A/N: Meh, it's about 12 hours late but never mind. I finished chapter five at 6am so my sleeping pattern is totally fubar'd. Anyway, depending on how much I get done on six today, I may post tomorrow morning, or else it'll be tomorrow night.
Mutiny
by Flaignhan
"Goodness," Sif breathes, when Natasha steps out into the corridor. She blinks, then turns to look at Fandral, who is surveying Natasha with great interest.
"You look quite lovely," he says with a smile. "Far too pretty to be kept in the dungeons all day."
"So help me escape?" Natasha asks hopefully, fiddling with her dress. The mirrors were steamed up in the bathroom, so she hasn't had a chance to see what it looks like yet, but it feels good. It's all silk and velvet and delicate embroidery, tiny hand-sewn stitches keeping everything together. The top part is tight fitting, comfortably so, while the skirt is long and flowing, trailing along the floor as she walks. Its colour is a deep forest green, and the significance isn't lost on Natasha, nor will it be lost on the others. He might as well have stamped her forehead with his signature, and finished it off with a fuck you to the rest of them. Her hair is still damp, clinging to her neck, and she can feel her stomach sinking as they head back towards the dungeons. She doesn't want to go back. Not just because being kept in a prison cell is a drag, but she can't face the others, not in this dress, with its golden detailing and its luxurious layers of material, not with the knowledge that he has had his hands on her, seen more of her than any of them have. She doesn't think she'll be able to look them in the eye.
Using her body to her advantage is one thing, but for her self respect to remain undamaged, it has to work. Otherwise it's just pathetic.
They reach the door that leads down to the dungeons and Natasha hangs back, her stomach churning. Her skin feels hot, and acid rises in her throat. Sif turns to look at her, her brow creasing.
"You have to go back in," she says gently.
Natasha shakes her head. "No I don't want to," she chokes. "Please don't…" Her hands are shaking uncontrollably and she can't shut it down. All that waits down there for her is shame and accusations of betrayal. She never asked for extra food, nor did she ask for a stupid dress, but she's been given them, and for some reason she is plagued with guilt. She can't face them, can't bear to have Clint glowering at her day in, day out, thinking the worst of her and not believing a word she says.
"But what's the matter?" Fandral asks, bowing his head to try and meet her eye. Natasha looks away, not wanting them to see her in this stupidly weak moment.
"Fandral," Sif says, as though he's being an idiot. "She's being held prisoner."
"But she was fine before!" Fandral argues.
Sif sighs in exasperation and Natasha turns away from them, covering her face with her hands as she tries to get her head together. Now is not the time to fall apart. She's just bargained her way into getting out of her cell for an hour each day, if she falls apart now, she will fall apart every time she has to return to the dungeons, and she won't allow herself to slip into such a self-destructive habit. She's better than that.
"Natasha?"
She feels the need to justify herself, to make sure they realise that this isn't some stupid little panic attack because of a cell. It's much much more than that.
"They think I'm gonna go bad again, I know it. I was bad before but then I was good, and I've been good ever since and I'm still good." She pauses, taking a deep breath, which catches in her throat. She coughs, pressing a hand to her chest as she tries to put her words into an intelligible order. "He's playing these stupid little games, turning them all against me and it's working. It's been so fucking easy and he's going to keep pushing and pushing and if I walk in there dressed like this," she grabs a fistful of her skirt and tugs at it. "They're gonna think the worst and think that I only care about getting myself home, and I don't. I can't…I can't fucking do this!" She punches the wall, but all she achieves is a grazed set of knuckles and a ton of pain, but the pain is good, and it helps her concentrate.
"He'll get bored," Sif tells her gently. "He will."
"After he's broken every single one of us," Natasha replies darkly. She takes a steadying breath and closes her eyes. She shouldn't care what they think of her, she's never cared what anybody thinks of her, but after everything they went through during New York, she would have hoped that even if they didn't like one another, they would at least trust one another.
"Look," Sif says firmly. "You have to go back in there. You have no choice in that. What you do have a choice in is whether you walk back in there, with your head held high because you've done nothing wrong, or go back in there feeling ashamed of yourself because that's how they've made you feel. Just because they think you have something to be ashamed of, it doesn't mean that you do."
Natasha forces all emotion out of her mind, focusing instead on her throbbing knuckles, and soon enough, her hands are steady as a rock. She reaches out for the door knob herself, and leads the way back down the stairs.
She doesn't allow her confidence to falter when she enters the dungeons, and she waits patiently while Fandral unlocks her cell, then steps inside without complaint. Sif smiles briefly at her, her mood entirely different now they're below ground, and Natasha nods at her as the glass slides shut, sealing her in for another day.
"Look who's all pretty as a princess," Clint sneers.
