcy would be going deaf from her friend's fear again.

All Jane can probably see is a stiffened back as the illusion freezes like there's been some kind of display error, then flickers with gold and white flashes as the haywire magic attempts to straighten itself out. Illusion-Loki's face blinks between two expressions: a cool smirk and something dangerous... hateful... and outright murderous.

Huh, so it looks like Jane can hit those pain-points too. Fantastic.

After another few seconds of flickers, Illusion-Loki seems to take a deep breath back into a stable, solid-looking form again, cool smirk settled comfortably on a good-humored expression. It's almost relieving, that the killing intent didn't win out, but that only means that Loki's still got the mind to think things out and make this hurt.

Darcy stays in her ready pose, set to pounce in a moment, gathering what little magic she can around her on the off-chance it'll be useful. If she were Bingley, she could throw up a barrier or make Jane disappear or do any number of things, but she's really not and Loki's a masterful sorcerer.

Hmm... Maybe if she tosses a ball of unfiltered magic at the illusion, the mess will be enough to distract Loki through the interference with his mental-magical connection with the illusion and stun the soldiers long enough for Darcy to grab Jane. Ideally, Loki will be given a killer headache, his overloaded illusion's failure will keep the soldiers' eyes, and Darcy's bones and muscles somehow magically won't give out from under her.

It's a long shot, but it's better than anything else Darcy has come up with so far.

Only... with a subtle signal from Illusion-Loki, the two soldiers holding Jane start moving backwards at a steady pace, pulling the small woman back and keeping the knife firmly at her throat. Darcy hisses automatically because the asshole is doing something and every bit of her wants him to stop his shit.

"I'm not feeling kind to the mortal Jane Foster at the moment, I'm afraid,” Illusion-Loki comments airily as he moves back with the group, moving at a much more languid pace and watching Darcy's few tentative steps forward with obvious amusement.

Darcy imagines stepping on him and how enjoyable it would be. Very, she thinks.

"It's not every day that someone tries to stab me with my own dagger, you see,” Illusion-Loki continued wryly. “Much less a mortal.” He waves a hand and a familiar knife spins out of the air and into his fingers, matching the one held to Jane's throat.

(Loki looks up at her and suddenly there is a sharp dagger between her claws, one she did not even see him stab into her, digging in beneath her scales. Darcy howls in pain but does not release him, instead only pushing him harder into the rock. Loki's armored head falls back and he wheezes at her weight...)

Illusion-Loki ignores her growl and just keeps twirling the dagger – another illusion, she hopes – through his fingers as Jane's fear spikes up and down with every forced step back.

Where are they even going?

"It's a bit galling to think of my possessions being given to a mortal woman in some pathetic semblance of protection -” Illusion-Loki throws the knife into the air, it disappears in a flash of gold before he snatches it out of thin air. Showy bastard. “- but at least my weapon has been returned to me now.”

They're on a fucking helicarrier. There's nowhere to go but off the edge of the thing.

Jane and her captors stop a few feet from the edge of the thing.

"Of course...” Illusion-Loki says, stopping suddenly and pointing the dagger towards Darcy's chest, forcing her to halt even farther away from Jane than when she'd started with him as annoying as ever in the middle. “This -” He pulls the dagger back and holds it up as though to inspect it. “- is only a trifle.”

He throws it over his shoulder where it immediately melts into the air.

"Little to quibble over,” he declares, “but this -”

Illusion-Loki sweeps out a hand, calling a golden gleam to his fingertips. A familiar curve shimmers out of the air, bending handle appearing smoothly into Loki's comfortable grasp, sending an automatic shiver down Darcy's spine as a silvery blade illuminated by a sickly blue stone is realized.

"This is a much worthier weapon to have reclaimed.”

Darcy takes one look at the scepter and sneers at it. “That's not real.”

Illusion-Loki only smirks back at her, air prickling around them, before he and his scepter illusion melt away into the air. Darcy's spun around long before the last of him has faded away, having caught the smells and sounds approaching behind her, as well as the warning widening of Jane's eyes.

"I would be offended if not for the accuracy of the accusation.”

It happened. Loki monologued long enough for backup to show up. Only it's not her backup, it's his.

And he's his own backup.

Loki is walking towards her with a sharp grin, flanked by a solitary soldier and holding the scepter. Only this time, Loki's coat slaps in the wind, his footsteps sound with real weight, and his horrible scent of frostgiantasgardiansickness prickles at her nose along with his magic. He has sweat on his brow and stains on his boots and a surprising amount of soot and scorch marks. He's real.

He swings the scepter out of front of him as he walks, showing it off as his illusion-self was doing only a moment ago. Only this time, there are scratches and scorch marks on the handle, the blue stone pulses with sick wrongness getting stronger and more unbearable as containment spells fall away, and the silver blade is covered in thick red liquid that drips onto the pavement in a trail as he goes and smells...

Darcy forgets about everything in that moment. She forgets about Steve and Romanoff and Stark; she forgets about dead Thor and Frigga and Infinity Stones; she forgets about Aslicem and Jahandar and the end of the Earth. And Erik, lost out there in mindless bliss... she forgets him too.

(“I will not crush myself down into a useless shape and hide any of my glory or temper my knowledge or let those grubbing, hateful, greedy, warring creatures define what I am.”

“Baba-”

“NO! I was meant for greater things than a life in hiding!”)

Even right behind her, even fearful and worried and with a knife to her throat, for the first time since Darcy's met the woman, Jane is pushed aside as unimportant. Darcy's mind is far too occupied with trying to understand what her senses are telling her to remember what it's even like to be human, much less to remember her friends. Jane... Jane who?

(“That was not a life worth living!”

“Speak for yourself, you... you... you overgrown lizard! I'll do what I damn well please and live how I damn well like on this wretched planet! And if you ever have to speak to again, have the decency to be human-shaped when you drop by or I won't be speaking to you!”

“Omi-”)

Because even if Loki could fake his scent and the scepter's wrongness and could somehow manage an illusion with that much detail, there's no way that he could fake the smell of the blood clinging to the scepter well enough to fool her. She knows it better than she knows the back of her hand, because it goes far further back than her ever knowing what a human hand looked like, or even having the smallest idea of what a human was.

