Lick Your Wounds, 3/5. NC-17. Loki/Natasha.
Title: Lick Your Wounds
Series: #6 in Ready For The Siege
(#1 - Look Over Your Shoulder, #2 - Armed Up To The Teeth, #3 - Misery Inspires, #4 - Broken Underneath, #5 - Change Is Coming Soon)
Author: Eustacia Vye
Author's e-mail: eustacia_vye28@hotmail.com
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: Loki/Natasha
Disclaimer: Not mine! Dubcon, violence, dom/sub dynamics, aftercare, and a lot of emotional manipulation ahead! Some comic backstory is incorporated into characterizations, but this is still primarily movieverse.
Spoilers/Warnings: Post-movie. Read the other stories before this one, because it does refer back to some events in them, especially #4 and #5.
Title and series title from "The Royal We" by Silversun Pickups
Summary: Loki is angry. However, he doesn't react in quite the way that anyone else had thought he would, least of all himself.
Prior chapter:
One - Unexpected Return
Two - Striking A Bargain
Three - Choose Wisely
"You are cruel."
Natasha looked at him, expression bland. Loki wanted to strike it from her face, wanted to make her see how she demeaned him, how she unmanned him so carelessly. But you chose such debasement, a traitorous voice reminded him. You asked her to do it.
"You didn't come to me to be kind," she pointed out, as if the interaction meant nothing to her. Perhaps it didn't. He had been cruel enough to her in his own way, had stripped her bare, attempted to undermine her agency and remove her allies. She owed him nothing after his treatment of her, yet still she touched him willingly, did not try to strike him down. They were now in a safe house she created for this very purpose, so that his privacy would be ensured. Natasha behaved as if she didn't care who knew of the liaison, but her Hawk had to care. He would have to be affronted by the attention she paid to this endeavor. At least, Loki hoped so. He could then pretend this entire affair was part of a grand plan he had yet to concoct.
"No," Loki said finally, circling her. "You are not kind."
"You didn't come here to be coddled, to be worshipped, to be attended to by a sycophant. You could create those minions if you really needed them." Her gaze was cool, assessing, and Loki wanted to strike her down for it. "You're here because you're patently self destructive, and you have nothing else left to lose."
He wanted to deny the words, wanted to tear her tongue out by its roots. Instead, he was fixed in place, giving her a level look. "It is perhaps just as well you cannot be a mother," he said, not sure why he chose that of all things to say.
"I'm not maternal," she told him flatly. No, it was not an insult to her. "I'm not nurturing, I'm not kind, I'm not affectionate. I am what I was made to be."
"And what is that?"
"A blade," she replied.
Loki didn't see the knife in her hand until it was nearly at his throat. "So the game is on."
"Did it ever really end?"
His smile was a shark's baring of teeth. "I suppose not."
She was not a mother, not the kind to endlessly forgive as Frigga did. There was untapped anger simmering beneath her skin as well, vengeance laced into her very bones. Yet it did not rule her, and Loki couldn't fathom why not. Rage was a comfortable friend, one he knew well, but at times (only at times, he refused to acknowledge more than that) Loki could not see past it. Natasha was tightly controlled, trusting very few people in the world. He was not one of them, could never be one of them. He had all but ensured that with his behavior. Yet here she was in close proximity to him, baring herself to his gaze, his touch, his magic, his venomous tongue. She did not break beneath the constant barrage, but bent and swayed, dodging his blows to return with ones of her own.
Why didn't she break?
The question nagged at him like a sore tooth, and he worried at it constantly. He should by rights be plotting something underhanded. A strike against one of the realms, a ruse to draw out the Avengers, a ploy to wound Asgard. Yet he could not, preoccupied by this one question he could not answer that suddenly seemed so important.
Why didn't she break?
He had almost been close to her, had almost cared for her. That was a far cry from wanting to destroy her, wanting to best her in every way possible. Oh, that urge still existed, but it warred equally with a respect he hadn't expected her to earn.
The knife pressed against the soft skin of his throat, just enough to raise a line of blood. "You have skill with a blade. Did you think you could wield me?" she asked, voice low and just a touch husky, just enough to get his stupid cock to twitch in anticipation of her touch.
"Do you think a blade will bring me to heel?" he asked instead of answering.
"A blade will bring you pause," she replied, echoing his speech pattern slightly. "And that's what you want. Pause. Peace. Quiet. A time when you don't have to think," she murmured, drawing the knife down his throat, "or scheme," she continued, drawing the knife further down to his collarbone, "or posture." The point of the knife dug deep into the hollow between his collarbones, right above his sternum. Blood rose easily from his skin, dripping down his chest. Natasha smeared it into his skin with her opposite hand, appearing pleased that he remained very still under this attention.
"I bested you with a blade," he challenged.
"You used magic," she pointed out. "Could you beat me in a fair fight?"
He was silent, thinking. Perhaps, perhaps not. He wouldn't have fought fair, and he doubted she would have either. The fact that she used her body to distract him then and had viciously sought to disable him was proof of that. "We both have skill."
"So you don't know."
Loki chafed under her bland tone, thinking perhaps this was worse than having to bend over and have her use his body as she saw fit. Her words were blades, as sharp as the one in her hand. He was flayed wide in front of her, and he had put himself into that position. Should he protest, the game was over and he would have no reason to see her again.
That thought almost caused him physical pain. He refused to think of why it would be so.
He realized she was carving into him much as he had carved into her. "Marking your territory?"
"Making sure you don't forget why you're here."
Looking down, she had etched an arrow into his flesh. Rage bubbled up along with his blood, and his eyes flashed to her face. "You would think this a joke? Your Hawk could not strike me, so you will do it for him?"
"I've been told I pierce to the heart of the matter," Natasha said coolly.
With effort, Loki pushed down his rage and the urge to let a blast of magic loose. "In this case, what would that be?"
The smile Natasha gave him could very well have mirrored his own maniacal smiles, and he managed to suppress his shock at the sight of it. "You'll see."
At her direction, he knelt down on the plain laminate flooring of the empty bedroom in the safe house. It was an unassuming one bedroom apartment on the fifth floor of a building in a rundown neighborhood in Astoria, Queens. That was a quick subway ride across the river, unless Loki wished to gift her with a portal device, and anonymous enough of a neighborhood that no one would pay attention to their comings and goings. It was sparsely furnished, though the security system was state of the art and custom installed as soon as Natasha purchased it through proxy personae. There was no bed in this room, and he had wondered why she hadn't bothered to obtain one. She had funds, various accounts known and unknown to her superior officers. She could make the apartment look however she wished.
Right now, she wished for barren and nearly lifeless. He wondered at it.
Natasha trailed the flat of her blade across his shoulder blades. "Bow your head," she commanded, and he found himself following her words without question. It wasn't the same sensation that she had termed subspace, not exactly. More like curiosity at where this would lead, how far would she take this game before he tried to turn the tables.
The edge bit into the skin of his back, though he did not hiss. He couldn't figure out what she was carving into his back, what design she would want to etch into him. It wasn't runic, didn't follow patterns of any magic he had learned or seen. She didn't know magic anyway.
"Stay where you are."
She left the room, heels of her boots clicking on the floor. He was naked, exposed to the chilly air, and he could hear the swish of her nanomesh armor as she sashayed out of the door. Loki could imagine the sway of her hip, the swing in her hair as she turned. He wanted to gather her hair up in his fist, pulling her mouth toward his as he unzipped the armor. He wanted her naked beneath him, panting with want, expression open to his view again. He wanted to see her as she saw him now, wanted to delve into the secrets she held dear and expose them.
He doubted now that he had ever known anything true about her at all.
Loki hissed when she returned and poured liquid over the cuts. They stung, the fragrant oils sinking into his flesh and making it feel as though he was on fire. He couldn't stay kneeling in a still position, not with his back in so much pain.
