Relieved, 1/3
Title: Relieved
Series: #17 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, #6 - Lick Your Wounds, #7 - Bitter Sparks, #8 - Father's Will, #9 - To Feel Safe Again, #10 - Hit Your Prime, #11 - Open Your Eyes, #12 - Can't Be Ignored, #13 - Make You Ill, #14 - Aim Straight, #15 - Not The First Time, #16 - Friendly Fire)
Author: Eustacia Vye
Author's e-mail: eustacia_vye28@hotmail.com
Rating: NC17
Pairing: Loki/Natasha, Natasha/Bucky Barnes
Disclaimer: Not mine! Some comic backstory is incorporated into characterizations, but this is still primarily movieverse.
Spoilers/Warnings: Post-Avengers, AU to the rest of MCU. Alludes to events in prior stories and outright references others. Warnings for Red Room mindfuckery, PTSD, violence, knifeplay, BDSM with aftercare.
Title and series title from "The Royal We" by Silversun Pickups. Summary is from Celldweller's "Switchback."
Special thanks to romanovasledger for plotting and characterization discussion. :)
Summary: I made a choice that I regret... A painful picture that I can't forget, now what I see is what I get. It's too late to look back.
One - Sliding Back to Oblivion
Maria Hill had let her hair grow longer over the past several months of the Red Room debacle; it wasn't officially being called that, but losing nearly a hundred agents over one dead and one missing potential asset wasn't a worthwhile balance. Having Agents Barton and Romanoff turn to consultants didn't help, either. There were plenty of recruits out of the Academies, but they were green and so idealistic it sometimes hurt to look at them. She knew what they would become once they went out into the field, and there was no preparing them for it. Time and experience would weather them, temper their enthusiasm, dull the hopeful shine in their eyes and leave them as jaded as the senior staff. There was no getting around it.
She was allowed to enter the upper floors of Avenger Tower because she knew Pepper Potts and had a formal request to give Natasha Romanoff. Maria had no illusions that she would be allowed into the residential floors otherwise.
Dressed in a formal black pantsuit, her red blouse was a pop of color that drew the eye. They were Natasha's colors, a subtle callback to her skill as the Black Widow. Maria hadn't been conscious of that when she had dressed that morning, but she had been wondering if Natasha would take the current case or not. She had put on a good enough front for Fury, ensuring him that she was functioning well, but Maria had her doubts. The Red Room was nothing but damage and devastation, and she was high enough level to see the full file contents. Lower level agents would see pages of redacted information, only occasional sentences slipping through. She knew the whole of it, the different interviews that Natasha had given in the beginning, the psychiatrist notes, therapy transcripts, self reports when she trusted the organization enough to not repeat the work she had grown up with.
And even then, Natasha had kept many vital secrets hidden from them. Even as she trusted them, she hadn't given them everything.
This wasn't the same as the Red Room, but Maria had no illusions about it being a cakewalk.
Natasha was in jeans and a red Henley, her hair hanging to her shoulders in soft red waves. She stood there barefoot in the anteroom near the elevators, her green eyes clear and assessing. It was a better reception than Maria thought she was going to get, honestly, and she tried smiling at Natasha in an encouraging manner.
It wasn't returned. Her expression remained blank. That couldn't be a good sign.
"Thank you for meeting with me," Maria said, striding forward. She didn't bother to extend her hand, but kept the smile on her face. "Is there a good place for us to discuss this?"
Though she paused and appeared to think about it, Maria couldn't help but think of it as a calculated ploy to keep her off balance. Natasha was notorious for doing that if she could, the better to keep people at arm's length. Maria knew exactly why she would do that, so she didn't take it personally. If she was as good as Natasha, she might have done the same. It certainly would have saved her a few painful years when trying to date. Now she didn't even bother, and only went for casual hookups if she felt too starved for human company.
Natasha led her to a conference room in one of the public areas for the Avengers. Maria knew that there were open areas that all of them could use, with separate suites or floors above and below that could only be accessed by stairwells or elevators that had no connection to the public elevator banks. If there was one thing Stark knew about, it was how to have some measure of privacy while living in the public eye. He didn't always use that knowledge for himself, but he certainly did for the rest of the team.
Maria didn't bother to waste Natasha's time. She opened the attaché case she brought with her, a sleek black leather item with silver buckles. It didn't escape her notice that Natasha warily watched her bring it up to the table and open it. Her whole body was tense as Maria reached inside it for the case file, a thick folder and an accordion file for the loose sheets that couldn't have holes punched into them.
"You were working on Hydra and Ten Rings cases before the Red Room situation came into play," Maria began. She laid down the folder and the file on the table and pushed them toward Natasha. "We have no intel on the Ten Rings' current locations or activity, but right now there is a lot of activity inside of Hydra. With their power structure gone, and that of AIM pretty much obliterated over the past year, there's a power vacuum. Several candidates have stepped up, and the most prominent among them is Baron von Strucker."
Pausing to watch Natasha delicately open the folder to start looking at its contents, Maria gave her a moment. "That's what we know about him and his rise through Hydra ranks. In the accordion file is what we know about his experiments."
"Experiments," Natasha echoed, a slight husky note to it.
She didn't wince, but Maria wanted to. The last thing she wanted to do to a probably traumatized agent was send them right back out into the same trauma. It was what they had done in the preceding years; she had checked, and Natasha hadn't had any vacation time since she had gone undercover as Natalie Rushman at Stark Industries.
Nodding, Maria eyed the accordion folder. "Similar work with memory alteration, but also the creation of something he had called his 'miracles.'"
"Human subjects," Natasha guessed, voice clipped.
"Yes. We don't know what the point of it was. Others that went in didn't come back out."
That assessing gaze was back, and Maria hit it head on. She wasn't lying to Natasha and wasn't going to force her to take it. Now that Natasha was a consultant, she had a choice. She didn't have to go on this mission. Even Fury's "requests" all had carried the ring of an order, and Natasha hadn't ever refused orders before.
Maybe she should have.
Natasha carefully went through the accordion file's contents, and Maria remained silent, letting her look for her herself. Her expression was stoic as she went through the pictures, the fragments of data salvaged from burned out labs and bombed homes, the guesses that prior agents had made as to the purpose of the Baron's work.
Putting everything back into the file and folder where she found them, Natasha stacked the file over the folder and then pushed it back across the table to Maria. "I can't."
Not I won't, Maria noted, but I can't.
"The memory modification work?" she asked.
