Armed Up To The Teeth. NC-17. Loki/Natasha
Title: Armed Up To The Teeth
Series: #2 in Ready For The Siege
(#1 - Look Over Your Shoulder)
Author: Eustacia Vye
Author's e-mail: eustacia_vye28@hotmail.com
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: Loki/Natasha
Disclaimer: Not mine, but I'm starting to like playing around in the Marvel movieverse. Some comic backstory is incorporated into characterizations, but this is still primarily movieverse.
Spoilers/Warnings: Post-movie. Incorporates a prompt from avengerkink round 2 ( Loki is established in canon as a knife guy, and Natasha, as an assassin, is probably comfortable using them as well. I'd love to see them engaging in a sexual-tension-filled knife fight.)
Additional warnings for dubcon, violence, knife play and blood play.
Title, series title and cut text from "The Royal We" by Silversun Pickups
Summary: "Sometimes the dark conceals the edges best of all."
Natasha didn't tell anyone about her safe house getting compromised. No one at SHIELD knew it existed, not even Clint, and she wanted to keep it that way. Loki most likely had something planned, and he been genuinely frustrated by what he thought was her role in protecting Jane Foster. She wouldn't bet her life on it, but he didn't seem to be using his emotions as a weapon the way Natasha would. He had no qualms about misdirecting others or letting them draw erroneous conclusions, but whatever his emotions were, they were his own. She used whatever tactic necessary to get what she needed, and she usually got it. Sometimes it was at some personal cost, which she usually justified. There wasn't much that was actually hers anymore, once the Red Room and SHIELD personae were stripped away.
She scheduled an appointment with Fury directly; this was far too important to trust to Agent Sitwell, who was nominally her handler now. SHIELD was nothing if not a bureaucracy, and she wasn't about to navigate that labyrinth if she didn't have to. It wasn't that she couldn't tolerate it; sometimes that was a convenient excuse to take, but right now she needed expediency more than plausible deniability.
Director Nick Fury thought the meeting was aberrant, and he watched her carefully. That wasn't anything Natasha wasn't familiar with, and the too-tight glances rolled right off of her skin. "I've been informed that Loki has some interest in Jane Foster."
The good thing about Fury was that there was no need for a preamble. He didn't like bullshit and preferred to get to the bottom of the matter if at all possible. The bad thing about Fury was that he was no fool.
"You have been informed by who?" he asked, steepling his fingers in front of him and leveling his one-eyed gaze at her. There was no inflection in his tone, but there didn't have to be. She knew it had to be damn good to avoid a tongue lashing or formal reprimand for wasting his precious time.
"I can't say," Natasha replied, voice even. There was no way in hell she would admit that Loki himself assumed she would be on Jane Foster's protective detail, because that was a can of worms she had no intention of putting into Fury's hands. She held up a hand to forestall any question that might come with her brusque statement. "Following the Battle of New York, I'm not as invisible as I used to be. My informant assumes that I'm going to be some kind of honor guard for Doctor Foster, and assumes that she's uncomfortable with some of the Valkyries that Thor would likely employ."
"That's what you were told."
It wasn't a question, but Natasha nodded as if it was one. "I wasn't told of anything planned, and I'm not assigned to Foster. The fact that there's even interest from Loki is likely more than coincidental. He could be trying to reconstruct the Bifrost, but I don't have anything to back that up. It's just my guess."
"You've gathered a bit of intelligence on your own regarding this subject."
"I've told you everything I have."
"Which isn't much." Fury leaned back and watched her nod briskly with no change in his expression. "I see." He watched her for a moment, but she didn't squirm. She never did, which was something he appreciated. He needed to think quickly, not coddle agents or their egos. With what little he knew of Natasha's training, she really didn't have one.
"I can assign you to Foster's detail-"
"I'd rather not be, sir," Natasha interrupted quickly. She couldn't explain why, but she didn't want Loki to think her more of a liar than she was normally. "I'm far too visible for that now and not nearly as knowledgeable about theoretical astrophysics to pass for being an assistant. Not to mention that against someone who's practically a god, I wouldn't have enough of an advantage. I wouldn't be as physically capable of disabling Loki or maneuvering around him."
If Fury was surprised by her assessment, he hid it well. "He can still be taken down."
"By the Hulk, perhaps," Natasha replied coolly, a half shrug of one shoulder accenting her words. "I work best behind the scenes, when no one knows I'm there. I surprised Loki once by manipulating him, mostly because he didn't know me then. I doubt I'd be able to do it again." Especially after his arrival at her safe house, which Fury didn't need to know about.
"You may have a point," he acknowledged after a moment. "Is your informant reliable?"
"No," Natasha told him without hesitation. "But anything involving Loki is dangerous, and I don't think it's worth the risk to ignore the warning."
"We'll step up the watch on Dr. Foster, just in case. You'll have your usual assignments to work with, then." Natasha gave him a businesslike nod and waited until he gestured for her to leave. "Romanoff," Fury called out. "Don't sell yourself short where Loki is concerned. It's going to take brains to take him down, not just brawn. Depending on how it happens, we might even be able to take him in, get him on our side."
"Do you really think that can be accomplished?"
Fury actually gave her a grin. "Worked for you, didn't it?"
Natasha gave him a small smile and another brisk nod. Sometimes, she wasn't so sure she was on anyone's side. She owed them a debt, and she always repaid her debts.
***
Loki was waiting for her in the dive bar she had headed to. Natasha was supposed to meet an informant regarding a possible Hydra infiltrator, and he was where the informant was supposed to be, looking rather human and nondescript. He merely grinned at her when she approached cautiously, teeth flashing in the dim light. His hair was slicked back away from his face, the button down shirt open at his throat. By the shine of them, Natasha would guess that he retained the leather pants and boots. She couldn't see his scepter, but was sure it was still around somewhere, possibly at his side under glamour.
Magic. She didn't loathe it quite so much as Clint did now, but that certainly stacked the deck against her.
"Your codename is Black Widow. I was not aware of that."
"There was no reason for you to be," she replied, not sitting down. She stood behind the chair across the tiny table, looking at the half empty beer stein. "You were not supposed to be here."
"The illustrious piece of offal you were to speak with was very prepared to lie to you," Loki said, grin still on his face. "I've saved you the trouble of sorting through them."
"That was my informant," she said, no inflection in her tone.
"A simple thank you would not be remiss," Loki chided her. "He knew nothing. A simple peon in the organization, thrown your way as a feint. The infiltrator is far more well placed than you would like to believe."
She filed that away for later. "Why are you here?"
"This," Loki replied, gesturing toward the stein. "It hardly passes for drink, yet the stupid mortals consume it as if it was lifeblood."
"For some, it probably is."
He laughed, which was actually far more pleasant sounding than she thought it would be. She tightened her resolve, sure there was some trick he was playing, some sleight of hand that she would miss if she relaxed around him. Just because he didn't want to kill her didn't mean he didn't want to use her somehow.
"You have a sense of humor," he commented with a sly smile. "Interesting. I thought you didn't." He leaned forward, smile sliding right off of his face. His gaze was icy and intent. "You were not lying to me the other day. I wonder why."
"You'd have to ask an actual question," she replied.
"It was not a lie. There was no knowledge of that mewling mortal's whereabouts. You are not part of any honor guard. They don't view you as a Valkyrie." Loki paused, eyes tracking her form. Natasha easily shook off the cloying, almost dirty feeling that came with that gaze. "You did not lie, but you could have. It's often what mortals do, when they think I've come to kill them."
"Would you have believed it if I had?"
Loki paused, thinking about it. Then he smiled that wicked, awful smile that he had smiled at her on the helicarrier, and gestured for a passing waitress to get her a drink. "Sit," he commanded, gesturing to the chair. "There are things to discuss."
"Are there?" she asked, not moving yet.
That sharp-toothed smile was fixed on her face, and Natasha ignored the creeping feeling along her spine that usually signaled an impending shootout or ops going FUBAR. She hadn't come armed with more than the usual assortment of knives, and she doubted she would be able to land one between his eyes without anyone seeing her. It had been part of the draw in case her informant decided to try something stupid, but that also meant she couldn't try something stupid.
"Oh, I'll get what I want sooner or later," Loki said smoothly, standing when her drink arrived. He passed the waitress a twenty to cover both drinks and a tip. "Perhaps you should think about that. Whose side do you plan to be on when I'm finished?"
"My own," she replied, giving him a tight lipped smile.
The answer made his eyes dance with amusement. She preferred the wicked one better.
"Excellent. This may prove useful yet."
