This story contains: spoilers for Thor 2, and a ton of pop culture references.

Also: a huge thank you to need2destroy for beta reading this chapter!

Chapter One: The God in the Grocery Store

A long time ago, in a land subjectively far, far away, there was a King who ruled the Frost Giants. He was kind of a douche, according to his little section in the Poetic Edda, but Darcy had long taken Norse folklore with a giant pile of salt. Long ago being a little over year since running over theThor, God of Thunder, with a crappy van, her underwhelming graduation from higher learning, and continued servitude to one Doctor Jane Foster. Her current employment wasn't exactly where Darcy had pictured herself, and there was a teensy-tiny bit of coercion involved (Agent Coulson + threats + Mexican prison = a very persuaded Darcy), but she couldn't complain.

So when the YouTube videos of giant blue people making homes in Norway's mountain range (yes, really) made the news, instead of freaking out like the rest of the world, Darcy calmly poked Jane in the shoulder and bit into her apple. It took a solid three minutes before Jane lifted her eyes from her laptop to the TV set, then another twenty seconds before she audibly gasped.

"Dude, I know," Darcy replied. "I'm taking the road of 'they come in peace' instead of 'they want us in pieces'. I wonder if they brought tauntauns with them?"

"This is bad," murmured Jane. The look on her face screamed that she was currently imagining Thor in Norway, strung up by his ankles in an ice cave. "Really, really bad."

Darcy shrugged. She was the worst at being supportive. "If I see a tauntaun, I am totally gonna be like 'I wanna be inside you'."

"Darcy," said Jane, in her best admonishing voice.

"Yeesh, my bad. So what do we do?"

Jane bit her lip. It was clear she was rapidly calculating ways to contact her Very Own Norse God. Since the incident with the Aether, Thor had been dispatched, yet again, on diplomatic (or not-so-diplomatic) missions throughout the Nine Realms, making their relationship quite the long distance conundrum. He was unable to 'see her without hem-dolls' (whatever the hell that meant), and the cellphone Jane had furnished him didn't work in other universes. It was complicated, and Darcy wasn't a fan.

"I never thought I would say this," said Jane, wringing her hands together nervously, "but I think we should call SHIELD."

Darcy glared. "They threatened me with prison if I quit working with you."

"Prison might do you some good."

Darcy huffed, and made Jane wait until she finished her entire apple (core, seeds and all) before she looked 'Jackbooted thugs' up in the office rolodex.

"I need to speak with Agent Coulson."

"Ma'am, I understand that you'd really like to speak with an Agent Coulson, but this is Sunshine Flowers, and no Agent Coulson works here."

Darcy covered the phone mic with her hand and screamed. She took a deep breath, removed her hand, and continued: "Look, dude, I get it—you have to keep things under wraps, yadda yadda, world secrets and Ray Bans, but please, for the love of my sanity, just put me through to your overlord!"

The lackey on the line sighed loudly. "Wait one."

Jane looked up from munching on her Pop-Tart when Darcy groaned. "On hold again?"

"Yep. You'd think they would've hung up by now, if they really weren't a super duper secret organization… just sayin'."

The phone line clicked on. "Miss Lewis?"

"Um, yes?" Darcy definitely hadn't given Phone Lackey her name.

"We understand that you are concerned about the video, but this number was given to Doctor Foster for emergency situations only. As far as I can tell, you and the Doctor are sitting in her lab, eating highly processed sugars, safe and sound."

"Um." Darcy shrugged helplessly in Jane's direction, who was vigorously miming 'put it on speakerphone'. Darcy button-mashed.

"Hey! Hi. This is Doctor Foster speaking," said Jane. She grimaced. "What should we do? Can we help?"

"Ah, no," replied Agent Coulson. He'd probably received a brief on Jane's alien technology infection and wanted her far, far away from the action. Just in case. "Please remain calm, stay far away from Norway, and let us do our job."

He then hung up. Dial tone filled the lab.

"I think we just got dissed," said Darcy, eyes shifting around the room, wondering if they were actually under constant surveillance, or if Agent Coulson was just really, really good at guessing. She hoped the latter, because she changed behind the big cabinet sometimes, and taking a huge dump on personal privacy was totally not cool.

For all her internal grumblings, Darcy's ire was short-lived: Jane tried calling Coulson back three times, and each time got redirected to a massage parlor.

Despite the international freak-out, life in Puente Antiguo continued on as normal. Darcy cycled between hugging her degree and sobbing, finding Erik pants to wear, and sassing Jane.