"All of it."
There was nothing else forthcoming, so Maria took the material back and put it into the attaché case. "Is there any insight you can give us? Any suggestion as to where to begin looking?"
"No."
Maria lofted an eyebrow at her, waiting. But Natasha was just as good at the waiting game, just as good at the subtle body cues. If anything, her ability was legendary, the yardstick used in SHIELD espionage classes. If Natasha didn't want Maria to know what she was thinking, she wouldn't know. It was as simple as that.
"What can you tell me?" Maria asked finally. There was no bullying, no censure, no judgment in her tone. Just curiosity, the need to complete this task.
"There are obvious things," she replied dismissively. "When dealing with memory, it's a tricky thing to get right. Machines involving drugs, electric current, those are standard. Sensory and sleep deprivation help enhance those effects. Sometimes hallucinogenic compounds."
How much did it cost Natasha to tell Maria those things, as if she didn't have any personal experience with it? She didn't react outwardly, merely nodded. "Staffing would be an issue, I suppose. Especially medically trained staff."
"It would likely be a large operation," Natasha said quietly. "To maximize cost effectiveness."
"Had he ever been in your sights before?" Maria asked, curious.
"No. They were stealing SHIELD tech and data. That was the bigger priority for me," Natasha said in that quiet tone. "What allowed it to go on for so long is that Hydra is compartmentalized. It isn't just that two heads will spring up where one agent fell. It's that each arm is separate, with different goals and different agents in charge."
"Plausible deniability if someone's detained."
"Exactly."
There was a long pause, almost uncomfortable. "You're still our expert in this organization."
Natasha didn't react outwardly. "You should cultivate others."
Maria nodded as if it was an expected response. "You're still recovering," she said quietly, getting to her feet. "We've always asked a lot of you, and you've always delivered. I think we lost sight of what your needs were, and that there should always be limits."
She didn't get up, and shot Maria a wan smile. "That's just it, Agent Hill," she murmured, lips curling into a sardonic smile. "I wasn't supposed to have any."
Discomfited more than she wanted to admit, Maria nodded and walked back out the way she came. As much as it surprised her to see Loki in the vicinity, she had known he was in the building. He had nowhere else to go now that he was permanently banned from Asgard. All SHIELD agents were to be on alert around him, in case he got it in his head to do something drastic or stupid to alleviate his boredom. Few people knew of Natasha's involvement or her attempt to bring him into the fold; apparently this was the one area where she simply couldn't deliver on her promises.
Loki eyed her warily. "What did you discuss with her?"
"It's none of your concern."
"What happens to her is definitely my concern."
There had been speculation as to why he had helped SHIELD with the rings of power, or why he helped Clint Barton and Steve Rogers track down Natasha. There had been Sam Wilson as well, but he wasn't a SHIELD agent, and his involvement had been hidden from SHIELD until it was impossible to hide anymore. He was still healing nicely, and Fury was trying to decide if he was willing to hire Sam; he knew of the organization and likely too many high level secrets. Hiring him was a good way of containing him.
Maria eyed him steadily and he returned her gaze. It didn't fool her that he was leaning against the wall with arms crossed; he likely picked up the pose from one of the humans in the Tower and thought it would make him appear less threatening. That didn't really work, but she pursed her lips and thought quickly.
"You were never formally cleared to be an Agent or consultant," she said. "The information I have is strictly classified and highly sensitive."
"As were the endeavors I assisted Natasha with," he replied coolly.
Point, and she nodded. "Other than as a trickster, what would you have to offer on this?"
He blinked slowly at the word trickster, as if startled but wanted to hide it. Did he perhaps not recognize her from his demolition of the Tesseract research facility? Quite possibly, given that her hair was longer and not pulled back. She looked more office ready than field ready at the moment, though she had a Glock 19 in a shoulder holster.
"You need someone to do very dangerous things," he said, his voice a velvety purr. "We can do this dance, Agent, but if Natasha refused you, I'm sure you have few options left."
She held out the attaché case, but he made no move to take it. "This is all the information we have, all the original data. People are disappearing. Rumor has it that Baron von Strucker is dabbling in memory alteration and the creation of 'miracles,'" she told Loki crisply. "Every agent we sent undercover to find out what the hell that is never returned."
"Those impossible missions are all you've ever used Natasha for, isn't that so?"
"Not all," Maria corrected. "But difficult ones were her specialty. She and Barton were our best strike team, and could get in and out of places most others can't. They never needed an extraction plan from us because they could make their own."
"You think she's broken now."
"On the contrary," Maria replied, a slight huffiness to her tone. "She is a highly capable agent, one I've respected for a long time. We might not have been especially close, but we do know each other pretty well. I'm not going to insult her intelligence by second guessing her decisions or infantilizing her. She's been traumatized by what she went through, and it's not even two weeks since she got back from Atlanta. I don't know the extent of it since Fury black boxed her files. Now no one else can get into them."
"Why do you admit this to me?" Loki asked, suspicious.
Maria wiggled the attaché case still dangling from her fingers. "Because this isn't going to solve itself, and I doubt our agents are vacationing in Maui. But we don't know, can't extradite until we do, and can't protect whoever he's experimenting on."
Loki ambled forward lazily and took the case. "What time frame did you expect this to be completed in?"
"It's a search and destroy mission. Go in, figure out what the hell is going on, take him down if necessary. She has the time and flexibility to do that however she wants."
"Then perhaps I may be able to help you after all."
She held his gaze steadily. "Can you be trusted on this?"
His smile was thin and humorless. "I have seen what the end result of such tender mercies can be," he replied. "I have learned to take exception to such things."
"I wasn't sure Natasha would take this, and I didn't think she should," Maria told him quietly.
"So this was from Director Fury himself," Loki mused, fingers drumming on the sides of the attaché case absently. "He knows I am here, that I'm involved. He must have thought I would be a contingency plan."
"If he did, he didn't talk to me about it," Maria replied in crisp tones.
"No, he is a sly one. I would not expect him to confide in others if secrecy and supposed chance would serve his aims much better."
"How do I get in touch with you?" Maria asked.
"I'll find you," Loki replied smoothly, lips curling into an amused smile. "I can do a great many things I put my mind to."
That was a non-answer, but Maria wasn't about to press. She removed a business card from the suit pocket and handed it over. "My contact information. Memorize it."
He was incredibly amused by that, and tucked the card into the attaché case. "Good day, Agent Hill," he said quietly. It almost sounded like he had respect for her. "We shall definitely be in touch in the future."