Natasha didn't try to stop him as he left the bar, still looking human. She sat down and took a cautious sip of the drink. Plain top shelf vodka and tonic, no ice. Hm... Someone has been paying very close attention to her.
She wasn't sure if she liked the idea or not.
***
Natasha was still working on finding the Hydra infiltrator. It was nothing more than whispers with various contacts, Hydra agents growing bolder and intimating that they had more knowledge than they did. Several low level Hydra associates were turning up missing or dead, but they were buying up tech agencies at a prodigious rate. Something was happening, and she was normally very good at following the trail of breadcrumbs back to the bottom feeders that dropped them.
The warehouse was utterly empty when she broke in, dropping silently from the roof onto one of the cross beams over the main cargo space. Multiple sources had pegged this location as Hydra's recent drop point, with agents coming and going with regularity. A few white coated egghead types had been seen entering the building under armed guard, though no one saw them leave. Natasha's guess was that they were continuing the work of the Red Skull; in nearly eighty years, there hadn't been a success with the supersoldier serum like Steve Rogers. Even Johann Schmidt couldn't be considered a complete success. It was likely that the serum had flawed material to work with, or was incomplete. That would explain Schmidt's reaction to it. But Steve had been a skinny asthmatic kid with a host of vulnerabilities, so the "flawed material" theory that Hydra supposed couldn't be it. Natasha had seen the files for herself, and drew her own conclusions. Hydra had only Schmidt's parameters to work with, but an infiltrator into SHIELD could obtain Steve's data. A few lucky eggheads later...
Of course, she had to find the data, the infiltrator and prove her suspicions.
An empty warehouse, however, would not help her do that. She was starting to think that she was being played, though Hydra usually didn't care enough about random agents to put forth this much effort. They were nicely straightforward that way, which she usually appreciated. It was generally a challenge to track down most of the agencies or terrorist groups on SHIELD's watch list, but not Hydra.
Natasha pursed her lips and decided to get up to leave the warehouse. If it was a waste of time, she could always shake down known agents to see where they had moved their equipment. The building plans didn't have a basement, and she had already checked sewer and utility access points prior to coming inside. There was no secret level beneath this place for them to hide.
Loki stepped out from the shadows, dressed in his usual braided leather armor in black and green, no cape in sight. His head was bare, and the gold vambraces and shoulder armor pieces were missing as well. It was odd to see him without the usual accoutrements to gild his appearance. He looked right up at her crouched form in the shadows with a wide smile.
"Isn't it lovely, meeting you here?"
That definitely threw her off; she had been expecting a threat of some kind as soon as he walked in. Between chasing off her prior informant and now the empty warehouse, it was becoming apparent that his current designs included her.
"Working for Hydra now? I didn't think that was your style."
There wasn't even a flicker of annoyance in his gaze. "Oh, I don't work for them, little spider. Petty mortal organizations have their uses."
Natasha shifted slightly, feeling the play of nanomesh against her skin and underthings. Her hidden and not so hidden weapons were all in place, ready to be used if necessary. "Did you arrange for the rumors to point me here, then?"
"It certainly didn't take much effort to attract your attention," he replied, arms folded comfortably in front of him. While his voice was neutral, there was an air of condescension in his pose. Foolish mortal, his body language seemed to say. I am so much better than you can ever hope to be.
A few graceful flips, and Natasha hit the ground floor of the warehouse. She had a knife in her sleeve loosened but not yet engaged. There had been no overtly threatening actions or statements made, so there was no point in pushing Loki before it was necessary. "Now that you have it, what did you want to say?"
"I wonder what it would take to break you down," he murmured softly, hands falling to his sides. There was a knife in one hand, its sharp edge catching the dim light.
"Is there a particular reason for your interest?"
Loki merely laughed at her mild tone. He lifted his hand slightly, and there was that blade in his hand. Its edge was sharp, and runes were etched into the tang. "So polite. Is that how you draw them in? Be what they want you to be, then you shift beneath the expectations and slide the blade right in."
That was a fairly accurate assessment, so Natasha merely lofted an eyebrow in his direction rather than reply. He had wanted to see her weak before, but the element of surprise was gone. "I assume that's how you operate," she replied softly, fractionally shifting her weight onto the balls of her feet. She would be able to leap or run, but had no illusions about actually escaping if he really wanted her caught. Loki had something up his sleeve, more than just the knife in his hand. "You're the trickster. You're the one with magic."
He gave her a slight inclination of his head. "They say you're keen with a blade. I wish to test that theory."
"Who's this they you speak of?" she asked in an arch tone. "I just ask the questions and move in shadows."
"Sometimes the dark conceals the edges best of all." He sent the knife flying in her direction, and it missed her only because she had prepared herself for an attack. Loki watched in amusement as she tumbled out of the way, falling into a crouch. "Perhaps we'll find your edges."
Natasha moved quickly, knife falling into the palm of her hand as she dodged another thrown knife. That one carried the sensation of ice, a whisper of bitter cold mere inches from her shoulder. Loki closed the distance, but still was not quite close enough. She had to dive in low, her own knife in hand and angled toward his thigh. If it was an edge he was looking for, she was full of them. The Red Room and her own mercenary career had seen to that.
Their knives actually connected several times, and Natasha moved with sinuous grace to dodge the blows he tried to land. There was a ferocity in how he fought, striking with anger adding to the force of the movement. She discharged the Widow's Bites into his chest, but the breastplate seemed to absorb most of the voltage. Loki staggered but he remained upright, and she had to use the slight advantage to strike hard at the joints in his armor. A slight turn was enough to make her miss and score deep gouges in the treated leather, slicing apart some of the braiding. Natasha twisted her wrist and tried to slide her knife into the gap she created, but he moved with her. The blade of her knife broke right off the hilt. She drove the broken hilt against that spot, sending the blade right up against his skin.
Gasping, Loki grasped her arm and spun her around, trapping her against his body with a knife to her abdomen. "I'm not nearly so helpless as all that," he managed to say when she dropped the broken hilt to the floor.
She shimmied slightly, dropping another knife into her hand. "Oh, I don't see you as helpless at all." Abruptly she sagged against him, dead weight in his arms. Loki was startled enough to have to readjust his grip, and that was enough for her to push at the arm pinning her in place. Using his momentum against him, Natasha dropped to the floor and slithered between his spread legs, using the knife in her hand to stab at his hamstrings.
Instead of a howl of pain, magic sparked to life and caused the blade to disintegrate and flake away into ash.
Scowling and snarling an epithet in Russian, Natasha continued her backward slither along the floor. Loki turned, lips parted and pupils blown wide as he took in the sight of her.
There was a reason she went with skintight for her catsuit. That expression was part of it.
She had two more knives strapped to her thighs, and there were four maximum damage charges left on her Widow's Bites. It was still startling to see that 30,000 volts did close to nothing, even if the armor and magic could have defused some of the charge.
"You are... creative," Loki murmured, eyeing her critically. It was hard to tell what exactly he was commenting on, her fighting technique or how flexible she was.
Natasha smiled at him and rose into a slight crouch. With her body contorted like a comic nerd's wet dream, she curled her lips into a seductive smile. "Enjoying the show?"
Loki gave her an answering smile at the sound of her purr. "Oh, yes."
"Then you ought to love what comes next."
Natasha rushed forward, turning into a somersault as she moved. Her heels connected with his face, and there was the satisfying crunch of his nose. Her feet slid to his shoulders, and she pushed against the floor with her fingertips. That gave her enough height to hook her toes around his neck. She shifted her balance, upsetting his. Loki crashed down to the floor as she twisted and swung around, using his momentum to rebalance herself above him. She had him pinned to the floor, and she grabbed one of her remaining knives as she quickly moved to straddle him. Her knife fell to his chest, the point centered over his heart. "See? Quite entertaining."
He huffed slightly, and there was the pulse of magic beneath her legs. It was gentle pressure, testing her weight. It was all the warning she needed to act, and she drove the point of the blade down into his chest. At the same time she discharged another lethal dose of voltage into his chest.
The magic flexed, and she was sent flying from his chest. Her grip on the knife loosened, and she heard it clatter against concrete somewhere behind her.
Dammit.
Three charges and one knife. He could be felled with acrobatics and simple hand to hand, but she had a feeling he wouldn't let her come in that close.
"I do enjoy how you play," Loki said, pushing himself to his feet. There was an undercurrent to his voice, something sounding like desire. Natasha fell into a crouch, legs splayed wide to full effect. "Mmm. Yes, you did promise entertainment."