Then, one morning, it started to snow.

Flurries drifted down from the pale blue sky, where the sun still shone brightly. The snow came down slowly, but steadily, and didn't stop. Work stopped, though, and the curious came out to watch. Everything was covered with a fine powder of snow before Puente Antiguo could collectively blink.

And Darcy had a really, really bad feeling about it all.

"Should we go get more… supplies? Canned goods? Nonperishables? Blankets?" She stood at the floor-to-ceiling window that looked out towards the desert, her hands pressed against the cold glass.

"It's just a little snow," said Jane.

"Don't be the voice of denial, boss," replied Darcy. Her breath fogged up the glass. "We've both seen enough doomsday flicks to not be at least a smidge concerned that it's SNOWING."

"It's snows in New Mexico. It's normal."

"This is the first snowfall Puente Antiguo has had in over fifty years!" She had Googled and everything.

"Darcy!" Jane groaned, and lifted her hands in the air like she was praying. "Go buy whatever you want. Just… shoo!"

Darcy rolled her eyes, and drew a giant penis on the fogged glass before she left.

The grocery store was empty. "It's Beginning to Look A Lot Like Christmas" was playing softly over the speakers. A fluorescent light flickered in one of the ceiling panels.

Darcy felt like she was in 28 Days Later.

She walked down each aisle briskly, occasionally looking over her shoulder for zombies. Y'know, just in case. Though she knew (or, rather, hoped) she was safe, there was a tension in the air she couldn't quite put her finger on. The snow, Jane's adamant denial of what said snow indicated, and the video of Norway… it was all bad juju.

Darcy passed by the canned soups and paused, picking up a hearty veggie medley she figured Jane would tolerate. She started loading up, balancing the cans in her arms as she went.

"Ahem."

Darcy shrieked and the cans went crashing down. Two whacked right onto her toes, and the others skittered away down the aisle.

"HOLY FUCK!" she yelled, torn between ripping her comfy but ultimately not-steel-toed shoe off to see if she actually had toes left, and scrambling after the soup cans.

The stranger picked up the cans at his feet, and placed them in Darcy's cart. "My apologies. I didn't mean to frighten you so."

"You don't look very sorry, dude," sniped Darcy. Pain and frustration was a surefire way to make the filter between her mouth and brain disappear, though her statement was an actual observation. Mr. Ahem was smiling, but not in an 'I'm embarrassed, oh look how sheepish I am' kind of way. "Okay, that was a bit rude on my part. I just wasn't expecting anyone to slink up behind me."

"Understandable," the stranger conceded. He tilted his head to the side, as if sizing Darcy up. "Well, sorry again about your foot. I'm new to the area, and I'm trying to get directions. I haven't had any luck with finding a clerk. Could you help me?"

Darcy narrowed her eyes. There was something familiar, yet disconcerting about him. His accent was posh, but not entirely British, and he was effusing a strange type of charm—as if willing her with the lilt of his words to go along with his request without thinking about the consequences. Her instincts screamed to run far, far away. "Maybe? I'm pretty new to Puente Antiguo myself," she lied.

"That's fine," he said lightly, but his easy-going expression hardened, as if he knew Darcy had just lied to him. "I'm looking for Doctor Jane Foster."

"Um, yeaaaah, I have no idea who that is." Another downside to having a defective brain-mouth filter was that it made Darcy a really terrible liar.

The stranger took a half-step towards Darcy, and Darcy could only watch in growing trepidation as he began to unravel in front of her. Whatever charm he'd had before had vanished, replaced with a cold fury that was truly frightening. "Your poor attempt at deception was amusing, mortal, but I do not have time for it any longer. Show me to Jane Foster immediately."

Mortal? Darcy tilted her head to the side. Squinted a little. And then promptly had a mini heart attack.

"YOU!" she gasped out. She stabbed a hand into her purse in search of her trusty taser.

"Yes. Me."

The face. The voice. The crazy eyes.

Loki.

Thor's psychotic little brother was here. Looking for Jane. In a grocery store. He'd stopped in for freakin' directions. Darcy's chest heaved in panic. He looked positively delighted at the turn of events.

The weird thing was that he was remarkably unrecognizable sans helmet and BDSM leather. Still, Darcy was screaming internally. How had she not immediately identified Earth's #1 baddie? Maybe it was the fluorescent lighting? It was totally not doing him any favors.