(“Listen to me for fucking once in your life!”

“...I always listen to you.”)

"I hope you said your farewells to the mute fool you entrusted this to,” Loki calls, too composed to be gleefully but almost there, having noticed the way Darcy's (bright slit feral silver) eyes have fixed onto the drip, drip, drip coming off the scepter's tip. “Whoever he was. I never was granted that introduction.”

(“Are you embarrassed because I love you?”

“...Kind of.”)

Darcy is, in this moment, fully prepared to let Jane die. (Jane's mortal; Loki has her by the throat; she wouldn't have lasted long anyway.) The only thing she wants to do – what she's going to do – is tear Loki limb from limb and she doesn't give a damn about the consequences. Any scrap of humanity or human life that she's won through hard work means nothing now, nothing means anything now and it's all his fault and the sick, murdering, brother-killing ant is going to die for it.

"It's really quite unfortunate that I have to keep introducing myself t-” Loki continues as he approaches, cutting himself off and his eyes going wide once he seems to realize that he's make the last mistake of his lifetime by pushing far too far.

(“Love you, Bing.”

“...I love you, too.”)

Without another word, Loki raises the scepter and fires an enormous pulse of crackling blue energy towards Darcy, but he's too far away and she's angry. The unfiltered magic that she's been gathering explodes out practically unbidden, basically hurled towards Loki.

She's no magician, and it shows. The hazy mass of magic collides with the blue energy and explodes between them like a spark in a room full of gas. The sudden wave of heat is incredible, though insignificant to her. And before the wall of raw magic and unnatural energy rises to entirely block their view of each other, she can see a glimmer of fear in Loki's widened eyes.

Appropriate.

Darcy's sore muscles and aching bones start their shift into the monstrous shape that she's been denying for too long. She leans forward, preparing to lunge through the dissipating energy as soon as she can force her crackling shape to allow it, to rip into Loki (prey, the ancient thing in her supplies, awake and hungry) as soon as she can her real fangs in her mouth and fire in her belly.

She's completely prepared to do away with those that stupid human reasons that were holding her back.

It's unfortunate for her, or perhaps not, that those stupid human reasons aren't quite prepared to be done away with.

It's the bond that gets her, because emotional attachments have always been the chink in her armor, the vulnerability that all dragons always have somewhere even if it's not the emotional attachments they usually ignore or reject.

(Pride and prejudice have always been two of the big ones, an irony that Darcy's always loved.) 

If asked to pick, in this moment, between Jane's life and taking immediate revenge, Darcy wouldn't even have to think about it. Logic and loyalty are not things of hers right now. Oh, she'd feel guilty about it later, but she wouldn't even hesitate in her choice.

But the thing is that she doesn't get that choice, because the connection between her and Jane screams with pain and fear and panic, seizing Darcy's attention in a grip like a vice. Darcy is already looking back towards Jane before she realizes what's going on, just in time to see a struggle and one of the black-clad soldiers thrust that damn knife into Jane's stomach and then push the woman back off the edge of the helicarrier.

There's not even the moment where Jane is supposed to hang in the air for a second. Darcy and Jane share only a split-second of eye-contact – pain, fear, loss, disbelief, confusion – before Jane disappears over the edge like she was never there. Gone.

And then Darcy's slammed off her feet so hard that she doesn't feel a thing, can't breathe, and the only thing she sees is blue sky and brighter blue energy crackling all around her. Then it's painful; the pretty blue energy burns and bites, setting her bones on fire and searing everything away as the winds whips around her and she plummets down and down and doesn't seem to be landing. She's falling and the blue is suddenly black now.

Loki saw his chance and he took it.

Everything understandably smells like burning.

Chapter Text

She's floating... and in endless darkness at that, black as far as the eye can... oh. She doesn't know where the pull of gravity's gone, but her eyes being closed probably has something to do with the endless darkness. At least she hopes it does, because to be adrift in an endless void sounds unpleasant.

She opens her eyes.

Not pure darkness. Instead, there's a floating sea of broken rock, ranging in size from tankers to small cities to small countries, as far as the eye can see in every direction, drifting with apparent slowness through the cold of endless space. The only star visible is a red sun, large but distant, and it illuminates only the haunted lifelessness of the shattered wasteland surrounding her, which is massive beyond belief and... striking... in its emptiness.

There should be... there should be something here.

A shadow suddenly falls over her, she turns around to see an enormous asteroid, hundreds upon thousands of times her size, looming over her and approaching at incredible speed. She tries to lift... arms? Wings? Claws? She doesn't know what she tries to lift in defense of herself, but it's too late; she's been swallowed whole into... she doesn't know...?

She opens her eyes.

Not pure darkness. Instead, the asteroid is hollow, and the cave inside could comfortably fit a small mountain. But there's no mountain, only carved columns and elegant, swooping structures. It's like a temple... or a palace... one that is massive, grand, and empty except for carefully spaced pots of fire to give some light to the place. She feels that she has seen it before. There is something achingly familiar to the symbols spiraling up the columns and the massive scenes, too dark to see clearly, that are depicted on the walls.

An echo shatters through the palace's silence, and she whirls towards the source. As she turns, a figure strides past her, passing by too quickly for her to see their face. Spinning after them and looking at their back, they might be a woman...? The figure is tall and heavyset, with long, matted hair that swings back and forth at the small of their back, and they walk in a weighted lumber that tugged at old memories, which clink and clack strangely in her head.

She drifts after the figure, through a darkened hall of enormous columns and distant ceilings, wishing that the figure would turn around so that she could see their face. She wants to move forward faster, to see their face or their eyes or any part of their front, but no, and she inexplicably stays stuck behind the familiar stranger with the filthy hair and gray, flaky skin. Maybe it's just from behind, but they look kinda undead, and ever-so-slightly inhuman too.

Humans, last she checked, didn't have long, ivory-white, claw-like fingernails – and toenails, too, which click against the stone floor.

