Title: Galatea
Rating: R
Pairing: Darcy/Loki
Warnings: Non-Con, Brainwashing
Summary: When Loki goes to make good on his promise to pay Jane Foster a little visit, he doesn't gamble on Darcy's interference. Now Darcy's got the magic stick, Loki's a mindslave, and Thor isn't really sure he's comfortable with this.
Notes: Somebody needs to take my word processor away from me. This is a WIP, sorry. I don't even have an excuse anymore. I promise no regular updates, and, because it's me, probably lots and lots of melodrama. And sex scenes. Sex scenes are likely. (WTF why am I writing non-con for this pairing again? Somebody stop me.)
AU for the Avengers. Some quotes in this chapter are pulled from the film (although used sparingly).

Also, for anyone reading Kindling (all four of you! haha), apologies for the delay. Part two is in progress still, and should hopefully be up reasonably soon.

Prologue

interea niveum mira feliciter arte
sculpsit ebur formamque dedit, qua femina nasci
nulla potest, operisque sui concepit amorem.

with consummate skill, he carved
a statue out of snow-white ivory,
and gave to it exquisite beauty, which
no woman of the world has ever equalled:
she was so beautiful, he fell in love
with his creation.

– Ovid, Metamorphoses X:247-9.

These mortals clearly had no conception of what they were dealing with. An impressive cage, he'd called it, and it was – but there were no bars that could hold him now. No mortal prison, no mortal threat that could stop this from coming to pass. He sat on the bench, and looked pointedly into the camera and smiled. He hoped the beast was watching.

Everything was going according to plan.

He closed his eyes and allowed his consciousness to slip outside of his body, forming a multiple. His copy paused for a moment to take in the sight of himself, locked in SHIELD's prison. He wouldn't be there for long.

Moving silent as a ghost he slipped through the hallways, invisible to any who passed. He moved quickly through the heart of the ship, and crept onto the command deck. It was nice of them to make the monitors so user-friendly. A single glance told him everything he needed to know about their position and heading.

He spotted Thor first; he stood out like a sore thumb even amongst his precious mortals. Loki ignored him, searching instead for the location of the sceptre on the carrier, and the beast. He could afford no delays. He was about to leave when he caught the tail end of what was being said.

"...we moved Jane Foster. We've got an excellent observatory in Traunsee. She was asked to consult there very suddenly. Handsome fee, private plane, very remote. She'll be safe there."

Loki paused, looking speculative.

Thor looked grave. "Thank you. It's no accident, Loki taking Erik Selvig."

At that Loki grinned, almost ferally. He was not the sort to look a gift horse in the mouth. Everything was going according to schedule. There was no reason he couldn't make a quick stop in this 'Traunsee' after he'd unleashed the beast upon his brother. If Thor was foolish enough to leave her unprotected, Loki would teach him a lesson he would not soon forget.

It was time to pay Jane Foster a visit. But first, he would unleash the beast. He had no intention of leaving this Helicarrier intact.

...

Darcy couldn't decide whether this was the single best or the single worst internship in the history of the universe. On the upside, most internships didn't typically involve meeting many Norse gods. On the downside, most internships also didn't involve near-death experiences, giant metal robot monsters, being sent on sudden and mysterious transfers to Middle-of-Fucking-Nowhere Austria, and data entry.

Okay, probably quite a few internships did actually involve data entry. But not data that was considered sensitive information by a weird and nebulous section of the American Government, and had led to the confiscation and subsequent lack of return of one iPod, property of Darcy Lewis, data entry intern extraordinaire.

So, there was that. Not that she was bitter or anything.

But god it was boring. Beautiful, but so, so boring.

Jane, of course, was having a field day. The lab was state-of-the-art, and as Darcy watched Jane scuttle around, trying to work her own home-brewed equipment in with the facility's multi-million dollar technology, she got the impression that Jane wasn't used to being taken seriously. Everything she said to the Austrian scientists was tinged with an air of defensiveness and slight disbelief, like she was expecting ridicule. Darcy almost felt sorry for her. Almost.

She probably would've felt more sorry for her if Jane hadn't swept in here and started running the place like she owned it. And if Jane wasn't the reason she was in Austria at all. She didn't know enough German to meet any of the cute guys, It wasn't winter, so skiing was off the table, and small-town Austria was not exactly brimming with fun things to do. At least, not after she'd hit all the museums. Jane had been a little bittoo focused for her own good, anyway. Thor's existence had clearly bolstered her spirits, and Darcy couldn't blame her for that. Being proved right was always nice.

But Darcy blamed her for working twelve hour days, every day. Darcy blamed her hard.

"Can you pass me that binder? The blue one, with all the atmospheric data?" Jane asked, not even looking up from her notes as she held a hand out, palm up, expectantly.

"You've just described literally every binder in this pile," Darcy said flatly.

"The one with data from September '10 to June '11."

After some digging around, squinting and swearing at Jane's handwriting, Darcy tossed her what she assumed was the correct binder. It definitely said "September" on it, at least.

"I'm almost finished transcribing the data from last week," she said. "Should I run the tests on it and graph it?"

"Mmm," said Jane, distractedly. "Can you make a scatter plot of all the data from last month for me?"

"Does Excel do scatter plots?"