Finally, her fingertips brushed the hard plastic of her taser. She wasted no time in whipping it out. She pressed the button, and watched as the metal prongs latched onto Loki's shirt and sent him convulsing to the linoleum with 500,000 volts. She expected him to spring up like Khan and end her, but he remained on the ground, twitching here and there.

"Oh. My. God." There were tears in her eyes. Literal tears. She bent over. "Sweet Jesus."

She plopped down onto her ass, no longer able to stand with her legs trembling like she'd run a full marathon.

A positive of the situation? She hadn't peed herself.

She dialed Jane's cell, and prayed she wasn't too annoyed to take the call.

In hindsight, calling Jane was probably the worst idea Darcy had ever had. Ever.

One: Loki had specifically said he wanted Jane. Past experience dictated that that was probably not a good thing. Throne of Asgard. The tesseract. Earth. The list was getting kinda long, like a demented Christmas wish list.

Two: Jane was a super annoying mother hen. She was quick to say Darcy drove her crazy, but she sure had no problem turning around and telling Darcy to put a jacket on when it was cold out or whatever. Not cool, considering that Jane had barely kept it together when Thor had rocketed back to space. Pot, kettle—please mingle.

So, yeah. Bad idea.

"Darcy! What were you thinking?" Jane whispered harshly. She was holding a wooden baseball bat aloft. Her eyes were trained on Loki's supine, twitchy form. She'd arrived like the cavalry soon after Darcy's distress call, and had been giving Darcy the third degree since.

The main topic of discussion was Loki, and what to do with him.

"I don't know! I wasn't? What else was I supposed to do? Kneel? Show him to your lair?" Darcy tightened the grip on her other weapon of choice: a broom. She'd used the second taser charge when Loki had groaned. "He was all 'excuse me, wench, I'm looking for Jane Foster', and I was like 'yeah right, buddy, get lost, but my do you familiar'. Then he got all pissy, and I recognized his grumpy cat scowl from TV… and then I tased him. Y'know, you should be thankful I'm here to look after your virtue!"

"He shouldn't even be here. I saw him die," said Jane, astutely ignoring most of Darcy's rant. She shook her head. "He died in Thor's arms. He turned blue, and died. How is he here?"

"God of Mischief and Lies, remember?" Darcy prodded Loki's boot with the end of her broom. "He doesn't have the best track record with being honest, so tell me again why this is a surprise?"

Jane's frown deepened. "How could he do that to Thor? God, he's such a jerk!"

"That he is," agreed Darcy. "But, um, Jane… we really should go. I know I called you here, but that was kind of a panicky fluke, and I couldn't move my legs. But we should go now. Like, pack up the essentials, put Erik in the back of the van, and hightail it out of here. It's been, eh, fifteen minutes. He's probably going to wake up any second and start rampaging."

"Yeah, yeah, let's go. That's a good idea," said Jane.

"God, are you in shock?" Darcy groaned. "C'mon!"

"No objections, but—um. Should I?" Jane took a slow practice swing in the direction of Loki's head.

"The fuck? No!" Darcy grabbed Jane's forearm, and tugged her along to the exit. "I love your enthusiasm, but I don't think that's necessary. Yet."

Jane hadn't quite been the same since her excellent adventure in Asgard. The Jane that'd left wasn't the one Thor had returned with, and Darcy recognized it in the little things. Like her lack of compunction when it came to whacking a downed man, deranged God or not, in the head with a baseball bat.

Speaking of deranged Gods… Darcy looked over her shoulder. Loki was still lying in the middle of the aisle. He looked so young and sick when he wasn't glaring.

It didn't feel completely right to leave him.

She was sure Thor would be frowning in grand disapproval if he were a fly on the wall, too, (and since when did Thor become her Jiminy Cricket?). But what other choice did they have? Loki hadn't outright threatened her with death or maiming if she refused him. In fact, he had asked—well, rudely demanded—that she take him to Jane.

Thor had sworn up and down that Loki was a good guy, that his attempt at subjugating Earth was a cry for help. Perhaps acting an ass was customary to a Prince. Maybe she'd been a little too trigger-happy?

But then she remembered Erik, the lack of pants, the epic mind-fuck he'd endured, and the only thought she had was: Nah.

"You could've told me the nuclear winter happened while I was out, Jane!"

"Don't raise your voice at me." Jane shivered violently. "It wasn't like this when I drove over!"

Indeed, the light dusting of snow that had been falling when Darcy left was now a full-on blizzard. Darcy had bundled into her coziest sweater, scarf, and beanie combination before she'd trekked out, but her pathetic excuse for winter wear was no match for the current artic-like weather. The cute winter wonderland version of Puente Antiguo was gone, replaced with a frozen over version of hell.