"Lie down," she said, no inflection to let him know if she cared about the pain she was inflicting on him. "On your back," she commanded when he moved to lie on his stomach. He had no choice to obey if he wanted this game to continue. Gods, she was cruel, she was beautiful, she could be perfect if he would ever be able to turn her from SHIELD's graces.
"I should kill you for this," he gasped, fire licking along his nerve endings.
"But you won't," she replied easily. The nanomesh catsuit was unzipped part of the way, allowing him to see the pale blue camisole beneath it. He reached up to touch the cheap cotton, but she slapped his hand down. "You don't touch me today."
"What was in that?"
"I've been paying attention to lessons," she told him, not directly answering the question. "I've been in contact with some very powerful people who know a lot about you."
Frigga. Hel. Most of the other magic users he knew of would never share secrets with a mortal.
Squeezing his eyes shut, he tried not to focus on the pain. "Work past it," she told him, voice soft. Oh, she could soothe him very well if she chose to, belying the comment that she had no maternal instinct. She could be, if she chose to be.
Choose wisely.
Natasha valued her sense of self. She valued being uncompromised. She valued innocence and balance. Justice. Choice. There was a rigid code of honor she ascribed to, though it was hardly conventional by mortal standards.
Loki could hear her take off the armor, but he didn't dare think it meant she would go easy on him. She was just as dangerous unclothed as she was clothed. He chose to subject himself to this, he chose to try to unravel her. He wanted to see why she did not break, though she gave the appearance of it when he shattered her illusions about him.
"Do you hate me, Natasha?" he gasped, remembering how he was not to call her "little spider" in these sessions. He could if he was in control of her, but he hadn't asked for the privilege to do so yet. He didn't understand this need he had, didn't understand the sensations he desired. He wanted to know that first, master the impulses and see if he could direct them at her. Or so he told himself. He wasn't entirely sure if it was truth or not.
Her lips were right at his ear, tongue flicking the earlobe playfully. "Not as much as you hate yourself, Loki. Don't think I don't know that."
The pain redoubled when he opened his mouth intending to say something cutting. Instead of words, a tortured howl escaped him. "What have you done?"
She ran her fingers over the blood on his chest from the arrow she carved there. Wherever her fingers touched, the pain eased down to tolerable levels. "What you wanted me to do."
"No, I didn't ask for this," he gasped, eyes flying open.
A soft nimbus of magic surrounded her like a halo, a soft silver light that gave her skin a glow. No mortal could have seen it, and Loki rather doubted that she even knew it was there. The oils she had poured onto his skin must have triggered it, though the kind of magic it was existed outside of his knowledge.
"You understand pain, Loki." He could see her stretched out beside him, hand hovering over the center of his chest. There were strands connecting her palm to his sternum, right at the tip of her carved arrow. His blood traced the lines of power across his skin; how could she not see it? What kind of game was she playing? Why was he still allowing this?
He hissed and howled, back arching up as he tried to contain it. His chest made contact with her palm, and only there did the pain lessen. Everywhere else was exquisite agony, fire and sizzling lightning pain burning through him from the inside out.
"You have a ledger, too," she said, her voice a soft croon. That and her hand were the only anchors keeping him in place, and he clung to them like lifelines. "This is your accounting, Loki. We have to do this before we can truly begin."
Hel, then. Frigga would never put him through this.
He screamed, finally unable to contain the torturous pain with silence any longer. Her lips were at his ear, her hand on his chest. Ride it out, her touch told him. It will be worth it when it's all over, and he had to trust in this. She wouldn't want the game to end too soon, she wouldn't want him in pieces. It wasn't her way, it was his.
An indeterminate eternity later, Loki collapsed, his throat raw from the screams he did and didn't make. His entire body was wrung out, left limp and boneless. It was worse than the first time she had taken him, because she barely had anything to do with it. Natasha had laid a hand on him in mercy, and it was the weight of his own sins that he could not bear.
He faced her, eyes glassy. His blood and the mystical oil blend had smeared across the floor, her arms and the top of her cotton camisole. "Natasha," he rasped.
She leaned over and pressed her lips to his forehead in a chaste, gentle kiss. "And now you know what your ledger looks like."
Knowledge burned into him, the names and faces of all his millions of victims, Jotun, Asgardian, Midgardian and outworlder. The last name on his list was hers.
Loki saw her rise and strip off the soiled camisole and panties. "Now…"
"Now you choose. No illusions, no lies. It's your ledger. You choose to keep it in the red or if you balance it out. Now you see what you've done, and the rest is up to you." She retrieved her armor and started to get into it. "You have until next time to think on it. Our deal still stands."
"Why this today, then? Why not any number of other things you could do to me?"
"I am a blade," she said simply. "Now I get to choose what threads I sever. You haven't chosen. You've reacted, for all that you've schemed. Even against me, it was because I got to you first. You were reacting, not acting."
His chest constricted as she zipped up the catsuit. "If you are a blade, what am I?"
"A cannon." Her lips quirked slightly, a private joke he didn't understand. "A glass cannon, given the right kind of blow." She checked her blades and flash bombs, eyes twinkling in amusement, not caring that he could see it. "Perhaps we can change that. After all, I wasn't always a blade."
"What were you?"
Something shifted in her eyes, though her expression was the same. "A wind-up ballerina." The smile on her face was brittle. "And I will never be that again."
She left him in the apartment. It took him hours to regain strength enough to sit up, hours more to crawl outside the bedroom. His clothes were carefully folded, his weapons polished and placed precisely and securely where they were supposed to be. The alarms had been set, protecting him from the outside world, his own proximity and silencing wards still engaged. On the coffee table in front of the simple living room set was a small glass bottle, ornately carved with runes and stoppered with a silver stopper. Crawling to it, he examined the runes.
Hel's doing. Conscience, the inscription read on the stopper. Heart was inscribed on the bottle. Its contents were nearly empty, and Loki closed his eyes as he leaned his forehead against the coffee table.
Natasha called it a ledger, but that was merely a physical emblem to represent her personal accounting. Now she inflicted it upon Loki.
He was too exhausted to seethe. That would have to come later.
***
Natasha was sure that Loki would come after her, supernatural guns blazing. She received her next assignment, a deep undercover mission as a wealthy heiress looking to invest some of the millions she had just inherited. It was how AIM seemed to be getting some of its funding for above board projects, but once she had an in for a legitimate office location, she should be able to find one of their research facilities and track where the money was actually going. There was an actual Ten Rings terrorist group that SHIELD was looking into, but there was some noise underground that AIM was looking to retake its former place in the terrorist tech in a big way. It would require a lot of funding for R&D to develop a new weapon, though various teams were investigating the groups that were developing serums based on Extremis.
She was packing in her suite when Loki appeared. He was dressed in his armor, knives in holsters and a deadly glint in his eyes. He slammed the glass bottle onto her table, watching her closely the entire time.
Not even flinching, Natasha looked at him evenly. "You look better."
"Did you even know what was in that?"
"No." Loki looked nonplused by the flat statement. "I was simply told it would help you to see as I do." She shrugged. "It smelled nice and didn't seem caustic, so I thought the most it would do was sting like a bitch." At his irritated nostril flare, Natasha heaved a dramatic sigh. "Haven't you ever heard of pain play?" Now he seemed confused, so she shook her head and continued her packing. "Of course you haven't. Anyway, it seemed to actually do something. So if you see as I do, then you should know what your ledger looks like."
"I don't want it!" Loki hissed, furious.
"Of course you don't," Natasha replied evenly, looking up from her suitcase. "No one does."
"Erase the spell."
"Can't. I don't even know what triggered it in the first place."
"You did a spell you don't even know how to reverse?" Loki raged, hands clenched into tight fists and teeth bared at her as if he was an angry wolf.
