"How do you like the skirt?" she twirls in front of him, half-mocking and lazy. Silky black hair stream down her shoulders like a waterfall. There is a strawberry cake in her hands, a small smudge of red in the corner of her lips, a daring twinkle in the dark green eyes that give you the feeling of falling into the black hole, endless, dangerous and too alluring to resist.
"You are beautiful," he smiles at his wife, who slides into his arms and kisses him. Her mouth is fervent: full lips, nimble tongue, and sharp teeth. She kisses hungrily, starved, as if they didn't share a kiss for ages.
And she leans into him and whispers, "Wake up".
\|/
He wakes up.
"Bad dream?" There are long fingers on his forehead, wiping sweat away, "My! You're burning. Wait-"
The hands slip away, and he falls.
\|/
Не wakes up.
There is the face of his beloved in front of him, serene and peaceful. He rarely sees him relaxed these days. The job, which may help to bring Natasha home, is too important for them to mess up, so they bend backwards just to get everything ready in time. And there is little time left for just the two of them.
"Hey," his husband nuzzles his nose against his and grins up at him.
"Hey." It suddenly strikes him that it is today. Do or die scenario.
"-dare die, do you hear me?"
He does not.
\|/
He wakes up.
"Did you like it?" His husband is plucking out a needle out of his veins and smiles expectantly at him.
"It was fascinating. You're fascinating."
There is a faint blush and a wide-eyed wonder. And he wants to kiss all the doubt his husband hides underneath his sleeked back hair away, because he had never met a human being who could build such sublime, believable cities that are so captivatingly beautiful that you want to stay there forever.
And he just wants to stay with his husband.
\|/
He wakes up.
The room is freezing cold, he can hear the hollow of the wind in the farther halls of the house, the squeaks of the parquet in the dining hall, the billowing of the translucent white curtains in the sitting room, the gentle flutter of the petals of the daffodils in the bedroom.
Arms wrap around his torso, a chin is rested on his shoulder, and he wants to turn around to see his partner, but a familiar glint in alien hands and an order breathed out like a prayer stop him, "Wake up!"
\|/
He wakes up.
To fists pounding on his chest, shoulders, fingers wrapping around his neck and a desperate scream, "I want you dead!"
Coughing and trying to pry the too-strong hands off his neck, he dies.
\|/
He wakes up.
Inside a ball made of glass, where he sees a green flicker behind thousands of his reflections. A bleeding cry tears from his chest and he smashes the mirrors with bare hand, and dies in a pool of red.
\|/
He wakes up.
To frantic hands, holding a cloth to his side, to trembling lips, a fierce scowl on a pale marble face, and a snake-like hiss, "You promised".
He cannot say what he has promised, but it must be something insignificant, small. He will ask his husband later, when the world will stop spinning. Only he does not. Because next follows the sea of white, of incoherent screaming, of masked people, of dripdripdrip.
And the narrowed eyes accusing him of something foolish, half-thought out, and brilliant. He cannot bring himself to see the disappointment in them, so he looks away. That is his final and worst mistake.
The door slams shut.
\|/
He wakes up.
His husband throws a pillow at him and laughs, free intoxicating silver bells, "Idiot," it is muttered affectionately, "I only want to experiment, to see what is stored right here," two fingers tap his forehead.
"Why?"
"Why not? Oh, don't look at me like that! We can, that's why. Because we can."
The BIFROST gleams attractive silver at him, even if hidden behind piles of beautiful shirts, calls to him mockingly, daring him to question the bounds of dream reality he established for them, and he is not strong enough to deny the lips full of gleeful inspiring wonder.
\|/
He wakes up.
"Be careful," Natasha warns him, taking a sip from her drink, "He's a careless creature, going through everyone and everything like a wildfire, building exquisite golden castles and then demolishing them to the ground, leaving only ruin. And not looking back or caring."
"And I thought you liked him, a kindred spirit and everything," he watches how she knits her brows and shakes her head, elegant and feverish all at once, and thinks that Clint is a lucky bastard.
"It is the reason I like him. And don't mistake my opportunism with his fickleness. We're very, very different."