***
Loki put the attaché case down in his suite and then went looking for Natasha. She had disappeared from the common area of the receiving floor, and no one seemed to know where she had gone to. Clint was playing a video game in his suite, glorying in the fact that he didn't have to train new agents or head out into the field doing monitoring or assassination missions if he didn't want to do them. Steve and Sif were nowhere to be found. Bruce wasn't in his usual haunts that Loki knew of, but he was also helping Jane with her current research endeavors into dark matter and dark energy. Thor would also likely be hanging about in her orbit, mooning over her and making comments about her brilliance. Not that it wasn't true, but Loki felt as though his guts would rot at the sight of it. Tony was likely in his workshop, and Loki had no desire to be poked by his robots. Pepper was at SI headquarters, Sam was at physical therapy. Asking Jarvis where Natasha was would be cheating.
He found her on the roof, following the direction sense that was almost like the bond that they used to have. She was staring at the skyline, gaze distant as she sat there crosslegged. Loki sat beside her, and she didn't acknowledge his presence.
"You're upset," he said finally.
"They want me to put my mind at risk," she said quietly. "After everything, knowing that it was one of the very few things I said I could never do for them, they ask it of me."
Her voice was even, but the way she held herself was too stiff, too formal. All of the careful piecing herself back together after Clint's death and resurrection must have come falling apart at the mention of memory alteration. Her emotions were too fragile, even though she hid them away and tried to look as though she was functional. The others worried about her; Tony and Bruce didn't know how to approach her without making it seem like they doubted her. Thor, Sif and Jane didn't often have the opportunity to interact with her over the prior two weeks. Steve and Clint never danced around their feelings, and Sam wasn't around often enough to try to joke with her because of his physical therapy.
Taking a chance, Loki grasped her hand in his. "You didn't take it, of course. You matter too much for such a thing."
"And because I'm being selfish, others are dying. Others are being harmed."
"If you go, there's no guarantee that you won't be affected also. Then others will continue to die and be harmed." Loki's voice was infinitely gentle, something that he hadn't thought he was even capable of a year ago. The lengths he went to because of this woman, and she didn't even care for him the same way.
But that wasn't fair. She did care in her own way. There was no need for her to repeatedly sacrifice herself for him, yet she did. Her heart might have belonged to the Winter Soldier, but that didn't mean perhaps a sliver of it belonged to Loki. He might be a greedy bastard, but he was also pragmatic enough to take what he could get.
"It's a lose-lose situation, I know. But I'm not supposed to fail. Failure gets punished."
And punishment when she was a child sometimes killed the girls.
He didn't like her bleak tone, the resigned acceptance that she was somehow flawed. "You're not a failure, Natasha."
"Of course I am. I didn't bring you in. I didn't bring them in. I'm the one that killed Yelena."
"And look at all the lives you saved. Look down at this city and know that every one of those pathetic little lives is safe because of you."
That didn't seem to give Natasha any comfort. Her gaze took in the skyline again, and then she carefully removed her hand from his. "I'm going inside."
Not knowing what to do, Loki remained where he was. He was floundering painfully with this, and if he thought about it too long, he would grow angry. That would make him want to destroy something to get rid of this pain, and Natasha would see it as her fault. Her fault for not containing him, not being there in the way that he needed, not protecting the innocents that would undoubtedly fall to harm even if he didn't intend it.
He covered his face in his hands and tried to remember how to breathe, how to not care. It used to be so easy. How had he done it before?
Loki remained in place until the chill got to him; he was still in the thin casual clothing he had been wearing inside. Cold didn't bother him as much as it did most Asgardians, a leftover trait from his Jotnar heritage he hadn't lost in the Void. Looking around, he could see the twinkling lights of Midtown, the cars and buses down below, the shadow of people walking. The cloud cover and light pollution blotted out most of the stars; how did Jane do any of her cosmology research in this infernal place? New Mexico or Tromsø made much more sense, since she could see the sky and do the observations and measurements herself.
Going inside, he was startled to see Clint Barton actually looking for him. The man usually didn't seek him out, though in recent months he at least didn't walk out of the room as soon as Loki entered it. Progress of a sort. If he cared about such things. Loki hadn't decided yet if it mattered to him or not, but it probably mattered to Natasha.
"Have you seen Tash? We were supposed to go out to Uno's tonight for dinner," Clint asked, a frown marring his features. "I've been vegging, but I figured she was just sick of playing the same video game."
This couldn't be good.
Frowning, Loki contemplated the archer. "Have you been feeling well?"
"Yeah. Got a clean bill of health from SHIELD right before I quit on them, and got it confirmed with one of the docs that Tony hired on to take care of us. They had no idea I'd died."
"I hadn't realized he did that."
"Because you haven't needed it," Clint replied frankly. "So if you think she's avoiding me because I'm sick, that's not it."
No, she was probably avoiding Clint because she felt damaged.
"What is this Uno's you speak of?" Loki asked, hoping to deflect Clint's interest in her.
He nearly goggled at Loki, then seemed to remember himself. "I really shouldn't be surprised that you have no idea what Pizzeria Uno's is," he muttered. "It's deep dish, Chicago style pizza, and sometimes it's a good thing. New York pizza is way better, and there are at least a dozen places in the city where I'd rather go. But she suggested it this morning, so I figured I could always go. It's not bad, their crust is just wrong somehow compared to the good stuff. And I could always get their pasta, that's good."
"I have a feeling you could go on and on about pizza," Loki said dryly, though his mind was whirring. Natasha had wanted to go out for dinner this morning. Then Maria had arrived just after lunch, and she had been withdrawn ever since. Damn SHIELD and their thoughtlessness.
"Hell yeah," Clint replied, shrugging. "What's not to like? Especially when it's done right."
"Perhaps Natasha no longer feels well."
"She'd tell me, though. She wouldn't just disappear on me."
"You didn't ask Jarvis about her whereabouts?"
Clint snorted. "What for? He'd alert us if there was something wrong."
"Just so, Mr. Barton," came Jarvis' disembodied voice.
Clint shot Loki a look as if to say See? and Loki had to nod. There was nothing physically wrong with Natasha, nothing for Jarvis to report. But she was out of sorts, lost and traumatized in subtle ways. And now without working for SHIELD, she had nothing to distract herself with. There was nothing to lose herself in, even if that was detrimental to her mental stability in the long run. She couldn't become anyone else for a job, couldn't push aside her personal issues and focus on something else.