She wished she had her Glock. Or maybe the Walther. Hell, she'd even take a Luger, even though she hated the kick on those. Under a barrage of cover fire, she could rush in, slide or tumble around him, slash at his braided leather armor or discharge more voltage while he was distracted and unable to use his magic effectively. Too bad she didn't have the bomb disks or flash bombs with her. She hadn't thought she would need them to infiltrate Hydra.
Natasha rolled to her feet, last knife in hand. "So let's keep up the dance."
He let her get in closer this time, but her knife was next to useless against the armor. She did tear small holes, the edge of the blade biting into the braided cords. She scraped the elegantly carved runes, but that didn't seem to break the enchantments on it. Dodging the worst of his attempted strikes, Natasha still felt the drag and sting of sharpened metal through flesh. That didn't stop her from attempting to discharge more voltage into his groin, making him laugh in amusement. Another charge was lost to his arm, which at least temporarily slowed him down. He would likely be feeling that for another month, unless he had extraordinary healing.
Loki ducked back as she charged forward, light on her feet, and this time her knife connected with bare skin along his wrist and hand. One knife fell from his hand, and he staggered slightly. Her last Widow's Bite discharged against his thigh, and he jerked away from her, his leg kicking out. His foot connected with her elbow, sending her last knife flying from her hand. They both retreated a safe distance away from each other, Natasha watching him warily as she surreptitiously tried to get feeling back into her fingers.
"Never let it be said that I'm not able to fight fairly," Loki smirked, tossing her one of his own blades. Natasha caught it by the hilt, testing it under his gaze. She liked its heft and balance, the hilt settling nicely in her palm. She could do a lot of damage with a blade like this, and undoubtedly Loki had done quite a bit in his day. "I see you approve," he commented, smirk widening. "Excellent."
He was playing a game here, but she didn't know what it was. She understood political and personal motives of her usual targets, who were painfully human. She might not have had the same kind of emotional connectedness that her targets did, but that didn't mean she didn't have them or was affected by them. They just were very few.
Loki, on the other hand, was not human. His current motives were his own, and she didn't know if her guesses for Fury's sake were accurate. He had been terribly transparent earlier, and the undercurrent of jealousy and feelings of inferiority had been easy to pick up on. While she knew they had to still be present, something else was driving him.
They circled each other for a bit, looking for an opening to press an advantage. Natasha was feeling the effects of the prior attacks, bruises and cuts aching and sore. It would slow her down far too much. Honestly, she was surprised she had lasted this long, and wasn't sure if it was a testament to her skill or him taking it easy on her for sport.
She was gradually creeping in closer as they circled, and she lunged forward, feinting with her left while sweeping in with her right. The knife scored through the leather armor far more easily than her own had, but it was impossible for her to tell if she had actually broken the skin or not. Loki twisted away from her, at least, and Natasha ducked under his swinging arm. Her fist connected with his solar plexus, or what would have been in a mortal, and her right hand dropped viciously downward. The edge of the blade sliced through the outside of his leather pants, and she saw blood well to the surface.
The crouch left her back, exposed, however. Loki arced downward with his own blade, slicing cleanly through the nanomesh armor she wore. Hissing in pain, Natasha moved forward and around him, balancing part of her weight on her hand. Kicking up behind her, she continued forward in a roll and shifted her weight further so that the edge of her blade could collide with the back of his knee. Jotun or not, severed tendons wouldn't be able to support his weight, and he would fall just as a human would.
Or he would have, if he had been there for the blow.
Loki somehow was farther away from her than he should have been, making her think that he may have teleported. Dammit. How was she supposed to fight that?
"I have to admit," Loki said, turning around to face her with a deadly smile. "I really am starting to appreciate your charms."
"Are you?" she asked, a falsely sweet note to her voice. Natasha remained in a low crouch, her back screaming at her to stop. Her grip on the knife was tight, but not too tight. It felt almost weightless in her fist, as if it was part of her rather than a fighting knife. She didn't exactly trust it, but she was out of other options at the moment. "Care to try hand to hand?" she asked, lips curling into an amused smile. She could put on a good front as well as a bad one, after all.
"That would hardly be sporting in your condition, my dear," Loki replied solicitously.
"Or is it that you can't do without your precious magic?"
There was a slight flinch, and Natasha wasn't sure if she had imagined it. "You're bleeding," he pointed out unnecessarily.
"So are you," Natasha returned, amusement sliding out of her voice.
Loki attacked first this time, and she had to leap out of the way as he rushed her. She rolled up to her feet and kicked viciously at the gouge marks in his armor, hoping it would drive something into his skin, that she had sliced into him deeper than she thought she had. It was satisfying to hear him hiss as his own knife cut through the leather of his armor, to see him stumble a bit as he dodged past her. She dropped to the floor and kicked up and out, adding to his stumble. He recovered quickly, though, dropping into a crouch as she rushed forward with his knife in hand. She misjudged the angle of her next blow, however, and he dropped his knife to catch her wrist in his fist. He rolled in a semicircle, dragging her with him and throwing her down to the floor.
Struggling up from her prone position, Natasha watched in horror as Loki scooped up the fallen blade and slashed downward, catching her right wrist. The blade tugged sharply through skin and tendon, her fingers jerking and opening. There was the clatter of the blade falling to the floor, and Loki squeezed her left wrist when he caught it again, lifting her off of her feet as he stood. A shake, two, then he tossed her to the floor with a look of satisfaction on his face.
Natasha managed not to groan in pain when she fell to the concrete floor of the warehouse. Her left wrist was a mangled mess, her right useless. It would take extensive surgery and physical therapy to be able to use them again, and some deep part of herself was almost glad of that. Pitting herself against Loki was a fantastically stupid idea, and that would take her out of the equation.
She couldn't help but make a helpless pained sound when he grasped both wrists tightly in his fists as he straddled her prone form. It was a mockery of her prior pose, and a dim corner of her mind howled in rage at him. He loomed over her, teeth bared in a maniacal grin, eyes glinting in triumph.
"You lost because you're mortal," he purred, "I'll give you that much."
With Loki's weight on top on her, Natasha's back wounds burned. She grit her teeth against the pain, refusing to give in. The Red Room had trained her well. It was second nature not to reveal true weaknesses, only false ones, though it was so tempting to scream just then. There was no rejoinder she could make that wouldn't reveal how much pain she was in, so she kept silent and simply stared at him.
"It's a pity," Loki continued, bloodied hands lifting from her wrists. He licked his palms as he shifted downward, ultimately sitting on her thighs. Those hurt, too. "You do fight like a Valkyrie." Her blood was smeared across his lips and chin, and his smile was tainted with her bright red blood. "You taste sweet, little one."
Natasha focused on breathing normally. Would she bleed out through all the cuts and open wounds? Or would she be left weak and wanting, scrabbling for a way back to SHIELD HQ like a broken marionette?
Loki brought his hands to her front, fingers brushing against the cuts and scrapes. Her breath hissed in through her nose, but otherwise Natasha fought not to make a sound. He grinned that bloodred grin again, then pulled down the zipper to the front of her nanomesh suit. She had a simple bra and camisole beneath it, both stained with blood and the latter laced with cuts. He lifted his knife with his right hand and moved the camisole up with his left, baring her stomach and sternum.
So this was it, then. All that training she had endured since childhood, gone with a whim. What a waste.
He simply smiled at the choked sound of her breathing, the limp wristed attempt to shove him off of her. "You try so hard," he crooned, bringing the edge of his knife against her skin. It was so sharp, she barely felt the edge slicing through. "You know you won't win, but you try so hard. It must be your mortality. Other creatures know when to give in."
While he didn't understand the invective she threw at him in Russian, he undoubtedly understood the tone of voice she used. Loki laughed, twisting the knife in his hand. Natasha yelped as it dug deep, almost to muscle. It felt almost like a V shape or a sideways L, and dammit, that would leave a scar. Angular wounds never healed cleanly, especially the way he used the knife tip to lift the epidermis.
"It wouldn't do to kill you so soon," he continued, still twisting the knife. He lifted it, tongue running along the flat of it to lick the dripping blood. She watched as he caught her swinging wrist in his hand, though the burning pain didn't feel the same this time. After a few second's pause, suddenly it was like fire lancing through the tendons and veins, making her buck and scream beneath him. Loki discarded the knife and caught her other wrist. It had to be magic burning through her, repairing the damage he had inflicted on her wrists. The Widow's Bites sparked feebly, then the wristlets shattered.
Loki rolled his hips above her, still grinning down at her. "Such a lovely mortal playmate. Shall we play further?" he asked, laughing as she howled in pain. "Oh. I suppose I should do something about that pain, hm?"
