The knife. It is burrowed between two of her ribs. There is another one stuck in her right shoulder. She can't feel that arm.
This was bound to happen. She has been expecting it for months. Or maybe it is a year now. She isn't sure, Loki's reign has driven her into a cave. Literally. She still remembers the day that he took over. The panic...
"All units, abandon base! The director is down. I repeat, abandon base!"
Deputy Director Hill's voice echoed throughout SHIELD's New York base. Shots were fired near the door. Agents were screaming. She couldn't find Barton.
"Tasha!" She heard a hiss near the ceiling. Looking up she spied his face through the vent bars. "I'm going to get Hill. She's trapped in Fury's office. You go." He urged.
Natasha nodded and pulled a glock from her thigh, shooting the largest window.
"Nat!" His voice found her ears again, more tender than before. She looked up, there was sorrow in his eyes. "Be careful."
She smirked at him, trying to hide her fear. "Always. And Clint?" Her expression turned nostalgic. "I've always been compromised, I never grew up."
"Little Midgardians!" A voice boomed through the smoke. "You are at a hopeless disadvantage. Lower your weapons now and you will be redeemed. Fight and you will die."
With one last farewell glance to Clint, Natasha fired a grappling hook and line through the window and to the ceiling of the quinjet garage, swinging down and releasing her hold just in time to swing into the closing back door of the last fleeing quinjet.
"Romanoff!" Someone yelped in surprise. When she looked up she found Bruce and Steve crouched near the pit. It looked like Tony was piloting. Pepper was in the co-pilot seat.
"Hello boys." She greeted with a saucy grin. "Leaving the party so soon?"
"Where's Barton?" Bruce demanded. "You wouldn't leave him there, would you?"
Natasha's smile faded as she remembered her heroic companion.
"He went back to get Hill." She informed them. "Don't worry, he can make it out." Her reassurance sounded more like a terrified plea.
He hadn't made it out. He'd been taken down trying to breathe life back into Maria's body. That's what Natasha has been told, at least. The pain had been suffocating, but it has numbed and she is glad that she knows (at least that's what she thinks every day).
Better to be slapped with the truth than kissed with a lie. She has told herself, although she is not sure it is true.
Another knife is thrust into her left hand, pulled out, and pushed into her thigh.
"You are pathetic." The pretender whispers in her ear. "You are a feeble, crying child who knows no more about pain than the merest insect. You are a disgrace to your family and to your world. Worthless."
She can handle this. The insults, the tears at all of her self doubts. She has heard them many times before, and had been sure that she would hear them again.
Her right arm is lifted and she cannot help the shriek that escapes as an arrow is stabbed through it, nailing her hand to the wall behind her.
"Look at you." The silver tongue seethes. "Cannot even stand this. You are a weak, whimpering girl who cannot even hold herself up, who struggles to lift her head. Look how frail you are. Do you see who you thought you were? I don't. Look how insignificant you are."
It is this last sentence that has her gasping for air. Her other arm has been nailed up also, but she cannot feel it for the knife in her shoulder. While the word-twister feeds her verbal maladies there is another man who is cutting her cells apart.
Insignificant. She repeats in her head. Insignificant. Worthless. Weak.
He doesn't react to her at all. He lifts one of her limbs, impales her with another arrow and goes on.
Insignificant. Worthless. Weak.
"You couldn't even save those who mattered most to you. Who believed in you. Who spent weeks in cells hoping and praying that you would come for them."
Lies. She thinks. Lies, lies, lies. But she is not sure of anything anymore.
"Your precious Captain America, and that unpleasant Iron Man. He didn't even beg for his life. He wanted me to save Pepper Potts." Here the lie-spinner laughs to himself.
She groans out two words. She sounds like death.
"Come again, my love?" He asks.
"Pepper," She gasps. "Did you save her?" Another shriek -she sounds more like a screaming banshee than a dying assassin- because another arrow has been shoved into her ribcage.
Another chuckle. "I forced him to watch her die and made sure he believed it was his fault."
He is silent for a moment, then raises his hand to signify Clint to stop piercing her with arrows.
"Do you see how insignificant you are to him?" He purrs into her ear. Clint stares at the two -shining god and bleeding mortal- with cold indifference. He is clutching an arrow in his palm and his other hand is fidgeting.
"Do you see how much he wants to hurt you? How impassive he is to your worthless pain?"
The trickster tears the arrows from her hands, releasing her from the wall, and pulls her battered body into his lap. She tries to hide her face, but he grabs her chin roughly and forces her to stare into Clint's electric blue eyes.
"I own you!" Loki snarls. "I control everything you do, everything that happens to you, and your precious savior doesn't even care."
"Clint," she tries, her voice is raspy and hoarse. "Please, Clint."
He just goes on staring at her. Staring and staring and staring.
"Leave us." The monster commands, and Clint obeys.
Insignificant. Worthless. Weak.
"How does it feel to have to yield to he who you tried to conquer?" Loki growls. Without hesitation he picks up her slack body and throws her onto the ground. He wrenches the various knives and arrows from her torso and limbs, then starts to undress himself.
"No." She gasps, her entire body is shuddering in pain.
Her clothes have been torn beyond repair many hours ago, in one swipe he has removed the tatters that remain.
"I own you." He repeats, lowering himself on top of her. "You can do nothing to stop this."
She is thankful when the darkness finally starts to swarm her vision.