#hammershock

God, why hadn't Darcy made a move when she had the chance?

One morning, Jane didn’t come home. Darcy found Thor in the kitchen helping himself to a plate of waffles. Another, smaller stack swimming in syrup was on the table at Darcy’s usual spot.

"Good morning, Darcy," he said. "I hope you don't mind my making breakfast for you?"

"No, that's cool," Darcy said, curling her toes and wishing she was wearing something other than an oversized t-shirt and pajama pants. Here she was wearing a potato sack while Thor was over there making Fabio look like a gremlin.

"My apologies for coming on such short notice," Thor said as Darcy picked at her food, "but I'm afraid once you have finished your meal, you must come with me to Asgard immediately."

Darcy chewed slowly a bite of sugary sweet waffle. "Why?"

He chuckled, as if she'd told a joke. "Jane would've come herself, but she is in the middle of preparations for the ceremony. She is to become a permanent resident of Asgard and she hopes you will come to bear witness."

Darcy's heart dropped like a stone. One half of her wanted to kick the other half for not seeing this coming a mile away. "Just say it's a wedding, Dude. I can take the awful truth."

That one was a joke, and kind of a bad one. She was off her game and Thor was, of course, nice enough to force out another laugh and pat her on the shoulder. God in heaven, Jane didn't know how lucky she was. She really didn't.

"We have a dress ready for you which has been fitted to your size. Jane desires a quick ceremony. No frills, as she describes it."

"Yeah yeah. No problem."

Darcy performed her morning routine with the addition of washing her hair and applying makeup. She was ready in an hour as Thor waited patiently in front of the TV. He turned off a random episode of All My Days Of Our General Lives and cast an admiring glance her way.

"You are beautiful, Darcy," he said, his voice deepening.

'Is that how a man about to get married should talk?' Darcy thought but did not say. She probably should've, but couldn't bring herself to.

"You're not too shabby yourself," she said, holding out an arm to him. "Shall we?"

The trip to Asgard was rough. 'Rough' was, in fact, not a strong enough word to describe it, but Darcy had decided against linguistics as her minor and gone for history instead. The right word for traveling via bifrost couldn't exist in any human language anyway. Suffice to say, she was dizzy for ten minutes and would happily take a century long flight home when this was over.

Jane was not at the podium when Thor and Darcy entered the secret room in the palace where the wedding would take place, but Loki was.

"What the hell is he doing here?" Darcy pointed a quivering finger at Loki's bemused form. She'd never seen him in person before today, only on news feeds and internet conspiracy sites claiming he was a fabrication by the Illuminati to cover up a government conspiracy. He was much better looking than the grainy photos made him out to be, but last she checked, he was still one of the bad guys. Had she missed a memo somewhere?

"Unfortunately, it would take far too long to explain," Thor said, shooting a glare at Loki which was pointedly ignored.

At least now Darcy knew who the second witness was.

Jane arrived at that very moment, with the most impeccable timing Darcy had ever seen. She'd commend her friend for that alone. Dressed like a queen in a gold silk dress, she descended the stairs, grinning at Thor and a ‘barely-containing-her-tears’ Darcy. She moved fast for wearing heels, leaping off the bottom step and running-

Past Thor.

At Loki.

And then she was hugging him. And kissing him.

Jane was hugging and kissing Loki.

"What the hell? What? Why is-" Were Asgardians just really affectionate with their in-laws or was Darcy in the Twilight Zone right now?

"That is an even longer story," Thor said, reading her mind. "I myself have yet to learn the details."

"If you are finished talking amongst yourselves," Loki said, somehow tearing his face away from Jane's long enough to speak, "we would like to begin. Where is Heimdall?"

A man in shiny gold armor, presumably Heimdall, appeared through the same door as Jane. His timing was even better than hers. The ceremony was swift from there. Heimdall's frostiness towards Loki throughout was understandable, but he spoke warmly to Jane. He declared them husband and wife and the pair exchanged rings. This was clearly imported from Earth as Loki almost put it on her right hand. They sealed it with the kiss and before Darcy could finish clapping, they were gone with a swish of Loki’s cape.

"My brother is impatient," Thor laughed as Darcy blinked away the residual green light of magic. "We might see them sometime next month if they don't extend their honeymoon."

"Jane had better come home soon," Darcy said, folding her arms. "She's got a lot of explaining to do. How did she and Loki happen?"