He sketched something on her abdomen in her blood, then right on her sternum. He said something in a sing-song chant, the blood from his sketch suddenly coming to life as bright as a magnesium flare. Natasha couldn't help but close her eyes against the white light, but as it faded the fiery pain eased. It wasn't so terrible to breathe, and bringing her hands up in front of her, she could see that beneath the smeared blood, her wrists were perfectly healed again. A quick look down, and she could see that her other wounds were not, just the most egregious ones in her wrists.
"That desperate to play?" she rasped.
Loki licked her blood off of his teeth. He radiated a manic, sexualized energy, grinning down at her as if pleased. "You have no idea."
"And if I'm not in the mood?" Natasha challenged.
He merely laughed and bent his head down to lick at the tacky blood on her skin. "Oh, something can be arranged, I'm sure."
His tongue was soft against her skin, tracing the lines of cuts and lapping delicately at the crusting blood on her skin. Natasha's breath caught in her throat, and she stayed very still as his fingers brushed very gently and almost tenderly along the sides of her ribcage. "Perhaps you weren't treated with care, hm?" he asked, looking up at her. His mouth hovered over her skin, his breath as moist and warm as any mortal's. Lips curling into a pleased smile, Loki gave her an almost adoring look. "I can show you what it is to be mine."
"What do you intend?" she asked, taking in the predatory gleam in his eyes. He thought himself better than her for multiple reasons, she knew. Loki had godlike power, was extremely long lived and had just bested her in combat. Hell, he had practically just marked her as his property. But that didn't mean Natasha couldn't play into that and see what his endgame was. There had to be a reason why he was targeting her.
Of course, he had already taken over the other strictly mortal member of the Avengers. It could very well be her turn.
"Perhaps a different kind of play," he murmured, lips curling into an almost seductive smile. With his slicked hair falling against her abdomen and his green eyes looking up at her through his lashes, it was a parody of a lover's gaze. Still, she could work with that. She could work with just about anything.
"Let's see what you've got," Natasha replied, an edge of challenge in her voice.
Loki was surprisingly gentle as he moved his mouth over her abdomen, fingers pulling the zipper to her catsuit down. Natasha struggled to get herself up on her elbows, looking down at his bent head. Her arms felt burnt out and weak, but they followed her commands with only a mild tremor. Loki drew the zipper all the way down, and he looked up at her in silent question, asking her permission. She drew her legs up and out of the catsuit legs in answer, watching his lips curl into a pleased smile.
It felt strange to watch herself tremble as she helped him. There was that inevitable thought What am I doing? as well as the reminder I have to see what he wants. There were more ways than just deceit to get at the truth, and normally sleeping with targets didn't bother her at all. It was just physical contact, after all, no emotion involved.
Right now, she couldn't tell what Loki was thinking or feeling. She didn't know if she was snaring herself further into a trap, and that gave her pause. If she miscalculated and anyone innocent got hurt in the process...
Natasha slid off her panties and took off her bra and camisole, leaving herself bare to his gaze. There was the stark male appreciation there that she was used to. He didn't respond any differently from any other heterosexual male, which was at least comforting. "Are you just going to stare?" she asked, sultry confidence in her voice.
He grinned and indicated that she should lie down over her catsuit. At her displeased look, he waved his hand and said something under his breath, almost singing it, and there was a thick blue quilt with an intricate lacy design in white. "Does this please you?" he asked.
"Much better," she replied, lying down on top of the quilt. It certainly felt real, and was warm enough beneath her back. She could even feel the stitching of the embroidery against her skin, just scratchy enough to feel like a handmade article. "Comfortable."
Loki bent down between her legs, spreading them. His tongue touched her skin right above the curling pubic hair, a warning before heading right to the core of her. He worked at her with an intensity she couldn't help but appreciate. She sighed and let one hand tangle into his hair, the other holding onto the quilt. Loki licked her open and delved deep inside of her, nose rubbing against her clit. Once he found a spot that made her gasp, he slid his long fingers in and licked at her clit directly, stroking it until she was writhing beneath his mouth and crying out in pleasure. He licked her until she came, panting for breath and hair a tangled mess around her head.
He shifted position and knelt between her trembling thighs. In an instant, his clothes and boots were gone. As bare as he was, he didn't seem to feel the cold at all. "Nice trick you have there," Natasha managed to say as he took in the sight of her splayed body with satisfaction. Typical male.
"Magic has its uses," he smirked, then grasped her hips. She let her legs fall farther open when she felt him prodding at her slicked entrance, and it was impossible not to watch his expression as he sank deeply into her.
Pushing her heels against his ass, Natasha tried to pull him down to get a better angle for his thrusts. Loki resisted, of course, preferring to tease her with slow, shallow strokes at first. It was enough to get him to grit his teeth after a while, and then he began to move faster and harder. It was sweet pleasure shooting through her, and she cried out when he finally shifted his weight forward. He held onto her wrists, holding them down on either side of her head as he fucked her hard and fast. She could feel where the magic had knit her tendons back together, the repair too new and hovering on the edge of pain. Coupled with the pleasure, Natasha closed her eyes and allowed herself a moment to revel in pure sensation.
It was over far too soon, his stuttering rhythm and soft oath in a foreign tongue the only indication she had that he came. He was quiet, observing her responses just as she observed his. She wondered what he thought of what he saw, if he thought she was faking it. For a change, she actually hadn't.
Loki leaned down to whisper in her ear "I always liked playing with spiders." He rose gracefully, looking off into the shadows of the warehouse, and in an instant was clothed again. She was in the process of reaching for her discarded underwear when he turned and looked back at her with an almost sickly grin. "This will be... interesting, I think." A wave of his hand and she was fully dressed again, the rips and tears in her armor still evident. Only the stickiness between her thighs remained, further proof she hadn't dreamed up this entire bizarre encounter.
When she stood, the quilt disappeared. "So what now?" she asked, one eyebrow raised.
If anything, that made him grin even wider. "Continue the dance, of course." And before she could ask what he meant, the air beside him wavered and looked almost watery. "You'll see me again," he declared as he stepped through it.
The air continued to waver for a few more seconds, then seemed to smooth out into nothingness, as if the apparition had never been.
Natasha took stock of the situation, a fine tremor present in her hands. Her wrists were fine, and a quick assessment told her that she still had her fine motor skills intact. If anything, her reflexes seemed to be faster than before. She wrapped her arms around herself and shook for a moment, eyes closed. It was just a moment. She could allow herself that long for self pity and fear. Past that would be wallowing, and that simply was unacceptable.
She pulled on her mental armor and tried to get her head back into its usual mindset. That was harder to do than usual, which also shook her. Damn Loki and his convoluted plots, she would rather deal with the usual political or mob bullshit.
Natasha headed straight to the Helicarrier to speak with Fury.
***
Fury gave her a level look when Natasha finished speaking, taking in her fierce expression and disheveled appearance. "It was Loki, wasn't it? Your unnamed informant?"
"He followed me," she confirmed, not bothering to lie any longer. "He assumed I was part of the detail securing Dr. Foster and attacked. I'm sure he wanted to prove how useless I would be if he wanted to strike," Natasha said, no inflection in her tone. She was mortal, he was not. No point in being angry about the obvious difference.
Instead of commenting on that, Fury simply looked at her and asked, "Are you compromised?"
The word carried so much nuance for her, but she knew what he was asking. Still, she rifled through her memory and motivations as best as she could to give him an accurate answer. "I don't think so," she finally said. "My thoughts are still my own."
Well, that could possibly be debatable, she was sure. But when Clint had been possessed, there had been the presence of an other in his mind, guiding his thoughts and allegiances, making him use his tactical skill and knowledge for a different path. Natasha felt no such presence, and her allegiance remained the same.
"There is that," Fury murmured, arms folded in front of him. "So what does he want?"
"To play," Natasha began slowly. "There's no way to tell what actually passes for normal for his kind, but he uses people as tools. We're simply objects, something like chess pieces or toys. Whatever he has planned, it doesn't necessarily involve us."
"I suppose," Fury began just as slowly, eyeing her carefully, "you just became our Loki expert."
This couldn't be a good development.
"He'll establish contact again, most likely," he continued, ignoring the way her shoulders tensed and she shifted her weight slightly to the balls of her feet. "When he does, you are the liaison we'll need." His voice hardened, coming down like the weight of a sledgehammer against her chest. "You need to make his plans align with ours."
"And if I can't?" Natasha asked, voice calm while her insides roiled.
"You need to make his plans align with ours."
"Yes, sir," Natasha said, voice sharp as a whip.
