"Alright kids, I've got some real work to get done here. But you two have fun playing house." Barton tosses his duffle bag down in the entryway, on top of a large pack box, and taking his quiver and bow case marches back out of the apartment they just unlocked.
"And there goes the Hawk Princess." Natasha shakes her head and picks up Barton's duffle. "He really doesn't like being put on half duty. It makes him feel restless."
"And his loathing for me." Loki follows Natasha quietly into the dwelling and peers around inquisitively.
"Yeah, that too." Natasha spins around to point at two separate hallways, "down there, that's where Barton and I will be staying—uh…" Natasha grasps for words when Loki raises his brows, "yeah—um, separately. We have our own rooms." She chews nervously on her lips and then points down the other hallway. "And down here, will be you. We thought some of your buddies would be joining you so there are several rooms. You can take your pick." Natasha pushes open three different rooms and waves Loki towards them.
"The chamber makes little difference to me, Lady Natasha. I shall only be sleeping in it."
"Oh, you're going to be here a while and I think you'll find that you'll want your personal space to be appealing."
"Appealing?"
"Yeah, a nice place to be when Clint is driving you up the wall."
"You speak from experience, then?" Loki turns back to her from the second room with a twinkle in his eye.
Natasha holds his eye and then looks down when he too doesn't blink. "Uh… you saw him. He can be difficult."
"He feels threatened by me and hates me for my past actions. I blame him not for his behavior. Sometimes I feel that very contempt for myself." Loki ducks into the last room and then moves back to the first. "I believe I would like this one, thank you again." He kisses her knuckles and then steps inside the room.
"No. Uh no. We're not finished yet. Come on, let's see the rest of the place." Natasha reaches out to grab his arm, withdrawing quickly when she thinks better of it and then hustling down the hallway.
Look at how she reaches out to you, desiring to pull you along. Petty mortal, so eager to vaunt her possessions. She's practically bursting to show you her peasant's castle. If they only knew the realm you rightfully inhabit. This is but an anthill.
"And this, this is the kitchen. My personal favorite of all the rooms. Cooking is the most useful art in my opinion and it's also good for stress." She sets Loki on a rather tall chair and then glides around to the counters. "I had a fellow agent once who worked through his PTSD by cooking his way through Julia Child's The French Chef Cookbook."
And now she's boasting for you, itching to be asked to display her talents for you! Ridiculous.
"Are you hungry? You do eat, don't you?" Natasha's now stepping from cupboard to cupboard, looking for something.
"Yes, Lady Natasha, I do eat, but I must thankfully decline. I have not an appetite as of yet." Why don't you just tell her her frivolous Midgardian slop makes you ill?
"No? Alright. While I'm here, can I get you some painkillers? I know a broken nose can be nasty." She turns back to the last cupboard she's opened and retrieves a kit. "This is where we keep the med kit, so you know."
And now she thinks she can heal you! We are a god! Her puny mortal cures will— "Actually, I would rather finish the tour of the abode, to keep my mind occupied." Loki runs a hand over his face, the other is becoming tiresome.
"Uh, sorry, but that was it." He looks up in time to see her face fall just a fraction, he hates when the other is right. "The only thing you haven't seen is Clint and my rooms, oh and the training yard, but it's dark and the mosquitoes are pretty here so I thought," she looks down at the bottle in her hands and Loki sees her brow tighten again. Maybe the other being right isn't such a bad thing, vaunting and nourishing can be signs of affection. Loki wouldn't mind the Lady Romanoff feeling affection for him. "we could just check those out tomorrow."
Loki hums, "Then, yes, I'll take your cures. Thank you." He winces as he touches his nose and sits gingerly back into his stool.
"If only, they only soften the pain, not actually kill it, or cure it. But they should help." Natasha shakes a few into his hands and then sets down a glass of water beside him on the counter.
He holds one pill up to his face and sniffs it. "Are they palliative beans?"
"Nope, manufactured chemicals that block pain receptors." She smoothly hoists herself onto the counter across the bar from Loki and watches him inspect the pills.
"Your ways on Earth are strange." He sets the given pills into his mouth, frowning at their bitterness and then gulps them down with the water, afterwards gazing curiously at the glass.
"Yep, you'll get used to them. So, we've got some time, tell me about yourself. I want to give you the benefit of the doubt, Loki, I really do. Knowing more about you will help me with that." She set her elbows on her knees and her chin on her knuckles. "Let's hear it."
Tell her nothing! It is a trick to incriminate yourself! Be silent, you fool! Loki grins at his inner voice's panic, a newfound concern for his fate indeed, and leans forward. "It is not a tale I enjoy dwelling on. My past is sad and confused. If you wish to know whether I am truly repentant you will soon enough see in my actions. A tale of an envious child and a deluded fool will do nothing to prove that."
Natasha looks surprised for a few seconds and then slides off the counter. "Alright then."
