The waiting was horrible.

For a change, Jane was the one bullying Darcy to eat. So she ate. But everything tasted like ash and sat like a leaden lump in her stomach. Some of the food that Jane forced on her found its way into her mouth, just to keep Jane quiet. Most of it secretly passed to one of the guys who was always hungry: Steve or Thor. Both golden boys kept her secret because hey, they were always hungry.

Hours stretched into days, while S.H.I.E.L.D worked non-stop to narrow down Loki's last jump location. Re-piecing the data that had been wiped was difficult at best, but everyone just kept plowing ahead. Coulson strode among them tirelessly, juggling a shifting field of agents. As one flagged, Coulson would send that one for a mandatory seven hour rest, and a fresh agent would come in to take that one's place. He was less polite with the Avengers, sending them for enforced periods of rest that Darcy knew they mostly didn't take. She did see Tony disappear for about five hours, when not even the coffee was keeping him awake anymore. Rogers took about three hours, and Natasha and Barton grabbed a few hours a night. Banner was not much use in narrowing down the location, so he made sure he was well rested when the time to move came. It wouldn't help Loki to have the Hulk passing out because of no sleep.

Thor stood in a tight lipped vigil, arms crossed over his chest. He did not leave to sleep not even once that Darcy saw. Jane brought him food and fussed over him, but the God of Thunder was worried for his brother.

Darcy herself took naps here and there, but never felt like she rested. Her dreams were disturbed – terrifyingly vague images of what her subconscious was imagining happening to Loki. She wanted to scream at them that it was taking too long, but with Heimdall's vision being blocked, they really had no other way to find the God of Mischief.

Finally the waiting was over. S.H.I.E.L.D pinpointed Loki's last known location, and the Avengers were ready to move.

"Australia?" Stark asked in dismay.

Coulson nodded. The slightly creepy agent was gearing up in a way that Darcy had never seen before. He had two huge guns slung over his shoulder, and a bag of extra clips or a power source on the other shoulder. She appreciated that he was channeling Rambo for Loki's sake.

Thor frowned when Barton gave an estimated travel time. "My brother needs help now," he growled.

Barton shrugged. "We can't all teleport from one place to another, Thor."

Darcy saw Thor's eyes narrow. The big guy was an easy read. That must have driven Loki mad, because Loki's intentions were always veiled. Still, anyone who knew Thor at all could see what he intended. Rogers saw it and opened his mouth. But Thor looked hastily at the gathered warriors and made his choice. He bounded across the room, seized Bruce Banner in one arm, and rocketed into the sky with Mjolnir leading the way.

"Thor! Dammit!" Rogers cursed. "Let's scramble now!"

Jane made a valiant effort to hold Darcy back. She had no place in the upcoming fight, and it would put her in danger that she was not prepared for. But there was no hesitation on Darcy's part. She pulled free of Jane and slipped into the belly of the Quinjet just as the ramp was closing.

For several seconds, the remaining Avengers stared at her, and Darcy felt her eminent ejection. But then Steve Rogers scowled furiously, and turned away from her. "All clear! Let's go!"

He pulled her by the arm to a bench lining the wall of the craft. "I am not happy about this. I understand why you feel the need to be here, but it doesn't make me happy that you chose to do it."

Darcy felt small and a little afraid. She'd rarely had to deal with Captain America. Usually she talked to Steve Rogers, and he was much more relaxed and less intense. This man was a leader, and it would be on his shoulders that the hard decisions would fall. He didn't have time for someone to be careless on his watch.

"I can't not be here," Darcy said in a small voice. "I'll stay in the Quinjet, or wherever you want me to stay, but I have to be here."

Rogers' expression softened a little. "I know. Don't make me regret letting you come with us."

She shook her head. "I won't."

Even with the Quinjet's amazing capabilities, it was a three hour trip. It was practically an eternity to Darcy, especially after they lost both Thor and Banner on the comms. Thor had been supplying them with a stream of updates, with occasional input from Banner. They lost Banner when he Hulked in response to a threat, and the last thing they heard from Thor was chilling:

"Loki? No, Loki! No!" And then his comm went dead.

Tony tried to reassure her, even though he was very worried himself. "Oh you know. Thor was just concerned that Loki was in chains, or something. Nothing to worry about."

