She supposed, once they figured out what was wrong with him, it wasn't surprising. Thor had returned with an enormous tome courtesy of his mother, the language archaic and nothing any of them had seen while his baby brother remained in the deepest cell that Tony had been able to create in the tower. He'd been going through the same insane cravings for destruction that had led him to attempt to enslave New York, and after having been able to escape out of Asgard's cells the other Avengers were getting rather antsy to find a cure or something to at least make him calm the hell down. Jarvis was constantly explaining to them how he was having to tighten security, cutting off Clint's abilities to get into the air ducts, having to stop the elevators when Loki would escape. The shackles that Thor had managed to help Tony fasten had kept Loki's powers under control, yes, but the bastard was damn tricky even with them on. As Thor paged through the book he explained to the others around him, Clint, Natasha, and Tony, that Loki was not Aesir, but a frost giant from Jotunheim, what had once been Asgard's greatest enemies. The revelation, as the truth had been kept from Loki and Thor as they grew up, had been the tipping point that had pushed him over the edge, and after the spell had been broken, the glamor disappearing once he'd touched the Casket of Ancient Winters Thor wondered if there wasn't something physically different about him that made him prone to these fits.

Well, that was one way of looking at it.

'So you're trying to explain to us that he goes through his own sort of time of the month?" Tony asked, looking as though he could barely contain his own amused grin, Natasha's arms folding over her chest. It made sense, she supposed.

"If they're creatures that come from a frozen world it would make sense that their bodies would react differently than ours do. The decreased appetite but increased restlessness?" She said, voice quiet as she ticked off the symptoms in her head. "The mood swings and proclivity to cause destruction? It would make sense for a community where only the strong survive. These fits would be instinctive, and once they run their course he's easier to subdue, isn't he?" She asked, watching as Thor's blue eyes rose from the old pages to stare at her, watching the plan formulate in her own gaze.

"What are you suggesting?" He asked.

"Does your book say that they have any specific ways of getting their aggression out?" She asked, stepping closer even though the words on the pages were symbols without meaning. Behind her she heard Clint release a low sigh, his sign that he knew she was going to do something possibly stupid, probably dangerous.

Both in this case.

"It is said that it would subdue if they have a mate," Thor murmured.

"Mate?" Tony looked taken aback. "Like . . . they mate for life, kind of thing?"

"Yes. Do you Midgardians have something similar to that?" Thor asked, looking curiously up at him, his finger marking his place on the page as Nat squinted at it, trying to make sense of it and all but willing her brain to decipher the ancient language. Not that it helped, but it did give her something to look like she was doing as her brain worked.

"Uhh, no. Wolves, and swans. Penguins and animals do it, but not humans. We're lucky if we can get to the ten year wedding anniversary," Tony grimaced. "Mating for life isn't really part of our make up. Nat?"

She'd crossed the room without saying another word, though Clint's eyes watched her go with unspoken concern that she had to compartmentalize. Her partner worried about her, she knew, but while Loki was here her best friend would never be able to relax, not really. He deserved it, and she was determined to give it to him, no matter what she had to sacrifice for it.

"My lady, what do you intend on doing to Loki?" Thor asked, following her in a few short steps as Natasha made a beeline for the elevators, already commanding Jarvis to let her down to the level Loki was on.

"I'm going to wear him out," she murmured. "Only one here who can do it, right? All that pent up energy's gotta come out." She looked back at him. "Might want to look at finding him a wife on Asgard when this is all done. Someone with high stamina. You guys can do that, right? Arrainged marriages and what not?"

Thor's mouth dropped, not having expected her to have been so upfront about what she was asking. Hell, she wondered if women even had a semblance of a voice when it came to sexual matters. It certainly wouldn't have surprised her if not. Taking advantage of his silence, however, she slipped into the elevator and turned to look at Thor before the doors shut.

"Promise I won't hurt him too much," she said, winking. "Not unless he wants it."

When the doors shut and the she felt the elevator as it began to descend she relaxed, cracking her neck and spine to try and limber up. She wasn't sure what to expect, and asked Jarvis to keep a high alert on the floor before she even got there, keeping the guys in the loop just in case the worst came to pass and Loki made an attempt on her life before she could get around to subduing him. She didn't think she'd have a problem with the latter-hadn't in all her years of using her body as her most valuable asset-but she didn't want to end up dead because of her pride. She wouldn't allow her name to be added to the roster of Black Widows who'd let their egos get the best of them.

