10 Natasha
"I mean, the business deal is simply not going to happen unless you are in on it. You're like the Beyoncé of inter-realm economics." Tony spread his arms wide and shrugged. "We can forget the whole thing, Tasha, if you want. I'll set aside my dreams of Stark Industries becoming the first company to trade with the Asgard Stock Exchange, and Fury can forget any magical contingent for SHIELD – it's not like we're on the budget chopping block or anything…"
Natasha groaned and let her head hang back to look at the ceiling. "Of course we're on the chopping block. Thanks for being the first to pile on the guilt."
"Thor has offered a special training program for Midgard students. The daughters of that guy you seem to care about so much will have the first slots if they want it."
She sprang up from her chair. "Sergil's kids? Are you fucking kidding me? He stooped that low to get me to return to Asgard? Son of a bitch!" Natasha continued in that vein for sometime, cursing out Loki, Asgard, and the entire Lushton/Briggs affair.
"Impressive vocabulary," Tony finally interjected. "Look, he's so douchey he probably has a nozzle fitted into that helmet, but I gotta relate to what he's doing here. As a former douche myself I know he's just trying to get back into your…"
"Do not even say the word Pants." Natasha doubled her fist and Tony ducked, but she punched the wall instead. Just like Loki did in my apartment, she thought. Could she ever get him out of her system? Shaking her fingers, she stated the inevitable. "I'll help with the deal, as long as you come with me. I'm not going there alone. And," she added as Tony leapt to his feet and started to babble his thanks, "we're coming back here right after the meeting. I'm not hanging around for banquets or balls or anything."
"No? Darn it, I like balls. Wait, that doesn't sound quite right. I mean, I enjoy – no, that's not good either."
Natasha snorted and left the office.
In her apartment she typed up her acceptance of the Midgard-Asgard position, edited the doc, and sent it to Fury. Once that was done, Natasha thought she deserved a long drink and some really unhealthy food; she wandered into her kitchen and rummaged in her freezer. It yielded half a bottle of vodka and some frozen pizza rolls.
She put a plate of them in her microwave and poured vodka into a glass. As she was about to take a swallow, the pop in the atmosphere behind her proclaimed the arrival of someone from another realm.
Thor had already come to her rooms several times bearing letters and gifts from Loki. Natasha cut each visit short and sent the stuff back unopened – she refused to allow infinite wealth get the better of her own hurt and anger. "You can take it back again, Thor," she called out, "whatever it is. Nothing personal, dude, but I'm not talking to your brother anymore."
"Very understandable." The voice was husky with desire.
Natasha slammed her drink onto the counter and strode out to the living room. Loki stood there with a large wooden box; his eyes were hooded as though he knew what would come next. "You have some kind of nerve showing up here in my apartment!" Natasha fumed. "Get your pitiful ass out of my home and back to the palace where it belongs."
"Be silent for one moment." Loki opened the box and showed her the contents. "Made by Manton in the 19th century. Do you like them?"
A pair of dueling pistols lay on a velvet bed in the box. Natasha gasped at the sight; Manton pistols were extremely rare. Of all the cravings she ever had in her life, somehow he had hit on the one she couldn't resist. "Is that a Prince of Wales buttplate? And inlaid horn with ivory?" she asked, brushing one piece with her finger.
Carefully Loki closed the box and put it down on the coffee table. "A small taken of thanks for taking the liaison position between our realms." He raised his chin in the direction of her kitchen. "Could we drink to the success of commerce between our realms?"
Natasha tamped down the simmering anger running through her veins. "No, you can bring back those pistols to the auction house where you bought them. And how did you hear I had accepted the position?"
"I did not hear anything. However, I assumed you would eventually take it."
"And why did you assume that?"
Loki crossed his arms, widened his stance, and smiled. "There were many benefits to doing so, as well as many risks if you did not. One thing I have always admired about you agent, even from the very first, is your intelligence. I knew you would make the right choice."
"Let me see your palms."
The demand seemed to surprise him, although he uncrossed his arms and held out his hands. "Why?"
Natasha come closer, looked at his hands closely, and stepped away again. "You took a blood oath with Amora. Why is there no scar?"
"Oh, I see." His eyes never left hers. "Believe me, I wanted no souvenir of that decision - I only keep one scar. You know what it is. And I have a question."
Natasha tilted her head on one side. "Out with it, but you need to leave as soon as I answer."
"You look like a sparrow when you do that," he commented. "Tell me, why did you come to Sif's chambers prepared for battle? All evidence led to the conclusion I had betrayed you. Yet you knew I had an ulterior motive. Did you find the clue I left in Amora's own book?"
"I knew there was another layer of betrayal as soon as Amora left me that envelope." Natasha turned away, walked to the window, and stared outside where the sunset bled across the sky. "It was too obvious. Too neat. You would never have allowed yourself to be compromised - I realized you were double-crossing her as well as me. And there were other clues, of course, when I looked back. You told me the first night I proposed Sif as your queen you regretted the entire Amora affair. I realize now you weren't just talking about sex. You meant consorting with her at all, including your little deal with the devil."