He thinks about Natasha, strong, unmovable Natasha with wise eyes and cunning ways, thinks about her devotion to Clint, her desire to stay true to the plan, thinks about the scraps of knowledge he has about her childhood: a harsh woman with sunburned skin and muddy shoes, trampled aspiration to be a ballet dancer, the Swan Queen herself, a deeply buried guilt in a form of a single bear trap.
And then he considers the man of too mercurial imagination, of golden spires and marble halls, of carefree fickleness and a passionate need for improvisation, of childlike grace to the consequences of his actions and of coy beguiling desire to hide in the luxury of his inheritance once everything goes to hell.
Yes, their pointwoman is, as always, accurate, it is foolish to even compare them.
"But what if I don't want to be careful, Natasha?"
She looks at him as if seeing him for the first time, and he marvels at how little all of them know of each other, "Then I'm ashamed I believed you intelligent enough to know that you cannot build on ash".
\|/
He wakes up.
"How was the test run?" Fury is standing in the doorway to the lab, there is a small brown-haired woman, who pushes into the room and goes straight for Steve, taking his heart rate and blood pressure. The last one to be inspected was Thor, so, he must have passed their standards. It would have been a wonder if he did not.
"A very strange dream," mutters Clint, rubbing his eyes, "It's not your usual practice to blow up worlds, is it?"
"What happened?" Fury demands with a sly look and a raised eyebrow.
"There was a man," Clint begins telling the story, but is cut off by Steve, "And I saw a woman in SHIELD uniform".
"And I saw no one, and still got blown to pieces," he interjects, glaring at Fury, whose face is the picture of delight. It's one hell of a disturbing image.
And then there is a starling laugh, high and exhilarating, with a note of pure gold in it, "You're all so easy to fool!"
He turns to give a proper tongue lashing to whoever dared to blow him up, because it hurt and even now he can feel the phantom shards of metal in his chest, can practically touch the invisible open wound in his leg, but is stunned into silence by a vision of pale marble skin and thin lips turned up in a graceful smirk. The young man sits on the sofa, half hidden behind it, and is looking straight at Thor.
"Hello, Thor. Do they miss me in NYC?" Thor gives the stranger a look, and he can swear that there are thousands of words being shared, sounds and images and promises and heartache all rolled up in one single glance that seems to be their own brand of shared history.
"When did you get back?!" Thor huffs, and the stranger's face splits into a wide smile.
"Yesterday's evening," the young man rises in one swift motion and goes for the door, "Do introduce me, Director, or they'd be gawking all day, I fear".
"This is Loki Laufeyson, a psychologist, specializing in dreams. And now a part of a team."
"Wait, why would we need a psychologist?" Clint, no doubt, voices the question of the whole team.
And Loki, he only grins, childlike and thrilling, and motions to the BIFROST, "Another round?"
\|/
He wakes up.
And blinks, when he sees Bruce studying him carefully, as if he is a hungry wild beast that escaped its cage. The chemist is too nervous, too shifty and glances at his watch too often for his liking, but he came at the recommendation of Fury, and if there is a man that has more knowledge of the underbelly of the dream world, then that man is not on speaking terms with him.
He sighs and goes for the coffee machine, already feeling a bit down because of the lack of caffeine in his system. There is a barely audible click of the door and he braces himself for the lecture from Steve, who will probably comment on how he should cut down on coffee, on dreams, on being an insufferable prick, get over his hurt pride, and so on and so forth. He rolls his eyes, and to get it over with, turns around and forgets everything about Steve, his irritation or his coffee.
Because there is a stunning vision of pale marble skin clad into a dark suit and fingers tugging a stray lock of hair behind a ear shyly. Thin lips turn up in a hesitant smile and the man mutters in a silver voice (and he wonders whether it is time taking its toll on the one person he thought ageless or if it is his very own thirty pieces), "Hello, Tony".
His hand instantly slides to his pocket, but the rusty coin is still there, reminding him that coffee must be spilling to the floor, that there is no strength left in him to get irritated and that probably he should thank Steve for being braver than him. And also that-
He is awake.