Darcy has a habit of making questionable decisions, but when she's offered a job that she'll actually be paid for -- and by the Avengers, no less -- she accepts without hesitation, hoping to advance her career and maybe be taken a bit more seriously...
The next morning Darcy stumbled into work feeling like she was carrying the weight of the world on her shoulders. Although she could've easily carried it in the bags beneath her eyes. She had barely slept, as a result of having chosen to delve into Loki's file and read as much as she could.
The problem was, once she'd started, she'd not been able to stop, and it was almost 4:30am by the time she'd dragged herself off to bed. But even then, sleep hadn't come easy. Despite being achey and physically exhausted from the hiking, reading about the horrors of Loki's life had been unexpectedly emotionally draining.
Each time she closed her eyes she was assaulted with images of his sly smile, his haughty expressions, his changeling eyes that seemed to shift from blue to green, then back again.
His eyes got her the most.
They were sharp with intellect, like nothing ever got by him. Sometimes they were sultry, dangerous, come-to-bed-with-me-and-you-won't-regret-it eyes, but then the look in them switched to being childlike, twinkling, playful and innocent at a moments notice. They also held secrets. Like the windows to his soul, they betrayed a mournful, haunting vulnerability. They were the eyes of someone who knew too much. Someone who had seen too much. Someone who had lost too much. But then the shutters would close, and they'd turn cold, and stormy like the sea in winter.
Okay, she really needed to stop obsessing over his eyes. In fact, maybe she was at risk of obsessing a bit too much, over him.
But now that she'd gained further insight into his background, she felt herself sympathising with him, and all she kept thinking was, the poor guy just desperately needed a hug.
Perhaps Darcy had a rather slanted way of viewing things, but when she read of his lifelong competition with Thor, she recognised a need in him. A need to be valued, acknowledged. She could totally relate to that, having battled with her own self-worth in the past, and feelings of displacement and being overlooked.
And the part he played in the alien attack on Earth? Well there was obviously way more to it. After falling --quite literally -- from Asgard, he'd landed in a place like no other, and what he'd encountered there must've changed him forever. Darcy could only liken it to taking a wrong turn and ending up in the worst possible parts of town. Except in Loki's case, it was the underworld of the universe. He'd fallen in with a bad crowd, the absolute worst of the worst, and been cruelly manipulated. Deals had been struck. Dark, shady deals. And the rest of course, was history.
No matter how destructive he had been, and how despicable his behaviour, she couldn't help thinking he was just painfully misunderstood. Yeah sure he was potentially dangerous, but he had been denied true companionship. He so needed that. Someone who'd be none judgemental, open minded, and willing to offer support, and genuine friendship.
Well, the way she figured it, Loki was pretty much her responsibility now. It was her job to keep him in-check, and she was the one who probably spent the most time with him. Which meant she was the obvious candidate for the task. She could be Loki's friend. His playmate.His buddy. And whilst this wasn't exactly part of her job description, she wasn't going to treat this as purely a work-related challenge. Taming the trickster was one thing. Earning his trust, respect and friendship, was another. And this was on a completely personal level.
All he needed was someone to give him a break. To actually trust him, and give him a chance to prove himself. Trust could be earned. She wasn't going to write him off like so many others had.
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