Darcy thought about the anguish and...was it fear that she'd heard in Thor's voice? She met Tony's eyes bravely. "We both know that's not true, but thank you for trying."

She knew what they weren't saying. Thor had sounded like that once before. When Loki, newly emerged from whatever dark hell he had fallen into, decided to take over the world in a mad scheme to fill the emptiness of his soul. But it had to be something else. Like Tony said. Someone was trying to restrain Loki, and Thor had probably fried his comm when he called lightning down. Or something like that.

Her fingernails and fingertips were chewed ragged by the time they arrived on sight. It was easy to figure out they were in the right place, since someone fired on the Quinjets as soon as they came into sight of the complex. Warning that they were in for a bumpy ride, their pilot did his best to evade, throwing everyone around mercilessly.

After hitting the wall for the fourth time, Tony Stark swore under his breath, flipped his face plate down, and jammed his iron fist on the button that opened the hatch. Rogers stood as if to yell at him, changed his mind, and caught hold of one of Iron Man's arms as he rocketed out into airspace.

Darcy was clinging to the nylon netting behind the bench for all she was worth, wind buffeting the inside of the Quinjet. She didn't hear the order that Natasha barked at their pilot, but the Quinjet plunged into a steep dive and pulled up abruptly to come to a hover. Natasha and Barton went bounding out the hatch, and it closed behind them, even as the Quinjet lifted off again.

"Girl! Get up here!" the S.H.I.E.L.D agent pilot barked.

With a hand over hand action on the nylon netting, Darcy made her toward the pilot cockpit. The sudden swoops, banks and rolls the jet was making made her arms and shoulders feel like they were going to dislocate at any moment, but she kept going.

"Strap in!" the pilot barked, sparing a quick finger point to the co-pilot chair, which was empty.

Darcy hauled herself to the empty chair and gratefully buckled in. It was a four point harness, so it would keep her relatively stable.

"Thanks," she breathed, trying to shake feeling back into her hands and arms. She was able to look through the cockpit windows and flinched at the battle scene below them. There were tons of S.H.I.E.L.D agents, plus the four Avengers. And wait – she saw the Hulk! The big green guy looked a little worse for wear. Though she hadn't thought it possible, he looked scuffed up. Where was Thor?

"I need you to man the guns!" the pilot barked.

Darcy turned an incredulous look on the agent, realizing for the first time that it was a woman, not a man, who piloted the Quinjet. "Are you out of your mind?" she snapped.

"You chose to come along," the woman snapped. "Now you're going to earn your place. Get your hands on that stick! The gun controls are there."

Ignoring the tiny, rational, corner of her mind that was screaming in protest, Darcy wrapped her fingers around the joystick like control in front of her. There were buttons on it, but she didn't know what to press.

"Hold on. We're going after their heavy artillery. I don't like being shot at!"

Darcy could second that. The wicked roller coaster feel of their flight was going to leave her bruised and sore for days, she was sure. "Darcy Lewis!" she introduced with a shout.

"Yeah, Loki's girlfriend. That's why you're here. Maria Hill!"

They had to bank savagely to avoid a rocket strike, and Darcy hummed in pain as she pressed painfully into the seat restraints. "They're pissing me off!" she cried. "What do I do?"

"When I tell you, hit the red button at the top, on the left side of the stick!" Hill instructed. "See them on the hill?"

Darcy peered out and could see a group of people on a hill overlooking the complex. They were the ones firing on the Quinjets. "I see them," she answered grimly.

"Then hold on and don't think about what we're about to do!"

With a somewhat maniacal laugh, the S.H.I.E.L.D agent took them directly toward the group on the hill. Darcy could barely hold onto the stick with all the evading Hill was doing. It seemed the group on the hill didn't like someone flying toward them. And maybe they had an idea of what Hill was up to, because almost all of them turned their weapons to focus on Darcy's current ride.

"Oh shit," she breathed. "Cap is gonna kill you or me."

Hill barked a short laugh. "He can only kill us if we're still alive!"

That was a good, if slightly scary, point.

"Get ready!" Hill warned.

Darcy could barely see at this point. They were moving too erratically for her to focus on anything. "I can't see anything!" she protested.

"Just press the damn button when I tell you too!"

