Chapter Text
“You don’t have to do this if you’re not ready, Minn Ijós .”
“I know.”
“There is no rush. We have time. Maybe you would prefer to do some traveling instead? I’ve always wanted to see the Pyramids for myself—”
“I’m beginning to think you don’t want to do this.”
“It’s not that…well, maybe it is. I can only speak from my own experience on the subject, and I’m not yet prepared to ‘face my demons,’ as you Midgardians would put it.”
“They’re not demons , Loki. They’re my parents.”
Darcy and Loki were standing across the street from the house she grew up in, looking extremely out of place in the quiet suburban neighborhood. They were both still wearing their dirt-coated, blood-encrusted SHIELD uniforms and looked like they had come straight from a massacre. Loki had a bullet hole through his shirt, and Darcy’s was torn at the shoulder where Loki had ripped it open to tend her wound.
“If I let them see me like this, they’re gonna freak out before I can get a word in edgewise,” Darcy backpedaled, “Maybe we should’ve showered and changed first.”
“Is that what has you so worried? By all means, you should have just said so.” Darcy watched in awe as Loki’s signature green magic swirled briefly around her, dissolving blood and filth and replacing her SHIELD uniform with an elegant silken dress that looked like it belonged on a Greek goddess, not an intern-slash-grad-student...slash-maybe-half-god. She felt her hair shift and flutter away from her face and reached up to feel the locks were now elegantly curled, half of them pulled up and twisted intricately atop her head.
Turning a baffled look to Loki, she saw he was now dressed in similar regalia. With sleek black leggings, a moss green shirt, and a black leather vest threaded with gold and cascading past his knees, he was every bit a Prince of Asgard (at least, she assumed that’s how princes dressed in the realm of the gods). His hair flowed down below his ears, slicked back from his brow in that way he seemed to favor.
“Okay, not to complain about my real-life Cinderella moment, but I think you might’ve overcorrected a bit,” Darcy murmured, flushing as she looked around to make sure no one saw anything. She really did not need the added complication of Loki’s magic getting caught on video and going viral.
“Nonsense. If we were to meet my parents, we would be offensively underdressed in this garb. I believe I toned it down quite nicely for Midgardian tastes.”
Darcy rolled her eyes, “Loki, you’ve been living on ‘Midgard’ for almost two months now. I’m pretty sure you know that this isn’t how we dress.”
“But your fashion here is so dull ,” Loki complained, before sighing in resignation as Darcy continued to stare him down, “Oh, very well. Will this suffice?” With another flick of his wrist, Darcy once again felt the faint chill of his magic weaving around her and the ornate gown was replaced with jeans, a maroon t-shirt, and a zip-up gray hoodie.
“ Much better. Thank you,” Darcy replied earnestly, taking a moment to appreciate Loki’s tight-fitting green v-neck and black slacks. She wasn’t even surprised to see him sporting the long leather trench coat—or at least, a magical duplicate of it—that he had practically taken on as part of his mortal identity when they first met. It was comforting to see him looking so normal given the last few hours of super-not-normal things.
Darcy took a deep breath, exhaling with determination before walking briskly across the street and giving the door of her childhood home three firm knocks. Her heart rate skyrocketed as she listened to the shuffling sounds of someone approaching the door, and she instinctively leaned back into Loki as he stepped up onto the porch behind her.
The door opened to reveal the stunned face of Darcy’s mother, Leah Lewis. Her gray-touched hair was collected in a messy top-knot, loose strands sticking to her flushed face. She was wearing the apron Darcy bought her two years ago for her birthday which read “When Life Gives You Potatoes, Make Latkes,” and from the smell wafting through the open door, it seemed that was exactly what she was busy doing.
“Darcy?! You’re…you’re here! Alan! It’s Darcy!”
Loud footsteps bounded down from above as Alan Lewis came into view at the foot of the stairs. “Darcy,” he exhaled, stepping out onto the porch and pulling her into a crushing hug, “ Ahuva , we’ve missed you so.”
Darcy choked back tears as she felt the weight of her recent brush with death hit like a ton of bricks. “I’ve missed you too, Abba . Ima . I’m sorry I took so long to figure stuff out…I know you did what you thought was best.”
