fangirlMasquerade

He landed with a harsh lurching of bones, and a face full of sand. Dazed, Loki stayed there on the sand, trying to regain his senses. He was a mess, his once immaculate armor was torn and ripped away in places. His feet were bare, blistered and cracked, he didn't relish the thought of standing any time soon. But he couldn't just lay out in the open.

With a groan, he forced himself to his knees, looking around, trying to figure out just where he had ended up. He had followed the magic signature, but had no doubt that his own weak and erratic magic had thrown him off. Not far from him, he could see what appeared to be some sort of building, though in the darkness it looked like nothing more than a hard edged shadow. There was another shadow not far off, and closer to him.

Recognizing the strange shape, he cursed, reaching out for the natural magic of the planet. He cursed again, "Of all places... It would be Midgard..."


Darcy had long since fallen asleep in her chair while Jane was messing with her new supposedly magic doo-hicky that S.H.I.E.L.D. had given her to play with. It was late, she was tired, and had given up trying to get Jane to retire to the comforts of something akin to a bed. But the sudden blaring of some gizmo or another jerked her wide awake. "What's happening?" She asked blearily, trying to clear the fog of exhaustion from her being.

Jane had been working tirelessly on the item S.H.I.E.L.D. had given her when one of her computers started going off. She hopped up and immediately checked it, then rechecked it, and checked it again. "Something just changed outside. I don't know what, but my scanners picked up an anomaly outside just now." She grabbed her flashlight and went for the door. "Come on, Darcy! I don't want to miss whatever it is!"

"What if it's not friendly?" Darcy grabbed her own flashlight and followed behind the redhead. "Whatever it is it's probably as tired as I am so maybe we shouldn't disturb it."

Loki let loose another stream of curses in multiple languages as he fell back to the sand. He had made it to his feet, but every time the small particles were dug into the soles of his feet his knees would give out and back into the sand he went. He froze, as the sound of frantic footsteps caught his attention.

"Seriously, Jane! Remember the last time we ran out in the dark in the middle of no where when your thingies started screaming at us?" She huffed and followed closely behind the other woman. "You ran over a god."

"And you tased a god."

"Yes I did." The brunette replied proudly, but then shook her head. "That's not the point! We could have been killed. Like really dead, intestines hanging out of our eyeballs, our asses torn asunder."

"For one," Jane started with a roll of her eyes. "That's really gross, Darcy. And two, I'm kinda impressed you used asunder correctly." She glanced at the younger girl with a slight smile, even if she was grossed out by the girl's statement. "Anyway, we weren't, and we won't be this time." She paused for a second as they got deeper into the inky darkness outside. "You did bring your taser, right?"

"Like a fat kid brings food." She already had it in her hands.

No.. No it couldn't be, there were no doubt many Midgardians named Jane on this planet, the Norns did not hate him that much...oh who was he trying to fool, of course they did. He scrambled to his feet, cursing but refusing to fall again. Despite this, he couldn't help but smirk at the other woman's remarks. Asses ripped asunder, indeed.

He managed a few stumbling steps forward, hopefully away from the two mortals, not that he could tell in his current state. It was terribly difficult to see with a black eye normally, let alone at night.

"Shh! I think something moved over there!" Jane whispered, pausing as she swept her flashlight back and forth until the beam of light hit something that looked very much like a tall man. "Um, hello?" She asked a bit meekly, her earlier bravery wavering just the tiniest bit. It wasn't Thor, that much she could tell, but she didn't know who could have set off her computers.

"We're Americans!" Darcy said loudly, hoping that would be a good enough statement that they weren't evil terrorists or something along the lines of that.

"I really don't think that'll help us, Darce." Jane muttered. She cleared her throat and stepped a little closer, but paused when she got a good look at the man.

Darcy stepped up beside her and flashed her own light on him, then stared in awe. "Whoa! Dude, you're like, blue. I mean literally, are you okay?" She'd never seen a blue man before, at least off of TV. She was pretty sure no movies were being made here of all places. New Zealand was a much better place to make movies at than New Mexico.

Loki winced at the sharp light, a sharp pain shearing through his brain, a painful reminder of a headache. He staggered, tying to shake the spots from his one good eye. It took him a moment to realize what the shorter woman had said, aside form yelling 'We're Americans!'

In shock, he lifted his hand up to his face, the new light, though still causing his head to pound, did indeed reveal the blue skin and markings that made his natural skin. He swallowed dryly, his mind still foggy, all he manages on the spot is, "Ah... I appear... I-I am, at the present...blue..." He shook his head again, wrapping his arms around himself subconsciously. "You don't have to look... so worried..."

He tries for his usual charming smirk, but the effect is hampered by his split lip. "I mean no harm, myself... though you may not wish to touch the...uh...blue..."

Now with both lights shining on him and after hearing him speak, Jane and Darcy both could see that he was injured, and badly. "Oh my gosh, you're hurt, we need, we need to get you to a doctor." Jane said, going to take a step forward.

"What are we going to tell them? He got beat up at a rave? Jane, look at him, he's solid blue. And last I checked, there are no raves going on here to explain away why he might be painted blue. Trust me, I literally checked earlier tonight." Darcy grumbled the last bit. Shaking her head, she looked at Jane. "Do you really want to bring SHIELD down here again?"

"No, not...really." Jane said, remembering the first encounter with S.H.I.E.L.D. after running over Thor. "But we can't leave him out here."

"Then back to the Bat Cave!" Darcy stepped forward, smiling at the man sweetly. "We'll take care of you. But if you try anything, I'll tase your blue ass." She waved her taser in front of his face. "It worked on the god of Thunder."

He barely stopped the flinch at the mention of S.H.I.E.L.D. and his brother, hoping the girls didn't catch his reactions to the names. Vaguely, he wondered what a 'rave' was and how it would explain him being blue.

Looking at the small device, and the girl's smiling face, Loki couldn't help it, he laughed. He winced almost immediately after at the jarring of his ribs, but he had laughed none the less. Both at the young woman, and the thought of such a small thing taking out his dear, pig headed brother.

"I think I'm going to like you... My dear..."

~Read the rest over at my FanFiction account or TaleweaverNLM's Archive Of Our Own account~