Everything smells like blood.

Everything smells like death.

Darcy sits up, and the room spins around her. She can still feel the sharp edge of the dagger pressed against her throat, can still feel it parting skin and muscle, artery and vein. Her heartbeat stutters, skips, and she feels as though she is drowning, her vision darkening.

There is just enough left of her rational mind to recognise that she is in the guard room, that she is on the threadbare couch. She lowers her head between her knees, focuses on her breathing. Tells herself that she has breathed every damn moment of her life without thinking about it, and she damn well was not going to stop now because of a dream.

Slowly, the sensation of the knife at her throat fades, along with the scents of smoke and blood. Slowly, her breathing steadies, her heartbeat evens. When she sits up again, her head swims, but only for a moment.

It had only been a dream. Nothing more.

"No," she says softly. "It wasn't a dream. It was a memory."

From where she is sitting, she cannot see the screens of the monitors on the desk. But she can feel Loki's presence in the cell, a dark weight dragging against the fabric of the world.

Before she can think better of it, she is on her feet, slamming her hand onto the gate control, snatching up the remote and flying into the hallway outside the cell.

Loki is standing in the centre of the cell. His head is bowed, tangled hair falling forward to veil his face. His hands are folded at his waist, long fingers twisted together. He breathes out slowly, and she can see his breath misting.

It is the first time that she has seen him standing in his cell. She had actually forgotten how damn tall he is, how small the cell is. Sitting, he had seemed manageable, just a prisoner, helpless and trapped. Now, he looks like a storm contained, and that just barely.

Darcy switches the intercom on to an open channel. Static fills the hallway; it sounds like falling rain.

"It was a memory, wasn't it?" she asks. "Your fucking memory."

Light catches in his eyes, glinting behind the veil of his hair. That glance, hidden though it is, is enough to bring the memory of his body moving against hers, moving in her. The memory of his kiss, of his touch. Warmth gathers deep inside her.

She pushes it away. Reminds herself that it wasn't even her body he touched.

"Why did you let them do that to her?" Darcy rubs at her throat, against the line where the dagger had sliced. "You just let them slaughter her. You let them murder her. And for what? Your godly glory?"

He doesn't move, just watches her as she paces back and forth across the hallway, rubbing and rubbing at her neck.

She slams a hand against the perspex; the sound is like an explosion in the small space. "Was it worth it?" she asks, half spitting the question. "Was it worth deceiving an innocent child just so you can call yourself a god?"

"You're bleeding." His voice is little more than a whisper, barely rising above the static.

When she takes her hand from the barrier, she sees that her palm has left a dim blood print behind. She touches her neck, and her fingers come away wet with bright blood. Panic rises, and she turns and runs to the bathroom in the hallway.

In the mirror, she sees it. A thin line only, nothing like the slash that they had made in Bera's throat, but it is bleeding all the same. She wets a towel, sponges away the blood. Beneath, there is no wound, the skin smooth and untouched. For some reason, that seems worse than an actual cut, the thought of blood just seeping through her skin twisting through her stomach. Nausea rises, and she turns away, heaves into the toilet. Nothing comes up but thin bile.

She flushes, and sinks down onto the cool tiles on the floor. Her head is pounding, and sweat slicks her skin. She feels as weak as though she has been battling with food poisoning for a week, and she just wants to lie here on the tiles forever, close her eyes and forget about everything.

Something beeps, high and thin. She's still holding onto the gate remote, its shape pressed into her hand. A small red light is blinking on its side, indicating that the gate is still open.

She has an image of Loki just walking through that transparent barrier, taking the city as he had planned.

She doesn't even have the energy to swear as she stumbles back to the guard room. She glances into the cell once only, to ensure that he is still there, then closes the gate.

Colour outside the door catches her attention. Bright red.

Her heart stutters, her first thought that she bled all over the corridor. But when she pulls herself to her feet and peers out of the door, she sees that it is the edge of a cloth bag she can see. There are two there, both large and emblazoned with the Stark logo. Loki's breakfast tray is there, too. With effort, she drags the lot inside, collapses onto the couch.

A note is pinned to one of the bags. Darcy unfolds it to find Jane's familiar scrawl.

One bag for the baby and the mother. The other is for you. I'll make sure you get more.

- Jane.

Tears prick at Darcy's eyes as she opens the bag. One holds formula, bottles, cloth nappies, vitamin supplements and energy bars. The other, for her, contains packets of dried fruit, more energy bars and vitamins. She does actually cry a little when she gets to the bottom of the bag, finds several bags of chocolate-covered espresso beans, coffee for the coffee machine in the hall. And an iPod, shiny and new in its box, a sticky note pressed to the front containing passwords to music directories on one of the Stark servers.

