Chapter 21 - Alive and Breathing
Aah, hey all! Missed you guys! Thanks to all of you who took the time to review! You guys are so sweet and amazing - got some of the greatest readers ever, right here! :D
So, things, as you can imagine are going to start winding down, however, I still have thoughts in mind for this story, and while I could finish this one and create a sequel, I was thinking that I would just continue on with the same thread. That way, everything still flows and isn't lost. Not to mention, we're only thirty reviews away from the big 200, and I didn't want to ruin anyone's chances of getting that. :D Nevertheless, let me know what you think - if enough of you really want me to finish this one and start a new one, I guess I could do that, but it's gonna take a lot of convincing!
Also, I posted the last contest winner's one-shot just last night, so if you guys want to check that one out. Promise that this one isn't heavy on the tears this time! Just a cute, holiday centric, Easter fic with our favorite group of superheroes! It's called "Easter with the Avengers" in case any of you want to look it up.
I'm sure you guys are tired of hearing me ramble, so we'll get back to the story!
Disclaimer: *yawns*
And then, her fingers twitched.
It was a movement that Loki was terrified he had imagined. There was only so much pain that even he could endure, and he watched with intensity at the pale digits, willing them once more to twitch. After ten seconds of nothing, he had been sure that Fate had simply wished to humiliate him and torture him further, and his tears only strengthen. Then, he heard her gasp loudly, seeing her body jolt upwards as it came back to life. Her hand went up to clutch her throat, as if willing it to grow larger for more oxygen.
Loki's tears faltered, and he stood from his seat, placing his hands on her shoulders tenderly. "Natasha?" he asked, almost afraid that she would push him away without knowing him.
She blinked rapidly, the most beautiful pink rushing through her skin. She then reached to his hands, clutching them tightly. "What happened?" she asked with a hoarse voice, looking up at him. Shrieking with surprise, his arms engulfed her tiny body, unable to be close enough to her. "Loki!" she exclaimed, uneasily hugging him back. His mouth covered her own instantly, once again surprising her, but she quickly responded to the kiss, feeling as if it had been years since they had kissed. In the back of her mind, she remembered their argument, and how she had broken up with him, but that didn't matter. She could remember being in front of Red Skull, the knife driven through her gut, and she can remember how she told him that she loved him. In her own words.
"I thought you would never wake up," he said as he pulled away, fingers running through her hair and lips pressing on her neck.
There was something about the way that he said that gave her pause, like he had thought she would die. Admittedly, she truly believed she had on the battlefield. "Why am I in your room?" she asked, observing her surroundings and only feeling more confused.
Loki froze mid-nuzzle. "The doctors thought it best that you be with me," he excused, and she instantly saw through the lie, pushing him away from her and giving him a harsh look. He refused to meet her gaze, only increasing her worry over what he wasn't telling her. "You're fine; can't that be all that matters?" he pleaded.
"How am I fine?" she demanded. "I distinctly remember a knife the size of a cleaver sticking out both ends of my body." She looked down at the once offended area, eyes widening in terror to see and feel absolutely no hint of damage. Still clothed in a hospital gown, she pulled the loose fabric away from her body, looking for the invisible wound. "And now, it looks like nothing happened," she said, looking harshly at Loki once more. "What did you do?"
"You were in a coma, yes, I grant you that," Loki hurried, reaching for her hands. "It was the worst time of my life, I assure you -"
"Stop being a kiss ass and tell me what you did," she interrupted, watching his thin lips squeeze together as he thought over the command. His blue eyes were as calculating as ever, and she could see the cogs turning in his head as he thought through every possibility and end-scenario. "Please," she added in a nicer tone, determined to get the truth out of the God of Lies.
"I wasn't lying when I said that you were in a coma, Natasha," he breathed gently, and no matter how closely she stared into his eyes, she saw no hint of a lie there. "You were barely alive. Dr. Banner helped bring you to the medical ward, and he as well as several other doctors have been your caretakers. They claim that because of the serum, the knife wound healed faster than it would normally for regular humans," he relayed to her calmly. "The doctors believed that they could do no more to better your health and therefore permitted me into bringing you here until you would wake. They recommended that you rest for as long as possible before performing any strenuous activity."
"There's something you're not telling me," she said, eyeing him.
Loki shrugged with indifference, but she saw a quick flicker of pain flash through his eyes, and he promptly looked away from her, hiding the untruth. "We won," he supplied, and while she was confident that that wasn't all he was being vague about, the news drug her thoughts from her current health status and back to the mission. "I thought you were dead," he whispered. "I killed him - Schmidt, I mean."