No room for error, then. She had to make the call, and she had to be right.
The End
Series: #2 in Ready For The Siege
(#1 - Look Over Your Shoulder)
Author: Eustacia Vye
Author's e-mail: eustacia_vye28@hotmail.com
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: Loki/Natasha
Disclaimer: Not mine, but I'm starting to like playing around in the Marvel movieverse. Some comic backstory is incorporated into characterizations, but this is still primarily movieverse.
Spoilers/Warnings: Post-movie. Incorporates a prompt from avengerkink round 2 ( Loki is established in canon as a knife guy, and Natasha, as an assassin, is probably comfortable using them as well. I'd love to see them engaging in a sexual-tension-filled knife fight.)
Additional warnings for dubcon, violence, knife play and blood play.
Title, series title and cut text from "The Royal We" by Silversun Pickups
Summary: "Sometimes the dark conceals the edges best of all."
Natasha didn't tell anyone about her safe house getting compromised. No one at SHIELD knew it existed, not even Clint, and she wanted to keep it that way. Loki most likely had something planned, and he been genuinely frustrated by what he thought was her role in protecting Jane Foster. She wouldn't bet her life on it, but he didn't seem to be using his emotions as a weapon the way Natasha would. He had no qualms about misdirecting others or letting them draw erroneous conclusions, but whatever his emotions were, they were his own. She used whatever tactic necessary to get what she needed, and she usually got it. Sometimes it was at some personal cost, which she usually justified. There wasn't much that was actually hers anymore, once the Red Room and SHIELD personae were stripped away.
She scheduled an appointment with Fury directly; this was far too important to trust to Agent Sitwell, who was nominally her handler now. SHIELD was nothing if not a bureaucracy, and she wasn't about to navigate that labyrinth if she didn't have to. It wasn't that she couldn't tolerate it; sometimes that was a convenient excuse to take, but right now she needed expediency more than plausible deniability.
Director Nick Fury thought the meeting was aberrant, and he watched her carefully. That wasn't anything Natasha wasn't familiar with, and the too-tight glances rolled right off of her skin. "I've been informed that Loki has some interest in Jane Foster."
The good thing about Fury was that there was no need for a preamble. He didn't like bullshit and preferred to get to the bottom of the matter if at all possible. The bad thing about Fury was that he was no fool.
"You have been informed by who?" he asked, steepling his fingers in front of him and leveling his one-eyed gaze at her. There was no inflection in his tone, but there didn't have to be. She knew it had to be damn good to avoid a tongue lashing or formal reprimand for wasting his precious time.
"I can't say," Natasha replied, voice even. There was no way in hell she would admit that Loki himself assumed she would be on Jane Foster's protective detail, because that was a can of worms she had no intention of putting into Fury's hands. She held up a hand to forestall any question that might come with her brusque statement. "Following the Battle of New York, I'm not as invisible as I used to be. My informant assumes that I'm going to be some kind of honor guard for Doctor Foster, and assumes that she's uncomfortable with some of the Valkyries that Thor would likely employ."
"That's what you were told."
It wasn't a question, but Natasha nodded as if it was one. "I wasn't told of anything planned, and I'm not assigned to Foster. The fact that there's even interest from Loki is likely more than coincidental. He could be trying to reconstruct the Bifrost, but I don't have anything to back that up. It's just my guess."
"You've gathered a bit of intelligence on your own regarding this subject."
"I've told you everything I have."
"Which isn't much." Fury leaned back and watched her nod briskly with no change in his expression. "I see." He watched her for a moment, but she didn't squirm. She never did, which was something he appreciated. He needed to think quickly, not coddle agents or their egos. With what little he knew of Natasha's training, she really didn't have one.
"I can assign you to Foster's detail-"
"I'd rather not be, sir," Natasha interrupted quickly. She couldn't explain why, but she didn't want Loki to think her more of a liar than she was normally. "I'm far too visible for that now and not nearly as knowledgeable about theoretical astrophysics to pass for being an assistant. Not to mention that against someone who's practically a god, I wouldn't have enough of an advantage. I wouldn't be as physically capable of disabling Loki or maneuvering around him."
If Fury was surprised by her assessment, he hid it well. "He can still be taken down."
"By the Hulk, perhaps," Natasha replied coolly, a half shrug of one shoulder accenting her words. "I work best behind the scenes, when no one knows I'm there. I surprised Loki once by manipulating him, mostly because he didn't know me then. I doubt I'd be able to do it again." Especially after his arrival at her safe house, which Fury didn't need to know about.
"You may have a point," he acknowledged after a moment. "Is your informant reliable?"
"No," Natasha told him without hesitation. "But anything involving Loki is dangerous, and I don't think it's worth the risk to ignore the warning."
"We'll step up the watch on Dr. Foster, just in case. You'll have your usual assignments to work with, then." Natasha gave him a businesslike nod and waited until he gestured for her to leave. "Romanoff," Fury called out. "Don't sell yourself short where Loki is concerned. It's going to take brains to take him down, not just brawn. Depending on how it happens, we might even be able to take him in, get him on our side."
"Do you really think that can be accomplished?"
Fury actually gave her a grin. "Worked for you, didn't it?"
Natasha gave him a small smile and another brisk nod. Sometimes, she wasn't so sure she was on anyone's side. She owed them a debt, and she always repaid her debts.
***
Loki was waiting for her in the dive bar she had headed to. Natasha was supposed to meet an informant regarding a possible Hydra infiltrator, and he was where the informant was supposed to be, looking rather human and nondescript. He merely grinned at her when she approached cautiously, teeth flashing in the dim light. His hair was slicked back away from his face, the button down shirt open at his throat. By the shine of them, Natasha would guess that he retained the leather pants and boots. She couldn't see his scepter, but was sure it was still around somewhere, possibly at his side under glamour.
Magic. She didn't loathe it quite so much as Clint did now, but that certainly stacked the deck against her.
"Your codename is Black Widow. I was not aware of that."
"There was no reason for you to be," she replied, not sitting down. She stood behind the chair across the tiny table, looking at the half empty beer stein. "You were not supposed to be here."
"The illustrious piece of offal you were to speak with was very prepared to lie to you," Loki said, grin still on his face. "I've saved you the trouble of sorting through them."
"That was my informant," she said, no inflection in her tone.
"A simple thank you would not be remiss," Loki chided her. "He knew nothing. A simple peon in the organization, thrown your way as a feint. The infiltrator is far more well placed than you would like to believe."
She filed that away for later. "Why are you here?"
"This," Loki replied, gesturing toward the stein. "It hardly passes for drink, yet the stupid mortals consume it as if it was lifeblood."
"For some, it probably is."
He laughed, which was actually far more pleasant sounding than she thought it would be. She tightened her resolve, sure there was some trick he was playing, some sleight of hand that she would miss if she relaxed around him. Just because he didn't want to kill her didn't mean he didn't want to use her somehow.
"You have a sense of humor," he commented with a sly smile. "Interesting. I thought you didn't." He leaned forward, smile sliding right off of his face. His gaze was icy and intent. "You were not lying to me the other day. I wonder why."
"You'd have to ask an actual question," she replied.
"It was not a lie. There was no knowledge of that mewling mortal's whereabouts. You are not part of any honor guard. They don't view you as a Valkyrie." Loki paused, eyes tracking her form. Natasha easily shook off the cloying, almost dirty feeling that came with that gaze. "You did not lie, but you could have. It's often what mortals do, when they think I've come to kill them."
"Would you have believed it if I had?"
Loki paused, thinking about it. Then he smiled that wicked, awful smile that he had smiled at her on the helicarrier, and gestured for a passing waitress to get her a drink. "Sit," he commanded, gesturing to the chair. "There are things to discuss."
"Are there?" she asked, not moving yet.
That sharp-toothed smile was fixed on her face, and Natasha ignored the creeping feeling along her spine that usually signaled an impending shootout or ops going FUBAR. She hadn't come armed with more than the usual assortment of knives, and she doubted she would be able to land one between his eyes without anyone seeing her. It had been part of the draw in case her informant decided to try something stupid, but that also meant she couldn't try something stupid.
"Oh, I'll get what I want sooner or later," Loki said smoothly, standing when her drink arrived. He passed the waitress a twenty to cover both drinks and a tip. "Perhaps you should think about that. Whose side do you plan to be on when I'm finished?"
"My own," she replied, giving him a tight lipped smile.
The answer made his eyes dance with amusement. She preferred the wicked one better.
"Excellent. This may prove useful yet."