"Please," Natasha scoffed. She moved to her dresser, her back to Loki as she rummaged around for appropriate underwear to bring. "Hel doesn't actually want you dead. If she did, I'm sure she'd find you and kill you herself."
Loki grabbed her arm to spin her around, and she could feel the rise of static from his skin. It was almost like the smell of ozone around her, the little hairs at the back of her neck standing on end from his contact. A little more anger channeled into his hands and he would burn her again. She thought perhaps he was trying to control his temper, but she couldn't be exactly sure in that exact moment. "Hel controls the realm of the dead."
"Yes. Everyone goes there eventually. Even I will. She said she'd welcome me there with open arms." Natasha pointedly shook off his touch. "Until then, I have work to do."
"This?"
"I'll be gone for a while. So you have time to think about what you want from our arrangement."
Blinking in surprise, the electric static abruptly died. "How long will you be gone?"
"I can't say. Sometimes these kinds of missions last for months. One lasted for nearly two years once. It wasn't a particularly pleasant persona, either, so I definitely noticed that one."
Loki scowled. "You cannot leave now."
"I have my orders."
The look on his face was monstrous. "I forbid it."
"You can't."
He took a breath, as if about to say something in a thunderous tone of voice. "I have a job, Loki," Natasha said matter of factly. "That comes first. Remember our rules? You chose to follow them, if you recall."
"You and your rules," Loki sneered, grabbing her again. "They will bind you."
"And you'd love to watch," she replied sweetly, yanking her arm out of his grasp to pack the underwear. She looked over the contents, mentally calculating that she had about a week's worth of acceptable clothing. There was a SHIELD account she could tap to fund other appropriate outfits once she was settled into the house she was "inheriting."
Loki spun her around to face him, anger giving his pale skin a slight flush. "You said there would be a prearranged time and place."
"There will be. Think of this as getting more time to think about what you do and don't want out of this arrangement we have."
"I will not be ignored like a common insect," he snarled, lips drawn back.
Suppressing the urge to sigh and roll her eyes, she reached up and touched his cheek tenderly. "I know. But some things are bigger than us. You don't always get what you want right away, Loki. Sometimes, you have to wait for it."
"And if I can't?" he asked, eyes glittering dangerously.
"Then perhaps you should find someone else to make a deal with," Natasha said simply, hand dropping from his face. She had too much to do and didn't have time to deal with his zig zagging emotions. Not having to worry about him killing her took a lot of the tension out of her dealings with him, that was for sure.
Sulking, Loki stood to the side and watched her pack for her trip. "I'll find you no matter where you go," he said finally.
Natasha faced him, hands on her hips. "Do not ruin this for me, Loki. Promise me that."
"Do you honestly expect me to keep any of my promises?"
He had a point, but Natasha was rapidly losing her patience with dealing with his mercurial moods. "You will keep this one, Loki. If you value the possibility of our association in any way, you will keep this one."
Loki clenched his jaw. "You think to command me?"
"I think you have a choice to make."
Those were apparently the right words to use. His jaw tightened even further, but he nodded stiffly and abruptly said "I promise." Before she could say anything, he disappeared.
She refused to think of the reasons why he might have promised her. She refused to think of what he wanted from her, of the soft, reverent gaze he had when she had dominated him. And she steadfastly refused to think of the anticipation thrumming in her veins at the thought of having him kneel before her.
Natasha had work to do. Those thoughts would have to wait until she had personal time.
***
It made absolutely no logical sense, but Loki had long since stopped thinking along standard logical lines. Perhaps the magic that infused him had warped his thinking, or staring too long into the Void had corrupted him. Or likely it was the jealousy and pain that lay simmering beneath his skin. Anything could bring it forth, and he didn't like to think of the black abyss that passed as his heart. Still, he was capable of affection. He was capable of mercy. Of grace. Of justice. He could be kind, even. He had power in spades, and he could use it to do good. He could, though none would trust his intentions now.
I think you have a choice to make.
The words carried more than one meaning, of course. Conversations with Natasha Romanoff were often barbed things, weapons coated in silken smiles. It was work, a challenge he hadn't had in centuries. She had survived his plots, and she hadn't broken. It drove him mad, and he still didn't understand the secret to her survival.
The branches of this section of Yggdrasil were empty, and he could see the vast blackness of space all around him. No prying eyes, nothing that could hold him accountable. The vacuum was a mirror of his own dark heart, and his skin crawled. Still, he refused to back down. The pain was familiar, burning through him. Fueling him. Gouging out new wounds that he could look upon, reflect on its meaning and use later when necessary.
Oh, how he ached for even a moment's peace. Natasha's damned accounting weighed heavily on him, adding to the oil slick inside his soul. He was drowning inside himself, and her bright red hair shone like a beacon. She was not a virtuous maiden. No, a virtuous woman would not readily admit to killing people and holding a tally that rivalled his own. A virtuous woman would not bargain to save the life of a man that had an equally tainted past, nor would one agree to a bargain that involved debasing herself to suit his whim. Of course, he would debase himself as well, which he would never admit to craving. Even a moment of solace would help ease the strain he was under. Just a moment, the space between her heartbeats at his ear, the stroke of her fingers through his hair or down his spine.
Loki dug his fingers into the flesh of his thigh and rejoiced in the pain. It grounded him, kept him from flying apart and rejoining the chaos in the vastness of space between Yggdrasil's branches. He had been warned not to walk the paths between too often; the distances were often too great, and time and space grew more and more warped the farther he walked.
He was exhausted. He would never admit it to Natasha, but he was tired, down to his bones, and this damned ledger of hers only exacerbated it. The weariness was too heavy, too miserable. It was an unwelcome weight, but to admit it would be weakness. She carried her own weight and seemed to have no difficulty dealing with additional duties. Some part of him was thrilled that she didn't simply dissolve their arrangement.
Looking down at the blood on his thigh, he almost forgot why he was walking along Yggdrasil's branches. The red called to him, though he couldn't have said why. He could have been losing his grip on time and space. He would need an actual place to walk for a time. The pain wouldn't be enough to keep him locked in place as Loki and not simply chaos.
When he found a familiar opening in the branches, he was stunned to find himself in his old suite of rooms on Asgard. He had vowed never to return when he fell from the Bifrost, and he had simply assumed his way would be barred forever. Instead, he found his way there easily, and the suite looked untouched, as if the door had simply been sealed. All of his old books, scrolls and weapons were where he had left them that fateful day. Even the bed covers retained their wrinkles and rumples. He was home, but it no longer felt comfortable. He had changed far too much for it to be.
Still, Loki touched the bed curtains, the corners of his lips curling into a smile. He liked the feel of the silk and the stitching of the embroidery. The pattern looked random, but they were protection spells that his mother had worked into the fabric herself. Even Thor didn't have them, marking him as special.
No, wait. Frigga was not his mother. Thor wasn't his brother. He had no family; he had been left for dead and abandoned, and the Asgardians were strangers. He may have called himself Loki of Asgard, but this was not his home. They were not his family.
Strange how the thought pained him so dreadfully.
He turned when he heard the door opening, not sure what he would find there. Armed guards, perhaps. Loyal Asgardians willing to call him traitor, wanting to bind him hand and foot and deliver him to Odin for punishment.
It was Frigga, in all her regal finery, a look of hope and love on her face that was painful to gaze upon. Her name was on Loki's ledger, now that he had a blasted conscience.
"I almost didn't believe the wards," she said, coming into his room and shutting the door behind her quickly. "I'm glad I came anyway."
"Do you think I have anything to say to you?"
His cruel words halted her progress to his side. "Loki," she said, the hurt tone in her voice wounding him deeply. "Even if you have nothing to say, perhaps you can listen."
"No, I-"
"Listen," Frigga said sharply, her soft voice like a whip crack in the stillness. "Whatever you believe, you are still my son. You always have been, you always will be. I may not like your choices, but those are yours to make."