The Quinjet shuddered as they didn't evade quite fast enough, and Darcy heard metal groaning in protest. Her eyes were streaming tears and she thought she just might puke all over the place.

"Now!" Hill cried.

Darcy jammed her thumb on the button so hard it felt like it shattered. She heard Hill's whoop of triumph, and saw the fiery blossom of destruction below and in front of them. Instantly, their flight stabilized.

"Got em," Hill crowed in triumph. "Good shooting, Lewis."

Darcy thought she mumbled an affirmative, but she wasn't sure. Her stomach and lungs were both still trying to catch up to the rest of her, and she was terribly afraid that when they did, she was going to puke everywhere.

"I feel sick," she finally muttered. "Human bodies were not meant to go through that."

"That's what it feels like to be alive, Lewis," Hill corrected. "Now that we took out those bastards, let's see about giving our ground crew a hand."

As they banked back toward the complex, Darcy caught a glint of something bright from within a thick snarl of trees on the edge of the compound. It was big, whatever was hidden in those trees.

"Hill, can we clear those trees below?"

"Where? There's a lot of below beneath us."

"Uh," Darcy wracked her brain, then remembered a brief lesson from Natasha during one of their training sessions. "Four o'clock," she clarified. "There's something in the trees."

Hill banked again and lined up the nose of the jet with the spread of trees in question. "Switch to guns. First button on the bottom right side of the stick. Start taking them down."

Feeling empowered, Darcy pressed her finger to the button in question, and watched trees virtually explode with the hail of bullets she unleashed. Cool. It was like a live action version of a video game. She could totally understand how people got off on this type of thing.

As the trees began to fall, the curving metal beams of the portal were revealed. Loki had shown her an image of the last one, so she knew exactly what it looked like, and these clever fiends had been building it under heavy cover, so the satellite could not see.

"Holy shit Hill, it's almost complete. We need to take that thing out."

She heard Hill on her comms, letting everyone know that they'd found the portal, and would now attempt to destroy it. Darcy had to grin at the loud yelling she could hear coming through Hill's earpiece. The good captain, it seemed, was not overly fond of her actions.

"All right Lewis, get ready. Press the other button when I tell you too."

Darcy's thumb hovered over the red button as she stared out the cockpit window, watching as the portal grew bigger and bigger. The damn thing was huge. How many aliens would it be able to bring through? That just was not a cool idea.

"Now Lewis!"

She viciously stabbed the button with her thumb and waited for destruction, but it did not come. She could see the missile just stop in midair, and go inert, falling to the ground as no more than metal junk.

"Dammit," Hill hissed. "It's protected with...something."

Squawking came through the earpiece that sounded like Tony Stark being annoyed. Darcy caught a glimpse of red and yellow shooting through the air off to one side, and figured it was Stark on the comms. Apparently, he'd had the same idea, to destroy the portal, and he'd just seen that it was protected also.

"We need to find Loki and Thor," Darcy said. "They could destroy it."

"No one has seen either one yet. And obviously, Banner can't tell us if he knows."

Darcy wasn't so sure about that. She thought sometimes that they underestimated the Hulk. "Has anyone tried asking him? Tony maybe?" Hulk liked Tony for some reason.

Hill gaped at her for a moment, and then relayed the request on the comms. Darcy could hear Tony's laughter, but Iron Man zoomed away, headed for the Hulk shaped disturbance on the ground.

Her stomach was clenching painfully, and it had nothing to do with the wild flying. They should have spotted Thor at least. Where was he? Where was Loki? Why were her eyes watering and her throat closing up?

Hill tilted her head as her comm crackled back to life. "Hulk says puny evil god smashed thunder god."

Darcy went cold, and nearly puked on the spot. 'Puny evil god' was how Hulk had referred to Loki for quite some time. So, Loki had smashed Thor. That actually wasn't too worrisome, since the brothers quite frequently did things to each other that could be construed by an outsider as violent. But the fact that Hulk had used the 'puny evil god' phrase at all told her Loki wasn't...well.

"Where?" she asked urgently.

Hill was already banking the Quinjet, following Iron Man as he shot away from Hulk. She couldn't hear what Tony was saying, but there was a steady stream of what sounded like angry chatter coming from the comm.