Fandral turns, and Natasha thinks for a moment that he might say something, but Sif grabs him by the arm, pulling him from the dungeons before they have to witness any more discord.
"They're fresh outta jeans," Natasha replies coolly.
"You look very nice," Steve says quickly, just as Clint opens his mouth to send an acidic retort in Natasha's direction. He stops, the words never leaving his mouth, then shakes his head, retreating to the corner of his cell and slumping down, legs crossed, head resting back against the wall. Natasha sits down too, kicking off her shoes and drawing her knees up, arms resting atop them as she stares glumly at the wall.
"Nobody gonna point out that that was one hell of a long shower?"
"Hawkeye, there aren't any clocks in here, you can't know…this place messes with your head," Bruce says, glancing over to Natasha. He's been doing well, considering the amount of tension that is tainting the place, and she hasn't once been worried that he might lose it and transform. Perhaps the threat of losing his hands is enough to keep him level-headed.
"Bullshit," Clint says in response. "She's been gone for ages."
"Yeah but girls always take forever," Jane chimes in. "That's just how it is."
Clint sends a filthy look over towards Jane's cell, but she doesn't seem to be bothered by it.
"Come on, it's just a shower," she says, and Natasha can hear the nervous smile in her voice. "It's no big deal."
"And a dress," Clint tells her. "A nice little green and gold dress. I wonder who else wears green and gold?"
"What was I supposed to do? Come back naked? And the reason I was gone so long was because it was a bath. Not a shower."
"You said shower," Clint argues. "You can't even keep your bullshit lies straight..."
"I asked them for a shower. I was given a bath."
"Did you see him?" Tony asks, eyeing her curiously. "Loki? Did you see him?"
"Yeah," Natasha says, knowing it will only be worse if she lies. It will come out of the woodwork at some point and cause her a whole world of trouble.
"So did you speak to him?" Steve asks, his interest piquing. Even Bruce sits up straighter, shuffling closer to the glass so he can have a better view of her. It's his dark eyes, more than anyone else's, that will be able to see through her the soonest. She knows that, and so she steels herself, slowly letting each part of her poker face slide into play - the relaxed brow, the slack lips, the steady gaze of her eyes.
"Yeah, but it wasn't really…" She doesn't know what to tell them, because of the few words exchanged, none of them were remotely noteworthy.
"Wasn't really what?" Bruce asks.
Natasha shrugs. "Nothing happened."
"We didn't ask you if anything happened," Tony says, his voice suddenly cold. "We asked you what was said."
Natasha sighs in frustration. "He was just being an asshole," she says exasperatedly. "Same old shit, nothing new."
"Okay," Tony says, nodding, though there is something in his tone that Natasha doesn't like. "So next question: what happened?"
"I already told you," Natasha replies. "Nothing."
"Yeah, but this nothing is clearly playing on your mind, so spill."
Natasha sighs and runs a hand through her hair. She will not get worked up over this. She won't lose her temper, even if she is furious with herself for making such a stupid slip up. The fact is, she can't leave that scene in the bathroom behind her. It lingers around like a bad smell, reminding her of her failure, of how he won, so completely and utterly, and sent her back to her cell with her tail between her legs. The dress is a constant reminder that she is playing his game now, not her own, and that it's his rules they'll be adhering to.
"Natasha?" Steve's soft voice breaks into her thoughts and she looks up. "You okay?"
"I'm fine," she says impatiently. She glances across to Clint, his gaze fixed on her, watching her every move, and she scowls in his direction.
"She's lying," Clint says, stretching his legs out in front of him. "Lying through her fucking teeth."
"Natasha, did he threaten you?" Thor joins the interrogation, though his tone is far less judgemental. She can't see him, so she can't read his expression, but she hopes that he, at least, isn't sending death glares in her direction.
"No," she replies. "He didn't threaten me."
"Has he sworn you to silence?"
"No," she tells him, her patience dwindling. "It was nothing, I don't even - "
"Yeah, stop trying to make excuses for her Thor, she knows exactly what she's doing."
"Shut up, Clint."
"And I might remind you, Agent Barton, that I know exactly what my brother is like."
"As do I," Clint spits, jumping to his feet and crossing to the front of his cell so he can glare at Thor now. "I've had him inside my head, in case you'd forgotten. And I know that she hasn't been compromised. She's acting of her own accord, just like she always does."
"Oh is that a crime now?" Natasha argues. "Being in control of my own brain?"
Clint shakes his head and aims a kick at the wall, skulking around, his expression surly. "Just stop playing innocent," he mutters. "We're not stupid."
"I haven't done anything," she tells him, her heart pumping in her chest as her anger builds, threatening to spill over.
"So why is it only you that's getting special treatment? Why does Princess Natasha get all the food, a nice hot bath and pretty dress?"
"I asked for it. If you want a bath maybe you should fucking well ask instead of attacking the guards!"