An indeterminate amount of time passes, and she finds herself behind the figure as they stop in front of a large wall mural, which is difficult to decipher due to the distance to the nearest pot of fire. (She squints. There are winged things in the scene, maybe? And fire? And something small and round in the center that reflects the firelight with a yellowish shine.) The distant light source is flickering weakly, and seems to be the last one before the magnificent, empty palace falls into pure darkness.

“Are you prepared?” a deep voice rumbles from that darkness. She immediately turns towards it and thinks she sees something enormous and scaly slithering through the blackest shadows, but she can't quite see.

The figure doesn't turn around; they only exhale, and her memories go click-clack, click-clack.

“I will never be ready,” they answer in a dry, raspy voice. “Though I am prepared. We all have been for a very long time.”

“Are you scared?” the thing in the shadows asks.

She is sure that she catches sight of yellow eyes in the darkness for the briefest of moments.

“Terrified,” the figure admits.

To that, the thing makes a sound that might be approval and might be disbelief. Then it slides slowly, languidly, out of the shadows and into the dim, flickering light.

If she could have screamed here, she would have; by the thing's size and voice, and the eerie feeling of familiarity to them, she expected a dragon. Although this thing is definitely not a dragon, and not quite as large, it's still monstrous. She only catches a glimpse of the grotesque thing before the pot of fire snaps out and the light whisks away.

The thing was least three meters tall if the figure was human-sized, with bright yellow, slit-pupil eyes and a skin of dark scales. It had a humanoid head of tall horns and sharp teeth, and yet a hood like a cobra that flowed down, around the neck and into its broad shoulders. From there, it had long arms that ended in dark hands, with slender fingers and sharp claws. Four long arms, it had, attached to a powerful chest that turned into a massive snake's body at the hips, thick and strong and stretching deep into the shadows.

She couldn't bring herself to think much beyond: what the fuck is that, what the fuck is that, what the fucking fuck is that?! What is that thing? She whirls around in the pure darkness, searching wildly for the figure or the terrible thing that appeared like something out of a nightmare, but both have vanished away along with everything else.

“Good,” the thing's deep voice rumbles from the darkness, seemingly from all around but also maybe just behind her ear. “You should be. All beings should fear war. We have finally reached the beginning of the end."

The figure laughs. "Yes, finally," they echo, then again, almost wistfully, "Finally."

"Start it fiercely... end it kindly.”

“...I will.”

~

“Why do you have to go?” comes a deep yet somehow reedy, plaintive voice.

She opens her eyes.

Not pure darkness. It's another darkened cave, but a much, much smaller one. Not a hallowed and haunted mountain palace, instead, she finds herself in a cozy and nest-like burrow, with ceilings maybe a dozen feet high. The seemingly hand-dug walls are purplish and rounded, the circular windows are decorated with hanging, alien-looking shells and plants, and the only light in the small home is a number of colorful, intricately but clumsily decorated lanterns.

It's very... whimsical. Like a child's bedroom.

She looks around the dark burrow, finding it meticulous neat for such a crowded and cozy space. It's full of odd and alien objects, from strangely-shaped sculptures to ticking, toy-like things - knick-knacks of every kind. Most of them are surprisingly tacky, like souvenirs, and there's even a collage of postcards in unfamiliar languages on one of the walls to support this. They cover every available surface, save the floor, and even part of the walls, except for the nest of patchwork blankets and quilts with a large, moving lump in the middle of it all.

A raspy laugh echoes through the burrow and she sees a vaguely familiar figure lumber past an archway, still not letting her catch sight of their face and at least half the size of the great lump on the nest-bed. She tries to move forward to this other room and follow the figure, but finds herself as infuriatingly stuck as before, no wings or claws or hands or feet to her mysterious consciousness.

“You knew that this was coming,” the figure calls from out of sight, sounding amused in a way that is more familiar than the figure themselves. Click fucking clack. “And you know very well why I must go. Do not try to sway me from my course by asking questions you already know the answers to.”

“But you only just got back!” the lump protests, flopping in indignation under a seriously insane amount of blankets. Another smaller lump pops up from the greater lump, probably a head by the way that it bobs and spins defiantly about towards the arch. “And you are already leaving!”

“Statements of the obvious will not do you any good either.”

The smaller lump sinks back into the greater lump, then says petulantly, “Everybody is always leaving. I could be dying of famine and you would not know because you all left me.”

“If you died of famine, it would be a pitiful end to someone who argued so passionately for their own independence,” the figure responds, busy with something that sounds like they're either stacking dishes or grinding them down. “And do not make a mockery of famine. If you had been coddled less, you would fear it more, as all should.”

“Che,” says the lump.

“Should I spread the word that you are not predator enough to keep yourself fed?”

The smaller lump immediately reemerges. “NO! I AM SORRY! DO NOT TELL THEM THAT. I CAN HUNT FOR MYSELF. I... I... I am... I am only tired of....”

“Of?” the figure prompts.

“...Of being left alone.”

There's a long silence then, and then the figure walks into view again. Though they're standing in the archway, they're not looking through it, like they can't quite bring themselves to. It gives her a side-profile of sorts, like a single quarter view, but the cutesy lanterns don't give enough light to let her see her face. She doesn't know why she's fixed on the face, because she doesn't recognize the rest of it, so there's no reason that the front will mean anything.

“I am... sorry that we have made you feel that way,” the figure says quietly. “I am sorry that we cannot be here for you more. And I know that she feels the same way, even if it has never been said.”

“...I know,” the lump replies, curling in on itself.

“When... this... is done with, things will be different for us,” the figure says firmly, partly like they're trying to convince themselves as well. “We will not see each other for a time while this is happening – we will be far apart – but when this is over... things will be... better.”

“....And you will no longer be leaving me?”

The figure doesn't answer that statement immediately, nor have they answered it a full minute later, and the lump shifts as though to say, 'I thought not.'

“We may be forever leaving you,” the figure finally says, soft like the words are fragile and smoky like they've been eating ashes, “but... through all that is coming and has yet to come... please remember that you are not alone. ... And I miss you.”

~

“So you're going, then? I swear that time goes by faster as we get older.”

She opens her eyes.