And suddenly, Loki understood exactly how she felt. This was how he was when he discovered he was adopted. This was how empty he felt when illusions crashed down around him, when he had no purpose, when he didn't belong.
He knew how she fixed it for him. He could return the favor for her.
"Well, you go out and eat your dinner. She might feel under the weather and forgot. I'll let her know about it when I see her."
"That confident you will?" Clint asked in arch tones.
"I have advantages that you don't."
"Like lack of tact and common sense," Clint shot back. It wasn't said with mean intent, so Loki let it slide. The archer shrugged, then headed for the elevator bank. "I have my cell if she wants to call or text me later."
"I'll tell her."
"Try not to piss her off too much, will you, Loki? She's been through a lot."
"I know," Loki told him gravely. "I will not alarm her."
Clint gave him an assessing look as he hit the elevator button, but nodded and left without further comment. Loki waited until the elevator doors closed before going directly to Natasha's suite.
She was lying in bed on her side, facing the window. Her back was to the door, and she didn't bother to turn around when he entered the room. She didn't react when he sat down beside her, either. He could see that her eyes were open, but she didn't seem to react to anything she saw through the glass.
"I could have been anyone," he murmured. "I could have hurt you."
"Jarvis won't let anyone up here that would hurt us."
"You didn't used to rely on him that way."
"I have guns and knives stashed all over if I need them."
That sounded more like her, and Loki couldn't help but smile. "Do you need them?"
"I doubt you're here to kill me."
There was something disturbing in her tone, making the smile slide right off his lips. "Do you want to? Die, I mean. Hel made it difficult to do, but not impossible."
"I know. It probably would have happened in Japan. Definitely should have in Atlanta."
Oh, no. Her voice was so dead, so flat. She didn't even move when he brushed her hair away from her cheek. Loki didn't know what to do, what to say.
"It pains you that they're gone," Loki said quietly. She was grieving, after all. It seemed safe enough to at least acknowledge it.
"You must be happy."
"No, I'm not."
"You hated her. You hated that I left you behind."
"But you love them still. I will never compare to that, I see it now. No matter how hard I pushed, you could never tell me you loved me. You could not, because they held your heart. Even in death, they still do." There was something like resignation in his heart, and it colored his tone of voice. Loki had come to grips with that fact over the past two weeks, but that didn't mean he had to like it.
Natasha only exhaled, long and slow and painful. It was answer enough.
"I understand. What have I given you before? Inconvenience, pain, scars, frustration, dread, trouble with your superiors... I was agony for you to bear, and bear it you did. Yet even so, there was some care for me. You saved me from Amora. You brought me to Asgard and kept my secret. You gave me a purpose I tried to scorn."
"That doesn't matter now. I was trying to balance my ledger, is all. I was trying to avoid being a monster. But it doesn't matter. You were right. My ledger can never balance."
Was it trust that made her bare her soul this way? Or that she simply no longer gave a shit?
Loki let his fingers brush against the curve of her cheek gently, tenderly. "You could never be a monster, not as I am."
"Is this a twisted competition?"
"A truth I have come to realize," he replied. "I thought to mock you and your efforts when we first met on the helicarrier. I thought that I could goad you into a miserable display of pain, that it would cause you to weep and gnash your teeth, run back to the others and confirm what a horrid creature I was. But you could not be swayed because you are not me. You're not as monstrous and cruel as I am. You don't glory in others' pain. You don't wish for death to rain down upon your enemies. You still believe in innocence. You still try to save them."
"I didn't-"
"The Hand and Black Spectre agents were not innocent," Loki replied, not caring if there was a hard edge to his voice now. "That doctor in California was not an innocent. The Sarkissians were not innocent."
"It doesn't excuse my role in it. I should have stopped them."
"To what end? So they could kill you? Mock your effort to turn them to a greater purpose? You have been nothing but endless grace and comfort. You truly are the balm I accused you of being, and if they could not see that, they were not worthy of you."
And he meant it, because he knew he wasn't worthy of her. That didn't stop him from desiring her, from being jealous of the affection she had for others, for wanting to monopolize her and dream of the day she would truly approve of him. It wasn't going to be this day, and it might not even happen on her deathbed, but that didn't stop him from wanting it.
Natasha simply closed her eyes. "It doesn't matter now. They're dead."
The bleak tone hurt him physically, and Loki bent over her curled form. He touched his forehead to her temple, wishing he could do something to ease her pain. There was their suspended deal, which she seemed to have forgotten was suspended the week before, and he had been so hopeful initially that it would be enough. Now he wasn't so sure.
"Don't forget the friends you still have here," he murmured gently. "You were supposed to have dinner tonight with Barton."
"Shit."
"You forgot."
"Yeah. Wasn't hungry enough to remember."
"Do you feel anything right now?" he asked, almost dreading her answer.
"No, not really."
Loki sat up and tugged on her arm so that she had to sit up. "Then come with me."
"Why?" she asked, no apparent wariness in her tone. There should have been, as much as that had always stung. Did she simply not care anymore? Was her spirit gone?
She would never miss him this way, Loki knew. She wouldn't necessarily celebrate the way Tony probably would, but she would never be so close to catatonia with her grief. It wouldn't hit her this hard. Her layers and shields would remain in place, and no one would ever guess at her true feelings.
"You helped me when I felt nothing, when I was nothing, even if I didn't recognize it at the time and cursed you for it. You gave me peace, not just at the end of a blade or a fist, but at the touch of your hand and the sound of your voice." Loki paused, searching her expression for some kind of recognition. He didn't see it. "I would give you the same," he said softly, cradling her face in his hands. "I would return the gift you gave me."
"Like when you had me tell you about Yelena."
It also meant he knew far more about the Red Room and their tactics than he was really comfortable knowing. He likely didn't know it all and never would, but he had the same unsettled feeling underneath his skin that he had back on Asgard when he saw the carelessly strewn bodies at the mine. Loki was more comfortable with casual, distant cruelty. Killing in absentia and seeing numbers in a tally. He wasn't comfortable with seeing the direct result of his choices or the naked fear and pain of that type. Others fearing his action and wanting to appease him? That was heady stuff. But the desperation and hopelessness that came just before murder and abject torture? No, that wasn't his style at all.
"I owe you a debt, Natasha, and I mean to repay it."
That she could respond to. That she could accept.
She took his offered hand, nodding, and let him lead her to the Astoria apartment.
