Hey, guys! I present my latest endeavor. Started as a potentially very-rambling oneshot, and so I've broken down what I had composed so far. This is going to be very angsty, be warned, ending in dramatic character death, since that's apparently a thing of mine. Idea came to me when listening to "young and beautiful" by Lana Del Rey, and it grew from there, along with a whole angsty playlist. Anyhow, enjoy!

The smell of sanitized equipment, clinically-approved bed linens, and her hospital-issued gown was going to kill her long before the sickness was, Darcy Lewis decided. She was heavily medicated, but the sterilized atmosphere was even beginning to break through the induced haze.

She hated it. Hated the gray walls, the dim lighting, the distinct lack of décor that meant her hospital room could have been any in the world, as well as anyone's. Could have been a prison cell, for all she knew. The only feature from the outside world, and even it was from the gift shop downstairs, she imagined, was the bouquet of wilting flowers on her bedside table. She hated them too.

Most of all, she hated the sympathetic expressions everywhere she looked. Her family, the staff, her friends and family, coworkers, anyone and everyone who even looked in her room wore the same look on their face. Their faces had begun to blur together, apathy at her situation threatening to take over. The atmosphere tainted any decent company she might get.

Heaving as strong a sigh as she could in her weakened state, Darcy's hand strayed to a long lock of graying mahogany hair, twirling it around and through her fingers over and over, as she had all her life when bored, distressed, or thinking hard.

Before she'd been diagnosed, before she'd been bedridden to prevent something glossed over with the phrase "unnecessary taxation" but really meant "we need you to die laying still and conveniently", Darcy had always been active. Dancing to music, tapping her foot impatiently in elevators or waiting for them, drumming her hands on the gearshift or steering wheel as she drove, she did it all. She couldn't stand the thought of life passing her by while she sat still. And here she lay, condemned and powerless.

He would have eased her boredom.

He would have found a way to save her, at or against her insistence. He would have taken her around the world and beyond it, given her cursory directions and let her take the reins. He would have let her explore every tiny, overlooked facet of a place, thing or person, the sort of stuff only she noticed, the sort of thing he knew she would latch onto. He would have distracted her from her expiration date until the last moment, not let her dwell in a cold bed and stare at the elephant in the room that loomed on the horizon in her head.

Shaking her head free of depressing metaphors, Darcy shuffled into as comfortable a position as one could get on these beds, letting her mind drift down a distinctly happier path, memory lane.

Those had been hectic days, after the attack on New York, the hours between dawn and dusk filled with cleanup and rebuilding of its structures, and mental and physical recovery of its people.

The ever-undaunted SHIELD even had a curveball thrown its way. A few hours after Thor and Loki had been seen off by the Avengers, the pair had returned. Beamed down by some alternative method of Odin's, they'd arrived right in front of headquarters. A lucky shot, or someone was watching more closely than they'd thought, Fury mused aloud as he hit the lobby, moving to appease the rapidly-growing mob on his front porch. The Asgardian pair was at the center of it, Thor hesitant to hit his way out of a wall of angry flesh.

They conspicuously bereft of the tesseract and its containment vessel. Loki was still muzzled and chained, and therefore vulnerable to the efforts of the enraged humans fighting to get to him, Thor almost comically uncertain of himself as they staggered with the ebb and flow of the crowd.

Fury debated ignoring what was going on outside, at least for five minutes. Then a shot rang out, and he snapped an order. "Lewis! With me!"

Jane Foster's intern had been moved to a position within headquarters while her boss was in protective custody masquerading as research in Norway, but she wasn't sure she liked this work any better. The brunette pushed her glasses further up her nose, eyes wide at the noise outside as she straightened from her lean across a secretary's desk as she explained paperwork. "Am I a mob containment squad? Do I resemble a SWAT team in any way? You make me keep my taser in a locker-"

At Fury's glare, she wilted, and as she, as clearly the most qualified person in the room who wasn't a secretarial lackey, moved to his side, Fury muttered something about Thor needing a familiar face.