"He's dead?" she affirmed, the words sounding far too excited on her tongue. Schmidt wasn't meant to be anything more than a mark, and it was wrong to let a mark get to you. She had learned that long ago - it would compromise you, taint your skill and clarity. Loki, she let into her system quite by accident, but once he had been planted there, it was evident that he wouldn't be uprooted so easily. Schmidt's significance also broadsided Natasha, though this relationship didn't prove as beneficial to the agent, rather stirring fear and naivety in her. Schmidt had made her feel like a child again, when she was weak and incapable of taking care of herself. But to hear that one of her accidental compromisers was murdered brutally by the other, it soothed her to no end. "How?" she asked, eager for information.
"Bled to death," Loki put simply. "Not after a vigorous beating however," he added with a smug smile. "I do believe that I even would have made you proud," he mentioned, seeming to be glad to speak of something else.
"Did you use magic?" she asked curiously and with a soft smile of her own.
"I didn't stop his heart with it, no. But I did use it," he assured her. A tender sparkle appeared in his blue eyes as he reached out to stroke her cheek. It had once been such a foreign glint to Natasha, the only emotion that had never seen before. But now, she felt silly for not recognizing it sooner - it was a sparkle that she was sure inhabited her own eyes whenever she looked at him. Though she had relayed the emotion to him subtly before, she never wanted so badly to say the real words now. She knew how he felt about her, and there wasn't any reason for her to hide the word from her language anymore. "I should go tell the doctors that you have woken up," he said softly. "They told me explicitly that you couldn't move, so don't even think about getting up." He stood from the bed, leaning in to kiss her gently, tongue sweeping into her mouth and making her sigh.
The look in his eyes stated his feelings quite clearly, and she knew that the words were on the tip of his silver tongue, but she knew that he wouldn't say them. While perhaps being more affectionate than she had once supposed of the menacing god, there was no way she could believe that his tongue would be that loose with his affections. He had nothing to hide from her, but saying the words took the wonder out of them all too rapidly. Words could lie, and though she knew that Loki wouldn't lie to her about his love, it meant more to her this way. Eyes could never lie, even his eyes. The love she would find there could not be any closer to the truth, and it gave her comfort that he wasn't seeming to hide the gaze.
Natasha watched sadly as he walked from his room, closing the door gently behind him and walking through the hall.
Although she loved him, she needed to know the truth. Throwing the thin sheets off of her body, she swung her legs around, setting her bare feet on the cold metal of the floor. Already, she could feel her quadriceps bracing in preparation for the movement. She pushed herself from the mattress, standing. It only took a second for her confidence to be reduced to nothing, legs collapsing underneath her weakened form. She landed on the metal roughly, the muscles in her stomach groaning with protest at the sudden movement. Her wrist ached from landing on it wrong, but she pushed the pain away, sitting on the floor tiredly. Her back fell against the side of his bed in defeat. She knew that moving was now out of the question for her, and she would just have to wait until Loki returned to help her back up.
Grumbling in dissatisfaction, she decided to try once more before she saw a crumpled looking book tossed away on the floor. Loki wouldn't leave books like that. It was a clear and simple fact that anyone would have been able to realize upon meeting him. Neat and clean. So what would cause him to leave a book lying there like that?
Loki's strides were long and powerful as he approached Director Fury, hands kneading themselves in front of his person. "You took Agent Romanoff's body!" Fury started, pointing an accusing finger towards Loki when the god entered the office. "Give me one reason why I shouldn't call security right now and have them shoot you?" he demanded.
"I'll give you two," Loki reasoned with a smile. "One: guns can't kill me, so getting the others to shoot me would do no good. And two: Natasha's alive."
Customary to Fury's stoic style, he sat there in his leather chair, focusing intently on Loki with his one good eye. He set down the pen that he was holding and stood, leaning over the desk threateningly. "Are you fucking with me?" he asked in a harsh whisper. "Romanoff is dead. Got the reports myself from the medical ward." He picked up the file on his desk to prove it, slamming it back down again. "And you come in here, like the psychotic nut-job you are, telling me that she is breathing at this very second?"
"Essentially," Loki agreed with a nod. "However, I have one request -"
"You're in a mighty shitty situation right now to be requesting anything," Fury interrupted, looking skeptically at Loki, eyeing him from head to toe.
"I brought her back with magic. Your doctors were right; she was dead for a time. I found one of my spell books, executed a spell, and she is alive once more," Loki explained briefly.
"How the hell did you get a spell book?" Fury asked, now looking more curious.
"I went to Asgard, naturally, to find the proper one in my collection," Loki said obviously.
"Without getting caught?"