Choices. Love. Love is for children. You have a choice to make.
"Fine," he said grudgingly, spreading his hands wide. "I'm listening."
She approached slowly, eyes locked to his face. "You were a small thing when Odin brought you back from Jotunheim," she said softly. She didn't reach out to touch him, and he almost wished that she would. "Whatever you think you know of them, most of it is wrong. It was propaganda in wartime that no one bothered to correct when the war was over. You were abandoned in a temple as an offering to their gods-"
"They have no gods."
Frigga gave him an almost patronizing smile. "They have a culture, Loki. It is not ours, but theirs. They have their hopes and dreams and fears, and even as an infant, you inspired fear in them. So even though you should have been King there, you were abandoned."
"So Odin told you-"
"You had magic, even then. It can be sensed, Loki, and they feared it. Theirs is not a culture that values magic. They kill any offspring that has it." Now she reached out to touch his arm gently, and he stood there, transfixed. "I don't think Odin felt it, but I could. So I taught you what I could of controlling your elemental magic and I taught you Asgardian magic." Her smile was soft and tremulous. "I cannot countermand his orders, but in this I did not care. He wanted you raised in our home as our son. He never said what to teach or not to teach. That was my choice, our time together. I gave you a world, Loki. You have part of my heart, and no matter what Odin commands, I cannot undo that."
Loki tried to twist his lips into a sneer, but they simply refused to move. "I was abandoned."
"I hope you never understand the pain that it is to lose a child, the wrongness of it, the grief that never truly dissipates."
He thought of Natasha, that she could not have children and did not want to. And then he wanted to dig his nails into his own soft flesh as penance for even thinking that. "No, I will not know of such things," he replied stiffly.
Frigga was quiet a moment. "Perhaps I should not have taught you as much as I did. Perhaps it would not have pained you so. It set you apart, and I did not see that until too late. If I hadn't been so selfish, keeping you with me for so long... I will never know now, and for that I am sorry. I can't prevent your pain, I cannot ease it. I wish I could."
He wanted to believe her. He wanted to so badly that he ached. Yet he still stood proud and tall, unwilling to bend and buckle in front of her.
"Odin has banished you," she continued softly. "Whatever solace you wanted here, he will not allow you to have it. In the worlds you built in Yggdrasil you may take rest for a time."
"How kind of you," Loki spat, anger and shame warring within him.
Frigga didn't let go of his arm. "I cannot countermand my King. Not openly." She paused to meet his eyes. "You can bring what you like, Loki. But once you leave, I will have to close the ways here from Yggdrasil. You will only be able to enter Asgard by the Bifrost."
"Such a warm welcome," he sneered.
"I seek to keep you alive," Frigga retorted, steel in her tone. "We do what we must, Loki. I will not see you or Odin at war with each other."
"You're afraid I'll win?"
"Such pain," Frigga began, then stopped abruptly. "You have those that would have aided you, if you but accepted it. Instead, you drove away any who may have helped you. You harmed those who could have been friends. Even now, you prefer to wound me with words."
Loki remained silent, agreeing with her. He didn't know how to be kind. It had been burned out of him too long ago. Now he was a monster, the creature that stalked nightmares.
"I left the ways open, hoping one day you would return and I could see you again. There is such pain in you, and I cannot heal it. Despite your actions, there are still those who would be willing to reach out to you." Frigga searched his expression intently. "Natasha is a friend despite your betrayal, is she not?"
"I won't discuss her, Mother."
The word slipped out before he could stop it, and she brightened visibly. He held very still as she slid her hand up his arm to his shoulder. "Allow others to care for you, Loki. There is still some goodness in you, however deep you may have to look."
"I am not good."
"Perhaps," she allowed. "But that doesn't mean you can't do good things." She cupped his face in her hands, and for a moment Loki instead felt Natasha's hands on his cheeks. "We are the sum of our choices, and the successful life is one with the fewest regrets."
His lips parted, maybe to say something, but his tongue refused to work. How humbling and humiliating, the liesmith unable to lie!
"I am full of regrets," Loki murmured finally, covering one of her hands with his own. "I have a path before me, and I must take it," he said, slowly pulling her hand away from his face.
Frigga's smile was infinitely kind. "But paths change. They collide, converge, diverge. You see the paths on Yggdrasil, Loki. You know this to be true."
She deserved a better son than he, Loki decided. If she had another Thor, another willing to cherish her the way she should have been.
"I should leave," Loki said, stepping back. Her remaining raised hand fell slowly to her side, and Loki felt like a heel. He should not have. He should have felt strong putting her in her place, should have felt more like a god than a lost little boy.
Stepping forward, she seized him in a tight, desperate hug. "Perhaps I will find you again, on Midgard or some other realm." She pressed a kiss to his cheek, and he nearly sobbed at the contact. "I still love you, Loki. I do not like the choices you have made, but I still love you."
"I should have been king," he found himself saying into her hair.
"You had a chance when Odin fell into the Odinsleep. But instead of showing how your wisdom could save us, you waged war. You were not better than Thor in that regard."
Chastised, Loki pulled back. "I would have destroyed Asgard's enemies to ensure peace."
"The murder of millions casts a dark shadow," Frigga said softly. "I see it in Odin every day, and I would never wish a fate like that on you."
"I deserve it, do I not? I am the monster from the tales they tell. I'm the creature haunting the dark, ready to kill the babes in their cradles."
Frigga grasped his hands and pulled him close. "You are only a monster if you choose to be. Your fate is your own, Loki, I saw to that. I had given you the gift of knowledge, and you have opportunities in front of you. Your blood does not define who you are. You can choose the path on which you tread. It doesn't have to be this one. You can choose."
Loki wrenched himself away, chest pained and heaving. "No, I cannot." His gaze fell upon the weapons he had once so proudly displayed in his room. Thor had always bested him in combat, and Loki had only ever been in shadow.
"You can," Frigga insisted.
Steeling himself, he turned back to her with his most distant expression. "You delude yourself into thinking I am something soft. I cannot love." Nor could he deserve it in return, could he? Too many had fallen because of his dark desires, too many names on the ledger he had so recently acquired. Knowledge burned, a curse and burden upon him.
So Loki curled his lips into a hateful smile. "You say you love me, that you are my mother. Can you truly be mother to a monster? Even those horrid creatures have mothers, yes? So you would be the mother of a beast, and watch me destroy all of creation?"
"You would not," Frigga said, voice sure as she looked at him. "You will not."
"Sure of yourself?" he asked. How? How could she be certain when he wasn't himself?
"You wouldn't be here if you were willing to destroy us. Take what you need, Loki. I'll help you this once, but once you leave, I can no longer help you directly."
"I don't need your help," he snapped, scorning her kind eyes. That was weakness. That was for children, and he was no child. He was a monster, and that was all he ever could be.
"You may not need it, but I still wish to give it." There was that thread of steel in her voice, the tone that even Odin would heed.
Bowing his head slightly, he nodded sharply. He could feel magic swirl around him, could feel all of his childhood belongings swirl around him in a whirlwind. Instead of the destructive energy his magical tantrum had wrought, Frigga had taken all his possessions and placed them inside a small bag. Loki took it when she pressed it into his hand, not trusting himself to speak. She pressed another kiss to his cheek, and he could feel her love burning him. He had wronged her so much, and he continued to hurt her even now. Loki wished she didn't love him, or that he could beg for forgiveness he didn't deserve. He wanted to hold her tightly and never let go of this moment. If he left now, he would be alone.
And it was no one else's fault but his own.
Frigga gave him one last desperate hug, and it was one that he was ashamed to return with equal fervor, his breath painful in his chest. "I'll send you somewhere safe, Loki. Anywhere on Yggdrasil, to anyone who would shelter you."