The elevator hit the bottom floor with a soft 'ding' as Nat straightened her back and waited for the door to open. The hallway stretched for a good couple yards, leading to the only door on the entire floor, three inches of titanium. Her fingers caressed the runes that Thor had carved into the metal with Mjolnir and, taking one last deep breath, tapped the four-digit code into the security lock. There was a soft hiss as the seal came undone and she hefted the door open.

He might as well have been sitting inside an insane asylum, the way the cell was created. Whatever Tony had planned on housing in here, Loki certainly wasn't the only threat he'd had on his mind, as the metal walls were made of the same titanium as the door, except thicker. Though they had a soft, padded cover, likely to keep anyone within them from accessing the metal and managing to somehow manipulate it, he'd left the walls white, and the brightness of it was really disconcerting.

"Jarvis, lights," she murmured, and the door closed behind her as they dimmed. Loki sat on the floor in one of the corners, his black hair curled and disheveled as he stared up at her with murder lined curiosity in his green eyes. His hands were bound in front of him in the thick manacles he'd been brought to Asgard with, and his clothing had seen better days, that was for certain.

"What in the Hel do you want?" He spat, any niceties disappearing as she stepped closer to him. She felt his eyes rove her form, searching her for weapons most likely, not only for fear of what she would do to him but what, exactly, could he use against her. She tried not to shiver as he focused on her throat, on the way her heart had started to pound faster. His thin lips turned upwards in a slash of a smirk. "You've not come to gloat, Agent Romanov, as I'd assumed. So what is it? Looking to watch another regime fall?" As he spoke his voice gained more confidence, taking on its more silky qualities. He began to stand, as well, but she shook her head, close enough to press her hand to his chest and force him to sit down. He growled at the contact.

"Don't touch me," he bit, quicksilver in the way his moods changed. But she'd gotten what she needed from it, had felt the way his whole body trembled, not with the effort that came with standing up, but the extra energy that bounced around within him, the discontent that darkened his words and his eyes until the man sitting in front of her was little more than a rabid animal.

One she very much planned on taming.

From one of the pockets of her cat suit she pulled out the key to his manacles and held it up for him to inspect, watched as his pupils dilated with want as he stared at it before turning to focus on her. He laughed.

"I hadn't expected you to actually plan on toppling SHIELD. What's wrong? Fury not treating you as though you're his favorite pet anymore?" He gloated, trying to relax his shoulders as his head lolled to the side to take her in.

"This isn't about SHIELD." She said. "This is about you and I. Mostly about you, and what you need."

He paused, licking his dry lips. "And what do I need, Agent Romanov?"

There, now they were getting somewhere. She took half a step backwards and toed off the shoes she'd worn, the black, short boots she wore around the house, before disarming and dropping her Bites down to the floor. Loki's attention never wavered from her as she undid both utility belts from her waist and set them beside her boots, and as one of her hands moved to the zipper she actually heard him hiss with surprise as she slid it down towards her navel, shrugging the shoulders off until it, too, was discarded beside the rest of her gear. His pupils had blown wide as he stared at her, mouth dropping open half an inch. She knew she was a sight to behold, the deep green of her bra and matching panties a happy coincidence for Loki. He just had to pick the one color that looked best on her, didn't he? She padded towards him and hunched down so that she was on his level, the key still in her hand, though it was clear he was having a difficult time picking something to focus on. His eyes looked near about to pop out of his skull as it was, and she had to wave the key in front of his eyes to ensure that she had his full attention.

"Attempt to kill me and the guys will be down here in half a minute to avenge me. You know we're good at that by now," she murmured, voice husky, intentionally pitching it to be as seductive as could be. Judging by the way his adam's apple bobbed it worked. "We play by my rules. You need this more than I do, don't forget that," she murmured.

It took half a moment for her words to register and once they did he looked furious for half a moment. "I do not need anything from you," he spat, looking disgusted at the mere mention of it. "You, a filthy Midgardian whore who needs to undress in order to gain the attention of greater beings-."

She caught him by the jaw and held onto him, tight enough to bruise, holding his head very still as she applied as much pressure as she could muster. Her brow pulled tight as she stared him down.

"Call me a whore again and I'll give you such a case of blue balls you'll wish you'd been born a woman," she growled. "You've got too much pent up energy. I'm here to help you be rid of it. Understood? This isn't an offering, it's a job. I'm here to help my team. Now, you can either accept it and we can get on with this, or I'll leave you here to rot, sexually frustrated until your heart finally stops beating. Trust me. I can wait."