There's a... man? It looks humanoid... ish. Whatever this odd, gray, muppet-like creature is – whom she still can't see clearly because apparently it's a rule that the lighting has to be terrible in hallucination-vision-dream things – it's wearing something than is unmistakably a suit even if it's a bit strange. She can recognize business-formal attire when she sees it, and if that short, frumpy creature isn't some kind of alien accountant or banker, then she'll eat her nonexistent foot.

“Feels like only yesterday we left,” the creature continues nostalgically, hands worrying at their sleeves. “But it really is about time that things begin being interesting again. Persisting repetition is so dull. And you know me, I cannot stand such boredom for long.”

“And I cannot stand the inanities of your opinions at all,” a now familiar voice answers.

She turns to see the figure from the palace and the burrow, still with their back to her, and this time standing in a darkened cavern. There is only one light here, hanging in the air between the creature and the figure, leaving most around them to her imagination. But there is no mistaking the large shape that is before the figure, not with the hard, powerful curves and silhouette hints. They are all standing in a hanger of some kind and that is a ship of another kind – one that she knows she has never seen before, even though she can tell what it is from few limbs and an outline. It's definitely alien... and heavily armored.

Are those scales?

There has to be somewhere to complain about the poor lighting in these places.

The creature sniffs, but does not seem too greatly offended. “I do not envy you your task,” it continues, as though its companion actually expressed a deep desires for its opinions. “I hear that the Terrans' population growth is out of control – the stupid little animals are eating up their resources like a cursed pestilence, all of their own – with no respect for vegetation.”

“Ah,” the figure rumbles with amusement, reaching out towards the ship. “Then they and I will have something in common.” There is a hiss of air as part of the dark outline opens, revealing an inside with a faint yellowish light, reminiscent of a cave itself. “That is good.”

“Good? You say that as though you have any use for the pests before their deaths,” the creature snaps back, their fur bristling. Then they visibly calm themselves and say, “At the very least, you will have no trouble from their party, none that cannot be simply stepped on. All the rumors agree that the Terran race is just as pathetic as they have always been.”

“...And you are just as enlightening as ever,” the figure comments with a low laugh.

The creature bristles again. “And what do you mean by that?”

“Arrogance. You are as arrogant as ever,” the figure replies, more matter-of-fact than cruel, which is clearly far more cutting to the creature. “What makes you believe that simply because they are planet-bound and pathetic, they are not dangerous? One would think that we would all have a rightful fear of pestilences, after all we have survived.”

“Perhaps I would if I have not walked hidden among pestilences for lifetimes, just so that you may walk among this particular pestilence on that pathetic planet now,” the creature hisses, their animalistic face screwed up in anger and resentment. “Do not tell me what I should fear.”

“Do not give me outdated rumors for something that took so long to grow teeth,” the figure replies, expression unseen but clearly unconcerned. “I care not for conquests.” They step away then, out of the floating light's glow, towards the opening in their ship, giving one last statement that sounds much like an order, “Take care of what little we have.”

The creature sighs. “I will suffer the dullness of your mistakes,” it replies, sounding extremely put-upon but ultimately resigned. “Let me know when these things begin being interesting,” it calls after the figure as they disappear into the dark shape, the opening closing behind them.

The figure doesn't answer, already gone, and creature sighs. Hands worrying at their sleeves once more, they turn on their heel and walk away, the light winking out behind them like someone exiting a room and turning off a light switch.

She is alone then, in the darkness, watching a meeting that is no longer happening. She cannot move, which is unbearably frustrating. Who is this deathly figure that has appeared three times now? Who is the frightening monster in the shadows? The lonely lump under the blankets? The bored creature in hiding? Where? And from what?

The only sound is a low hum, growing louder, making everything around her shake wildly like in a powerful earthquake. She's not even touching anything that she knows of, and can't see anything at all in the darkness, but the sound is still somehow reaching drowning levels, and it feels like the world is trembling with its roar.

~

She opens her eyes.

Her vision is blurred at first, and it takes her several moments to focus on the two figures in front of her – one short, one tall, but both actually rather small – which move about and make unintelligible sounds between them as she wakes up. She tries to shake her head to make the world make sense, but that only makes spikes of horrible pain shoot through her skull and, while it's at it, introduces her to the severe aching of the rest of her body - she has a body again, part of her gleefully exclaims, while another wonders where the hell it supposedly went in the first place - that she'd previously been ignorant of.

Ow, ow, ow. Everything fucking hurts so much. With every shift of her heavy flank, she can feel ruined scales break off her aching hide and limbs. But it's the feeling in the scars on her belly that is by far the worst, and she digs her claws into the dirt and writhes with every terrible, fiery shot of pain through her burning chest.

The taller figure lays a small hand on her snout, then leans down and breathes into one of her nostrils, sending what feels like a fresh winter wind through her nose, filling up her lungs, and straight down to her tail tip. Her pain immediately numbs down to nearly nothing, her mind suddenly feels cool and crisp, and the world becomes startlingly and sharply clear.

Magic tickles and scratches at the inside of her nose, the smell as familiar as it is irritating. She sneezes, several times, blinking at the feminine-shaped smaller figure who looks familiar and that her instincts insist is very, very important because that person is hers. But then she fixates on the tall-small figure instead, because he casually places his crossed arms on her snout and leans on it like he belongs there.

“'Have a little compassion on my nerves. You tear them to pieces',” Bingley says, his human face pinched unhappily and his tone as irate as ever.

Chapter Text

Darcy blinks at him.

Her clutch-brother raises his eyebrows back at her, and she can't help but startle as the realization really hits home. Her sudden movement knocks Bingley off his feet and onto his human form butt with a shrill shriek. Then her grounded clutch-brother yelps in protest as Darcy drinks him in with her eyes and breathes in his familiar scent as a drowning man would gasp in air.

Bingley smacks at her snout, which dwarfs him easily. “Did a part of your brain get knocked loose?” he demands, trying to push her nose away from his stomach with absolutely no luck or real strength. “Get off!”

“I thought you were dead!” Darcy snaps down at him, distantly aware that this is really, really strange because she's never been in her dragon form while her brother is still in his human form. Seriously, she's not kidding, it hasn't ever happened in over a thousand years – and Bingley looks really disheveled and filthy on top of that.