"I am sorry to disappoint you, Lady Natasha, I know that I have, but do not feel inadequate, you are an excellent spy and an incomparable interrogator, I have only the advantage of having dealt with your methods before. You recall."
She looks up at him from the ground and chews her lips again. "Yeah, but… I thought that that was the possessed Loki talking."
"Oh, 'twas, fear not. But I was there a captive audience, quite literally. So there, you have learnt something."
Natasha perks back up and saunters to the fridge. "Yeah, I know. Your face told me everything I needed to know." She grabs and apple and closes the door with her hip. "I just needed to elicit a full range of emotions to be sure. You were a talented liar before, we like certainty here at SHIELD." She shrugs as Loki grins pleasantly surprised despite his scorching inner dialogue.
That—that preening harlot. She was baiting you all the while, luring you in and you fell for it, you imbecile! Now we're naught but a toy for her, you've proved—
We, we both fell for it. Loki, in spite of the other's fuming rant is impressed, not infuriated by Natasha's skills. Be gone. And he easily mutes the foul mouthed screaming.
"Well, I've done my job for the day." She tosses the apple core in a nearby bin and strolls to that hallway. "Come on, I'll show you how to turn on the shower, that hair of yours needs a good wash." She squints up at his hair, "and maybe a trim tomorrow. Let's go Greasy."
"Greasy?" Loki runs his hands through his hair in puzzlement. He rinses his hair with water and lye twice a week as is Asgardian custom. Although, maybe not since his possession, he can't remember properly…
"Yep, you could light a lamp with all that oil." She skirts past him and twists some handles on the wall starting a stream of water.
"Your Midgardian technology is impressive." Loki examines the shower nozzle and upon feeling the nearly instantly warm water grins back at Natasha. "Truly wonderful."
"Modern marvels for ya. Now, the towels are over here," she turns to a cabinet and gathers some linens, swinging back around when she hears a clatter. She's speechless for a few seconds as Loki removes his tunic and drops it beside his body armor. "aaaand now I'll get out of your way!" Natasha edges hastily out from the bathroom as Loki turns back to her with just his breeches on.
"Thank you again, Lady Natasha!" Loki looks down at himself after he watches her basically run away from him. "What have I done to frighten her so?"
She is disgusted by you! Your bare form has scared her away. She thinks you a repulsive monster and a pin in her eye. You've seen the warriors she associates with, strapping and brawny as Thor. To her, you are a frail, unappealing creature. Put her from your mind, her opinion is worthless and will only frustrate our efforts.
"Our efforts?" Loki steps into the shower and relaxes under the warm waterfall. "What are you planning now, silly thing? You cannot even decide whether she fancies or abhors me, you should leave off trying to plan. Besides, you are caged and we are both in exile. So, be quiet, enjoy this new sensation with me. I am very glad for this 'shower.'" Loki sifts through the colorful bottles, smelling them with childlike joy, "and which of these will rid me of the grease Lady Natasha so detests?" He eventually rubs the shampoo the other most detests into his hair and grins all the while.
Natasha waits several moments outside Loki's room collecting herself before she heads back to the front. She needs the time to wipe her mind, to settle her heart and to calm the blush rising over her face.
"Hey, put the psycho to bed then?" Clint is sitting on the couch watching TV when Natasha comes back to the living space.
"More or less, how's Gabrielle?"
Clint grins wickedly and hops off the couch towards his phone, "Oh she's great, you should see, been out at the lake, looks like a frickin sun-kissed angel, or sex kitten. That obvious huh?"
Natasha shoves him back onto the couch and away from his phone, she does not want to see those photos, then sits down next to him. "You smell like her. And you forgot your arrows." She points at the ballistics case, now parading as a hall-table, beside the front door. "Quiver and bow aren't too useful if you don't have the actual weapons."
"Yeah, yeah. You found me out, you're wrong though, I can kill a man with just my bow or even my quiver, but yeah, I went to Austin to get some booty. So how about you? How was your evening? Was the fallen god manageable?"
"Not difficult at all, completed Fury's assignment easily. He's perfectly remorseful and he knows you hate him. I'd back off, in case he goes nutty, you'll be the first target for harassing him." She pokes Clint in the chest and then gets up off the couch.
"Meh, I ain't scared—where're you going? Got something more interesting to do that talk with me?"
Natasha continues walking back towards her room. "Yep, night."
"I can help if you've got an itch you can't scratch!" Clint shouts with a chuckle.
"Thanks, but I can take care of it myself." Natasha knows she shouldn't let on to Clint, but they're old friends and he understands being lonely. He did, after all, just drive three hours for a booty call. It also leaves less explaining to do when he hears her moaning later. As long as he doesn't discover her inspiration, all should be fine.
A/N: Just a couple more chapters, lovely people and you will have what you seek! I'll try to get eleven, twelve and thirteen finished and uploaded before the weekend, I've got friends *gasp* coming in and they don't take kindly to me locking myself up in my room to write smut! Cheers!