Silence, punctuated with the far sounds of the city below, stretched. For a moment she thought Loki had left and transported back to Asgard, but when she turned he was right behind her, so close her shoulder brushed his chest. "My twin," he breathed. "You alone understand me."
"Get the hell away from me!" Natasha pushed him so hard he staggered. "You think you can play fast and loose with my life and still have me?"
Loki blinked several times. "I have one last gift, in that case. May I show it to you?"
"Oh, for fuck's sake. This is hard enough as it is. Just take your shit and get out of my life."
He produced a dagger, the same one she had first used on him in the safe house. Something new was engraved on the hilt, she saw: her own Perthro rune entwined with Kenaz. "I will release you from the spell I enacted our first night together in the safe house if you wish it." Loki said. "You can be free, Natasha."
"Call me Agent. And what's the catch?"
"No catch." Loki spread his arms wide. "Although in order for it to be done we must both be naked."
"Oh, that is such bullshit! We had our clothes on when you added the spell to your own little scar..." Her voice tailed off; she realized that was wrong. Petro was cut into Loki's skin at the table while they ate steak and oysters, but the magic had been planted later when they lay in bed.
"Just so." Loki's own irrepressible grin crossed his face.
Natasha grabbed the knife and pointed in the direction of her bedroom. "Get the hell in there."
"Oh." Loki sprang forward, seized her hand, and blinked. The room folded forward, and they were inside her sleeping quarters.
He stalked forward and pitched onto the mattress; under his weight the bed groaned. "Midgard furniture is terrible," he complained.
"Shut up and get rid of your clothes." Natasha weighed the knife in her hand; she had forgotten how sharp it was; how nicely it balanced in her fist. She her shirt off quickly, shucked off her jeans, and straddled his lap sit where his erection reared, feeling it jut between her thighs.
Carefully, never breaking eye contact, he moved his hand so it rested on Kenaz still there on her thigh. Instantly her clit started to flutter like the wings of a butterfly, moving up inside her walls.
"Cut it out now." Natasha couldn't resist brushing her soaked slit over his hardness, relishing the feel of his hard flesh against her quivering softness. Never again to feel the quiver of his desire: as soon as he cut out the enchantment she would be completely alone. It was nothing new, she told herself. For years she had lived in solitude, and she could do it again.
"Are you ready?" His voice was husky, his lust very evident. She nodded, hoping he would do it quickly before she changed her mind.
Loki flipped her onto her back and gestured for the dagger; Natasha fisted the quilt and hissed as the blade bit into her skin. He pulled the blade along the angle of Kenaz, and her own blood coursed down her thigh. The combined red and green mist floated out of the cut, and it was lost in the twilight air. Slowly, she felt her breathing and heart rate return to normal.
"Now mine." Loki handed her the dagger, and she got to her knees.
The blade shook against the skin where Perthro bloomed when Natasha sliced into the scar as deeply as she could. Blood bloomed under the dagger, running over his pale skin. A sudden compulsion made her lean forward; Loki whimpered as she tasted him. It was cool and less salty than a human's, and it tingled on her tongue. As she finished cutting the scar a wisp of combined green and red floated out of the wound and disappeared in the twilight.
"Now you are truly free." Loki's eyes claimed hers; she felt she couldn't look away from that sea-glass stare. "Alone, as you were before. Congratulations, agent."
Natasha moved away on the bed and reached for her shirt. Kenaz was silent, its constant voice lost. She hasn't realized until that moment how she depended on its constant murmur for - for what? Companionship? Some type of input so she knew she was alive?
No, freedom was more important. She would be on her own again: an agent of SHIELD, moving with solitary grace against a background of deception and despair.
You live like dead. Move like dead. No love. Your life is shit. Thus the words from Sergil's ghost, and the worst of it was the truth of the statement.
Raising her chin, Natasha beckoned for the dagger. Without a word, Loki handed it to her; his eyes were bright, curious, as though he wondered what would come next. "I want a blood vow," she announced.
His breath hitched. "We cannot. My blood - it could corrupt your system."
"Bullshit. My system can handle nuclear waste if you ever decide to inject me with it."
"What do you want to ask of me?"
"Just do it," Natasha said between her teeth.
A look she had never seen on his face: a desperate laugh, followed by a tiny sob as he pulled her legs to tug her onto the blood-stained mattress. Loki breathed her name and brought her thigh to his chest. Kenaz and Perthro touched, and she felt his coldness slip out of his body into hers as their blood mingled.
Darkness slid through her veins. At that moment she felt like an addict receiving a hit after years off a drug; Loki's blood filled her with ecstasy. Before she knew it she exploded with a release so violent it jerked her entire body.
"Your vow!" he shouted. "What is it?"
"Never use me again," Natasha panted. "Vow you will never involve me or SHIELD in any of your Asgard ops, or I'll slice it off." Probably she didn't have to specify what 'it' referred to.
"I vow I will never involve you in a quest in my realm again without your knowledge, Natasha." She could see the head of his cock twitch as he spoke, and clear liquid gathered at the little slit on the top. "But I demand a vow as well."