“Darcy, we never meant to hurt you,” her mother said, wrapping her arms around husband and daughter affectionately, “and it really doesn’t change a thing. You have always been and will always be our daughter.”
“I know, Ima . I’m so sorry,” Darcy sobbed, her legs giving out as she collapsed forward into her parents’ embrace. Darcy hadn’t spoken to her parents even once since learning the truth. It had made it easier to ignore them and run off to New Mexico. But now, reunited with them after so many months of no contact…if it weren’t for meeting Loki, she might have wished she never cut them off in the first place.
Oh, right .
“Um…Mama, Papa,” Darcy started, awkwardly stepping back and grabbing Loki’s hand, “This is Loki…Cooper. We work together and…well, I guess we’re sort of dating?” Darcy looked at Loki with uncertainty. Beyond her calling him “boyfriend” in jest—and some pretty passionate kissing—they hadn’t actually had a legit DTR. Things felt pretty official to Darcy at this point, with the whole saving her life and murdering a bunch of baddies thing, but she wasn’t even sure if they did dating on Asgard. Would he get what she was talking about?
Apparently so, as he nodded and flashed her parents a winning smile before reaching out to take her mother’s hand, bowing and kissing it lightly. “I am honored to meet the mother and father who raised such an amazing woman. I do hope you will forgive our abrupt visit—we were in the neighborhood.”
Well, I guess that’s not technically a lie…as of five minutes ago , Darcy thought, realizing this was an easier excuse than trying to explain how they went from New Jersey to a random field in she-still-didn’t-know-where to the mild suburban streets of New Haven.
“My goodness…and he’s British…well, it seems we have much to talk about! Come in, come in!” Darcy’s mother gripped Loki’s hand before he could pull away from his greeting and dragged him into the house, a stunned look on his face as he glanced over his shoulder at Darcy, who just shrugged and winked at him reassuringly.
“Boyfriend, huh?” Darcy’s father questioned dubiously, “And how long has this been going on, exactly?”
“Uh…it’s all kind of new, I guess,” Darcy muttered noncommittally.
“It’s obviously not that new if you’re traveling together and bringing him here,” he grumbled, exactly as Darcy expected him to.
She rolled her eyes, “Come on, Dad. Give the poor guy a chance, will ya? And we were traveling for work”— kind of— “So everything’s totally innocent, got it?”
Alan Lewis raised a skeptical brow at his daughter, but couldn’t keep a smile from blossoming on his face. “Well, he brought you back to us, so I guess I can’t be too upset. Come on, let’s go rescue the poor fool from your mother.”
Loki had spent a fair amount of time on Midgard, especially in recent months. But as far as living accommodations were concerned, his experience was limited to converted labs, hotel rooms, and the SHIELD dormitories. This was unlike any of those temporary dwellings. This was a home .
Darcy’s mother guided him through a room filled with plush carpeting and two overstuffed floral couches and into the kitchen. Though small in comparison to the palace kitchens on Asgard, it made up for in comfort what it lacked in size. The walls were painted a pale, soothing green, and a round table covered in a lacy white cloth took up most of the floor space. The counters were piled with dishes, but it gave a sense of “lived-in” that Loki didn’t dislike. This room was a gathering place, not just a room for food preparation. It was the warmth of the kitchens and the welcome of the Great Hall all in one much smaller package. A delicious scent Loki immediately recognized swirled around the room in clouds of steam that took him back to the first day he and Darcy met.
Before he could so much as utter a word in conversation, Darcy’s mother had plopped him down in one of the wobbly chairs around the table and placed a plate piled high with crispy, greasy latkes in front of him. “I don’t believe for a minute you’re dating my Darcy and still that skinny. Doesn’t she feed you?”
Before he could respond, Darcy shouted from the hallway, “Mom, geez! I don’t even have a kitchen where I’m living right now, but I promise you I literally made him latkes the first day we met. I mean, he didn’t get to eat any of them, but still!”
Darcy skipped into the room, planting a kiss on Loki’s cheek before joining her mother at the stove to scoop a large helping of latkes onto her own plate. Loki was amazed at how comfortable Darcy was. She had been so furious at her parents when they first met—even mere hours ago, she was in so much pain over their deception. How did forgiveness come so easily to her? How did she act as though everything was well again? And why couldn’t he do the same with his own…adoptive family?