Wait, why is she in her dragon form? How is Bingley here? Why does her clutch-brother's hoodie have a massive tear through the 'L' of Culver? Why is the fabric almost drenched through with his blood? Why are they not both dead? (Are they dead?) What happened? And... wait... is that...?

Darcy lifts her head from her clutch-brother to stare at the second, shorter figure.

“...Jane?”

Jane, looking a little disheveled and bloody herself, raises a hand in greeting. “Hey,” she says, giving an adorable little grin as she looks between Darcy's stunned surprise and Bingley's grumbling as he pulls himself off the ground and moves to stand next to the human.

Darcy's hindquarters thump back down, knees going weak from shock, and shake the ground. Bingley and Jane wobble slightly, but neither fall. Darcy looks between the clutch-brother she'd believed to be dead and the friend she was fairly certain that she'd basically killed.

“What...?” she manages, voice and eyes watery.

“The Frost Giant jackass got the drop on me,” Bingley grumbles, shoving his hands into the bloody pocket of his ruined hoodie. He looks down at the hole in his clothes unhappily, like he's just remembered that it's there, and says petulantly, “He stabbed me through the chest. It took longer to fix than usual and then I got lost on that dumb flying station.”

“Stabbed... through the chest,” Darcy repeats, feeling a faint headache start to bloom in her skull. Of course her clutch-brother is complaining at her because he got himself stabbed through the chest, and then apparently got lost on the helicarrier. That's so him.

“And when I finally found my way out of that human-made mess, ” Bingley continues as though she hadn't said anything, “I find you getting yourself blasted off its side by the Frost Giant jackass!” He glares accusingly at her then. “What did you do to yourself?”

“Wha-”

“Your human form was wrecked! You were partly shifted as you were falling! Your form was completely unstable; it made catching you absolute hell!” Bingley rants, bloody chest swelling so that he might as well be breathing fire, glaring fearlessly and furiously up at her. “You bones were completely bent out of shape! I had to return you to your natural form for you own good and if you dare try to make yourself human-shaped again anytime soon, I will personally pluck your scales!”

Darcy just blinks at him again, because he's never turned her own threat back on her before and that takes her more than a moment to process. Usually it's her telling him off for doing reckless things or being a twit. It feels like the world's been turned upside-down to have Bingley in a human shape and yelling at her in her dragon shape for being experimentally stupid. Maybe she really is dead.

'Wait, you shifted my form?” Darcy demands of her clutch-brother. She didn't know that he could do that. It feels like he shouldn't have been able to do that.

Bingley sniffs, obviously offended at the idea he couldn't. “It wasn't easy, but yes,” he says, eyeing her with an unhappy expression and uncomfortable posture. “Being stuck between forms was...” Bingley trails off and looks away, going entirely silent.

Jane puts a hand on Bingley's arm and Darcy looks at her friend.

“It looked like you were having a seizure,” Jane finishes for Bingley, who doesn't say anything but doesn't shake off Jane's hand either, which says a hell of a lot. Darcy must have really scared her clutch-brother if he's alternating between the silent treatment and threatening to pluck her scales.

“Are you okay?” Darcy asks Jane, just to be certain. Jane seems fine and healthy, but Darcy can remember all too well the sharp and unfortunately distracting spike of pain when Loki's soldier stabbed Jane and then pushed her off the helicarrier.

Jane looks disbelieving for a moment, then sighs. “I'm fine,” she answers, shifting her grip on Bingley's arm. He turns her head towards her and Jane grins gratefully up at him. “Apparently the amount of angst you'd feel if I died is an annoying enough prospect for your brother to consider my life worth saving too.”

Bingley scoffs, but the sound is fond.

Darcy hums at him. “I didn't know you still had such an interest in being a doctor, Bing,” she teases, flinging out a joke while she attempts to deal with overwhelming emotions and the aching burn in her chest. She hurts, but she's alive, and so are they.

“It was a bad stab,” Bingley replies, having never displayed any such interest, disdainful and scathing enough to probably make the Loki-controlled soldier that stabbed Jane cry of villainous shame. “And it would be pathetic if I could not manage so little with my magical prowess and being forced to create and spend so much time in a human-like form.”

Then he turns sharp eyes on her. “Your wounds, on the other hand, were not so easy. I believe that your chest will ultimately be... fine... with time, but it is currently very...” Bingley's face screws up like he either can't find the word or can't believe he's saying it. “...burned.”

Darcy rubs her aching belly against the ground and grits her teeth at the immediate pain that swells up. There's a lot of stretch and pull and just burn in her chest. She can feel the scratch of loose scales, and hear the scrape and clink of more scales falling off. Darcy almost wants to take a look at her belly, see what it looks like between the helicopter scars and the scepter blast, but she already knows that it'll basically be summed up as hot fucking mess. She might puke if she actually looks at it.

“You will not be shifting into a human form anytime soon,” Bingley says firmly, eyes blazing gold.

“...Yeah,” Darcy agrees weakly, claws clenching again and again into the ground. She needs a distraction. “Do we know what's... happening right now?”

Bingley stares blankly at her, but Jane catches onto her meaning. “What happened to the helicarrier?” Jane asks, grimacing as Darcy nods. “No. I passed out when we were falling, so I haven't seen it since then.” She spreads her palms in a Jane-ish gesture of the complete nada of data that they have, exclaiming, “I lost my phone too, so... no contact with the Earth! We don't have a clue what's going on with anyone else.”

“Oh, that was your new one, wasn't it?”

Jane sighs. “Yep.”

Darcy frowns on her friend's behalf. “Man, your mom is going to be pissed about you ruining the family plan. That's like the third one this year, right?”

“Could you discuss something more inane and unimportant?” Bingley demands, inserting himself into the conversation as pissily as ever. “As far as we know, the flying blender hasn't fallen from the sky, but the Frost Giant jackass got away while I was busy saving you and is presumably doing something horrible again.” An almost hateful expression crosses his face. “Can't you feel that?”

