Come With Me Now
She's out of the shower and wrapped in an old robe before she remembers her boots. They are still outside her apartment caked with silt. There's blood on the soles as well, probably.
Natasha ties the cord to the robe tighter and walks through the silent rooms. No audience there, but she can't help doing a few pirouettes and a pas-de-chat. The robe twirls around her like the tentacles of a cephalopod, and she can't help wishing she were a squid to flash through untold depths and unbearable pressure in a secret sea.
The boots are where she kicked them off in the hall. As she picks them up dirt sifts over her hands, and she exclaims at flecks of gray on clean skin. Holding them she tiptoes to the little balcony and maneuvers the door open with her heel to throw the boots outside. She'll brush the soles later.
When she returns she isn't alone any longer.
"Agent Romanoff," Loki says. Her nostrils tighten, ready to shout at him. Get Out is what she wants to say, but he continues smoothly with that voice that is sometimes harsh with demanding anger and other times smooth as the cilantro sauce from her favorite restaurant. "Come with me now," he says.
Natasha shakes her head. "Not happening. I have ten hours of free time, and none of them include you."
"Come with me now," he repeats, holding out his hand.
Just a few days ago she finished reading the Narnia series. There is an entire world of children's fiction she gets to explore since the Red Room's library never extended to magic or adventure. She memorized a quatrain in one of the books: "Make your choice adventurous Stranger/ Strike the bell and mind the danger/ Or wonder, till it drives you mad/ What would have followed if you had." Naturally the young characters chose the bell, and chaos ensued.
She can't help choosing chaos as well. His palm is cool, closing over her thumb as the air whirls around them. When it settles they are in his rooms, a place smaller than hers but more artfully furnished. Natasha suspects many of the pieces there are stolen from Asgard. The chest, a few swords and daggers, the collection of mysterious brass instruments could never have come from such a prosaic place as Manhattan.
"Why?" she asks. Natasha wants to find out what the reason is for his intrusion before she escapes to her place where there is no audience and she can dance if she wants to, even if the whole ballerina thing is a bunch of bullshit.
Loki doesn't release her. He waves again, and Natasha suppresses a gasp. The floor and walls disappear, and it seems she floats with him in liquid space surrounded by wheeling constellations, blazing comets, and an ocean of stars. She remembers the squid wish she made before he arrived, and for a moment it seems to have come true. She could thrust out with strong bothria and shoot through the depths of space like a wild undersea creature. It's as though she stands with Loki inside a bathysphere made of nothing, so they are forced together even though the fragile container holding them is invisible.
"Why?" she repeats.
"Once I fell through these depths." Loki points with his free arm, and Natasha sees the perils of outer space: a wheeling wormhole sucking in the light from surrounding stars, the blast of a red dwarf collapsing in on itself, the impossible power of quasars. "I have a theory there is no letting go here since we stand inside infinity itself. After all, what is up or down?"
His words make the stars wheel around her, and Natasha nearly loses her grip. If she lets go of him, she thinks, she might drift off into dark mysteries and never find her way back. She's overwhelmed, so much so the sensation of Loki's arms pulling her to his side is a welcome comfort. It's an unusual solace as his words rationalizing villainy and darkness echo in their non-existent vessel.
"But why show me all this?" They are close enough for her to look straight into his eyes, usually so light and guarded as though he had nailed shutters of pigment over any glimpse into his soul. Now they are dark, soft, the pupils expanded like secret tunnels inside the universe of Loki's strange, alien mind.
"It occurred to me that falling in such a place with another to share the sensation wouldn't be falling at all. It would be flying." The words are murmured into her hair, still wet from the recent shower. As though it is a pistol shot at the start of a race his statement starts a sudden descent so she hurtles with him through velvet depths to fall past solar systems at an impossible pace.
Natasha can't stop herself from clinging to him. It's a moment of panic before the old training takes over to assess the situation. She winds her arms around his neck, one leg over his hip. It's all because of those fucking boots, she thinks. I should have let them rot out in the hall. "Tell me something," she says.
They are so close in freefall (or free-flying) her lips brush his as she asks the question. Instantly Loki's mischief asserts itself, the quirk of ready humor as he nods with mock-seriousness. "Hmm?"
"Were you looking for me in particular to do this? Or did I just happen to be the first open door?"
"Ah, now that would be telling." It's not a kiss, just the paint strokes of mouth against open mouth, tasting shared breath. Probably at this point they are each other's life support.
The galaxies swoosh past them. Of course it is all an illusion, but it's a damn clever trick. Natasha releases Loki's neck to fling one arm out, and the gesture changes their direction, makes them soar in a loop. Basically she's raising her middle finger to physics.
Loki's laugh is velvet in her ear. He doesn't let go of her waist. His strong fingers dig into the soft material of her robe as he steers them back in another direction to start a death-spiral towards a pulsating black hole. At the last moment there's a violent twist, and with some new instinct she twists with him. The motion veers them off course towards a pillar of cloud where constellations and planets reel in flux as galactic bodies are born.
"Come with me now," Loki says again. She nods, feeling his heartbeat against her ribcage. It's a discordant rhythm, not a steady thump she felt in Russia when Bucky held her close after sex. Loki's heartsong is more like a Martian symphony in 9/13 meter. It makes her head tilt back slightly to try and figure it out, and there is that breathplay again. No, not a kiss, but shared sighs as they watch the birth of stars.
Another twist of his hips pushes back the flimsy silk of her robe. The leather codpiece of his breeches is now square against the lips down there, insistent against the buzz of her clit. He knows what he's doing, all right. Natasha can't help staring into Loki's dark pupils, and it's another space voyage at the same time. She's falling inside two universes at once.
"Some infinities are larger than others," she says out of nowhere.
As though it is the key to a secret treasure Loki allows a sigh of want to escape. She tastes the damp of his mouth, feels tendrils of desire against her cheeks as the 9/13 rhythm escalates. Her quim pushes against the codpiece, and she wonders if he can feel it. A slight whimper in his throat tells her he can. His hand fists the material at her back, exposing breasts and thighs to the reeling, drunken astronomy they are creating together.
With her wet explosion the pointilistic universe staggers and collapses. They are back on the ground of Loki's place, the mysterious brass instruments crashing onto the floor with the force of their fall. He's on top of her, panting into her neck.
Natasha strokes the arabesque of his spine and feels the pale flesh shudder under her touch. After such majesty she isn't certain what follows, and when Loki leans on one elbow to look into her face with raised eyebrows, it becomes clear he doesn't either. A quick hook-up just doesn't feel right after watching the birth of stars.
Still, she doesn't give a fuck about the shower or her boots any longer. Instead she pushes him up, tugs him to his bed. They lie close together on the mattress, watching each other intently.
It's a way to keep falling, even if it is into a smaller infinity.