“You mean to tell me you haven’t even been cooking all these months we’ve been apart?” The shock in Mrs. Lewis’s voice made it clear to Loki that this was not normal for Darcy, “What have you been doing that kept you from your favorite hobby?”
“Well…the answer to that is kind of a long story…” Darcy trailed off, turning to look with uncertainty at Loki. Although her look pleaded for him to lend an explanation, he knew this was not his battle to fight. Darcy needed to have this conversation with her parents, and he wasn’t a part of it.
Loki reached across the table to cradle Darcy’s much smaller hand in his. “This is your story to tell, Minn Ijós . You have my permission to share as much regarding me as you feel is necessary, but I think it would be best for me to give the three of you some time to sort things out.”
Darcy swallowed thickly but nodded in agreement. “Yeah, okay. But don’t go too far,” she whispered as her mother pretended to busy herself at the stove, giving the pair some semblance of privacy, “I might need you.”
Loki smiled playfully as he gestured at his overflowing plate of food, “I will be right here, apparently completing my own mission.”
Darcy’s parents settled on the larger of the two couches while she took the much smaller loveseat. They looked at her with their best attempt at love and reassurance, but Darcy couldn’t help but feel uncomfortable. The last time she saw them, they were just her parents. Things were simple. But now…
“For starters, I guess I’d like to ask…did you know my birth parents? Do you know where they are now?”
Darcy’s parents shared a knowing look before her father turned to face Darcy. “Your birth father, no. We don’t actually know anything about him, let alone who he is. But we did know your birth mother,” he trailed off hesitantly, “And…you did too, actually. Do you remember your Aunt Raven?”
Darcy’s jaw went completely slack at this. “Wait, wait, wait. You mean mom’s “cousin” who visited a ton when I was little and then…Oh…”
Darcy’s mom nodded compassionately, “Yes, she…passed away when you were quite young. She had been ill since shortly after you were born, Darcy. That’s why she had to give you up—Raven didn’t have anyone in the world but you. We met in the hospital, the day you were born. The day our son was born, and the day he…died.” Leah choked off at this, and Darcy nodded sympathetically as she fought to hold back her own tears. She knew about her brother, of course. Michael. He had died in childbirth, and her mom almost did too. She had always thought he was born a year or two before her, though. Not on the same day .
But that piece of information paled in comparison to the revelation that her birth mom was not only a woman she knew—and remembered fondly, if faintly—but was already dead.
Darcy’s father picked up the story where his wife could not, “Your biological mother had a terminal illness. She knew her days were numbered, but she wanted you to grow up with a mother and father who would love you and care for you as their own. She didn’t want you to ever think you had been abandoned. That is why when she came to us with you, she begged us to keep the truth from you. She insisted we call her “Aunt Raven” so that you could know her without the pain of losing a mother. The last time she saw you was—”
“My fifth birthday,” Darcy interjected quietly, “I remember.” It was one of the best birthdays she ever had. Aunt Raven— her real mom —had taken her to the local fair that day. She let Darcy have whatever she wanted, and they made themselves sick on cotton candy and funnel cake before riding the Ferris Wheel around and around, telling stories and cuddling for warmth until the sun had set and the stars flooded the skies.
“Whenever you look at those stars, my little one,” Raven had said softly as they stopped at the top of the Ferris Wheel for the last time, “Remember this…” Darcy couldn’t remember the rest. She had been five, after all, and while she had always been saddened that she couldn’t retain the whole memory of the kind woman who had died so young, it had never been so painful a forgetting as it was at this moment.
The tears were flowing freely now, Darcy finally deciding her own need to feel was more important than protecting her parents’ feelings. “How could you not tell me who she was? After she died…why didn’t you tell me? WHY DID YOU KEEP THIS FROM ME?” Darcy screamed the last part, rising to her feet before crumbling to her knees and burying her face in the thick orange carpet.