Shit. Well, she had practically asked for it. "What the hell do you want?" Another orgasm was building inside her; Natasha found it difficult to think.
"Lay with me once more as we are right now." Carefully Loki detached Kenaz from Perthro and loomed over her.
"Loki, it's probably better if we don't."
"Vow," he repeated in a low voice, more intensely than she had ever heard him speak before.
Her face must have betrayed her; as she nodded he leaned closer.
Dimly she felt him press her down; an instant later he slid inside so slowly she groaned in protest. Their hands clasped together, the knife between them. She tried to move quickly, to make it end faster; the thought their coupling would never happen again was pure acid in her heart.
"No." Loki shook his head. "Slowly - move slowly with me." Never releasing her gaze, he kissed her lips gently, rocked into her with a motion so subtle, so feather light she could hardly bear it.
"Is that what you need?" she gasped.
"It is what you need."
She was unable to stop herself as her arms slipped around his neck and she crossed her ankles behind his back. "Why did you do it? We could have - could have..."
His breath whistled near her ear; his length inside her found the spot she couldn't resist. Loki's hand framed her face; one thumb caressed her neck. She had never felt so wanted, so desired. "Amora..." His face spasmed with pleasure. "She would have - destroyed Asgard - and Midgard - had to stop it..."
Natasha stared into his green eyes, so like hers, so wide with surprise at the sensation, before another spasm racked her and she jolted with pleasure so intense it was nearly painful. Loki threw back his head and howled; she pushed herself up to bite his neck. The cool, salty taste of his blood was delicious on her tongue; it pumped through her blood. He was inside her in every sense of the word.
"Gods! Yes! Natasha! Sweet, sweet – this is sweet…" Loki's words died away and he collapsed onto her chest.
For an unknown time they lay like that, their breath heaving, the dagger in their entwined fingers. Natasha tried to say something and stopped; she had no words left. Perhaps they slept a little, still entangled in the bloody sheets.
"I was a fool," he murmured into her hair at last. "I should never have proposed mere marriage to you. Will you forgive me, agent?"
"What?" Natasha was bewildered.
"You already know. We were connected far deeper than any set of vows in front of officiating fools could make us." Gently Loki turned his head, captured her lips, and slipped his tongue inside her mouth. "And even if you throw me out of your life now, it will always be the case."
Natasha luxuriated in the feeling and taste of him, even as the blood turned sticky on their skin. She had to ask one thing first, though. "What about Sylvie Lushton?"
"She retains some powers. I believe she has contacted the Briggs fellow. Apparently he is sincere about moving beyond an 'outmoded trope of good versus evil'. His words. She is going to help him set up a group based on your own Avengers, Agent."
"And Thor? And Sif?"
A slight frown creased his brow. "To be married, as you must have heard. Thor is ruler of the Nine Realms, although he begged me to stay on as advisor."
"Oh, dear. That will give you a lot more time for mischief."
At once his own naughty grin made Loki's eyes twinkle. "Yes, it will. I fear Thor will not allow Sif to do any of the things we once…"
"No, of course not!" Natasha blinked. "It was very sweet, the three of us, wasn't it?"
"Will you miss it?"
"Yes, I will. Although I'm glad we never had an argument or even an unpleasant moment when you and I were with Sif, so those memories are untarnished."
Loki pulled her even closer with one impetuous tug. Already she could feel his sex stir between her legs again. "And you? What will you do now?"
"Be an Agent of SHIELD. Be the business liaison between Asgard and Midgard." Natasha cast a mental salute up to Sergil, wherever he was, as she let go and floated downstream into a new life. "Be something new."
"I could breach you again right now if you willed it." His whisper tickled her ear, just as demanding as Kenaz had ever been on her skin. "All you have to do is reconsider."
She was on the knife-blade, able to fall either way - eternal solitude, or constant dalliance and danger with her celestial twin. The words caught in her throat as Natasha weighed her answer and her fate.
Written on the final page inside Amora's journal:
When you read this, you will see I am even darker than you thought. Once I told Thor of a dragon at the foot of Yggdrasil who ate the roots there, even though it knew doing so meant its eventual death. And the reason: It was in the dragon's nature.
And thus I explained away my own deeds, even though I knew they could lead to an end of all I held dear. It was in my nature.
But I see now I am not a dragon. Those huge Wyrms think of nothing but gold and their bellies. I have more inside – a light which shines into my darkness, making it all painfully obvious to my own awareness.
Power of magic and over the realms – they are all I desired, throughout my long life. However, once I saw her again in the asylum – so slight, so young, a mere girl – I knew there was another power greater than anything I ever schemed and plotted.
Know this: even though my deeds seem to have an obvious end, I have another goal in mind. And I will not rest until I hold what I want in my hands, for as long as she lives.
Loki
END
NOTE - As always, thanks so much for taking the time to read this story. It was a beast to write, but I loved playing with those characters; I can only hope I did in a way to preserve what they are. In any case, you bring the magic when you read what I wrote.