Natasha.
***
***
To Chapter Four - Nest of Lies
Series: #6 in Ready For The Siege
(#1 - Look Over Your Shoulder, #2 - Armed Up To The Teeth, #3 - Misery Inspires, #4 - Broken Underneath, #5 - Change Is Coming Soon)
Author: Eustacia Vye
Author's e-mail: eustacia_vye28@hotmail.com
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: Loki/Natasha
Disclaimer: Not mine! Dubcon, violence, dom/sub dynamics, aftercare, and a lot of emotional manipulation ahead! Some comic backstory is incorporated into characterizations, but this is still primarily movieverse.
Spoilers/Warnings: Post-movie. Read the other stories before this one, because it does refer back to some events in them, especially #4 and #5.
Title and series title from "The Royal We" by Silversun Pickups
Summary: Loki is angry. However, he doesn't react in quite the way that anyone else had thought he would, least of all himself.
Prior chapter:
One - Unexpected Return
Two - Striking A Bargain
Three - Choose Wisely
"You are cruel."
Natasha looked at him, expression bland. Loki wanted to strike it from her face, wanted to make her see how she demeaned him, how she unmanned him so carelessly. But you chose such debasement, a traitorous voice reminded him. You asked her to do it.
"You didn't come to me to be kind," she pointed out, as if the interaction meant nothing to her. Perhaps it didn't. He had been cruel enough to her in his own way, had stripped her bare, attempted to undermine her agency and remove her allies. She owed him nothing after his treatment of her, yet still she touched him willingly, did not try to strike him down. They were now in a safe house she created for this very purpose, so that his privacy would be ensured. Natasha behaved as if she didn't care who knew of the liaison, but her Hawk had to care. He would have to be affronted by the attention she paid to this endeavor. At least, Loki hoped so. He could then pretend this entire affair was part of a grand plan he had yet to concoct.
"No," Loki said finally, circling her. "You are not kind."
"You didn't come here to be coddled, to be worshipped, to be attended to by a sycophant. You could create those minions if you really needed them." Her gaze was cool, assessing, and Loki wanted to strike her down for it. "You're here because you're patently self destructive, and you have nothing else left to lose."
He wanted to deny the words, wanted to tear her tongue out by its roots. Instead, he was fixed in place, giving her a level look. "It is perhaps just as well you cannot be a mother," he said, not sure why he chose that of all things to say.
"I'm not maternal," she told him flatly. No, it was not an insult to her. "I'm not nurturing, I'm not kind, I'm not affectionate. I am what I was made to be."
"And what is that?"
"A blade," she replied.
Loki didn't see the knife in her hand until it was nearly at his throat. "So the game is on."
"Did it ever really end?"
His smile was a shark's baring of teeth. "I suppose not."
She was not a mother, not the kind to endlessly forgive as Frigga did. There was untapped anger simmering beneath her skin as well, vengeance laced into her very bones. Yet it did not rule her, and Loki couldn't fathom why not. Rage was a comfortable friend, one he knew well, but at times (only at times, he refused to acknowledge more than that) Loki could not see past it. Natasha was tightly controlled, trusting very few people in the world. He was not one of them, could never be one of them. He had all but ensured that with his behavior. Yet here she was in close proximity to him, baring herself to his gaze, his touch, his magic, his venomous tongue. She did not break beneath the constant barrage, but bent and swayed, dodging his blows to return with ones of her own.
Why didn't she break?
The question nagged at him like a sore tooth, and he worried at it constantly. He should by rights be plotting something underhanded. A strike against one of the realms, a ruse to draw out the Avengers, a ploy to wound Asgard. Yet he could not, preoccupied by this one question he could not answer that suddenly seemed so important.
Why didn't she break?
He had almost been close to her, had almost cared for her. That was a far cry from wanting to destroy her, wanting to best her in every way possible. Oh, that urge still existed, but it warred equally with a respect he hadn't expected her to earn.
The knife pressed against the soft skin of his throat, just enough to raise a line of blood. "You have skill with a blade. Did you think you could wield me?" she asked, voice low and just a touch husky, just enough to get his stupid cock to twitch in anticipation of her touch.
"Do you think a blade will bring me to heel?" he asked instead of answering.
"A blade will bring you pause," she replied, echoing his speech pattern slightly. "And that's what you want. Pause. Peace. Quiet. A time when you don't have to think," she murmured, drawing the knife down his throat, "or scheme," she continued, drawing the knife further down to his collarbone, "or posture." The point of the knife dug deep into the hollow between his collarbones, right above his sternum. Blood rose easily from his skin, dripping down his chest. Natasha smeared it into his skin with her opposite hand, appearing pleased that he remained very still under this attention.
"I bested you with a blade," he challenged.
"You used magic," she pointed out. "Could you beat me in a fair fight?"
He was silent, thinking. Perhaps, perhaps not. He wouldn't have fought fair, and he doubted she would have either. The fact that she used her body to distract him then and had viciously sought to disable him was proof of that. "We both have skill."
"So you don't know."
Loki chafed under her bland tone, thinking perhaps this was worse than having to bend over and have her use his body as she saw fit. Her words were blades, as sharp as the one in her hand. He was flayed wide in front of her, and he had put himself into that position. Should he protest, the game was over and he would have no reason to see her again.
That thought almost caused him physical pain. He refused to think of why it would be so.
He realized she was carving into him much as he had carved into her. "Marking your territory?"
"Making sure you don't forget why you're here."
Looking down, she had etched an arrow into his flesh. Rage bubbled up along with his blood, and his eyes flashed to her face. "You would think this a joke? Your Hawk could not strike me, so you will do it for him?"
"I've been told I pierce to the heart of the matter," Natasha said coolly.
With effort, Loki pushed down his rage and the urge to let a blast of magic loose. "In this case, what would that be?"
The smile Natasha gave him could very well have mirrored his own maniacal smiles, and he managed to suppress his shock at the sight of it. "You'll see."
At her direction, he knelt down on the plain laminate flooring of the empty bedroom in the safe house. It was an unassuming one bedroom apartment on the fifth floor of a building in a rundown neighborhood in Astoria, Queens. That was a quick subway ride across the river, unless Loki wished to gift her with a portal device, and anonymous enough of a neighborhood that no one would pay attention to their comings and goings. It was sparsely furnished, though the security system was state of the art and custom installed as soon as Natasha purchased it through proxy personae. There was no bed in this room, and he had wondered why she hadn't bothered to obtain one. She had funds, various accounts known and unknown to her superior officers. She could make the apartment look however she wished.
Right now, she wished for barren and nearly lifeless. He wondered at it.
Natasha trailed the flat of her blade across his shoulder blades. "Bow your head," she commanded, and he found himself following her words without question. It wasn't the same sensation that she had termed subspace, not exactly. More like curiosity at where this would lead, how far would she take this game before he tried to turn the tables.
The edge bit into the skin of his back, though he did not hiss. He couldn't figure out what she was carving into his back, what design she would want to etch into him. It wasn't runic, didn't follow patterns of any magic he had learned or seen. She didn't know magic anyway.
"Stay where you are."
She left the room, heels of her boots clicking on the floor. He was naked, exposed to the chilly air, and he could hear the swish of her nanomesh armor as she sashayed out of the door. Loki could imagine the sway of her hip, the swing in her hair as she turned. He wanted to gather her hair up in his fist, pulling her mouth toward his as he unzipped the armor. He wanted her naked beneath him, panting with want, expression open to his view again. He wanted to see her as she saw him now, wanted to delve into the secrets she held dear and expose them.
He doubted now that he had ever known anything true about her at all.
Loki hissed when she returned and poured liquid over the cuts. They stung, the fragrant oils sinking into his flesh and making it feel as though he was on fire. He couldn't stay kneeling in a still position, not with his back in so much pain.