***
***
To Chapter Two - Offerings
Series: #17 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, #6 - Lick Your Wounds, #7 - Bitter Sparks, #8 - Father's Will, #9 - To Feel Safe Again, #10 - Hit Your Prime, #11 - Open Your Eyes, #12 - Can't Be Ignored, #13 - Make You Ill, #14 - Aim Straight, #15 - Not The First Time, #16 - Friendly Fire)
Author: Eustacia Vye
Author's e-mail: eustacia_vye28@hotmail.com
Rating: NC17
Pairing: Loki/Natasha, Natasha/Bucky Barnes
Disclaimer: Not mine! Some comic backstory is incorporated into characterizations, but this is still primarily movieverse.
Spoilers/Warnings: Post-Avengers, AU to the rest of MCU. Alludes to events in prior stories and outright references others. Warnings for Red Room mindfuckery, PTSD, violence, knifeplay, BDSM with aftercare.
Title and series title from "The Royal We" by Silversun Pickups. Summary is from Celldweller's "Switchback."
Special thanks to romanovasledger for plotting and characterization discussion. :)
Summary: I made a choice that I regret... A painful picture that I can't forget, now what I see is what I get. It's too late to look back.
One - Sliding Back to Oblivion
Maria Hill had let her hair grow longer over the past several months of the Red Room debacle; it wasn't officially being called that, but losing nearly a hundred agents over one dead and one missing potential asset wasn't a worthwhile balance. Having Agents Barton and Romanoff turn to consultants didn't help, either. There were plenty of recruits out of the Academies, but they were green and so idealistic it sometimes hurt to look at them. She knew what they would become once they went out into the field, and there was no preparing them for it. Time and experience would weather them, temper their enthusiasm, dull the hopeful shine in their eyes and leave them as jaded as the senior staff. There was no getting around it.
She was allowed to enter the upper floors of Avenger Tower because she knew Pepper Potts and had a formal request to give Natasha Romanoff. Maria had no illusions that she would be allowed into the residential floors otherwise.
Dressed in a formal black pantsuit, her red blouse was a pop of color that drew the eye. They were Natasha's colors, a subtle callback to her skill as the Black Widow. Maria hadn't been conscious of that when she had dressed that morning, but she had been wondering if Natasha would take the current case or not. She had put on a good enough front for Fury, ensuring him that she was functioning well, but Maria had her doubts. The Red Room was nothing but damage and devastation, and she was high enough level to see the full file contents. Lower level agents would see pages of redacted information, only occasional sentences slipping through. She knew the whole of it, the different interviews that Natasha had given in the beginning, the psychiatrist notes, therapy transcripts, self reports when she trusted the organization enough to not repeat the work she had grown up with.
And even then, Natasha had kept many vital secrets hidden from them. Even as she trusted them, she hadn't given them everything.
This wasn't the same as the Red Room, but Maria had no illusions about it being a cakewalk.
Natasha was in jeans and a red Henley, her hair hanging to her shoulders in soft red waves. She stood there barefoot in the anteroom near the elevators, her green eyes clear and assessing. It was a better reception than Maria thought she was going to get, honestly, and she tried smiling at Natasha in an encouraging manner.
It wasn't returned. Her expression remained blank. That couldn't be a good sign.
"Thank you for meeting with me," Maria said, striding forward. She didn't bother to extend her hand, but kept the smile on her face. "Is there a good place for us to discuss this?"
Though she paused and appeared to think about it, Maria couldn't help but think of it as a calculated ploy to keep her off balance. Natasha was notorious for doing that if she could, the better to keep people at arm's length. Maria knew exactly why she would do that, so she didn't take it personally. If she was as good as Natasha, she might have done the same. It certainly would have saved her a few painful years when trying to date. Now she didn't even bother, and only went for casual hookups if she felt too starved for human company.
Natasha led her to a conference room in one of the public areas for the Avengers. Maria knew that there were open areas that all of them could use, with separate suites or floors above and below that could only be accessed by stairwells or elevators that had no connection to the public elevator banks. If there was one thing Stark knew about, it was how to have some measure of privacy while living in the public eye. He didn't always use that knowledge for himself, but he certainly did for the rest of the team.
Maria didn't bother to waste Natasha's time. She opened the attaché case she brought with her, a sleek black leather item with silver buckles. It didn't escape her notice that Natasha warily watched her bring it up to the table and open it. Her whole body was tense as Maria reached inside it for the case file, a thick folder and an accordion file for the loose sheets that couldn't have holes punched into them.
"You were working on Hydra and Ten Rings cases before the Red Room situation came into play," Maria began. She laid down the folder and the file on the table and pushed them toward Natasha. "We have no intel on the Ten Rings' current locations or activity, but right now there is a lot of activity inside of Hydra. With their power structure gone, and that of AIM pretty much obliterated over the past year, there's a power vacuum. Several candidates have stepped up, and the most prominent among them is Baron von Strucker."
Pausing to watch Natasha delicately open the folder to start looking at its contents, Maria gave her a moment. "That's what we know about him and his rise through Hydra ranks. In the accordion file is what we know about his experiments."
"Experiments," Natasha echoed, a slight husky note to it.
She didn't wince, but Maria wanted to. The last thing she wanted to do to a probably traumatized agent was send them right back out into the same trauma. It was what they had done in the preceding years; she had checked, and Natasha hadn't had any vacation time since she had gone undercover as Natalie Rushman at Stark Industries.
Nodding, Maria eyed the accordion folder. "Similar work with memory alteration, but also the creation of something he had called his 'miracles.'"
"Human subjects," Natasha guessed, voice clipped.
"Yes. We don't know what the point of it was. Others that went in didn't come back out."
That assessing gaze was back, and Maria hit it head on. She wasn't lying to Natasha and wasn't going to force her to take it. Now that Natasha was a consultant, she had a choice. She didn't have to go on this mission. Even Fury's "requests" all had carried the ring of an order, and Natasha hadn't ever refused orders before.
Maybe she should have.
Natasha carefully went through the accordion file's contents, and Maria remained silent, letting her look for her herself. Her expression was stoic as she went through the pictures, the fragments of data salvaged from burned out labs and bombed homes, the guesses that prior agents had made as to the purpose of the Baron's work.
Putting everything back into the file and folder where she found them, Natasha stacked the file over the folder and then pushed it back across the table to Maria. "I can't."
Not I won't, Maria noted, but I can't.
"The memory modification work?" she asked.
"All of it."