Natasha didn't try to stop him as he left the bar, still looking human. She sat down and took a cautious sip of the drink. Plain top shelf vodka and tonic, no ice. Hm... Someone has been paying very close attention to her.
She wasn't sure if she liked the idea or not.
***
Natasha was still working on finding the Hydra infiltrator. It was nothing more than whispers with various contacts, Hydra agents growing bolder and intimating that they had more knowledge than they did. Several low level Hydra associates were turning up missing or dead, but they were buying up tech agencies at a prodigious rate. Something was happening, and she was normally very good at following the trail of breadcrumbs back to the bottom feeders that dropped them.
The warehouse was utterly empty when she broke in, dropping silently from the roof onto one of the cross beams over the main cargo space. Multiple sources had pegged this location as Hydra's recent drop point, with agents coming and going with regularity. A few white coated egghead types had been seen entering the building under armed guard, though no one saw them leave. Natasha's guess was that they were continuing the work of the Red Skull; in nearly eighty years, there hadn't been a success with the supersoldier serum like Steve Rogers. Even Johann Schmidt couldn't be considered a complete success. It was likely that the serum had flawed material to work with, or was incomplete. That would explain Schmidt's reaction to it. But Steve had been a skinny asthmatic kid with a host of vulnerabilities, so the "flawed material" theory that Hydra supposed couldn't be it. Natasha had seen the files for herself, and drew her own conclusions. Hydra had only Schmidt's parameters to work with, but an infiltrator into SHIELD could obtain Steve's data. A few lucky eggheads later...
Of course, she had to find the data, the infiltrator and prove her suspicions.
An empty warehouse, however, would not help her do that. She was starting to think that she was being played, though Hydra usually didn't care enough about random agents to put forth this much effort. They were nicely straightforward that way, which she usually appreciated. It was generally a challenge to track down most of the agencies or terrorist groups on SHIELD's watch list, but not Hydra.
Natasha pursed her lips and decided to get up to leave the warehouse. If it was a waste of time, she could always shake down known agents to see where they had moved their equipment. The building plans didn't have a basement, and she had already checked sewer and utility access points prior to coming inside. There was no secret level beneath this place for them to hide.
Loki stepped out from the shadows, dressed in his usual braided leather armor in black and green, no cape in sight. His head was bare, and the gold vambraces and shoulder armor pieces were missing as well. It was odd to see him without the usual accoutrements to gild his appearance. He looked right up at her crouched form in the shadows with a wide smile.
"Isn't it lovely, meeting you here?"
That definitely threw her off; she had been expecting a threat of some kind as soon as he walked in. Between chasing off her prior informant and now the empty warehouse, it was becoming apparent that his current designs included her.
"Working for Hydra now? I didn't think that was your style."
There wasn't even a flicker of annoyance in his gaze. "Oh, I don't work for them, little spider. Petty mortal organizations have their uses."
Natasha shifted slightly, feeling the play of nanomesh against her skin and underthings. Her hidden and not so hidden weapons were all in place, ready to be used if necessary. "Did you arrange for the rumors to point me here, then?"
"It certainly didn't take much effort to attract your attention," he replied, arms folded comfortably in front of him. While his voice was neutral, there was an air of condescension in his pose. Foolish mortal, his body language seemed to say. I am so much better than you can ever hope to be.
A few graceful flips, and Natasha hit the ground floor of the warehouse. She had a knife in her sleeve loosened but not yet engaged. There had been no overtly threatening actions or statements made, so there was no point in pushing Loki before it was necessary. "Now that you have it, what did you want to say?"
"I wonder what it would take to break you down," he murmured softly, hands falling to his sides. There was a knife in one hand, its sharp edge catching the dim light.
"Is there a particular reason for your interest?"
Loki merely laughed at her mild tone. He lifted his hand slightly, and there was that blade in his hand. Its edge was sharp, and runes were etched into the tang. "So polite. Is that how you draw them in? Be what they want you to be, then you shift beneath the expectations and slide the blade right in."
That was a fairly accurate assessment, so Natasha merely lofted an eyebrow in his direction rather than reply. He had wanted to see her weak before, but the element of surprise was gone. "I assume that's how you operate," she replied softly, fractionally shifting her weight onto the balls of her feet. She would be able to leap or run, but had no illusions about actually escaping if he really wanted her caught. Loki had something up his sleeve, more than just the knife in his hand. "You're the trickster. You're the one with magic."
He gave her a slight inclination of his head. "They say you're keen with a blade. I wish to test that theory."
"Who's this they you speak of?" she asked in an arch tone. "I just ask the questions and move in shadows."
"Sometimes the dark conceals the edges best of all." He sent the knife flying in her direction, and it missed her only because she had prepared herself for an attack. Loki watched in amusement as she tumbled out of the way, falling into a crouch. "Perhaps we'll find your edges."
Natasha moved quickly, knife falling into the palm of her hand as she dodged another thrown knife. That one carried the sensation of ice, a whisper of bitter cold mere inches from her shoulder. Loki closed the distance, but still was not quite close enough. She had to dive in low, her own knife in hand and angled toward his thigh. If it was an edge he was looking for, she was full of them. The Red Room and her own mercenary career had seen to that.
Their knives actually connected several times, and Natasha moved with sinuous grace to dodge the blows he tried to land. There was a ferocity in how he fought, striking with anger adding to the force of the movement. She discharged the Widow's Bites into his chest, but the breastplate seemed to absorb most of the voltage. Loki staggered but he remained upright, and she had to use the slight advantage to strike hard at the joints in his armor. A slight turn was enough to make her miss and score deep gouges in the treated leather, slicing apart some of the braiding. Natasha twisted her wrist and tried to slide her knife into the gap she created, but he moved with her. The blade of her knife broke right off the hilt. She drove the broken hilt against that spot, sending the blade right up against his skin.
Gasping, Loki grasped her arm and spun her around, trapping her against his body with a knife to her abdomen. "I'm not nearly so helpless as all that," he managed to say when she dropped the broken hilt to the floor.
She shimmied slightly, dropping another knife into her hand. "Oh, I don't see you as helpless at all." Abruptly she sagged against him, dead weight in his arms. Loki was startled enough to have to readjust his grip, and that was enough for her to push at the arm pinning her in place. Using his momentum against him, Natasha dropped to the floor and slithered between his spread legs, using the knife in her hand to stab at his hamstrings.
Instead of a howl of pain, magic sparked to life and caused the blade to disintegrate and flake away into ash.
Scowling and snarling an epithet in Russian, Natasha continued her backward slither along the floor. Loki turned, lips parted and pupils blown wide as he took in the sight of her.
There was a reason she went with skintight for her catsuit. That expression was part of it.
She had two more knives strapped to her thighs, and there were four maximum damage charges left on her Widow's Bites. It was still startling to see that 30,000 volts did close to nothing, even if the armor and magic could have defused some of the charge.
"You are... creative," Loki murmured, eyeing her critically. It was hard to tell what exactly he was commenting on, her fighting technique or how flexible she was.
Natasha smiled at him and rose into a slight crouch. With her body contorted like a comic nerd's wet dream, she curled her lips into a seductive smile. "Enjoying the show?"
Loki gave her an answering smile at the sound of her purr. "Oh, yes."
"Then you ought to love what comes next."
Natasha rushed forward, turning into a somersault as she moved. Her heels connected with his face, and there was the satisfying crunch of his nose. Her feet slid to his shoulders, and she pushed against the floor with her fingertips. That gave her enough height to hook her toes around his neck. She shifted her balance, upsetting his. Loki crashed down to the floor as she twisted and swung around, using his momentum to rebalance herself above him. She had him pinned to the floor, and she grabbed one of her remaining knives as she quickly moved to straddle him. Her knife fell to his chest, the point centered over his heart. "See? Quite entertaining."
He huffed slightly, and there was the pulse of magic beneath her legs. It was gentle pressure, testing her weight. It was all the warning she needed to act, and she drove the point of the blade down into his chest. At the same time she discharged another lethal dose of voltage into his chest.
The magic flexed, and she was sent flying from his chest. Her grip on the knife loosened, and she heard it clatter against concrete somewhere behind her.
Dammit.
Three charges and one knife. He could be felled with acrobatics and simple hand to hand, but she had a feeling he wouldn't let her come in that close.
"I do enjoy how you play," Loki said, pushing himself to his feet. There was an undercurrent to his voice, something sounding like desire. Natasha fell into a crouch, legs splayed wide to full effect. "Mmm. Yes, you did promise entertainment."