"I confess I am mystified myself," Thor said, "but I have not seen Loki so happy since we were children. I would want nothing less for him or Jane."

"Yeah, me neither," said Darcy. Heimdall had bowed out of the room while they were talking, something Darcy had just noticed. That meant they were alone in what was essentially a cathedral, or at least a place where people got married. "So uh… I guess this means you and Jane are splitsville."

Thor furrowed his brow. "We decided to end our romantic connection and remain friends."

"Yeah," said Darcy. "Would be kind of hard now with the whole 'married to your brother' thing. I mean, I came here today thinking you'd be the one ravishing Jane right now. Which would be totally fine, and I would've been happy to cry my eyes out for my friend on her special day. Cry happy tears, that is. Not sad tears. That would be stupid..."

She trailed off and hoped Thor wouldn't catch on. The magazines back home which tried to paint him as the 'dumb blonde' of the Avengers had the exact opposite idea, though.

"You were jealous," he said.

Darcy let out a loud and dramatic (read: fake) gasp. "Jealous? Me? No. No no no no no… no, I'm not… no. No way. No. No…"

She bit her lip to shut herself up before she dug herself deeper. Judging by the look on Thor's face it was too late for that back at the first 'no'.

"I would not be concerned if you were, Darcy," Thor said. They'd stopped walking and his fingers crept down her arm to lace with hers. His hands were amazing. Big and strong and so so warm… "Forgive my forwardness, I know I haven't made an effort before now to visit with you privately, but I would like to have the opportunity to do just that if you would allow me."

With her free hand, Darcy gathered some skin on her leg through the dress and pinched herself as hard as she could. When she did not wake up alone on a cot in a cramped walk in closet of a bedroom, she concluded this was actually happening in reality.

"Well," Darcy said, pausing to take a deep breath, "I guess it kind of sucks when you have feelings for someone and you have to watch them be with someone else. I've been dealing with it okay, holding my head high and all that junk. But maybe I did still hope I'd get to be with the love of my life someday. Oh well, Jane is married now, so I guess you'll do."

Thor laughed uproariously, his gigantic arm wrapping around her shoulders. "Darcy, if you are serious, I will endeavor to make you forget such things."

"In that case, I'm two hundred percent serious," Darcy said. "Now get to endeavoring, big boy!"

He did, and it was the best night of Darcy Lewis's life.

“Oh never,” Thor deadpanned. “I never say anything to make you feel better. If you do feel better, simply a side effect of my wonderfully verbose vocabulary.”

Darcy grinned and pushed up from the table. “Okay, c’mere. Let’s try this out.”

“I just need a quick rundown of the steps.”

As Darcy slowly demonstrated a simple swing step, Thor picked it up almost instantaneously. “This is just like a dance we do on Asgard. There’s more tossing around, though.”

“Dude, just wait till we get to the dance club,” she said. “Some of those people stunt like whoa. But I have to ask you no to toss me higher than your head because I’m not used to stunts.”

“I thought you didn’t put up with stunts. Or shenanigans,” Thor countered. “That’s what you told my brother.”

“That’s because your brother is Lord Shenanigan.”

Thor chuckled. “So you’ll put up with mine?”

“To a certain degree. Just so long as I don’t end up in the ER.”

“Oh never. You imply that I would drop you.”

“Thor.”

“I’ll be gentle, Darcy,” he said, his voice low and making her bite her bottom lip. “Once more, up to speed now.”

She pulled out her phone and found a jivey little number and proceeded to be pleasantly surprised by Thor’s dancing ability. So after a quick change of clothes for him, they set off for the dance club.

For someone of his size, she wasn’t really expecting this.

But as the sweat gathered on her forehead and the moon moved across the sky, she found herself even more enthralled. By Thor’s dance steps.

Thor.

“Wow,” she said, her arm around the back of his neck as he dipped her back for the finale. “How are you so good at this?”

“It’s a form of seduction on Asgard.”

“Here too,” she replied, smirking.

“That would explain why I feel I’m being seduced.”

“Do you?” she asked, out of breath.

“Indeed. Was that not your intention?”

“Well, it hadn’t crossed my mind, but now that it’s there...”

“Yes?”

“I think I might like it.”

He smiled warmly and pulled her to her feet. “Well, then, let us make haste. I fear exhaustion may set in if we dance for too much longer.”

“You’re tired?” she asked.