There was nothing else forthcoming, so Maria took the material back and put it into the attaché case. "Is there any insight you can give us? Any suggestion as to where to begin looking?"
"No."
Maria lofted an eyebrow at her, waiting. But Natasha was just as good at the waiting game, just as good at the subtle body cues. If anything, her ability was legendary, the yardstick used in SHIELD espionage classes. If Natasha didn't want Maria to know what she was thinking, she wouldn't know. It was as simple as that.
"What can you tell me?" Maria asked finally. There was no bullying, no censure, no judgment in her tone. Just curiosity, the need to complete this task.
"There are obvious things," she replied dismissively. "When dealing with memory, it's a tricky thing to get right. Machines involving drugs, electric current, those are standard. Sensory and sleep deprivation help enhance those effects. Sometimes hallucinogenic compounds."
How much did it cost Natasha to tell Maria those things, as if she didn't have any personal experience with it? She didn't react outwardly, merely nodded. "Staffing would be an issue, I suppose. Especially medically trained staff."
"It would likely be a large operation," Natasha said quietly. "To maximize cost effectiveness."
"Had he ever been in your sights before?" Maria asked, curious.
"No. They were stealing SHIELD tech and data. That was the bigger priority for me," Natasha said in that quiet tone. "What allowed it to go on for so long is that Hydra is compartmentalized. It isn't just that two heads will spring up where one agent fell. It's that each arm is separate, with different goals and different agents in charge."
"Plausible deniability if someone's detained."
"Exactly."
There was a long pause, almost uncomfortable. "You're still our expert in this organization."
Natasha didn't react outwardly. "You should cultivate others."
Maria nodded as if it was an expected response. "You're still recovering," she said quietly, getting to her feet. "We've always asked a lot of you, and you've always delivered. I think we lost sight of what your needs were, and that there should always be limits."
She didn't get up, and shot Maria a wan smile. "That's just it, Agent Hill," she murmured, lips curling into a sardonic smile. "I wasn't supposed to have any."
Discomfited more than she wanted to admit, Maria nodded and walked back out the way she came. As much as it surprised her to see Loki in the vicinity, she had known he was in the building. He had nowhere else to go now that he was permanently banned from Asgard. All SHIELD agents were to be on alert around him, in case he got it in his head to do something drastic or stupid to alleviate his boredom. Few people knew of Natasha's involvement or her attempt to bring him into the fold; apparently this was the one area where she simply couldn't deliver on her promises.
Loki eyed her warily. "What did you discuss with her?"
"It's none of your concern."
"What happens to her is definitely my concern."
There had been speculation as to why he had helped SHIELD with the rings of power, or why he helped Clint Barton and Steve Rogers track down Natasha. There had been Sam Wilson as well, but he wasn't a SHIELD agent, and his involvement had been hidden from SHIELD until it was impossible to hide anymore. He was still healing nicely, and Fury was trying to decide if he was willing to hire Sam; he knew of the organization and likely too many high level secrets. Hiring him was a good way of containing him.
Maria eyed him steadily and he returned her gaze. It didn't fool her that he was leaning against the wall with arms crossed; he likely picked up the pose from one of the humans in the Tower and thought it would make him appear less threatening. That didn't really work, but she pursed her lips and thought quickly.
"You were never formally cleared to be an Agent or consultant," she said. "The information I have is strictly classified and highly sensitive."
"As were the endeavors I assisted Natasha with," he replied coolly.
Point, and she nodded. "Other than as a trickster, what would you have to offer on this?"
He blinked slowly at the word trickster, as if startled but wanted to hide it. Did he perhaps not recognize her from his demolition of the Tesseract research facility? Quite possibly, given that her hair was longer and not pulled back. She looked more office ready than field ready at the moment, though she had a Glock 19 in a shoulder holster.
"You need someone to do very dangerous things," he said, his voice a velvety purr. "We can do this dance, Agent, but if Natasha refused you, I'm sure you have few options left."
She held out the attaché case, but he made no move to take it. "This is all the information we have, all the original data. People are disappearing. Rumor has it that Baron von Strucker is dabbling in memory alteration and the creation of 'miracles,'" she told Loki crisply. "Every agent we sent undercover to find out what the hell that is never returned."
"Those impossible missions are all you've ever used Natasha for, isn't that so?"
"Not all," Maria corrected. "But difficult ones were her specialty. She and Barton were our best strike team, and could get in and out of places most others can't. They never needed an extraction plan from us because they could make their own."
"You think she's broken now."
"On the contrary," Maria replied, a slight huffiness to her tone. "She is a highly capable agent, one I've respected for a long time. We might not have been especially close, but we do know each other pretty well. I'm not going to insult her intelligence by second guessing her decisions or infantilizing her. She's been traumatized by what she went through, and it's not even two weeks since she got back from Atlanta. I don't know the extent of it since Fury black boxed her files. Now no one else can get into them."
"Why do you admit this to me?" Loki asked, suspicious.
Maria wiggled the attaché case still dangling from her fingers. "Because this isn't going to solve itself, and I doubt our agents are vacationing in Maui. But we don't know, can't extradite until we do, and can't protect whoever he's experimenting on."
Loki ambled forward lazily and took the case. "What time frame did you expect this to be completed in?"
"It's a search and destroy mission. Go in, figure out what the hell is going on, take him down if necessary. She has the time and flexibility to do that however she wants."
"Then perhaps I may be able to help you after all."
She held his gaze steadily. "Can you be trusted on this?"
His smile was thin and humorless. "I have seen what the end result of such tender mercies can be," he replied. "I have learned to take exception to such things."
"I wasn't sure Natasha would take this, and I didn't think she should," Maria told him quietly.
"So this was from Director Fury himself," Loki mused, fingers drumming on the sides of the attaché case absently. "He knows I am here, that I'm involved. He must have thought I would be a contingency plan."
"If he did, he didn't talk to me about it," Maria replied in crisp tones.
"No, he is a sly one. I would not expect him to confide in others if secrecy and supposed chance would serve his aims much better."
"How do I get in touch with you?" Maria asked.
"I'll find you," Loki replied smoothly, lips curling into an amused smile. "I can do a great many things I put my mind to."
That was a non-answer, but Maria wasn't about to press. She removed a business card from the suit pocket and handed it over. "My contact information. Memorize it."
He was incredibly amused by that, and tucked the card into the attaché case. "Good day, Agent Hill," he said quietly. It almost sounded like he had respect for her. "We shall definitely be in touch in the future."