They were streaking toward a large building on the far side of the site. Hill was firing questions over the comm, trying to determine if anyone had spotted Thor or Loki yet.

A sharp cry from Hill's earpiece was the only warning they had. A bright explosion of green light hit them. Darcy cried out as all the consoles in the cockpit sparked and then died. The Quinjet shuddered violently, and rolled on its side, diving toward the ground. Hill groaned quietly, and slumped forward against her restraints, blood trickling from a nasty head wound.

Darcy snatched the agent's earpiece and stuffed into her own ear. "Help!" she cried.

"Hold on, Darcy." Tony's voice was strained, and it sounded like he was hurt. He had been leading the way, and must have taken the brunt of the attack. How was he still in the air?

The Quinjet shuddered again, and the nose began to rise. Darcy twitched in surprise, and then realized why Tony sounded strained. He was flying under the jet, trying to right it.

"Darcy, listen very carefully." Natasha's voice was even and emotionless, as always. "You need to do exactly what I say in order to help Stark as much as you can."

Natasha ran her through a quick check of systems – they had nothing. Everything was fried. That wasn't what the assassin wanted to hear, but she just moved on. "There's an ejection option for both seats. Is Hill still alive?"

"Yes. Probably concussed – she has one hellish head wound."

"Then use the ejection option for both of you. You don't have much time left. Even with Stark's help, the Quinjet is still losing altitude."

Darcy followed her instructions and vowed silently to not think about what she was going to do. Then, with a silent whisper of a prayer to whatever higher power or deity that might be listening, Darcy kicked the dual ejection lever.

Her shriek as the cockpit blew and the seats shot into the sky was sucked away by the rush of air. Darcy squeezed her eyes shut and tried hard to believe she was on some kind of wicked roller coaster. They shot straight up, and her stomach was left behind. Then, at the apex of their ejection, the locked seats tilted over and slowly began tumbling toward the earth.

Darcy could hear Natasha in her ear, telling her she had to deploy the chute, and that it was a lever on the side of the joined seats, but she couldn't tell up from down, and her hands were locked over the harness holding her in. Her stomach was alternating between being in her mouth, or her feet, and her blood flow was only a step behind, leaving her feeling either thickheaded, or lightheaded and woozy.

A small corner of her mind marveled at the increasingly shrill tone of Natasha's voice in her ear, and Darcy felt bad. Bad that she had come along and put others in danger because of her, and bad because she knew everyone would feel bad when they scraped her off the ground. And it wasn't their fault. She chose to do this. (Why had she chosen to do this? The rush of air that had stolen her breath had taken her thoughts with it)

"Stay with us, kid!"

It took Darcy a second to recognize Tony's voice, and that it wasn't coming from her earpiece. He was streaking down in pursuit of them, and was finally close enough to...punch the side of her seat? The whole thing shuddered, there was a loud snap, like a wet towel, a painful jerk, and then their fall slowed as the chute deployed.

Breath returned to Darcy in a rush, and she realized how close to death she had come when she saw the ground only a couple of hundred feet below.

The landing was rough. Darcy felt it in every bone, and bit her tongue as her jaw snapped together. There were S.H.I.E.L.D agents waiting for them, and they released Hill and then Darcy.

Nick Fury was standing in front of her suddenly. He looked pissed. "I have no idea how you tagged along on this mission, but it wasn't a good idea!"

Darcy's brain chose that moment to rejoin her body. She gasped and shuddered, tears springing to her eyes. "It was Loki," she realized. "Yell at me later. He attacked us."

Fury nodded slowly. "So it seems. I'll deal with you later. Stark – your suits are Loki proof, right?"

Darcy had an aha moment. Tony's suit had been adjusted to be immune to Loki's magic. That had probably saved his life.

Iron Man landed in front of the S.H.I.E.L.D director, and Tony's faceplate flipped up. "So far, yeah. I honestly don't know if he can overwhelm the anti-Loki field on the suit or not, if he throws all he has at it."

Fury titled his head to one side. "Let's hope not. You're on, then. Try to get to him. Pull him out of whatever funk he's in. Or at least haul Thor's ass back to us."

Stark nodded and the faceplate flipped back down. Darcy wanted to say something profound, but all she could manage was a pitiful – "Please don't hurt him."