He didn't say a word, never leaving her gaze as she held him and finally pressed her lips hard against his. Judging by the way he surged back against her, tongue battling hers for dominance, teeth crashing against her own before biting on her lower lip, she thought it was safe to assume that he agreed. Good.

She pulled away to undo his shackles, grateful that the room itself was spelled so that his magic wouldn't be able to get him out of it, just in case he'd somehow managed to undo the shackles himself, but he couldn't have been less interested in the concept of escape, fingers already scrambling to throw his tunic up and over his head, his loose trousers following after. He pressed her back, kissing her hard once more and pressing as close to her as he could possibly get, as though physical contact was the one thing he'd missed in his isolation, and for all she knew it was. She wasn't sure how much actually attention he'd gotten as a child, and added to these needs he had to expel all his excess energy it was small wonder he nearly came apart when she brought her hands up to his bare shoulders and raked her nails over the smooth skin. His groan vibrated against her skin and through his whole body, and though he pressed her onto her back, his hands palming her breasts through the bra, she hooked her legs around his waist and flipped them over so that she was atop him.

"We're doing this my way," she murmured, ashamed to say that the throaty quality of her voice stemmed from her own arousal, the slick heat between her thighs only growing as he bucked up against her, hard and hot and right where she needed him. Damn. It would've been much easier to hate him had he not been so . . . well, she supposed being a frost giant, even a runt, had to have paid off somehow.

"Fine," he keened, sitting up to mouth at the curve of her throat, tracing her collarbone and eventually the swell of her breasts, sucking at the white skin as she rolled her hips against his length, letting him feel exactly what he was doing to her. It would all go so much more smoothly if he knew this wasn't an act, if he could get some semblance of truth from the interaction.

Lies and deceit were his bread and butter but the truth? The truth would only scare him back to the reality of the situation, and the reality was that Natasha was in charge. No matter what.

She lifted herself onto her haunches to remove the lacy panties, though his fingers twitched at his sides as he watched her, as though he was envisioning ripping them off. She smirked and took his hands instead to the clasp of her bra. There. If he wanted to be useful then hopefully he could manage that without damaging that lingerie. She spoke too soon, the god beneath her growing too aggravated with the difficulty of the hooks and simply ripping it apart and throwing it to the side.

"Some subtle god you are," she muttered as she shifted her panties off. Anything he could've said as a retort was cut off as she took him in hand and ran her hand up his shaft gently, sliding her thumb over the tip so that he keened and arched his back, the pad of her thumb pressing against the slit as a bead of precome came out. She scooted back so that her thighs covered his own and bent down to bring his member into her mouth, swirling her tongue around the head before sinking her head onto it, taking him in wholly and drawing her tongue on the underside.

She was amazed at his level of self control as he bunched the padded flooring beneath him in his fingertips rather than lacing them through her hair and fucking into her mouth as most men were wont to do. She hummed in her pleasure at his actions and he swore in a language too pretty to sound vulgar. Her skin erupted in goosebumps and the heat between her legs intensified as a result, her breath knocked from her lungs as she pulled away from his cock to stare at his pink cheeks and the self-satisfied smirk that scrawled across his face.

Fine. He wanted to play that way?

She shifted closer and brought him inside her with the neatest swivel of her hips, biting her bottom lip to keep herself from whimpering as she sank down until he was wholly inside her. F-uck. That was nice.

Judging by the way his back bent so far it was a miracle he didn't break it, he felt the same, and his hands surged forward to grab hold of her hips once he finally allowed himself to relax, bucking his hips up towards her. She rode out every thrust of his, gaining him little to no extra friction, and moved his hands instead to her breasts when he tried to stop her hips, to hold her into place so he could fuck up into her.

"I told you," she gasped as she situated herself onto her haunches so she could slowly raise herself up off of him, before slipping right back down, sheathing him in one swift motion that nearly brought tears to her eyes it felt so good. "I'm in control, Loki. Yes?"

"Ng," he moaned, his head thrown back and eyes closed. That wouldn't do. Her hand came down on his cheek, the noise of it sharp and swift as his attention snapped back to her.

"Am I in control, Loki?" She asked, eyes narrowing. She had threatened to leave him there, and no matter how good he felt inside her, how perfectly he fit and how he hit that sensitive patch of nerves within her. She had to keep her control. This wouldn't work if she didn't.

"Yes," he growled, his chest heaving as he tried to force himself to calm down, nostrils flaring as he stared up at her. She smiled and the hand that she'd slapped him with caressed the pink stretch of flesh gently.

"Good. Then fuck me." She said with a smirk.