She wished she had her Glock. Or maybe the Walther. Hell, she'd even take a Luger, even though she hated the kick on those. Under a barrage of cover fire, she could rush in, slide or tumble around him, slash at his braided leather armor or discharge more voltage while he was distracted and unable to use his magic effectively. Too bad she didn't have the bomb disks or flash bombs with her. She hadn't thought she would need them to infiltrate Hydra.
Natasha rolled to her feet, last knife in hand. "So let's keep up the dance."
He let her get in closer this time, but her knife was next to useless against the armor. She did tear small holes, the edge of the blade biting into the braided cords. She scraped the elegantly carved runes, but that didn't seem to break the enchantments on it. Dodging the worst of his attempted strikes, Natasha still felt the drag and sting of sharpened metal through flesh. That didn't stop her from attempting to discharge more voltage into his groin, making him laugh in amusement. Another charge was lost to his arm, which at least temporarily slowed him down. He would likely be feeling that for another month, unless he had extraordinary healing.
Loki ducked back as she charged forward, light on her feet, and this time her knife connected with bare skin along his wrist and hand. One knife fell from his hand, and he staggered slightly. Her last Widow's Bite discharged against his thigh, and he jerked away from her, his leg kicking out. His foot connected with her elbow, sending her last knife flying from her hand. They both retreated a safe distance away from each other, Natasha watching him warily as she surreptitiously tried to get feeling back into her fingers.
"Never let it be said that I'm not able to fight fairly," Loki smirked, tossing her one of his own blades. Natasha caught it by the hilt, testing it under his gaze. She liked its heft and balance, the hilt settling nicely in her palm. She could do a lot of damage with a blade like this, and undoubtedly Loki had done quite a bit in his day. "I see you approve," he commented, smirk widening. "Excellent."
He was playing a game here, but she didn't know what it was. She understood political and personal motives of her usual targets, who were painfully human. She might not have had the same kind of emotional connectedness that her targets did, but that didn't mean she didn't have them or was affected by them. They just were very few.
Loki, on the other hand, was not human. His current motives were his own, and she didn't know if her guesses for Fury's sake were accurate. He had been terribly transparent earlier, and the undercurrent of jealousy and feelings of inferiority had been easy to pick up on. While she knew they had to still be present, something else was driving him.
They circled each other for a bit, looking for an opening to press an advantage. Natasha was feeling the effects of the prior attacks, bruises and cuts aching and sore. It would slow her down far too much. Honestly, she was surprised she had lasted this long, and wasn't sure if it was a testament to her skill or him taking it easy on her for sport.
She was gradually creeping in closer as they circled, and she lunged forward, feinting with her left while sweeping in with her right. The knife scored through the leather armor far more easily than her own had, but it was impossible for her to tell if she had actually broken the skin or not. Loki twisted away from her, at least, and Natasha ducked under his swinging arm. Her fist connected with his solar plexus, or what would have been in a mortal, and her right hand dropped viciously downward. The edge of the blade sliced through the outside of his leather pants, and she saw blood well to the surface.
The crouch left her back, exposed, however. Loki arced downward with his own blade, slicing cleanly through the nanomesh armor she wore. Hissing in pain, Natasha moved forward and around him, balancing part of her weight on her hand. Kicking up behind her, she continued forward in a roll and shifted her weight further so that the edge of her blade could collide with the back of his knee. Jotun or not, severed tendons wouldn't be able to support his weight, and he would fall just as a human would.
Or he would have, if he had been there for the blow.
Loki somehow was farther away from her than he should have been, making her think that he may have teleported. Dammit. How was she supposed to fight that?
"I have to admit," Loki said, turning around to face her with a deadly smile. "I really am starting to appreciate your charms."
"Are you?" she asked, a falsely sweet note to her voice. Natasha remained in a low crouch, her back screaming at her to stop. Her grip on the knife was tight, but not too tight. It felt almost weightless in her fist, as if it was part of her rather than a fighting knife. She didn't exactly trust it, but she was out of other options at the moment. "Care to try hand to hand?" she asked, lips curling into an amused smile. She could put on a good front as well as a bad one, after all.
"That would hardly be sporting in your condition, my dear," Loki replied solicitously.
"Or is it that you can't do without your precious magic?"
There was a slight flinch, and Natasha wasn't sure if she had imagined it. "You're bleeding," he pointed out unnecessarily.
"So are you," Natasha returned, amusement sliding out of her voice.
Loki attacked first this time, and she had to leap out of the way as he rushed her. She rolled up to her feet and kicked viciously at the gouge marks in his armor, hoping it would drive something into his skin, that she had sliced into him deeper than she thought she had. It was satisfying to hear him hiss as his own knife cut through the leather of his armor, to see him stumble a bit as he dodged past her. She dropped to the floor and kicked up and out, adding to his stumble. He recovered quickly, though, dropping into a crouch as she rushed forward with his knife in hand. She misjudged the angle of her next blow, however, and he dropped his knife to catch her wrist in his fist. He rolled in a semicircle, dragging her with him and throwing her down to the floor.
Struggling up from her prone position, Natasha watched in horror as Loki scooped up the fallen blade and slashed downward, catching her right wrist. The blade tugged sharply through skin and tendon, her fingers jerking and opening. There was the clatter of the blade falling to the floor, and Loki squeezed her left wrist when he caught it again, lifting her off of her feet as he stood. A shake, two, then he tossed her to the floor with a look of satisfaction on his face.
Natasha managed not to groan in pain when she fell to the concrete floor of the warehouse. Her left wrist was a mangled mess, her right useless. It would take extensive surgery and physical therapy to be able to use them again, and some deep part of herself was almost glad of that. Pitting herself against Loki was a fantastically stupid idea, and that would take her out of the equation.
She couldn't help but make a helpless pained sound when he grasped both wrists tightly in his fists as he straddled her prone form. It was a mockery of her prior pose, and a dim corner of her mind howled in rage at him. He loomed over her, teeth bared in a maniacal grin, eyes glinting in triumph.
"You lost because you're mortal," he purred, "I'll give you that much."
With Loki's weight on top on her, Natasha's back wounds burned. She grit her teeth against the pain, refusing to give in. The Red Room had trained her well. It was second nature not to reveal true weaknesses, only false ones, though it was so tempting to scream just then. There was no rejoinder she could make that wouldn't reveal how much pain she was in, so she kept silent and simply stared at him.
"It's a pity," Loki continued, bloodied hands lifting from her wrists. He licked his palms as he shifted downward, ultimately sitting on her thighs. Those hurt, too. "You do fight like a Valkyrie." Her blood was smeared across his lips and chin, and his smile was tainted with her bright red blood. "You taste sweet, little one."
Natasha focused on breathing normally. Would she bleed out through all the cuts and open wounds? Or would she be left weak and wanting, scrabbling for a way back to SHIELD HQ like a broken marionette?
Loki brought his hands to her front, fingers brushing against the cuts and scrapes. Her breath hissed in through her nose, but otherwise Natasha fought not to make a sound. He grinned that bloodred grin again, then pulled down the zipper to the front of her nanomesh suit. She had a simple bra and camisole beneath it, both stained with blood and the latter laced with cuts. He lifted his knife with his right hand and moved the camisole up with his left, baring her stomach and sternum.
So this was it, then. All that training she had endured since childhood, gone with a whim. What a waste.
He simply smiled at the choked sound of her breathing, the limp wristed attempt to shove him off of her. "You try so hard," he crooned, bringing the edge of his knife against her skin. It was so sharp, she barely felt the edge slicing through. "You know you won't win, but you try so hard. It must be your mortality. Other creatures know when to give in."
While he didn't understand the invective she threw at him in Russian, he undoubtedly understood the tone of voice she used. Loki laughed, twisting the knife in his hand. Natasha yelped as it dug deep, almost to muscle. It felt almost like a V shape or a sideways L, and dammit, that would leave a scar. Angular wounds never healed cleanly, especially the way he used the knife tip to lift the epidermis.
"It wouldn't do to kill you so soon," he continued, still twisting the knife. He lifted it, tongue running along the flat of it to lick the dripping blood. She watched as he caught her swinging wrist in his hand, though the burning pain didn't feel the same this time. After a few second's pause, suddenly it was like fire lancing through the tendons and veins, making her buck and scream beneath him. Loki discarded the knife and caught her other wrist. It had to be magic burning through her, repairing the damage he had inflicted on her wrists. The Widow's Bites sparked feebly, then the wristlets shattered.
Loki rolled his hips above her, still grinning down at her. "Such a lovely mortal playmate. Shall we play further?" he asked, laughing as she howled in pain. "Oh. I suppose I should do something about that pain, hm?"