Darcy, in the middle of stretching out her aching neck, turns her massive head around to stare at her clutch-brother in open confusion. She has no idea what the fuck he's talk about. “Feel what?”

Bingley's eyes go wide, then he half-blurts and half-shouts, “How can you not feel that?!”

“In excruciating pain here, thank you very much!” Darcy howls back at him. How the hell is she supposed to feeling anything besides the chest that got attacked by helicopter blades and then blasted by a mystery weapon of evil? And she's pretty sure she's still got bruises from the goddamn Hulk on top of that!

“CAN SOMEONE EXPLAIN FOR THE HUMAN, PLEASE?” Jane shouts.

Bingley's mouth snaps closed on what was probably a rant of insults, looking between Darcy and Jane with an extremely disgruntled expression. “I can sense something nearly identical to what we felt before you left to confront the Frost Giant for the first time,” he says, staring expectantly at Darcy. “Only much stronger than before. Can't you feel it?”

Darcy stares at him for a moment, then raises her head, trying her best to block out the pain and stretch out her senses. Now that Bingley's brought it up and she's looking for it, she manages she fixate on the wrong feeling among the burning in her chest and dizziness in her head. He's right; it's almost the exact same tearing disturbance that Loki arrived with, that same kind of pulsing wound as the one that ripped that SHIELD facility apart into a pile of rubble while she was focused on her Erik.

The scepter seems to be there with it, but it's incredibly, incredible small next to the powerful burn of energy slowly rising. It's very like the scepter, but not quite, stinking of something that Darcy hadn't felt since that SHIELD facility got wrecked and she lost Loki in the desert chase. Now that she's paying attention, it seems unbelievable that she didn't notice it before.

“The Tesseract,” Darcy guesses, although it comes out sounding much more certain and dark than just a guess. But what else could be it? “Loki's not hiding it anymore.”

Jane's face is a picture of nervousness and thought. “I want to ask if the magic just wore off or something,” she says hesitantly, “but it's much more likely that he doesn't need to anymore, isn't it? Or that he's going something so big that he can't. Or both.”

A dark, worried feeling settles itself in Darcy's chest, under the burning pain. She thinks Jane has hit the head of the nail precisely there, which is a great supposition but a very bad thing if she's right.

That's... that a lot of power being accumulated, rising and falling with a beat that's almost similar to a steadily quickening heartbeat. That same power ripped a massive building to shreds and Darcy's fairly sure that no one was really trying to do that. If the Tesseract is an Infinity Stone like the Stone of Stars, then the Earth could easily be next.

Her only comfort is that Loki seems to want to rule Earth, rather than destroy it, even if his plans for it seem terrible. But that's not much comfort at all, because there are a still a lot of things that a clever and competent magic-user can do with a powerful weapon. The abilities of that awful scepter are bad enough, but an actual Infinity Stone? It's hard not to shudder.

If Loki doesn't need to hide anymore, then that's definitely bad, but then... where's Erik? Darcy still can't feel Erik, and that both bodes badly and pisses her the hell off. Actually, Loki and everything he does in general just pisses her the hell off. She owes him some fire.

“We need to stop whatever he's doing,” Darcy says without really thinking about it or thinking it through.

Once she's said it and realized she did, however, she doesn't take it back. Because Loki still has her Erik, he's probably about to end life on Earth as they know it and Darcy doesn't want that to happen, and she needs to tear him limb from limb and then set his scraps on fires for a ridiculously long list of reasons. (Trying to kill her, trying to kill Jane, trying to kill Bingley, actually killing his brother, having a really annoying face, etc.)

She looks at the human-shaped dragon standing next to her human friend, sees him standing there with crossed arms and an unimpressed expression. “You're not arguing with me,” she notices, feeling somewhat confused and bereft. “You look like you want to, but you're not.”

“If you think I'm going to let that Frost Giant jackass stay under the impression that he can best me in a battle, then think again,” Bingley replies with another offended sniff, then he fixes her with an imperial glare. “I'm just not sure that you're in any condition to go after him, either physically... or -” Bingley pauses for a moment, face screwing up awkwardly. “- emotionally.”

Darcy stares at him. “Are. You. Serious?”

Bingley glares back and coolly informs her, “Entirely serious. There is reason to believe that the weapon may have wreaked damage on your mental state as well as your physical, and by my conversation with your human -”

“Jane,” Jane stresses in only the way someone who's been repeatedly correcting someone can.

“- you were not in the most stable of emotional states immediately prior to that,” Bingley concludes, as though his point has just secured a flawless victory. “...'Angry people are not always wise'. I do not believe it would be wise for you confront the Frost Giant jackass again.”

Like hell.

“I thought you were dead, you jerk! How was I supposed to react? And over my dead body are you going to face him alone if he managed to stab you through the chest!”

“He caught me off-guard!”

“I don't care! That's not a good thing!”

“It will not be happening again!” Bingley snaps back, looking about a second away from actually stomping his foot. “You took a magical blast with unknown effects directly to the chest because you got angry and distracted! I barely understand what it did to your body! Who knows what it's done to your mind?!”

(“We have finally reached the beginning of the end.”)

Darcy blinks that strange, intrusive thought out of her head for the moment and snaps back, “My mind is fine, you hypocritical little lizard!”

She's got a fucking awful headache, but she can't sense any outside influence on her and she feels entirely like herself.

Her eyes fall on Jane then, and she corrects her previous statement. She feels mostly like herself.

Bingley scoffs something under his breath like, “I beg to differ.”

Darcy ignores him.

It's later now, and Darcy definitely feels guilty. She chose to let her friend die so she could try to avenge her brother, and in her rage, it had been so very easy. So absolutely thoughtless and careless and thoughtless, and just... angry. It almost felt like something else entirely had taken over her thoughts and her actions, but Darcy knows it had been her in control, all too real and present and conscious.

Her without any humans or humanity holding her back... the first her. The original her. The deadly thing that ripped people to shreds to protect herself and her clutch-brother, the vicious creature that devoured people to prevent starvation, the possessive monster that only had one family member left to lose and wasn't going to give him up to any Frost Giants or Asgardians or human beings. Not to war or famine or pestilence. She was then the childish little wyrm and the angry ancient thing, far older than Jane Foster and Darcy Lewis and human names and human faces and human lives. The first, original, real her that rarely comes out these days.