He pumped up into her without a second thought, hands squeezing her breasts, taking her nipples between his thumb and pointer fingers and rolling them around until she squealed in delight, her head thrown back as he leaned up to bite her throat.

Control. It was all about control, she told herself. As he thrust into her he was doing it at her command, and it took him a while to grasp the concept but when he did he stilled within her, body thrumming with barely contained fury. She'd tricked him. Again. The roar that ripped through his body wasn't human, and she was ripped away from him and all but thrown onto her front as he mounted her from behind and pressed into her without so much as a second thought. She screamed into the soft surface beneath, nails biting into her palms as she fisted them tight enough to make her knuckles go white. It wasn't enough for him, fingers bruising her sides as he held her in place, the rhythm of his hips faster than anything she could've imagined. One of his hands disappeared, and his thumb worked its way to her clit, pressing hard against the sensitive bundle of nerve endings. Natasha shook.

"You think you're clever, do you spider?" Loki asked, bending over her to hiss in her ear, worrying her earlobe with his teeth, ignoring the tears that rolled down her cheeks at the overload of pleasure. "Think you're so fucking smart, do you? Come for me then. This is what you want, isn't it?" He shoved harder into her, so much so that she was amazed she could still feel, but no, he was clever as well. For as much abuse as he gave her he walked that fine line between just enough and not nearly as much as she could take. From invading Barton's mind he knew all her kinks, all the little things that made her tick, and as his other hand fondled her breast he pressed harder against her clit, rolling the bud between his fingers until she screamed and shook beneath him, tightening around him. He groaned, hips stuttering, not having expected to come with her. The moment he did she knew something was wrong, off, just a lot. He stilled within her, humming into her skin as his hips bucked shallowly, filling her, and then when he didn't move she realized just what was so wrong. He'd somehow expanded, near the base, so that when she tried to shift and pull away from him she found that she couldn't.

"What the fuck did you do?" She seethed, twisting her head to look back at him, and as she tried to shift again he gave a low cry of muffled pleasure and surprise.

"Dunno but stop," he said through gritted teeth, staring down at where they met. She stilled beneath him, slowly rolling down onto her belly as he followed her down, resting on his forearms and knees to keep from crushing her. Lithe and wiry though he might have been, she'd tried shoving Thor once and had ended up throwing out her back as a result. Those bastards were heavy.

She was brought out of the memory as Loki nuzzled against the back of her neck, humming happily.

Happily?

Shit.

It took them a little bit but eventually they were able to separate, and Loki did so with a soft groan as he pulled away and fell, limp boned and exhausted, to the ground, satiated and looking beyond pleased with himself. "We should do that more often," he murmured, but his smile faded as he saw her quickly stand to pull on her clothing once more. "Where are you going?"

"I need to talk to your brother about something," she said quickly, keeping her face turned away from his. She didn't have to be looking at him to know that he was disappointed with it, all but able to see the turn in his brow and the tenseness beginning once again in his body, though nowhere near the same amount as there had been before.

"Oh. Very well. You'll be wanting me back in chains then?" He asked, voice lilting with the suggestion. She stopped a smile before it could work its way into her voice.

"Something tells me you won't be needing them for some time," she said, and once everything was firmly back in place, sans the bra because Loki had no concept of self control, she saw her way out.

"FUCK!"

Loki, as it turned out, didn't want to go back to Asgard. He had no need for it, he explained to the other Avengers much to Clint's displeasure, though he promised to stay on the opposite side of the tower as often as he could. Hell, he offered to help with the repairs of the building, especially where the Hulk had made a Loki-sized impression in the floor. Tony wasn't too keen on getting rid of that particular piece of history, but they compromised with him helping to fix Manhattan, restoring the damage done to the historical statues, buildings, and art that had been destroyed in the battle.

Every so often the tension would get to him, and Nat would always catch him fingering a dagger or else glaring murderously at Tony after one of the inventor's asinine jokes. She'd intervene before it got to be too much, tapping Loki on the shoulder and flicking her head almost imperceptibly to the side, and he would follow her lead without question. Once he got over the initial shock of having a bondmate, as they were called according to the book that Thor had turned over to Loki for him to read, and after the second shock of it being a mortal, a human, had worn off as well he fell into the swing of things with ease.

Nat, in the meanwhile, found she didn't mind him so much, especially not when he went cuddly as a kitten soon as they finished, her body holding his tight, lips pressing to his skin as her fingers ran through his hair. Nothing else in her life had been normal, after all. Why the hell would it start any time soon?