It takes all of her self control to eat one of the energy bars first, taking small bites. Nausea rises again, but she swallows it down, keeps eating. It's been too long since she's eaten properly, she knows, and she doesn't want her stomach to reject the food. Only when the bar is sitting easily in her stomach does she take the coffee to the machine in the hallway.

Someone - Jane, she presumes, or someone ordered by her - has cleaned the machine, set mugs, sugar and creamer in their places. Darcy cries again a little as she makes a cup, sips it slowly standing there, feeling its warmth uncurl in her stomach. She hadn't realised how cold she was until she was warm again. When her mug is empty, she makes a second cup, takes it back into the guard room.

Only once she has taken a multi-vitamin does she turn to Loki's tray. She hooks the remote to her pocket, then picks up the tray and carries it through into the cell.

He is sitting now on the cot, his hair pushed back from his face. He watches as she places the tray in the slot, pushes it through. He makes no move to take it.

"People are starving because of you," Darcy says. "And for some reason that I cannot fathom, you get to be tucked away down here safe and snug, three meals a day hand delivered.

His eyes move over the food on the tray.

"Whatever," Darcy says. "Eat or don't eat, it's not my problem."

She is halfway back to the gate when he speaks again. His voice is louder now, though his words still rasp in his throat.

"I did not know," he says. "Bera, the other supplicants. I did not know of their fate, after."

Darcy turns back, fixes him with a flat gaze. "Bullshit. How could you not know? You were there."

"Before Bera-" His voice cracks on the name. He pinches the skin of his throat, as though to ease an ache there. "I was never required to remain, after they came to me. I never chose to." His face is expressionless as he speaks, his eyes far away. "The supplicants always spoke of the husbands they would be joined with following the ceremony. After Bera, I thought that perhaps they did not know themselves what was to happen. But they always knew, it was only I who was foolish enough to believe the lies."

Darcy says nothing, just waits.

"Bera was different," he says finally. "She was not afraid of me." His eyes flick to Darcy, intent on her. "Was it you there, and not her?"

"She wanted you. She chose her actions."

Loki's eyes close for a moment. In pain or relief, she doesn't know. "When I returned to Asgard, after Bera, I asked my broth-" He cuts off, flinching. "I asked Thor about the supplicants sent to him, and to the Allfather before us. Both always took the girls, of course. Their supplicants always wanted them, never cringed from their touch. And Thor always remained to watch the girls joined to their husbands. Their children, after, were venerated as the children of the gods." His lips draw back in a tight grimace. "It was only the touch of Loki Laufeyson which the supplicants reviled. It was only my presence which tainted them so much that they were fit only for death."

Darcy doesn't know what to say. She searches for something, for anything, but before she finds words, he turns away, presenting her with his back.

"Whatever magics you are using to invade my memories, whatever punishment this is designed-" He breaks off again, looking back over his shoulder. She has a glimpse of that shadowed boy before his face hardens again. "It matters not, mortal. You can do nothing to me. Leave me."

And she does.

In the guard room, she closes the gate, switches the monitors off. She leaves them off during the day, and when Loki's other trays are delivered, she simply packages up the food, slips them into the bag for Beth and Ravi.

She lies on the couch, stares at the ceiling. Tries not to think about the dreams - the memories. She drinks cup after cup of coffee, until her stomach twists with nausea and her hands shake. Her body is unused to the caffeine now, but she keeps drinking. The last thing she wants to do now is sleep.

She does not go back into the cell.

All the same, she is aware of him, a shadow in her mind.

At the end of her shift, she stuffs the packet of chocolate espresso beans into her pocket. Leaves the bag Jane gave her beneath the desk, but shoulders the one containing items for Beth.

She pauses, staring at the wall shared between the guard room and cell. Knows, somehow, that he's looking at her. For all she knows, he can see through the damn concrete.

She takes a step towards the gate.

"Fucking hell, Darcy," she says. "He's the god of lies. It's all he knows how to do."

No. There is more to him, if you will see it.

Darcy shakes her head, as though she can dislodge that voice through sheer movement and will. Turns and leaves the guard room.

#

Her building has grown tendrils, wires and tubes reaching out to connect it with buildings on all sides. It looks strangely organic, like some eldritch vine, or some kind of underwater creature stranded in the city, pinned to the concrete, a specimen on display.

As Darcy approaches, a girl crawls out of the window of a neighbouring building. Darcy recognises it as a place she had gone to once or twice for yoga classes. The paisley curtains have been ripped away, the glass smashed out of the window. The girl moves nimbly, a spool of wire looped over one shoulder. She takes a breath and dives across the alleyway at the next building, almost missing the window she's aiming for. She appears unflustered, just swings there twice, then hauls herself up and vanishes into the new building.