***
Loki put the attaché case down in his suite and then went looking for Natasha. She had disappeared from the common area of the receiving floor, and no one seemed to know where she had gone to. Clint was playing a video game in his suite, glorying in the fact that he didn't have to train new agents or head out into the field doing monitoring or assassination missions if he didn't want to do them. Steve and Sif were nowhere to be found. Bruce wasn't in his usual haunts that Loki knew of, but he was also helping Jane with her current research endeavors into dark matter and dark energy. Thor would also likely be hanging about in her orbit, mooning over her and making comments about her brilliance. Not that it wasn't true, but Loki felt as though his guts would rot at the sight of it. Tony was likely in his workshop, and Loki had no desire to be poked by his robots. Pepper was at SI headquarters, Sam was at physical therapy. Asking Jarvis where Natasha was would be cheating.
He found her on the roof, following the direction sense that was almost like the bond that they used to have. She was staring at the skyline, gaze distant as she sat there crosslegged. Loki sat beside her, and she didn't acknowledge his presence.
"You're upset," he said finally.
"They want me to put my mind at risk," she said quietly. "After everything, knowing that it was one of the very few things I said I could never do for them, they ask it of me."
Her voice was even, but the way she held herself was too stiff, too formal. All of the careful piecing herself back together after Clint's death and resurrection must have come falling apart at the mention of memory alteration. Her emotions were too fragile, even though she hid them away and tried to look as though she was functional. The others worried about her; Tony and Bruce didn't know how to approach her without making it seem like they doubted her. Thor, Sif and Jane didn't often have the opportunity to interact with her over the prior two weeks. Steve and Clint never danced around their feelings, and Sam wasn't around often enough to try to joke with her because of his physical therapy.
Taking a chance, Loki grasped her hand in his. "You didn't take it, of course. You matter too much for such a thing."
"And because I'm being selfish, others are dying. Others are being harmed."
"If you go, there's no guarantee that you won't be affected also. Then others will continue to die and be harmed." Loki's voice was infinitely gentle, something that he hadn't thought he was even capable of a year ago. The lengths he went to because of this woman, and she didn't even care for him the same way.
But that wasn't fair. She did care in her own way. There was no need for her to repeatedly sacrifice herself for him, yet she did. Her heart might have belonged to the Winter Soldier, but that didn't mean perhaps a sliver of it belonged to Loki. He might be a greedy bastard, but he was also pragmatic enough to take what he could get.
"It's a lose-lose situation, I know. But I'm not supposed to fail. Failure gets punished."
And punishment when she was a child sometimes killed the girls.
He didn't like her bleak tone, the resigned acceptance that she was somehow flawed. "You're not a failure, Natasha."
"Of course I am. I didn't bring you in. I didn't bring them in. I'm the one that killed Yelena."
"And look at all the lives you saved. Look down at this city and know that every one of those pathetic little lives is safe because of you."
That didn't seem to give Natasha any comfort. Her gaze took in the skyline again, and then she carefully removed her hand from his. "I'm going inside."
Not knowing what to do, Loki remained where he was. He was floundering painfully with this, and if he thought about it too long, he would grow angry. That would make him want to destroy something to get rid of this pain, and Natasha would see it as her fault. Her fault for not containing him, not being there in the way that he needed, not protecting the innocents that would undoubtedly fall to harm even if he didn't intend it.
He covered his face in his hands and tried to remember how to breathe, how to not care. It used to be so easy. How had he done it before?
Loki remained in place until the chill got to him; he was still in the thin casual clothing he had been wearing inside. Cold didn't bother him as much as it did most Asgardians, a leftover trait from his Jotnar heritage he hadn't lost in the Void. Looking around, he could see the twinkling lights of Midtown, the cars and buses down below, the shadow of people walking. The cloud cover and light pollution blotted out most of the stars; how did Jane do any of her cosmology research in this infernal place? New Mexico or Tromsø made much more sense, since she could see the sky and do the observations and measurements herself.
Going inside, he was startled to see Clint Barton actually looking for him. The man usually didn't seek him out, though in recent months he at least didn't walk out of the room as soon as Loki entered it. Progress of a sort. If he cared about such things. Loki hadn't decided yet if it mattered to him or not, but it probably mattered to Natasha.
"Have you seen Tash? We were supposed to go out to Uno's tonight for dinner," Clint asked, a frown marring his features. "I've been vegging, but I figured she was just sick of playing the same video game."
This couldn't be good.
Frowning, Loki contemplated the archer. "Have you been feeling well?"
"Yeah. Got a clean bill of health from SHIELD right before I quit on them, and got it confirmed with one of the docs that Tony hired on to take care of us. They had no idea I'd died."
"I hadn't realized he did that."
"Because you haven't needed it," Clint replied frankly. "So if you think she's avoiding me because I'm sick, that's not it."
No, she was probably avoiding Clint because she felt damaged.
"What is this Uno's you speak of?" Loki asked, hoping to deflect Clint's interest in her.
He nearly goggled at Loki, then seemed to remember himself. "I really shouldn't be surprised that you have no idea what Pizzeria Uno's is," he muttered. "It's deep dish, Chicago style pizza, and sometimes it's a good thing. New York pizza is way better, and there are at least a dozen places in the city where I'd rather go. But she suggested it this morning, so I figured I could always go. It's not bad, their crust is just wrong somehow compared to the good stuff. And I could always get their pasta, that's good."
"I have a feeling you could go on and on about pizza," Loki said dryly, though his mind was whirring. Natasha had wanted to go out for dinner this morning. Then Maria had arrived just after lunch, and she had been withdrawn ever since. Damn SHIELD and their thoughtlessness.
"Hell yeah," Clint replied, shrugging. "What's not to like? Especially when it's done right."
"Perhaps Natasha no longer feels well."
"She'd tell me, though. She wouldn't just disappear on me."
"You didn't ask Jarvis about her whereabouts?"
Clint snorted. "What for? He'd alert us if there was something wrong."
"Just so, Mr. Barton," came Jarvis' disembodied voice.
Clint shot Loki a look as if to say See? and Loki had to nod. There was nothing physically wrong with Natasha, nothing for Jarvis to report. But she was out of sorts, lost and traumatized in subtle ways. And now without working for SHIELD, she had nothing to distract herself with. There was nothing to lose herself in, even if that was detrimental to her mental stability in the long run. She couldn't become anyone else for a job, couldn't push aside her personal issues and focus on something else.