"Lie down," she said, no inflection to let him know if she cared about the pain she was inflicting on him. "On your back," she commanded when he moved to lie on his stomach. He had no choice to obey if he wanted this game to continue. Gods, she was cruel, she was beautiful, she could be perfect if he would ever be able to turn her from SHIELD's graces.
"I should kill you for this," he gasped, fire licking along his nerve endings.
"But you won't," she replied easily. The nanomesh catsuit was unzipped part of the way, allowing him to see the pale blue camisole beneath it. He reached up to touch the cheap cotton, but she slapped his hand down. "You don't touch me today."
"What was in that?"
"I've been paying attention to lessons," she told him, not directly answering the question. "I've been in contact with some very powerful people who know a lot about you."
Frigga. Hel. Most of the other magic users he knew of would never share secrets with a mortal.
Squeezing his eyes shut, he tried not to focus on the pain. "Work past it," she told him, voice soft. Oh, she could soothe him very well if she chose to, belying the comment that she had no maternal instinct. She could be, if she chose to be.
Choose wisely.
Natasha valued her sense of self. She valued being uncompromised. She valued innocence and balance. Justice. Choice. There was a rigid code of honor she ascribed to, though it was hardly conventional by mortal standards.
Loki could hear her take off the armor, but he didn't dare think it meant she would go easy on him. She was just as dangerous unclothed as she was clothed. He chose to subject himself to this, he chose to try to unravel her. He wanted to see why she did not break, though she gave the appearance of it when he shattered her illusions about him.
"Do you hate me, Natasha?" he gasped, remembering how he was not to call her "little spider" in these sessions. He could if he was in control of her, but he hadn't asked for the privilege to do so yet. He didn't understand this need he had, didn't understand the sensations he desired. He wanted to know that first, master the impulses and see if he could direct them at her. Or so he told himself. He wasn't entirely sure if it was truth or not.
Her lips were right at his ear, tongue flicking the earlobe playfully. "Not as much as you hate yourself, Loki. Don't think I don't know that."
The pain redoubled when he opened his mouth intending to say something cutting. Instead of words, a tortured howl escaped him. "What have you done?"
She ran her fingers over the blood on his chest from the arrow she carved there. Wherever her fingers touched, the pain eased down to tolerable levels. "What you wanted me to do."
"No, I didn't ask for this," he gasped, eyes flying open.
A soft nimbus of magic surrounded her like a halo, a soft silver light that gave her skin a glow. No mortal could have seen it, and Loki rather doubted that she even knew it was there. The oils she had poured onto his skin must have triggered it, though the kind of magic it was existed outside of his knowledge.
"You understand pain, Loki." He could see her stretched out beside him, hand hovering over the center of his chest. There were strands connecting her palm to his sternum, right at the tip of her carved arrow. His blood traced the lines of power across his skin; how could she not see it? What kind of game was she playing? Why was he still allowing this?
He hissed and howled, back arching up as he tried to contain it. His chest made contact with her palm, and only there did the pain lessen. Everywhere else was exquisite agony, fire and sizzling lightning pain burning through him from the inside out.
"You have a ledger, too," she said, her voice a soft croon. That and her hand were the only anchors keeping him in place, and he clung to them like lifelines. "This is your accounting, Loki. We have to do this before we can truly begin."
Hel, then. Frigga would never put him through this.
He screamed, finally unable to contain the torturous pain with silence any longer. Her lips were at his ear, her hand on his chest. Ride it out, her touch told him. It will be worth it when it's all over, and he had to trust in this. She wouldn't want the game to end too soon, she wouldn't want him in pieces. It wasn't her way, it was his.
An indeterminate eternity later, Loki collapsed, his throat raw from the screams he did and didn't make. His entire body was wrung out, left limp and boneless. It was worse than the first time she had taken him, because she barely had anything to do with it. Natasha had laid a hand on him in mercy, and it was the weight of his own sins that he could not bear.
He faced her, eyes glassy. His blood and the mystical oil blend had smeared across the floor, her arms and the top of her cotton camisole. "Natasha," he rasped.
She leaned over and pressed her lips to his forehead in a chaste, gentle kiss. "And now you know what your ledger looks like."
Knowledge burned into him, the names and faces of all his millions of victims, Jotun, Asgardian, Midgardian and outworlder. The last name on his list was hers.
Loki saw her rise and strip off the soiled camisole and panties. "Now…"
"Now you choose. No illusions, no lies. It's your ledger. You choose to keep it in the red or if you balance it out. Now you see what you've done, and the rest is up to you." She retrieved her armor and started to get into it. "You have until next time to think on it. Our deal still stands."
"Why this today, then? Why not any number of other things you could do to me?"
"I am a blade," she said simply. "Now I get to choose what threads I sever. You haven't chosen. You've reacted, for all that you've schemed. Even against me, it was because I got to you first. You were reacting, not acting."
His chest constricted as she zipped up the catsuit. "If you are a blade, what am I?"
"A cannon." Her lips quirked slightly, a private joke he didn't understand. "A glass cannon, given the right kind of blow." She checked her blades and flash bombs, eyes twinkling in amusement, not caring that he could see it. "Perhaps we can change that. After all, I wasn't always a blade."
"What were you?"
Something shifted in her eyes, though her expression was the same. "A wind-up ballerina." The smile on her face was brittle. "And I will never be that again."
She left him in the apartment. It took him hours to regain strength enough to sit up, hours more to crawl outside the bedroom. His clothes were carefully folded, his weapons polished and placed precisely and securely where they were supposed to be. The alarms had been set, protecting him from the outside world, his own proximity and silencing wards still engaged. On the coffee table in front of the simple living room set was a small glass bottle, ornately carved with runes and stoppered with a silver stopper. Crawling to it, he examined the runes.
Hel's doing. Conscience, the inscription read on the stopper. Heart was inscribed on the bottle. Its contents were nearly empty, and Loki closed his eyes as he leaned his forehead against the coffee table.
Natasha called it a ledger, but that was merely a physical emblem to represent her personal accounting. Now she inflicted it upon Loki.
He was too exhausted to seethe. That would have to come later.
***
Natasha was sure that Loki would come after her, supernatural guns blazing. She received her next assignment, a deep undercover mission as a wealthy heiress looking to invest some of the millions she had just inherited. It was how AIM seemed to be getting some of its funding for above board projects, but once she had an in for a legitimate office location, she should be able to find one of their research facilities and track where the money was actually going. There was an actual Ten Rings terrorist group that SHIELD was looking into, but there was some noise underground that AIM was looking to retake its former place in the terrorist tech in a big way. It would require a lot of funding for R&D to develop a new weapon, though various teams were investigating the groups that were developing serums based on Extremis.
She was packing in her suite when Loki appeared. He was dressed in his armor, knives in holsters and a deadly glint in his eyes. He slammed the glass bottle onto her table, watching her closely the entire time.
Not even flinching, Natasha looked at him evenly. "You look better."
"Did you even know what was in that?"
"No." Loki looked nonplused by the flat statement. "I was simply told it would help you to see as I do." She shrugged. "It smelled nice and didn't seem caustic, so I thought the most it would do was sting like a bitch." At his irritated nostril flare, Natasha heaved a dramatic sigh. "Haven't you ever heard of pain play?" Now he seemed confused, so she shook her head and continued her packing. "Of course you haven't. Anyway, it seemed to actually do something. So if you see as I do, then you should know what your ledger looks like."
"I don't want it!" Loki hissed, furious.
"Of course you don't," Natasha replied evenly, looking up from her suitcase. "No one does."
"Erase the spell."
"Can't. I don't even know what triggered it in the first place."
"You did a spell you don't even know how to reverse?" Loki raged, hands clenched into tight fists and teeth bared at her as if he was an angry wolf.