It feels like there are people everywhere. In all of the windows, she sees movement: at one, a woman hangs new curtains, at another, a teenage boy dances, headphones plugged into his ears. Darcy wonders if he has her stolen iPod, surprises herself by not caring, It feels strange, having so many people here. It feels oppressive.

In her building, the elevator has frozen between floors, the doors jammed open with a length of pipe. Inside, she can see the legs of an embracing couple, both of them, as far as she can see, naked. It reminds her of the dreams, and she moves away quickly, heads towards the stairs.

When she arrives at her apartment, she stops so quickly that she has to brace herself against the wall to keep from falling.

Her front door has been removed, the door frame showing the bites of what she presumes was a crow bar. She glances down the hallway, and sees that the doors have been removed from every apartment; she had been too preoccupied to notice.

When she steps over the threshold, she sees the door propped up against the wall. The locks have been prised off, the wood where they had been attached splintered and raw. It looks like broken bone, like it should be leaking marrow or sap or blood.

Again, she feels nothing, looking at the door. She supposes that she should be angry, but she just feels a kind of hollow resignation.

Through the window she can see Stark Tower glowing bright in the darkness. If she looked close enough, she knew that those rooms on the nineteenth floor would be dark.

"They don't belong to you, Darcy," she says to herself. "You're not a part of any of it, and you know it. Don't even pretend."

"Hello?" Beth's voice comes from the bedroom.

Darcy finds her curled up in the bed, a tattered magazine open on her lap. Ravi is asleep next to her, surrounded by a nest made from a pile of Darcy's sweaters. Beth presses a finger to her lips, pulls herself out of bed and pads into the kitchen, Darcy follows her.

"Sorry about the doors," Beth says, hitching herself up to sit cross-legged on the kitchen counter. "Ozy made a declaration this afternoon that no doors should exist in any of the buildings. You know, everything belongs to everyone, all of that."

"No doors at all?" Darcy asks. "Not even on the bathrooms?"

"Nope." Beth tugs at the hem of her sweater. The green and red wool is beginning to unravel. "That way no one can hide anything. Right?"

Darcy looks around the room that she had, until now, thought of as her kitchen. All of the appliances are gone, except the microwave. When she looks back into the living room, she sees that the television is gone, the couch frame missing, but its cushions piled up in a corner. Her books are gone too, and their shelves. Even the crappy prints she had on the walls are gone, only rectangles of pale paint left behind.

The Stark laptop remains, its shielding closed tight.

"Everything belongs to everyone." Darcy's hand goes to where her gold cross is hidden beneath her sweater. She had that, still, at least. None of the other stuff mattered.

"I managed to talk Ozy into letting us keep this as our space," Beth says. She leans forward, still plucking at the hem of her sweater. There are bruises on her knuckles, darkening to purple. "Even though everything is communal, the baby needs a solid place to sleep. So Morrigan says. She says that moving him around all the time would be…oh, I forget, I just know it's bad." She pulls harder at the sweater, several stitches popping. "I thought about trying to make some kind of bed with the cushions, but he conked out on the bed. Sorry."

Darcy shrugs. "What happened to your hand?"

Spots of colour blossom on Beth's cheeks. "I…tried to use your computer. Ravi was crying, and I thought maybe there'd be a video or something on it to distract him."

She's a bad liar, Darcy notes. But she nods anyway, allows Beth the lie, knowing that it was likely Ozy who put her up to it. Like everything else, it barely seems to matter. Frankly, she doesn't care what happens to the damn laptop right now. She doesn't think she'll care about anything ever again.

"Are you okay?" Beth asks. "You kind of look like hell."

"I kind of feel like it." Darcy remembers the bag she's carrying. She sets it down on the counter next to Beth. "I got some stuff, for you and Ravi."

Beth reaches out a hand to the red canvas, pulls it back. "Everything belongs to everyone."

"And Ravi will starve without this. There's formula, some vitamins. Some fresh food, too. If you eat it now, no one will ever know."

Beth traces a finger over the logo on the side of the bag. "You work for Stark."

"Not really. I'm just…filling in?"

In the next room, Ravi makes a sound, half whimper, half laugh.

Beth's fingers curls around the edge of the bag, worrying at it the same way she'd worried at her sweater. "What about you? I could…uh…pay you?" She arches her back into what she probably thinks is a sensual pose. To Darcy, she looks like a kid playing with her mother's clothes.

"I don't need payment," Darcy says. "It's okay, really."

"Why are you even here, if you work for Stark? They must have space in that big building."

Out of the window, Darcy can still see Stark Tower, can feel those dark rooms on the nineteenth floor. "There's no place there for me. I'm not a scientist, I'm not a superhero."