And suddenly, Loki understood exactly how she felt. This was how he was when he discovered he was adopted. This was how empty he felt when illusions crashed down around him, when he had no purpose, when he didn't belong.
He knew how she fixed it for him. He could return the favor for her.
"Well, you go out and eat your dinner. She might feel under the weather and forgot. I'll let her know about it when I see her."
"That confident you will?" Clint asked in arch tones.
"I have advantages that you don't."
"Like lack of tact and common sense," Clint shot back. It wasn't said with mean intent, so Loki let it slide. The archer shrugged, then headed for the elevator bank. "I have my cell if she wants to call or text me later."
"I'll tell her."
"Try not to piss her off too much, will you, Loki? She's been through a lot."
"I know," Loki told him gravely. "I will not alarm her."
Clint gave him an assessing look as he hit the elevator button, but nodded and left without further comment. Loki waited until the elevator doors closed before going directly to Natasha's suite.
She was lying in bed on her side, facing the window. Her back was to the door, and she didn't bother to turn around when he entered the room. She didn't react when he sat down beside her, either. He could see that her eyes were open, but she didn't seem to react to anything she saw through the glass.
"I could have been anyone," he murmured. "I could have hurt you."
"Jarvis won't let anyone up here that would hurt us."
"You didn't used to rely on him that way."
"I have guns and knives stashed all over if I need them."
That sounded more like her, and Loki couldn't help but smile. "Do you need them?"
"I doubt you're here to kill me."
There was something disturbing in her tone, making the smile slide right off his lips. "Do you want to? Die, I mean. Hel made it difficult to do, but not impossible."
"I know. It probably would have happened in Japan. Definitely should have in Atlanta."
Oh, no. Her voice was so dead, so flat. She didn't even move when he brushed her hair away from her cheek. Loki didn't know what to do, what to say.
"It pains you that they're gone," Loki said quietly. She was grieving, after all. It seemed safe enough to at least acknowledge it.
"You must be happy."
"No, I'm not."
"You hated her. You hated that I left you behind."
"But you love them still. I will never compare to that, I see it now. No matter how hard I pushed, you could never tell me you loved me. You could not, because they held your heart. Even in death, they still do." There was something like resignation in his heart, and it colored his tone of voice. Loki had come to grips with that fact over the past two weeks, but that didn't mean he had to like it.
Natasha only exhaled, long and slow and painful. It was answer enough.
"I understand. What have I given you before? Inconvenience, pain, scars, frustration, dread, trouble with your superiors... I was agony for you to bear, and bear it you did. Yet even so, there was some care for me. You saved me from Amora. You brought me to Asgard and kept my secret. You gave me a purpose I tried to scorn."
"That doesn't matter now. I was trying to balance my ledger, is all. I was trying to avoid being a monster. But it doesn't matter. You were right. My ledger can never balance."
Was it trust that made her bare her soul this way? Or that she simply no longer gave a shit?
Loki let his fingers brush against the curve of her cheek gently, tenderly. "You could never be a monster, not as I am."
"Is this a twisted competition?"
"A truth I have come to realize," he replied. "I thought to mock you and your efforts when we first met on the helicarrier. I thought that I could goad you into a miserable display of pain, that it would cause you to weep and gnash your teeth, run back to the others and confirm what a horrid creature I was. But you could not be swayed because you are not me. You're not as monstrous and cruel as I am. You don't glory in others' pain. You don't wish for death to rain down upon your enemies. You still believe in innocence. You still try to save them."
"I didn't-"
"The Hand and Black Spectre agents were not innocent," Loki replied, not caring if there was a hard edge to his voice now. "That doctor in California was not an innocent. The Sarkissians were not innocent."
"It doesn't excuse my role in it. I should have stopped them."
"To what end? So they could kill you? Mock your effort to turn them to a greater purpose? You have been nothing but endless grace and comfort. You truly are the balm I accused you of being, and if they could not see that, they were not worthy of you."
And he meant it, because he knew he wasn't worthy of her. That didn't stop him from desiring her, from being jealous of the affection she had for others, for wanting to monopolize her and dream of the day she would truly approve of him. It wasn't going to be this day, and it might not even happen on her deathbed, but that didn't stop him from wanting it.
Natasha simply closed her eyes. "It doesn't matter now. They're dead."
The bleak tone hurt him physically, and Loki bent over her curled form. He touched his forehead to her temple, wishing he could do something to ease her pain. There was their suspended deal, which she seemed to have forgotten was suspended the week before, and he had been so hopeful initially that it would be enough. Now he wasn't so sure.
"Don't forget the friends you still have here," he murmured gently. "You were supposed to have dinner tonight with Barton."
"Shit."
"You forgot."
"Yeah. Wasn't hungry enough to remember."
"Do you feel anything right now?" he asked, almost dreading her answer.
"No, not really."
Loki sat up and tugged on her arm so that she had to sit up. "Then come with me."
"Why?" she asked, no apparent wariness in her tone. There should have been, as much as that had always stung. Did she simply not care anymore? Was her spirit gone?
She would never miss him this way, Loki knew. She wouldn't necessarily celebrate the way Tony probably would, but she would never be so close to catatonia with her grief. It wouldn't hit her this hard. Her layers and shields would remain in place, and no one would ever guess at her true feelings.
"You helped me when I felt nothing, when I was nothing, even if I didn't recognize it at the time and cursed you for it. You gave me peace, not just at the end of a blade or a fist, but at the touch of your hand and the sound of your voice." Loki paused, searching her expression for some kind of recognition. He didn't see it. "I would give you the same," he said softly, cradling her face in his hands. "I would return the gift you gave me."
"Like when you had me tell you about Yelena."
It also meant he knew far more about the Red Room and their tactics than he was really comfortable knowing. He likely didn't know it all and never would, but he had the same unsettled feeling underneath his skin that he had back on Asgard when he saw the carelessly strewn bodies at the mine. Loki was more comfortable with casual, distant cruelty. Killing in absentia and seeing numbers in a tally. He wasn't comfortable with seeing the direct result of his choices or the naked fear and pain of that type. Others fearing his action and wanting to appease him? That was heady stuff. But the desperation and hopelessness that came just before murder and abject torture? No, that wasn't his style at all.
"I owe you a debt, Natasha, and I mean to repay it."
That she could respond to. That she could accept.
She took his offered hand, nodding, and let him lead her to the Astoria apartment.
***
***
To Chapter Two - Offerings