He sketched something on her abdomen in her blood, then right on her sternum. He said something in a sing-song chant, the blood from his sketch suddenly coming to life as bright as a magnesium flare. Natasha couldn't help but close her eyes against the white light, but as it faded the fiery pain eased. It wasn't so terrible to breathe, and bringing her hands up in front of her, she could see that beneath the smeared blood, her wrists were perfectly healed again. A quick look down, and she could see that her other wounds were not, just the most egregious ones in her wrists.
"That desperate to play?" she rasped.
Loki licked her blood off of his teeth. He radiated a manic, sexualized energy, grinning down at her as if pleased. "You have no idea."
"And if I'm not in the mood?" Natasha challenged.
He merely laughed and bent his head down to lick at the tacky blood on her skin. "Oh, something can be arranged, I'm sure."
His tongue was soft against her skin, tracing the lines of cuts and lapping delicately at the crusting blood on her skin. Natasha's breath caught in her throat, and she stayed very still as his fingers brushed very gently and almost tenderly along the sides of her ribcage. "Perhaps you weren't treated with care, hm?" he asked, looking up at her. His mouth hovered over her skin, his breath as moist and warm as any mortal's. Lips curling into a pleased smile, Loki gave her an almost adoring look. "I can show you what it is to be mine."
"What do you intend?" she asked, taking in the predatory gleam in his eyes. He thought himself better than her for multiple reasons, she knew. Loki had godlike power, was extremely long lived and had just bested her in combat. Hell, he had practically just marked her as his property. But that didn't mean Natasha couldn't play into that and see what his endgame was. There had to be a reason why he was targeting her.
Of course, he had already taken over the other strictly mortal member of the Avengers. It could very well be her turn.
"Perhaps a different kind of play," he murmured, lips curling into an almost seductive smile. With his slicked hair falling against her abdomen and his green eyes looking up at her through his lashes, it was a parody of a lover's gaze. Still, she could work with that. She could work with just about anything.
"Let's see what you've got," Natasha replied, an edge of challenge in her voice.
Loki was surprisingly gentle as he moved his mouth over her abdomen, fingers pulling the zipper to her catsuit down. Natasha struggled to get herself up on her elbows, looking down at his bent head. Her arms felt burnt out and weak, but they followed her commands with only a mild tremor. Loki drew the zipper all the way down, and he looked up at her in silent question, asking her permission. She drew her legs up and out of the catsuit legs in answer, watching his lips curl into a pleased smile.
It felt strange to watch herself tremble as she helped him. There was that inevitable thought What am I doing? as well as the reminder I have to see what he wants. There were more ways than just deceit to get at the truth, and normally sleeping with targets didn't bother her at all. It was just physical contact, after all, no emotion involved.
Right now, she couldn't tell what Loki was thinking or feeling. She didn't know if she was snaring herself further into a trap, and that gave her pause. If she miscalculated and anyone innocent got hurt in the process...
Natasha slid off her panties and took off her bra and camisole, leaving herself bare to his gaze. There was the stark male appreciation there that she was used to. He didn't respond any differently from any other heterosexual male, which was at least comforting. "Are you just going to stare?" she asked, sultry confidence in her voice.
He grinned and indicated that she should lie down over her catsuit. At her displeased look, he waved his hand and said something under his breath, almost singing it, and there was a thick blue quilt with an intricate lacy design in white. "Does this please you?" he asked.
"Much better," she replied, lying down on top of the quilt. It certainly felt real, and was warm enough beneath her back. She could even feel the stitching of the embroidery against her skin, just scratchy enough to feel like a handmade article. "Comfortable."
Loki bent down between her legs, spreading them. His tongue touched her skin right above the curling pubic hair, a warning before heading right to the core of her. He worked at her with an intensity she couldn't help but appreciate. She sighed and let one hand tangle into his hair, the other holding onto the quilt. Loki licked her open and delved deep inside of her, nose rubbing against her clit. Once he found a spot that made her gasp, he slid his long fingers in and licked at her clit directly, stroking it until she was writhing beneath his mouth and crying out in pleasure. He licked her until she came, panting for breath and hair a tangled mess around her head.
He shifted position and knelt between her trembling thighs. In an instant, his clothes and boots were gone. As bare as he was, he didn't seem to feel the cold at all. "Nice trick you have there," Natasha managed to say as he took in the sight of her splayed body with satisfaction. Typical male.
"Magic has its uses," he smirked, then grasped her hips. She let her legs fall farther open when she felt him prodding at her slicked entrance, and it was impossible not to watch his expression as he sank deeply into her.
Pushing her heels against his ass, Natasha tried to pull him down to get a better angle for his thrusts. Loki resisted, of course, preferring to tease her with slow, shallow strokes at first. It was enough to get him to grit his teeth after a while, and then he began to move faster and harder. It was sweet pleasure shooting through her, and she cried out when he finally shifted his weight forward. He held onto her wrists, holding them down on either side of her head as he fucked her hard and fast. She could feel where the magic had knit her tendons back together, the repair too new and hovering on the edge of pain. Coupled with the pleasure, Natasha closed her eyes and allowed herself a moment to revel in pure sensation.
It was over far too soon, his stuttering rhythm and soft oath in a foreign tongue the only indication she had that he came. He was quiet, observing her responses just as she observed his. She wondered what he thought of what he saw, if he thought she was faking it. For a change, she actually hadn't.
Loki leaned down to whisper in her ear "I always liked playing with spiders." He rose gracefully, looking off into the shadows of the warehouse, and in an instant was clothed again. She was in the process of reaching for her discarded underwear when he turned and looked back at her with an almost sickly grin. "This will be... interesting, I think." A wave of his hand and she was fully dressed again, the rips and tears in her armor still evident. Only the stickiness between her thighs remained, further proof she hadn't dreamed up this entire bizarre encounter.
When she stood, the quilt disappeared. "So what now?" she asked, one eyebrow raised.
If anything, that made him grin even wider. "Continue the dance, of course." And before she could ask what he meant, the air beside him wavered and looked almost watery. "You'll see me again," he declared as he stepped through it.
The air continued to waver for a few more seconds, then seemed to smooth out into nothingness, as if the apparition had never been.
Natasha took stock of the situation, a fine tremor present in her hands. Her wrists were fine, and a quick assessment told her that she still had her fine motor skills intact. If anything, her reflexes seemed to be faster than before. She wrapped her arms around herself and shook for a moment, eyes closed. It was just a moment. She could allow herself that long for self pity and fear. Past that would be wallowing, and that simply was unacceptable.
She pulled on her mental armor and tried to get her head back into its usual mindset. That was harder to do than usual, which also shook her. Damn Loki and his convoluted plots, she would rather deal with the usual political or mob bullshit.
Natasha headed straight to the Helicarrier to speak with Fury.
***
Fury gave her a level look when Natasha finished speaking, taking in her fierce expression and disheveled appearance. "It was Loki, wasn't it? Your unnamed informant?"
"He followed me," she confirmed, not bothering to lie any longer. "He assumed I was part of the detail securing Dr. Foster and attacked. I'm sure he wanted to prove how useless I would be if he wanted to strike," Natasha said, no inflection in her tone. She was mortal, he was not. No point in being angry about the obvious difference.
Instead of commenting on that, Fury simply looked at her and asked, "Are you compromised?"
The word carried so much nuance for her, but she knew what he was asking. Still, she rifled through her memory and motivations as best as she could to give him an accurate answer. "I don't think so," she finally said. "My thoughts are still my own."
Well, that could possibly be debatable, she was sure. But when Clint had been possessed, there had been the presence of an other in his mind, guiding his thoughts and allegiances, making him use his tactical skill and knowledge for a different path. Natasha felt no such presence, and her allegiance remained the same.
"There is that," Fury murmured, arms folded in front of him. "So what does he want?"
"To play," Natasha began slowly. "There's no way to tell what actually passes for normal for his kind, but he uses people as tools. We're simply objects, something like chess pieces or toys. Whatever he has planned, it doesn't necessarily involve us."
"I suppose," Fury began just as slowly, eyeing her carefully, "you just became our Loki expert."
This couldn't be a good development.
"He'll establish contact again, most likely," he continued, ignoring the way her shoulders tensed and she shifted her weight slightly to the balls of her feet. "When he does, you are the liaison we'll need." His voice hardened, coming down like the weight of a sledgehammer against her chest. "You need to make his plans align with ours."
"And if I can't?" Natasha asked, voice calm while her insides roiled.
"You need to make his plans align with ours."
"Yes, sir," Natasha said, voice sharp as a whip.
No room for error, then. She had to make the call, and she had to be right.
The End