Loki was at her side instantly, having swept into the room silent as a shadow at the sound of her pain. He wrapped his arms protectively around her as he whispered softly to her in his native language, “ Láta þat frels, Minn Ijós. Sakna þinn móðir. Böl, Minn Kærr. Minn Hjarta. Minn Allr. ”
Darcy’s parents were still seated on the couch, stunned into silence by Darcy’s outburst and this strange man’s affectionate display. Everything seemed frozen in time as Darcy wept and Loki whispered comfort to her in a tongue they did not recognize.
After several minutes of this, Darcy finally relaxed her death grip on the carpet and slowly sat back on her ankles, leaning into Loki as if he were the only thing holding her together. Her mom wordlessly held out a box of tissues, which Darcy accepted with gratitude as Loki eased her back up onto the sofa.
Taking a deep breath, Darcy collected herself and compartmentalized her own feelings on the matter to deal with later. “I’m sorry…I know you said she asked you not to tell me. I don’t agree with it…but I do sort of get it. It’s just…a lot to accept. I think I just need a break from the ‘Darcy’s Backstory’ revelations for a sec.”
Darcy pointedly ignored the gentle smiles directed her way from every person in the room, as they all were familiar with how she deflected difficult emotions with humor. She closed her eyes instead, drawing comfort from Loki’s fingers brushing through the length of her hair. When she stopped shaking, Loki made to rise from the couch, but she clutched his fingers tightly, a silent plea for him to stay.
Alan Lewis broke the silence, shifting the subject to something less heavy. “That language you were speaking, Mr. Cooper…I’ve never heard anything quite like it. What was it, exactly?”
Understanding Darcy’s need for the attention to shift off of her for a while, Loki replied, “Asgardian. It is the native language of my people, though we mostly use Allspeak so as to avoid pesky language barriers.”
This bluntly honest response was so unexpected, Darcy choked out a laugh before she could so much as school her features. “Geez, Loki, just drop a bomb, why don’t you.”
Her parents stared at the pair in confusion. “I feel like we’re missing something,” Leah muttered, twisting the hem of her apron nervously in her fingers, “Asgardian? I’ve never even heard of such a language…where are you from, Mr. Cooper?”
“Asgard,” Loki responded with the same blunt but somehow still-polite tone, “Though my sire is of Jotunheim.”
Darcy literally face-palmed at this. “Okay, Loki, I’ll take it from here. Yeesh . Don’t freak out, okay, parents? Loki’s not…human. He’s sort of from another realm?” She phrased this last part as a question, still not entirely sure herself how the whole other-realm-not-other-planet thing worked. Loki gave her a reassuring nod, a mischievous smile playing at the corner of his lips as the pair waited to see how Darcy’s parents would react.
Alan Lewis burst into laughter, followed immediately by his wife. “You actually had us on the hook there for a minute, you two. That’s one way to lighten the mood—make up a wild story about alien boyfriends from other planets to make our situation seem less insane.”
“I assure you, Mr. Lewis, this is no fairytale,” Loki replied, prying his hand free of Darcy’s and rising to stand before her father, “If I might demonstrate…”
Darcy’s eyes widened in alarm as she gave Loki a warning look. Sure, she had no issue with him turning blue, but that didn’t mean her parents were ready for that level of shock. They didn’t even know beings like him existed yet.
Loki repaid Darcy with an exaggerated eye roll as if to say Come now, you don’t think I’m that thoughtless . He then raised one palm face up, fingers lightly curled, and a thin strand of his signature green magic began to swirl in his palm. It gradually increased in size, then spiraled out of his hand, forming a large sphere in the center of the room.
Darcy gazed at the sphere, transfixed as a picture began to form within it. It looked a lot like the Wicked Witch’s crystal ball in the Wizard of Oz, only larger and rippling slightly. The image revealed a kingdom that could only be described as otherworldly . Golden domes and elaborate statues rose up over rocky cliffs and waters that stood still and smooth as glass. A great palace of brilliant gold rose at the center of it all, sunlight glistening off its many fluted turrets.
Asgard. Loki’s home .
“I share with you three a sight not beheld by the eyes of any man or woman of your realm in thousands of years—perhaps longer. This is Asgard, home of Odin All-Father, King of the Nine Realms.”
Darcy thought she would hear pain or sorrow in Loki’s voice at the mention of his home or his adoptive father, but there was none. It only sounded rehearsed, like a mantra spoken many times over his thousand-plus years.