"Yeah, okay, I'm the one at fault here. As far as I can see, I'm the only one who's actually trying to get out."
"You're full of shit," Natasha says, shaking her head in disbelief. One half assed attempt at barging his way past the guards does not constitute a viable, helpful plan. At least her own attempt, crude though it may have been, has led to her being permitted to leave her cell for an hour a day for as long as they're here. And, if she can win Loki over in small ways, she might be able to talk their way out of there. All of them. Though at the moment, she's not feeling particularly generous and has half a mind to ask him to let her go back to Earth alone.
"I'm full of shit…" Clint mutters, shaking his head and pacing around his cell.
The argument dies down, though an unpleasant atmosphere still hangs in the air like a dark rain cloud, threatening to break at any moment. Natasha can feel eyes on her, but she doesn't look up to see who they belong to. She supposes that Clint, Steve, Tony and Bruce are all looking at her, while Thor and Jane remain quiet in the adjacent cells. She knows when she leaves for her bath tomorrow there'll be uproar, and if they weren't all talking shit behind her back today, then they most certainly will tomorrow. It's not fair, and she knows it's a childish notion to cling to expectations of fairness, especially when she's stuck in a dungeon prison on an alien world, but she doesn't understand why it has to be her that they turn on. Is Loki really so bitter about their encounter on the helicarrier that he wishes to destroy her reputation, even when she's done nothing wrong? She knows, better than anyone, how being locked up can mess with your head, how the ache in your belly can spread like a poison to your brain, and how staring at the same blank walls day in, day out, lets your imagination run riot, concocting darker versions of reality and mistaking them for the truth.
She doesn't know how long she's been back in her cell for, but what she does know is that she is desperate for the day to pass, so she can escape to the peace of the bathroom and its non-judgemental tranquility.
"Let's play a game, shall we?" Loki says, his hands clasped together in front of him as he strolls slowly through the dungeon, grinning broadly. "Let's play, if the kind hearted king - " he presses a hand flat against his chest and spins around on his heel, looking at each of them in turn, a mocking smile painted across his lips. " - were to let one of you go, which of you would it be?"
"Bruce," Tony says simply. "So he can give you the pounding you deserve."
"Not Bruce," Loki says, raising one finger as he turns to address Tony.
"Release Jane," Thor says quietly. "She had no part in your downfall on Midgard. She has done nothing to hurt you."
"What?" Jane pipes up. "You think you can just send me away? I'm not going anywhere until we're all out of here. You can't just send me back to Earth like I'm a good little human. No way."
Natasha's lips curve into a brief smile, but it fades quickly.
"I would feel better if you were on Midgard," Thor tells Jane. "Away from all of this."
Loki's smirk is growing broader by the minute, his eyes alight with mischief as they flick between Jane and Thor, as though watching a tennis match.
"Well I wouldn't," Jane argues. "I'm not leaving anybody behind. I'm not leaving you."
Thor sighs, and there is a dense thud. Natasha thinks he may well have smacked his head against the wall in frustration. Apparently, he has run out of entertainment value, because Loki turns away from him, gracing Steve with his attention instead.
"What about you, Captain? Who would you choose?"
"Let the ladies go," Steve says with a shrug. "That would be the decent thing to do."
Natasha rolls her eyes. Releasing Jane, she gets. She's only involved in this because of Thor, not because she participated in the smack down that ended Loki's dreams of world domination. She's just along for the ride as it were. She, on the other hand, doesn't need releasing any more than the others. In fact, she's less of a priority, seeing as she's being considerably well looked after, given the circumstances.
"Release Natasha?" Loki asks, raising an eyebrow. It is the first time he has addressed her by her first name, and Natasha narrows her eyes at him. She knows exactly what kind of game he's playing, and she is not going to cooperate. "Why would I want to do that? I rather like having her in captivity."
He turns again, this time to Clint, but Natasha will not watch the exchange. She can feel Clint's glare burning into her, and she stares determinedly ahead, ignoring him. She doesn't want to see it, doesn't want to be exposed to his altered opinion of her, written all over his face.
"What about you, Agent Barton? Who would you have me release?"
"I'd have you go fuck yourself," Clint retorts. Tony sniggers, and it even raises a smile from Bruce, but Steve sighs and starts pacing around his cell, occasionally running his hand through his hair and giving it a frustrated ruffle.
"Charming," Loki says, though he is completely unaffected by Clint's vitriol.
"Loki?"
Loki strolls to the other end of the dungeon to speak to Jane, his playful expression gone, replaced with one of curiosity and suspicion.
"I just wanted to say," she says, though Natasha has to concentrate to hear her words, because she's not shouting, she's not addressing everybody, just him. "You know, thanks for saving my life. Before. I never really got the chance to say it…but thanks."