The part of her that recognized that Jane Foster was a fascination – a passing fancy – who would come and go soon enough. The part of her that recognized that Jane Foster was human and ultimately unimportant when it came to Infinity Stones and Jahandar and actual kin. The part of her that didn't care about friendship or protection or potential, and knew that although Jane was special and clever and adorable, she mattered only to Darcy Lewis, who would not last forever either.

In the eyes of the clutch-sister of Babakaltan, who had fought Frost Giants for him before and spent hundreds of years at his side, Jane Foster could die and there would be little loss. Her heart would break and she would mourn, but time would pass and humans were not meant to last. Babakaltan was the ultimate loss, the death that needed avenging, not Jane Foster.

And she made that choice, she realizes now as she looks at Jane with great and terrible images floating in the back of her head (space, broken rock, creatures, monsters). She chose to be Babakaltan's clutch-sister instead of Jane Foster's friend and hoarder, the dragon first and foremost.

So... what now?

She's still Darcy Lewis, she thinks. She still likes following Jane Foster around and listening to her talk about the stars, and cares about Erik and Culver and her iPod and how many Twitter followers she has. She'll argue stanchly in defense of Poli Sci and bad movies and human rights (despite not technically being human), and cry during movies and certain commercials, and tell horrible stories about her loser brother who hates his poetry prof. She likes pizza and baggy clothing and hipster fashions and lipstick, plus fantasy books and terrible puns and Austen movies.

None of those things were a lie. Those were all true. She's not one to pretend to like something or not to like something just to fit in, even if fitting in is kind of the point of a human life. Darcy Lewis is real, just as much as Darcy Bennet.

But then there's everything else that no one knew, that was quietly ignored or humming in the background of her human existence. She's still the dragon who cares if her clutch-brother is blowing himself up with magic, who still wonders about their siblings and kin and where they all went, who's terrified of Jahandar and looks at her hand sometimes thinking about stones and sisters. She's still the little dragonet, abandoned but adapting and surviving, who would kill anything before she let her clutch-brother be hurt. Who saw a war between gods and giants once upon a time, and hasn't ever gone back to or near that battlefield even hundreds of years later.

No one would really know this, but she doesn't pronounce Mjolnir's name wrong because she doesn't know it or can't say it, but as her own little private joke. Her clutch-brother might get it, since he was there when the Queen of Asgard crashed into their lives wielding it. Humanoid tongues and names are not easy things for little dragons who know only their native growls to grasp.

She called that hammer ridiculous butcherings long before Erik shoved a book in their faces, before it landed in Puente Antiguo, before Puente Antiguo or New Mexico existed. That was a little bit Darcy Lewis, but it was also a little bit of a blue dragonet who remembered the weapon that saved her.

Normally she'd say that she wasn't one for identity crises, but she might be having one now. She feels entirely like herself, but it's just... strange. She's entirely like herself, has been for awhile on this mad journey, and it's like she's just now coming to terms with it. Before, her human lives and underlying self have always stayed more or less separate, with their own separate business, but there's not even a line to cross anymore. No point in hiding. There's no balance of sides, just... there are no sides at all. There were never any sides really, but now it actually feels like it.

“I'm sorry,” she says to Jane.

Her clutch-brother – who might have been in middle of a rant, she wasn't really paying attention – swivels to look in bewilderment at the human beside him, then back at her clutch-sister in open confusion. But she ignores him and focuses on Jane – poor, wonderful, amazing Jane who just wanted to stare at the stars and know things.

“I'm sorry for dragging you into this mess, and for putting you in danger,” she continues. “You nearly died because of me, and I'm sorry.”

Jane looks absolutely stunned. Her eyes are wide and searching and her mouth is open, like she's trying to form words but can't and needs to look around wildly for an answer. Next to her, Bingley is singularly unhelpful, and has the most disgruntled what-the-fuck expression his clutch-sister had seen on him for awhile.

“Erm... I'm not gonna say it's okay,” Jane begins awkwardly after a while, “since everything has been very much not okay for the last bit and very terrifying. But... I don't hold anything against you? I don't blame you for any of this?” She bites her lip and looks around a bit more, obviously uncomfortable and not willing to meet enormous silver eyes. “I mean, I'd probably still be right in the middle of it without you.” Jane looks at Bingley then. “Both of you. And where would that put me right now?”

Honestly? All signs point to Jane probably being in a secure SHIELD facility somewhere if not for her, very much not in the middle of everything and not in life-threatening danger. Probably mostly if not entirely unaware of the situation and definitely not stabbed. Jane was on the helicarrier because of her, was brought to Loki's immediate attention because of a combination of her and Thor, and was really only held hostage because of her.

But Jane is an intelligent woman, and if that's how she wants to see things, alright.

Besides, as guilty as she feels, she's not going to blame herself entirely. She's just going to find the evil son of a snowflake who really put Jane in danger and rip him into pieces and then set the pieces on fire. It can be her extra, unspoken apology to Jane.

She looks at her clutch-brother next. “Thanks for saving Jane, Bing, and for saving me.”

Her clutch-brother stares at her, slowly turning pink, starting at his cheeks and quickly spreading to his ears and neck. “Are you sick?” he demands, trying to shove his hands deeper into his bloody hoodie pocket as though that'll protect him from feelings.

She has to laugh slightly at that, and oh, ow, it hurts to laugh. “No, I'm not sick,” she answers, taking a few deep breaths to try and settle the awful burning in her chest, which only aggravates through the uncomfortable pull of broken scales. “I'm just... saying stuff that needs to be said.”

“No, you aren't,” her clutch-brother immediately disagrees, still pink and refusing to meet her eyes.

She laughs again at that, silently, and heaves herself to her feet. The ground thumps satisfying under her feet and the heavy swing of her tail through the air is just as good. She stretches out her neck, raising her head to the sun, and unfolds her aching wings to feel some breeze through them. Umph, she hurts right now, so fucking badly, but near-death is something a little flying can probably metaphorically walk-off.