Jane passed her a pencil, ruler and a sheet of graph paper with a pointed look.

"You are kidding."

"Builds character," Jane said, grinning. "Just make sure it's neat. And make a photocopy when you're done."

"Hello, Kettle? Yes, this is the Pot. You're looking very tanned today."

Jane rolled her eyes, still grinning. "Hilarious," she said.

"Oh, I try!" Darcy replied. "D'you need a refill?" She gestured towards Jane's coffee cup.

Jane peered into it, and wrinkled her nose. "Yeah, I think this has gone cold."

"You know," said Darcy, picking up Jane's cup and her own. "One day you're going to actually finish a cup of coffee without forgetting about it. And then the universe is going to implode in astonishment."

"Just as long as it implodes after I finish my research. And you finish that scatterplot."

"Ha!" said Darcy, strolling out of the lab and into the small staff kitchen. She rinsed out the coffee machine, throwing out the old filter full of used grounds, and filled it with water. She was just rinsing out the mugs when she heard the unmistakable sound of glass breaking from inside the lab.

"Jane?" she called out. "You OK?"

There was no reply. She heard a loud thump, like something falling to the floor, hard. "Jane?" she called out again, slightly more frantic this time.

Then she heard someone speak, too low to make out the words. But one thing was clear enough: it was definitely not Jane.

She had the overwhelming feeling that something was definitely not right. Feeling a bit silly, but too unnerved to skip it altogether, she pulled her taser from her handbag, and carefully crept towards the lab.

Her heart pounding in her chest, she crept along the wall and peered inside. Jane was standing, her back against the far wall, looking strangely vacant. There was a man standing in front of her, and Darcy's brain screamed Asgardian from the look of his clothing (he was wearing a capefor chrissakes), speaking in a low, dangerous voice, and holding a long, golden sceptre up to Jane's chest.

"I can think of nothing more fitting," he said softly, but with a definite undercurrent of malice, "than to have Thor brought low by his own pet mortal. Oh, yes, I shall have use for you. Will he weep, I wonder? He had not tears for me, but for you, perhaps..."

She shrunk back against the wall, her hands shaking almost violently in fear as she clutched the taser and tried to force her panicked brain tothink. Jane seemed to catch her movement, and their eyes locked across the room. Then, to Darcy's complete and utter horror, Jane frowned and said, "there's someone here."

"Is there now?" said the man, turning slowly and zeroing in on her almost instantly. "And what have we here?"

"She's my assistant," said Jane. "She was in the kitchen."

"Pity," said Loki, looking at her with undisguised malevolence. "But I have no use for you."

He walked towards her, with an almost feline grace, and she had no doubt that he was just as dangerous as a large cat. The corner of his lips turned up in a grin, and he raised the sceptre slowly, pointing it straight at her chest.

In blind panic, before she could actually think it through, Darcy aimed the taser and fired. The probes latched on to the front of his armour, and he opened his mouth as if to speak, but it was cut off as the electricity racked his body. He made a small noise of pain, and he shuddered violently, then slumped forward to lie still on the ground. Moving on autopilot, Darcy darted forward and grabbed the sceptre from his hand, before kicking him in the head for good measure, and then scuttling backwards in terror until her back hit the doorway.

Jane was staring at her blankly, and now that she was closer, Darcy could see that her eyes were clouded over, and were the same colour blue as the gem in the scepter she was holding.

Shit, Darcy thought incoherently.

"We need to get out of here," Darcy said. "Go get help."

Immediately and expressionlessly, like she was following orders, Jane turned and strolled out of the lab. Darcy felt a strange sensation wash over her, a sudden rush of almost giddy power. It felt like control. The sceptre tingled in her hand.

Loki was twitching on the floor, and he let out a low groan as he began to regain consciousness. He rolled over, bringing his legs up underneath him shakily, moving to stand up. She took a terrified step backwards, her legs locking almost of their own accord, too frightened, and made far too stupid by fear to run away.

He looked at her with an expression of pure, unbridled malice. "Petty tricks will not save you, mortal," he hissed. "And I will make you regretattacking me. I will tear you limb from limb, ripping your mind apart from the inside out until this room echoes with your screams. That is the penalty for what you have done."

He stepped forwards, reaching towards her. Without thinking, she held out with the point of the sceptre and placed it on his chest.

It hummed, and she felt the power thrum through her body, funneled from the sceptre into her and then back again. He was fighting her, his mind tearing at the edges of her own, though he sat absolutely still. She could feel his rage, his complete and utter fury, and something, some intangible, incorporeal voice spoke wordlessly to her, push harder, deeper. She did – driving the sceptre into him, into his mind, with all the force of her will. He dropped to his knees in front of her, the muscles in his face twitching as he warred within himself, trying to fight her off. She could feel him clawing at her mind, even though he was utterly still, screaming internally.

She could feel it boxing him in, stuffing him back, trapping him in a corner of his own mind. For an eerie moment she felt almost as if she weren't in her own body anymore, that she'd somehow merged with him and they had become one being. She pulled back, and it receded almost instantly. She stood there, staring wide-eyed down at him, panting slightly.

The tip of the sceptre dropped to the floor between them with a soft metallic 'chink'.

Loki looked up at her, still kneeling at her feet, his eyes bright blue, awaiting instruction.