Loki doesn't say anything, and Natasha shuffles forward to the front of her cell to get a better view of him. His brow is creased into a frown, and he's surveying Jane as though she is a puzzle that needs to be solved. Natasha can't work out if Jane's trying to play the good guy, or whether she's genuinely grateful, or perhaps it's a mixture of both and she's choosing the opportune moment to voice her gratitude. Whichever it is, Natasha thinks that SHIELD may have lost out on a valuable asset, the day Jane Foster decided to pursue science instead of espionage.
"You're welcome," he says at last. "But a display of gratitude will not get you out of this cell, you understand?"
"I know that," Jane says obviously. "But I just wanted to say thanks, 'cause otherwise I'd be…you know."
"Yes," Loki says. "I do know."
"Right," Jane says uncertainly, and Loki turns away, but before he can take a step, Jane calls after him. "I was wondering," she says, voice raised with a hint of urgency to it. "Could I maybe take a bath? I mean, you let Natasha out and I'm feeling pretty gross to be honest…"
Loki inhales deeply, and makes a show of considering her request. He frowns, presses his lips together, and looks her up and down, as though trying to gauge whether she's grimy enough to warrant a trip to the bathroom.
"Fine," he says at last, and he clicks his fingers, drawing the attention of a guard. "Take her to get cleaned up."
The guard nods, unlocks the cell, and Jane steps out, side stepping past Loki, who catches her by the upper arm and hauls her back.
"No misbehaving now," he says silkily. "Or the others will suffer."
Jane nods, and after a moment, Loki releases her, his eyes fixed on her as she hurries towards the exit with the guard. As she passes Natasha's cell, she raises her eyebrows at her, and Natasha forces out a small smile of acknowledgement. Finally she's not the only one being favoured. Not that she wants any of the bitter comments to be diverted in Jane's direction, of course, but maybe the fact that she's not the only one will cool things down a little.
"Can I get a bath too?" Tony asks, though Natasha knows the answer as soon as the words tumble from his mouth.
"No," Loki sniggers. "Why would I ever permit that?"
"Well you let the ladies get clean," Tony says with a shrug. "I mean, it's pretty sexist if you don't let us gentlemen scrub ourselves up."
"You're mistaking me for somebody who cares about such things. No. You cannot scrub yourselves up."
"Why not?" Tony demands, hands pressed against the glass, his brow creased in disappointment.
"Because if Natasha or Jane are going to escape, they're going to use their brains to do it. The rest of you, however, will try and use brute force. I'm not going to let you make a mess of my palace during your blundering bids for freedom."
Tony doesn't say anything, and apparently Loki takes this as a victory, because he turns away, a smirk on his face.
"You didn't make any mess during your attempt this afternoon, did you Natasha?"
She can feel the atmosphere sharpen at his words, all eyes on her, ears pricked to hear every detail of the conversation. She doesn't respond, just merely glances up at him and shrugs, knowing that anything she says will only make it worse. He can only play with silence so much before he gets bored, but if she tries to deny it, or worse admits it, he will twist her words until she is considered an even greater enemy than he is.
"Have you gone shy?" he asks, a smirk spreading across his lips as he approaches her cell. She doesn't acknowledge him, but he is apparently unperturbed. "You don't look very comfortable down there," he says with a frown, one hand stroking his chin thoughtfully. "But," he says, dropping his hand and taking a deep breath. "I have things I need to be getting on with, you know," he glances back to Thor's cell, "being King is such an inconvenience."
"Funny, brother," Thor replies. "I'm sure your kingdom is desperately awaiting your return."
"You have no idea…" Loki tells him darkly, then disappears up the stone staircase, his green cape billowing behind him until the hem of it disappears from sight and the doors slam behind him.
It's over an hour later, long after Jane has returned, fresh faced, clean clothed, and considerably more cheerful than the rest of them, when half a dozen guards enter the dungeons, carrying a large, carved wooden sleigh bed between them. Natasha's eyes widen as her cell is unlocked and the glass slides back far enough for them to fit it through the gap. They carry it in, setting it down with the headboard against the wall, before they file out, the glass sealing shut once more.
She can't believe it. Well, she can. She should have expected it, but she hadn't thought he would have gone to such an effort just to piss everybody else off. The bed is layered with soft, embroidered quilts, plump cushions and pillows propped against the headboard. First instinct is to jump onto it, to curl up under the quilt and get a proper night's rest after so little sleep. But then she catches sight of Clint's expression. He's furious, and when she glances across, Tony isn't bothering to hide his displeasure. Even Bruce is looking at her strangely, something in his eyes that she doesn't recognise.
Between the three of them (only Steve, out of those in the cells opposite, seems to be at ease with this most recent development) they are managing to send an awful lot of daggers in her direction. In short, if looks could kill, right now, she'd be six feet under.