Down below, Jane looks supportive while her clutch-brother looks close to tearing his hair out.

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING NOW ?!” he nearly wails.

She studies their surroundings. It's a deserted field, with a few roads and buildings in various distances, which is probably more her clutch-brother's choice than just lucky landing. She can't tell how far the surge of the Tesseract's power is exactly, but it feels alarmingly close.

“I'm going to go kick some Frost Giant ass to stop him from taking over the world or destroying all life on Earth or something, duh,” she answers, swinging her snout around to look at him. “You can't stop me from going anywhere, Bing. I hurt like hell right now, but I kind of like this planet, and I owe him some fire to the chest.”

“And I owe him an actual hole in the chest,” her clutch-brother snaps back.

Darcy rolls her eyes at him. She'll admit that she's not in the best condition to fight Loki or whatever the hell he's concocted it, but that doesn't mean she's going to sit this one out to let this idiot lizard try to take care of things. “Then come along.”

Her clutch-brother's mouth closes, he blinks, and then says, “What?”

“If you're not letting me go by myself and I'm not letting you go by yourself, but neither of us is willing to stay behind, then...”

“No.”

“But we make a pretty great team.”

Bingley folds his arms over his chest. “...Fine,” he says snottily. “But I get priority because I'm better suited to fighting the Frost Giant jackass.”

“How the fuck did you decide that?”

“We're both magic-users, it only makes sense.”

“No, it doesn't.”

“Well, I'm coming too!” Jane says, throwing in her two cents.

Both dragons, one in human form and one not, turn to look disbelievingly at her.

“Hell, no,” Bingley says.

“Jane... that's kind of a terrible idea.”

Jane crosses her own arms over he chest and sticks out her chin. “Loki is trying to create a portal, right? That's why he took Erik, right? Do you have some other expert on Einstein-Rosen Bridges waiting in the wings?”

Both siblings stare at her.

“...Is that a pun?”

Jane frowns. “What? No, there's no... Why would there be...?” The human woman looks at up the massive violet wings before her. “Oh. Oh, no. NO!”

“Oh.”

“It will be equally dangerous as before if not more so,” Bingley says seriously.

Jane sticks out her chin again. “I know.”

Honestly? Well... Jane probably does know. She just got stabbed and thrown off a helicarrier, after all, and it's true that she's probably the best human expert on portals there is. Erik is a complete unknown, Thor is dead, and while it's pretty likely that Bingley can handle just about anything through his hoarding and some improvisation, Jane could be needed on this one. It would be pretty shitty to just leave Jane out in the middle of nowhere, and Jane can make her own choices about whether she wants to be involved in this mess.

It's just... Jane will also be an enormous liability. She's wonderful and adorable, but she has no self-preservation instinct sometimes. If things really go to shit, then one of them will need to keep a constant watch on her. They likely won't need both of them to kill Loki, but the Frost Giant is a tricky bastard and he won't hesitate to use Jane against her again.

She looks at her clutch-brother questioningly. Bingley looks equally considering. Her clutch-brother is an arrogant lizard, but he can (mood-depending) recognize that technology and science are not his strong-suit. Better safe than sorry, right?

Bingley sighs heavily and nods acceptance.

“I'm not going to let him hurt you again,” Darcy promises Jane.

Jane, so much smaller and so very human, looks up at her and smiles. “I know.”

Darcy has to look away before her heart melts or something, like her having another identity mini-crisis. She focuses her attention on her clutch-brother again. Her injuries don't leave her in much of a position for fighting Loki, so she'll protect Jane, leave Loki to her clutch-brother, and provide back-up where needed. This is starting to sound almost like a plan, if not for how they don't really know what they'll be flying into and it's far too simple to actually be called a plan.

“I'll fly us there,” Darcy says, shaking herself out, ignoring the pull and burn of her chest, and having some more broken scales drop onto the ground below her. “I'm faster and it'll save your strength for curb-stomping that Frost Giant jackass in a magical showdown.”

Bingley goes from being about to argue, to being slightly pissed off and offended, to being obviously pleased and a second away from preening. Then his grin gets a bit more toothful and a lot more wicked, his eyes gleaming dragon-like in his human form, like he plans on picking Loki out of his teeth later. As clever a trickster and magician Loki is, it'll be fun to see how he fares against a full-grown, fire-breathing golden-eyed dragon who's just had his only kin nearly killed and has his pride on the line besides.

It's almost one the classic blunders, really. To paraphrase, never go up against a dragon when pride and precious things are on the line.

Darcy, grinning a dragon smile back at her clutch-brother, lowers herself to the ground to allow Bingley and Jane to clamber onto her back. She can't help by wince as she does, the movement causing greater pain through the stretch and burn and scratch and ache of her chest and limbs. She's bruised and hurting and could probably do with several weeks sleep and some hours of gorging herself. If what happens next is anything like what's happened so far, she'll need months and days.

Bingley brings Jane forward with a surprising amount of gentleness, helping the human woman onto Darcy's outstretched wing and up onto her back. There's some wobbling, because walking on wing flesh isn't very steady business, but they help each other up and are soon holding onto the spines between her neck and her wings. Darcy pulls herself to her feet with a groan.

“...I can do something to numb the pain,” Bingley offers.

“Please, please do,” Darcy groans as she spreads her wings. “Can you do it midair?”

He scoffs. “Of course.”

“Then do it as we're on the way to... Wait, where exactly are we going?” Darcy has just now remembered that she never actually caught where the tracking program found the Tesseract. She can easily follow the blaring power of the Tesseract, but that doesn't mean she knows where she'll be following it to. It might not mean much, but it can't hurt to know.

“New York,” Bingley answers from her back.

Darcy pauses, knees bent in preparation to take off into the air. “What?”

“What? ” says Jane.

“You lived there long enough for me to remember what that place looks like from the air,” Bingley says grumpily, with another offended sniff. “It's on that overly crowded island in the middle of it all. Hat town, or something.”

“You mean... Manhattan?” Jane demands, slightly shrill.

“Sure. That place.”

Darcy groans. “Holy fuck, Bing.”

“What?”