As they reached the doors, which opened with a smooth hiss at their approach, Thor's voice rose above the crowd in a roar. "MOVE." Silence ensued, punctuated by the waving of impromptu weapons by the lingering masses, and Thor more or less carved a rough path, looking to be half-carrying Loki, whose posture was significantly more lax than a moment before.

Darcy gasped, a hand flying to her mouth as she spotted the bullet hole marring green material across his chest, the mischief god's blood spilling across Thor's armor and spattering onto the sidewalk. She absently noted Loki's blood was a vibrant crimson, just like hers, not the tar-like, ebony substance one would have expected, given who he was. The burly blonde god dragged them both past the front doors towards her, and she also noted the bright green gaze, filled with pain. Very absently noted those almost-pretty green eyes, as wheels started turning in her head. Had the cube been controlling him, too? And was its influence just now retracting?

All that crossed her mind in the moment it took Thor to reach them, and he sent a pleading look at Fury's stern expression. "I beg of you, help him. I will explain everything…" Fury was already turning, arms folded, to Darcy. "Lewis, page the med team a code red, get 'em down here. Everyone's in the field – I also want the closest team of agents back here pronto."

Thor lowered Loki gingerly onto a waiting area couch, and the scene would have been hilarious if she was looking at it through a GIF on tumblr or something, but this. This was her, in the middle of the shitstorm again. Darcy turned away, heading for the nearest phone before Fury's scowl set her hair on fire.

With that done, she returned tentatively to Fury's side, brow furrowed as she hazarded a glance outside. It wasn't pretty. How unfortunate they had clear glass doors, even if bulletproof. "What am I supposed to be doing?" Fury growled something about the "Green elephant in the room," before gesturing curtly to Thor and sweeping him into a side room to talk.

Darcy blinked, trying to look anywhere but at the bleeding god on the couch three feet in front of her. Tried to ignore his pained spasms, and the occasional patter of blood onto the expensive tile floor.

At last, an assistant appeared with several towels, assuring her a med team was on its way, and could she please help until they got there because this assistant was severely blood-phobic. And they probably wanted to live to see their next paycheck.

Darcy's stare could have felled a rhino, but she complied, wishing she had her taser as she approached Loki, who seemed unaware of her approach, staring into space as he clutched a hand to his chest. Scarlet leaked out in ribbons between his pale fingers, and his eyes were crinkled in what must have been a grimace, the lower half of his face still concealed by the creepy muzzle.

"Didn't know we could hurt you guys," she muttered, kneeling before him, her brain rejecting the irony of that action given what she had seen on video footage from Stuttgart, and reaching out a shaky hand to pry his own away from the wound. He started at her touch and she nearly squealed aloud, instead swallowing heavily, her eyes skittering away from the green pair that had locked onto her. Luckily, his hands fell away, not putting up a fight. She pressed the towel against the spot of his armor-slash-magical-wardrobe that seemed to be bleeding the most, murmuring apologetic gibberish and hoping aloud he wouldn't kill her on the spot.

"The battle depleted my magic." His smooth accent was a bit raspy, and startled her almost into losing her grip's pressure against his wound, as she realized it was in her head. In. Her. Head. She cocked an alarmed eyebrow at him but said nothing, glancing around to see if anyone was coming to relieve her. His voice continued. "That's why I am susceptible, and not healing."

Her brow arched higher as she muttered. "Clearly not depleted-" she emphasized the vocabulary he had used "-enough to stop a little teeny thing like telepathy-" She cut off as the room burst into activity, a medical team entering the lobby. They all frowned in distaste when they saw who their patient was, but obediently came towards Darcy and Loki, pulling out instruments and supplies as they moved.

The god in question was still staring intently at her, like she was some level nine Sudoku puzzle, and she didn't like it. Surrendering her hold to the medical professionals, she raised her hands like she was under arrest, jerkily backing away and praying a sink complete with foamy germ-killing soap would appear.

She wasn't sure why, but when Fury asked how her spur of the moment medical attention had gone, she'd shrugged, and omitted the part where Loki had proven himself distinctly un-powerless.

Ta-daaaaaaaaaaaa.

That line is never getting old. Ever. Anyone else seen TDW three times yet? ~Bon