Iron Man's face swiveled to look at her. "I'll do my best, Darcy."

She watched him shoot into the air for a confrontation that no one wanted.

Fury turned to look at her. He looked angrier than he had when she had snuck off to Asgard, if that was even possible. "You...I don't think I even want to look at you right now. That was a stupid ass stunt you and Hill pulled, taking out the artillery on the hill. It was even stupider to go try to find the 'puny evil god' without any backup other than Stark. And I can't even express my feelings on you being here in the first place." He took a deep breath. "Go."

Natasha materialized out of the smoke and mayhem, blood spattered liberally over her face, but thankfully it didn't seem to be hers. She gestured to Darcy, and nodded curtly to Fury.

Darcy joined her, head still spinning, and stomach still clenching on the verge of puking. The assassin only shook her head in mild exasperation.

"Stay close," she instructed. "You did not even bring your taser, did you?"

Darcy uttered a nervous laugh. "I was kinda in a hurry, and Jane was all grabby hands trying to keep me there, so I lost my bag."

Natasha's sigh spoke volumes. "You have been very lucky so far. You will not be so lucky when Loki comes back to himself and realizes what you did. He will not be happy."

Darcy had to blink rapidly. "I don't care if he yells at me, Natasha. At least that will mean he's back to being himself."

A tremendous explosion shook the ground and brought both of their heads whipping around to face the building where they suspected Loki was located. Something was shooting through the air in an arc, and coming down toward the ground near them.

Darcy frowned, blinking smoke and tears out of her eyes. "Is that...?"

Iron Man crashed to the ground a few feet away, and skidded several yards on his back. The front of the suit was scored a little, but intact. The audible groan let them know he was alive.

"Tony?" Darcy called. She took a few tentative steps toward him.

"Ah shit that hurt." He sat up, faceplate flipping up. "Loki's lost his mind. He looks and acts just like he did when we first met. Except that he isn't really capable of speech right now. Just a demented howling. So we haven't really had a nice chat yet. He hit me with a explosive tree. On the bright side, I saw Thor. He seems to be in enchanted chains that keep him bound, but he's very awake, very okay, and very angry." He clambered to his feet awkwardly. "I'm going back to break him out. If the chains are enchanted by Loki, that is. If not, you'll probably see me again really soon."

He shot into the sky again, keeping lower to the ground with the goal of breaking Thor out. Darcy watched until smoke obscured him, and waited anxiously. A few more explosions from that area shook the ground, and then the sky clouded over and lightning struck down.

Natasha nodded in satisfaction. "Thor is free. This is good. We need to regroup and come up with a plan of attack to subdue Loki and destroy that portal."

Darcy nodded absently, and gave a silent cheer when she saw two forms streaking through the air toward them. Thor and Iron Man landed in their midst, even as the other three Avengers arrived. Hulk looked tired, and Darcy wondered how much more they could get out of him before he powered down to Banner.

Thor was not tired. Thor was angry, scowling furiously and tapping Mjolnir into his palm. Little bursts of lightning shot out with every strike. "It was a low down and dirty trick he played on me. Very devious. There is nothing wrong with his ability to think, but something has taken over him. He seems to remember nothing of the time he has spent with us. It is as if he just emerged from the void."

Tony looked a little tired. "Yeah, he's not playing with a full deck right now. I mean, I can totally understand, because I went there when I thought Pepper was dead, but not quite to that extreme. He's a howling psychopath at the moment. So how do we take him down without hurting him?"

Darcy didn't listen as they began to plan. She didn't want to hear it. All she wanted was for this to be over, and for Loki to be back to his normal self. He was going to be pissed when that happened, and that meant that the bad guys were gonna get their asses kicked.

Soon. It needed to be soon, because she really couldn't handle much more of this.

♾️ ♾️ ♾️

Omg guys! We just reached 2k and guess who's freaking out? IT IS ME! HELLO! IT'S ME!!

I'm so thankful to each and every one of you for reading this trash of mine lol. I'll try my best to get onto the brighter part and write something less stupid then this. I guess, I'll fail but it's worth a try, right?

I'm thinking about writing Bucky Barnes or Tony Stark or our underrated boy Pietro Maximoff, maybe?

3 more chapters and this journey ends :(

Love,
InfinityHaze ♾️