Darcy wanted to scream "I told you so" in Jane's face, but she refrained.

The wind howled and lashed at Darcy's exposed skin. Body parts she didn't even know she had were frozen, and it felt like tiny knives were stabbing her repeatedly in the face. She had been through a few snowstorms in her day, but nothing compared to this. The danger of Loki was rapidly becoming a secondary concern to the impending hypothermia-frostbite-snow death.

"Where did you park the van?" she screamed into Jane's ear.

Jane pointed a trembling arm to their left, where two tiny beams of light could be seen shining through the darkness.

While getting to the van probably took only a few minutes, it felt like an eternity. Darcy had never been happier to see the old rusted thing. She yanked the driver's side door open, threw Jane up into the cab, crawled in after her, and slammed the door shut before a gale of wind could blow her away.

Jane cranked the heat on high, and then flopped into the passenger seat. She was shivering like a neurotic Chihuahua, and her teeth were chattering so badly it took her a full minute to say, "Y-you were right, D-Darcy…"

"Aw, c'mon. You just took my 'I told you so' moment." Darcy pouted. "It's cool, though. You totally saved my life. If you hadn't brought the van, we'd be toast."

"More like ice c-cubes."

Darcy snorted in laughter. "You just made a joke!"

Jane gave her a tight-lipped smile. "It won't happen again. P-promise."

The lab was freezing.

It had taken nearly thirty minutes of careful drifting to make it down the street, and then another ten minutes to walk through the blizzard to their front door. Darcy was stunned Jane hadn't made a grab for the wheel every time she'd gotten a little too close to an immovable object, but Darcy figured Jane had learned her lesson with Thor.

As soon as they'd made it inside, Jane had run off to make several phone calls, and Darcy went in search of the thermostat. Darcy tapped it with her index finger. The little arrow hand bobbed sadly. Darcy cursed. She had cranked the dial on high heat fifteen minutes ago, but the vents were still only sputtering out lukewarm air. Dying a slow, cold death wasn't how Darcy wanted to go, but all signs were starting to point in that direction.

It was hard not to flail.

Darcy was good at keeping a level head. Giant metal monster razing her town to the ground? No biggie. Creepy elves trying to convert the world into dark matter? No problem! She was the sassy voice of reason, but there was no reasoning with the snow and the cold.

They were running low on supplies (totally not her fault), and, from what she gathered from Jane's angry yelling, no one was coming for them anytime soon. Loki was literally right around the corner, and she was sure he had woken up pissed and ready to choke a bitch. The van wasn't snow-worthy, so driving a long distance away was out. They would have to wait, and pray Loki, hypothermia, or starvation didn't get to them before a rescue did.

By the time Darcy got over her sniffling and came out from the back room, Jane had changed into dry clothes.

"So… do you think the snow is normal now?" asked Darcy. She was aiming to make Jane crack a smile in self-deprecation, but she earned an annoyed look instead.

"Don't make fun of me," replied Jane. The rolodex was torn apart on her desk. "I already said I was wrong."

Darcy sighed. "Sorry. You know I get all snarky whenever things get crazy. Our current snowpocalypse is pretty freakin' nuts, so… yeah. Do you think Loki has anything to do with this?"

Jane paled, as if she had forgotten all about him. "I don't know. I… I just wish…"

"Thor was here?" Darcy said softly.

Jane nodded. "It's pathetic. A little spot of trouble and all I want is my big, strong hammer-wielding boyfriend. My father would be so disappointed."

"Dude, it's not pathetic. Everyone needs a little TLC when the going gets rough. If Thor could be here, he would be. The last time you got sucked into a vortex, he showed up, like, five seconds later. Maybe the Bifrost is going haywire because of all this wacky snow? Maybe Mew-Mew gives really bad directions when the weather is crappy?"

"Maybe." Jane laughed softly. She flicked a torn piece of index paper to the floor. "Can you check on Erik for me? I'm going to keep calling around."

"Sure thing, boss."

Darcy found Erik sleeping soundly on his cot. It was where she'd left him earlier in the day. Catnaps were his preferred hobby these days, due to nightmares that left him with energy for little else the next day. The dementia he suffered at the hands of Loki's mind alteration was terrible, and no one could give them an estimate on whether or not he would ever recover.

Darcy tucked Erik's blanket higher up under his chin, and hoped that the heat would kick in soon, for all of their sakes.