"I don't know." Beth opens the bag, peers inside. Her eyes light up. "Anyone who can get stuff like this now is pretty much a superhero to me."

Darcy wraps her arms around herself. She still has the jitters from all the coffee she drank, and her hands are shaking. Hell, it feels like her heart is shaking.

Ravi starts whimpering louder, the sound building to a thin wail.

"Can you help me make up the formula?" Beth asks. "I don't really know how."

It takes some scavenging from the other apartments to gather the needed supplies, but they manage. It's soothing, Darcy thinks, boiling the water, mixing up the formula, while Beth rocks Ravi in an effort to soothe him. Finally, the bottle is ready, and Ravi sucks at it, looking happy for the first time Darcy has known.

Beth wanders out into the hallway, feeding Ravi, poking her head into apartments and talking to people. Darcy clears up the kitchen, takes the opportunity to use the bathroom. Makes a mental note to ensure that she uses the bathroom in Stark Tower as much as possible.

Darcy walks a slow circle around the apartment. Nothing feels like its hers now. The coffee is starting to wear off, her limbs growing heavier with each step. She doesn't want to sleep, but she doesn't think that her body is going to give her any choice.

She considers the bed, but Ravi's little nest is still there, and she doesn't want to disturb it. She goes back into the main room, considers the cushions. Picks up one, hugs it to her chest. Considers just lying down there.

Laughter as Beth wanders past the door, a younger girl with pink and blonde hair following in her wake.

Not there, then.

Darcy walks back through the apartment. Finds herself at her tiny walk-in wardrobe. There are still some clothes hanging up, including a bright yellow dress that is definitely not hers. The mismatched boots are still there, too. She looks down at her own feet; she's still wearing their mates, hadn't even noticed.

She gathers more of the cushions, erects them to make something of a barrier where the wardrobe door had been. Pulls down sweaters to use as blankets, curls up on the cushion. She only has a moment to register how uncomfortable her makeshift bed is, and then she is pulled down into the darkness of sleep.

#

She is falling,

She has always been falling.

She will always be falling.

There is only the emptiness of space, the darkness where stars should be. The knowledge that she is alone, that she has been cast out. That she is damned.

Images flicker in the darkness from time to time. A man, one eye hidden behind gold. Skin that shifts to blue. Another man, his mouth shaping a word that should be familiar, but means nothing.

None of it means anything but pain, here, in the dark, in the falling.

And then hard hands close around an ankle that is and is not hers, pull her away. She slams down hard against rough rock, looks up into burning blue eyes. The emptiness is gone, the pain, and then there is only deep, bottomless fear.

There is a smile, a cold laugh and blue light.

And then there is only heat upon heat, her flesh melting, her bones blasting to ash.

The pain of being remade, drawn back together by the blue light.

And the blasting heat, again.

Again.

Again.

#

The building is burning.

Darcy launches herself up, blinking against the smoke, the flames. Everything smells like searing flesh, like burning bone. She coughs, launches herself out of bed, running for the door-

-and slams hard against the wall of the wardrobe.

She blinks again. There is no smoke, no flame, nothing but the shimmering heat quickly ebbing from her skin.

"Another fucking dream," she says. "Thanks a lot for that one, Loki."

She stops then, remembering the dream. Had that been a memory, the burning, the falling?

"God of lies, God of lies," she says. "Fucking God of lies."

Her stomach turns, then, and she dashes to the bathroom. She retches into the toilet, brings up nothing. She is almost afraid to look into the mirror, certain that she will see bone-deep burns, scorched skin. There is nothing, her skin smooth and unblemished. She leans over the sink, splashes water on her face. It's hard to believe that she used to spend hours on her hair and makeup in this room. That there used to be something before all of this.

"Darcy? You okay?"

Beth stands in the doorway, a look of concern on her face. She has Ravi strapped to her back again, the boy sleeping contentedly.

"Just bad dreams." Darcy rinses her mouth with water from the tap. It tastes like earth, like iron. "Lots of bad dreams."

"You only just went to sleep, though."

Darcy goes out into the main living area. The sky is still dark. The dream had felt like it had lasted forever, long enough that days should have passed, if not the single night.

"Well, shit." She has the chocolate espresso beans still, but if all the coffee hadn't kept her awake, she doubted they would do much. "I need a fucking nightclub. Lots of loud music, lots of people."

"Well…" Beth is fiddling with the hem of her sweater again, wearing the loosened yarn to threads. "You could come with us."

Darcy pushes back her hair. She feels nothing when her fingers encounter tangles, not even when she pulls hard. As though everything has been burned away. And fuck it, she wants to feel something. Anything.

"Where?" she asks.

Beth grins, rising up onto her toes and bouncing like a child. "To the labyrinth."