"Please," Natasha scoffed. She moved to her dresser, her back to Loki as she rummaged around for appropriate underwear to bring. "Hel doesn't actually want you dead. If she did, I'm sure she'd find you and kill you herself."
Loki grabbed her arm to spin her around, and she could feel the rise of static from his skin. It was almost like the smell of ozone around her, the little hairs at the back of her neck standing on end from his contact. A little more anger channeled into his hands and he would burn her again. She thought perhaps he was trying to control his temper, but she couldn't be exactly sure in that exact moment. "Hel controls the realm of the dead."
"Yes. Everyone goes there eventually. Even I will. She said she'd welcome me there with open arms." Natasha pointedly shook off his touch. "Until then, I have work to do."
"This?"
"I'll be gone for a while. So you have time to think about what you want from our arrangement."
Blinking in surprise, the electric static abruptly died. "How long will you be gone?"
"I can't say. Sometimes these kinds of missions last for months. One lasted for nearly two years once. It wasn't a particularly pleasant persona, either, so I definitely noticed that one."
Loki scowled. "You cannot leave now."
"I have my orders."
The look on his face was monstrous. "I forbid it."
"You can't."
He took a breath, as if about to say something in a thunderous tone of voice. "I have a job, Loki," Natasha said matter of factly. "That comes first. Remember our rules? You chose to follow them, if you recall."
"You and your rules," Loki sneered, grabbing her again. "They will bind you."
"And you'd love to watch," she replied sweetly, yanking her arm out of his grasp to pack the underwear. She looked over the contents, mentally calculating that she had about a week's worth of acceptable clothing. There was a SHIELD account she could tap to fund other appropriate outfits once she was settled into the house she was "inheriting."
Loki spun her around to face him, anger giving his pale skin a slight flush. "You said there would be a prearranged time and place."
"There will be. Think of this as getting more time to think about what you do and don't want out of this arrangement we have."
"I will not be ignored like a common insect," he snarled, lips drawn back.
Suppressing the urge to sigh and roll her eyes, she reached up and touched his cheek tenderly. "I know. But some things are bigger than us. You don't always get what you want right away, Loki. Sometimes, you have to wait for it."
"And if I can't?" he asked, eyes glittering dangerously.
"Then perhaps you should find someone else to make a deal with," Natasha said simply, hand dropping from his face. She had too much to do and didn't have time to deal with his zig zagging emotions. Not having to worry about him killing her took a lot of the tension out of her dealings with him, that was for sure.
Sulking, Loki stood to the side and watched her pack for her trip. "I'll find you no matter where you go," he said finally.
Natasha faced him, hands on her hips. "Do not ruin this for me, Loki. Promise me that."
"Do you honestly expect me to keep any of my promises?"
He had a point, but Natasha was rapidly losing her patience with dealing with his mercurial moods. "You will keep this one, Loki. If you value the possibility of our association in any way, you will keep this one."
Loki clenched his jaw. "You think to command me?"
"I think you have a choice to make."
Those were apparently the right words to use. His jaw tightened even further, but he nodded stiffly and abruptly said "I promise." Before she could say anything, he disappeared.
She refused to think of the reasons why he might have promised her. She refused to think of what he wanted from her, of the soft, reverent gaze he had when she had dominated him. And she steadfastly refused to think of the anticipation thrumming in her veins at the thought of having him kneel before her.
Natasha had work to do. Those thoughts would have to wait until she had personal time.
***
It made absolutely no logical sense, but Loki had long since stopped thinking along standard logical lines. Perhaps the magic that infused him had warped his thinking, or staring too long into the Void had corrupted him. Or likely it was the jealousy and pain that lay simmering beneath his skin. Anything could bring it forth, and he didn't like to think of the black abyss that passed as his heart. Still, he was capable of affection. He was capable of mercy. Of grace. Of justice. He could be kind, even. He had power in spades, and he could use it to do good. He could, though none would trust his intentions now.
I think you have a choice to make.
The words carried more than one meaning, of course. Conversations with Natasha Romanoff were often barbed things, weapons coated in silken smiles. It was work, a challenge he hadn't had in centuries. She had survived his plots, and she hadn't broken. It drove him mad, and he still didn't understand the secret to her survival.
The branches of this section of Yggdrasil were empty, and he could see the vast blackness of space all around him. No prying eyes, nothing that could hold him accountable. The vacuum was a mirror of his own dark heart, and his skin crawled. Still, he refused to back down. The pain was familiar, burning through him. Fueling him. Gouging out new wounds that he could look upon, reflect on its meaning and use later when necessary.
Oh, how he ached for even a moment's peace. Natasha's damned accounting weighed heavily on him, adding to the oil slick inside his soul. He was drowning inside himself, and her bright red hair shone like a beacon. She was not a virtuous maiden. No, a virtuous woman would not readily admit to killing people and holding a tally that rivalled his own. A virtuous woman would not bargain to save the life of a man that had an equally tainted past, nor would one agree to a bargain that involved debasing herself to suit his whim. Of course, he would debase himself as well, which he would never admit to craving. Even a moment of solace would help ease the strain he was under. Just a moment, the space between her heartbeats at his ear, the stroke of her fingers through his hair or down his spine.
Loki dug his fingers into the flesh of his thigh and rejoiced in the pain. It grounded him, kept him from flying apart and rejoining the chaos in the vastness of space between Yggdrasil's branches. He had been warned not to walk the paths between too often; the distances were often too great, and time and space grew more and more warped the farther he walked.
He was exhausted. He would never admit it to Natasha, but he was tired, down to his bones, and this damned ledger of hers only exacerbated it. The weariness was too heavy, too miserable. It was an unwelcome weight, but to admit it would be weakness. She carried her own weight and seemed to have no difficulty dealing with additional duties. Some part of him was thrilled that she didn't simply dissolve their arrangement.
Looking down at the blood on his thigh, he almost forgot why he was walking along Yggdrasil's branches. The red called to him, though he couldn't have said why. He could have been losing his grip on time and space. He would need an actual place to walk for a time. The pain wouldn't be enough to keep him locked in place as Loki and not simply chaos.
When he found a familiar opening in the branches, he was stunned to find himself in his old suite of rooms on Asgard. He had vowed never to return when he fell from the Bifrost, and he had simply assumed his way would be barred forever. Instead, he found his way there easily, and the suite looked untouched, as if the door had simply been sealed. All of his old books, scrolls and weapons were where he had left them that fateful day. Even the bed covers retained their wrinkles and rumples. He was home, but it no longer felt comfortable. He had changed far too much for it to be.
Still, Loki touched the bed curtains, the corners of his lips curling into a smile. He liked the feel of the silk and the stitching of the embroidery. The pattern looked random, but they were protection spells that his mother had worked into the fabric herself. Even Thor didn't have them, marking him as special.
No, wait. Frigga was not his mother. Thor wasn't his brother. He had no family; he had been left for dead and abandoned, and the Asgardians were strangers. He may have called himself Loki of Asgard, but this was not his home. They were not his family.
Strange how the thought pained him so dreadfully.
He turned when he heard the door opening, not sure what he would find there. Armed guards, perhaps. Loyal Asgardians willing to call him traitor, wanting to bind him hand and foot and deliver him to Odin for punishment.
It was Frigga, in all her regal finery, a look of hope and love on her face that was painful to gaze upon. Her name was on Loki's ledger, now that he had a blasted conscience.
"I almost didn't believe the wards," she said, coming into his room and shutting the door behind her quickly. "I'm glad I came anyway."
"Do you think I have anything to say to you?"
His cruel words halted her progress to his side. "Loki," she said, the hurt tone in her voice wounding him deeply. "Even if you have nothing to say, perhaps you can listen."
"No, I-"
"Listen," Frigga said sharply, her soft voice like a whip crack in the stillness. "Whatever you believe, you are still my son. You always have been, you always will be. I may not like your choices, but those are yours to make."