“I don’t believe it…but how can this be?” muttered Darcy’s father in bafflement, “We’ve sent people into space—explored beyond our galaxy with drones and telescopes. How have we never discovered life on other planets?”
“The answers to your questions are rather…complicated,” Loki replied, lowering his hand as he allowed the illusion to fade. “The simplest answer is that Asgard is not so easy to reach through space travel. It would take far too many of your lifetimes to do so.”
“And yet here you are,” Leah whispered, looking upon Loki with new eyes, “A man from another planet, dwelling among us. If it takes so many lifetimes to span the distance between our homes…how old are you?”
Darcy blushed and interrupted before her parents got brand new information to freak out over, “I think we’re getting a little off-topic here. Not that I’m thrilled to get back to my own emotional baggage, but there is a reason I brought Loki with me to visit you guys aside from the classic meet-the-parents bit. You see that he can do magic. Where he comes from, it’s called seidr . It’s this thing that’s…uh…inside of people from his realm? Geez, I don’t know how to explain this. Loki, mind taking it from here?”
With a nod, Loki turned to her parents and, poised as a college professor giving a lecture on metaphysics, explained, “ Seidr is the lifeforce of the Aesir people, among many other beings in the nine realms. It is in large part what separates our kind from the mortals of Earth. In all my time on this planet, I have never once met a human who possessed seidr. That is…until—”
“Until me.” Darcy cut him off, desperate to get this over with and see what her parents might know, “I’m the first human ever to have seidr—in theory, anyway—which given the fact that I’m not biologically related to the two of you, probably means I’m not even fully human to begin with.”
Darcy’s father leaned forward, resting his head in his hands, raking through his thinning hair. “Darcy…that’s impossible. Your mother was human, she had to be. She lived, she died. She never showed us any signs that she could have magical abilities like you’re describing.”
“Surely she would have used such a skill to heal herself if she had?” Darcy’s mother suggested, clinging to theories like a lifeline to avoid dealing with the fact that her daughter was dating an alien…and might be one as well.
“Not necessarily,” Loki replied thoughtfully, “It is possible to, ah, bind one’s seidr so they cannot access it. Though it takes a great deal of power to do so—much more than even I possess, and I am known for my skill throughout the realms.”
Darcy’s father looked up at Loki sharply, as if he had just realized something. “Loki. Odin. I know those names…they are not from our religion, of course, but…no. You couldn’t be…”
Loki dipped in a low bow that was only slightly condescending, “I am Loki of Asgard, God of Mischief and Lies. It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance.”
“ Oy vey ,” Alan Lewis muttered, leaning his head back on the couch and pressing his palms into his eyes, “This is too much mishegas for an old man to take.”
Darcy coughed to cover her laugh, “Sorry, Abba . I know it’s a lot. But mom, you could be right. My Aunt Raven”—Darcy found it easier to call her by that familiar moniker than think about who she really was at the moment— “might have been human. But my bio dad might have been from Asgard, or one of the other realms. Raven never even mentioned him to you guys?”
Darcy’s mom shook her head apologetically, “She always dodged the topic when we asked. And we did, Darcy. We knew you might want to know about him one day, but Raven insisted it was better for you to grow up believing us to be your real parents.”
“No…it was more than that,” Alan cut in, “She said you would be safer not knowing who your birth parents were.” Darcy watched the dots connecting for her father, just as they were for her, “Perhaps your inhuman heritage is why she kept his identity from us.”
Darcy groaned, whacking her palm on the sofa in frustration, “Great. So I know who my mom is, but nothing about my dad. And he’s probably the alien in me. So what, we’re back to square one?”
Darcy turned to Loki, hoping the trickster would have more ideas up his sleeve, but he only stared at the ground, brow furrowed in frustration at the newfound dead-end.
Leah Lewis came to sit by her daughter’s side, drawing a comforting arm around her shoulders. “All is not lost, darling. We were never able to learn much from genetic testing before, but I’m sure we can find some doctor or scientist with the resources to trace your lineage.”
Darcy’s eyes brightened with revelation, “Yeah…you’re right, Mom. And I think I might know where to find one.”