Choices. Love. Love is for children. You have a choice to make.
"Fine," he said grudgingly, spreading his hands wide. "I'm listening."
She approached slowly, eyes locked to his face. "You were a small thing when Odin brought you back from Jotunheim," she said softly. She didn't reach out to touch him, and he almost wished that she would. "Whatever you think you know of them, most of it is wrong. It was propaganda in wartime that no one bothered to correct when the war was over. You were abandoned in a temple as an offering to their gods-"
"They have no gods."
Frigga gave him an almost patronizing smile. "They have a culture, Loki. It is not ours, but theirs. They have their hopes and dreams and fears, and even as an infant, you inspired fear in them. So even though you should have been King there, you were abandoned."
"So Odin told you-"
"You had magic, even then. It can be sensed, Loki, and they feared it. Theirs is not a culture that values magic. They kill any offspring that has it." Now she reached out to touch his arm gently, and he stood there, transfixed. "I don't think Odin felt it, but I could. So I taught you what I could of controlling your elemental magic and I taught you Asgardian magic." Her smile was soft and tremulous. "I cannot countermand his orders, but in this I did not care. He wanted you raised in our home as our son. He never said what to teach or not to teach. That was my choice, our time together. I gave you a world, Loki. You have part of my heart, and no matter what Odin commands, I cannot undo that."
Loki tried to twist his lips into a sneer, but they simply refused to move. "I was abandoned."
"I hope you never understand the pain that it is to lose a child, the wrongness of it, the grief that never truly dissipates."
He thought of Natasha, that she could not have children and did not want to. And then he wanted to dig his nails into his own soft flesh as penance for even thinking that. "No, I will not know of such things," he replied stiffly.
Frigga was quiet a moment. "Perhaps I should not have taught you as much as I did. Perhaps it would not have pained you so. It set you apart, and I did not see that until too late. If I hadn't been so selfish, keeping you with me for so long... I will never know now, and for that I am sorry. I can't prevent your pain, I cannot ease it. I wish I could."
He wanted to believe her. He wanted to so badly that he ached. Yet he still stood proud and tall, unwilling to bend and buckle in front of her.
"Odin has banished you," she continued softly. "Whatever solace you wanted here, he will not allow you to have it. In the worlds you built in Yggdrasil you may take rest for a time."
"How kind of you," Loki spat, anger and shame warring within him.
Frigga didn't let go of his arm. "I cannot countermand my King. Not openly." She paused to meet his eyes. "You can bring what you like, Loki. But once you leave, I will have to close the ways here from Yggdrasil. You will only be able to enter Asgard by the Bifrost."
"Such a warm welcome," he sneered.
"I seek to keep you alive," Frigga retorted, steel in her tone. "We do what we must, Loki. I will not see you or Odin at war with each other."
"You're afraid I'll win?"
"Such pain," Frigga began, then stopped abruptly. "You have those that would have aided you, if you but accepted it. Instead, you drove away any who may have helped you. You harmed those who could have been friends. Even now, you prefer to wound me with words."
Loki remained silent, agreeing with her. He didn't know how to be kind. It had been burned out of him too long ago. Now he was a monster, the creature that stalked nightmares.
"I left the ways open, hoping one day you would return and I could see you again. There is such pain in you, and I cannot heal it. Despite your actions, there are still those who would be willing to reach out to you." Frigga searched his expression intently. "Natasha is a friend despite your betrayal, is she not?"
"I won't discuss her, Mother."
The word slipped out before he could stop it, and she brightened visibly. He held very still as she slid her hand up his arm to his shoulder. "Allow others to care for you, Loki. There is still some goodness in you, however deep you may have to look."
"I am not good."
"Perhaps," she allowed. "But that doesn't mean you can't do good things." She cupped his face in her hands, and for a moment Loki instead felt Natasha's hands on his cheeks. "We are the sum of our choices, and the successful life is one with the fewest regrets."
His lips parted, maybe to say something, but his tongue refused to work. How humbling and humiliating, the liesmith unable to lie!
"I am full of regrets," Loki murmured finally, covering one of her hands with his own. "I have a path before me, and I must take it," he said, slowly pulling her hand away from his face.
Frigga's smile was infinitely kind. "But paths change. They collide, converge, diverge. You see the paths on Yggdrasil, Loki. You know this to be true."
She deserved a better son than he, Loki decided. If she had another Thor, another willing to cherish her the way she should have been.
"I should leave," Loki said, stepping back. Her remaining raised hand fell slowly to her side, and Loki felt like a heel. He should not have. He should have felt strong putting her in her place, should have felt more like a god than a lost little boy.
Stepping forward, she seized him in a tight, desperate hug. "Perhaps I will find you again, on Midgard or some other realm." She pressed a kiss to his cheek, and he nearly sobbed at the contact. "I still love you, Loki. I do not like the choices you have made, but I still love you."
"I should have been king," he found himself saying into her hair.
"You had a chance when Odin fell into the Odinsleep. But instead of showing how your wisdom could save us, you waged war. You were not better than Thor in that regard."
Chastised, Loki pulled back. "I would have destroyed Asgard's enemies to ensure peace."
"The murder of millions casts a dark shadow," Frigga said softly. "I see it in Odin every day, and I would never wish a fate like that on you."
"I deserve it, do I not? I am the monster from the tales they tell. I'm the creature haunting the dark, ready to kill the babes in their cradles."
Frigga grasped his hands and pulled him close. "You are only a monster if you choose to be. Your fate is your own, Loki, I saw to that. I had given you the gift of knowledge, and you have opportunities in front of you. Your blood does not define who you are. You can choose the path on which you tread. It doesn't have to be this one. You can choose."
Loki wrenched himself away, chest pained and heaving. "No, I cannot." His gaze fell upon the weapons he had once so proudly displayed in his room. Thor had always bested him in combat, and Loki had only ever been in shadow.
"You can," Frigga insisted.
Steeling himself, he turned back to her with his most distant expression. "You delude yourself into thinking I am something soft. I cannot love." Nor could he deserve it in return, could he? Too many had fallen because of his dark desires, too many names on the ledger he had so recently acquired. Knowledge burned, a curse and burden upon him.
So Loki curled his lips into a hateful smile. "You say you love me, that you are my mother. Can you truly be mother to a monster? Even those horrid creatures have mothers, yes? So you would be the mother of a beast, and watch me destroy all of creation?"
"You would not," Frigga said, voice sure as she looked at him. "You will not."
"Sure of yourself?" he asked. How? How could she be certain when he wasn't himself?
"You wouldn't be here if you were willing to destroy us. Take what you need, Loki. I'll help you this once, but once you leave, I can no longer help you directly."
"I don't need your help," he snapped, scorning her kind eyes. That was weakness. That was for children, and he was no child. He was a monster, and that was all he ever could be.
"You may not need it, but I still wish to give it." There was that thread of steel in her voice, the tone that even Odin would heed.
Bowing his head slightly, he nodded sharply. He could feel magic swirl around him, could feel all of his childhood belongings swirl around him in a whirlwind. Instead of the destructive energy his magical tantrum had wrought, Frigga had taken all his possessions and placed them inside a small bag. Loki took it when she pressed it into his hand, not trusting himself to speak. She pressed another kiss to his cheek, and he could feel her love burning him. He had wronged her so much, and he continued to hurt her even now. Loki wished she didn't love him, or that he could beg for forgiveness he didn't deserve. He wanted to hold her tightly and never let go of this moment. If he left now, he would be alone.
And it was no one else's fault but his own.
Frigga gave him one last desperate hug, and it was one that he was ashamed to return with equal fervor, his breath painful in his chest. "I'll send you somewhere safe, Loki. Anywhere on Yggdrasil, to anyone who would shelter you."
Natasha.
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To Chapter Four - Nest of Lies