"I'm the God of Mischief, Fury. If you honestly think that I haven't perfected my enter and exit routes into the realm without being detected, you are sorely mistaken. Regardless of that information, the point of the matter is, is that she is alive. But I do not plan on relaying to her that she was deceased, or that she was healed with magic. She has conferred to me that she does not desire to have magic worked upon her, and while I find the notion preposterous, I find the idea of her being angry with me upon awakening sour and unpleasant. I will tell her the extent of her previous conditions at some point in time, but I would prefer her to regain her optimum health before I tell her such a thing."
Fury remained silent for a time, looking at the manila file of Agent Romanoff. Finally, he sat back down in his chair. "I admit, hearing that she's alive is… better news than I could have hoped for. I know what you think of me and my methods, but… I see her as a daughter of sorts. Hearing that she didn't make it caught me off guard and it hurt. I can't imagine what it did to you."
Loki started and stopped almost immediately, looking nervous in Fury's inquisitive gaze. "She was my partner yes, but -"
"For the God of Lies, you are terrible at hiding a relationship," Fury mentioned dryly. "Be better off hiding a nuclear bomb… Steve let it slip," he admitted, Loki rolling his eyes. "Anyways, fine, you get your request. I'll have the doctors make up a new chart for her, and I'll keep the actual one. Just keep her in your room while I inform the rest of them to keep it on the down-low." Loki nodded gratefully, turning to leave. "But," Fury added strongly, Loki's shoulders slumping in defeat. "Only for a week. If she doesn't know by then, I won't give a shit about what she'll do to you; I'll tell her. Understood?"
Loki nodded once more, finally leaving the office and heading back to his bedroom.
Opening the door, his eyes found Natasha sitting, legs widespread on the metal floor against his bed. However her choice in reading material quickly caught his gaze, and he snapped his head to the place where he had discarded the spell book, realizing that this was what was currently in her hands.
"How'd you get this?" she asked upon his arrival, looking up from the yellowed pages.
Gulping, Loki chuckled nervously, "We ransacked Hydra, and we found that. Me, being the magical expert on this vessel, they left it in my care."
"And it as left on the floor like you had thrown it," she pointed out, turning the page. "This isn't even in German," she added, looking confused.
"Schmidt was studying my mythology, and he had texts on it. Our believers originate in the Scandinavian countries, so it wouldn't be German," Loki pointed out. "Why are you sitting on the floor?" he asked, trying desperately to change the subject.
"But I speak most of those languages, and this isn't that either," she carried on, ignoring the question and looking at the pages.
"Perhaps an old dialect?" he suggested, realizing that he wouldn't win the argument. If she couldn't read the book, then perhaps there was no harm in her looking at it. And the whole spell book wasn't specifically goaled towards reanimation of lost loved ones.
"Then how can you read it?" she bantered as Loki came to sit next to her.
"Who do you think taught them it?" he retorted, watching the realization dawn on her face.
"Sometimes I forget how old you are," she said quietly, fingers running over the course paper. "Your people and culture. You've been around for thousands of years, and we've been around for so much less. We talk like we're better than all of you, but, you're right. We're beneath you."
"And here I was, just starting to think that even the lesser lives are no less beautiful," he mocked, kissing her temple gently. "You all may not be capable of the thoughts that my people have, but we feel the same things. It's - how did I put it? - basic sentimentality." His hand meandered into her own, feeling a calmness wash over him at her touch. To know that she was alive, to feel her skin actually respond to his own and know that it wasn't going to go away.
Natasha instantly picked up on the change in his mood, allowing him to play meaninglessly with her fingers. So fascinating the small hand seemed to him, but she knew better than to interrupt the moment. All the pain she had witnessed upon awakening swept over his features once more, like there was a poisonous thought eating away at him. Reaching to cup his cheek with her other hand, she caught his gaze, seeing the tendrils of tears tearing at his composure. "You really were scared," she observed. He closed his eyes, sinking into her hand, allowing her to steal a kiss from him. His lips instantly reacted to her own, abandoning her fingers to play with her hair.
"I've never known fear like that, Natasha," he whispered against her lips. "I implore you to never do that to me again."
"What if I had died?" she asked, stroking the angular cheek. Again, pain settled over him, his eyes like glass, as if he wasn't even looking at her, rather through her. "What would you have done?" she posed the question delicately, curious of his answer, but unwilling to hurt him more.
"I would have found some way to bring you back," he told her shakily.
"You would use magic?" she surmised, seeing a flicker of acknowledgment in his eyes that confused her.
"I would do whatever needed to be done," he said firmly. "And if that meant magic, then magic would bring you back."
She scoffed, "You wouldn't do that. My body has been tampered enough, and I don't allow you to use magic with me."
"Don't be so sure," he warned.
"I would hate you," she pointed out.
"I wouldn't care," he retorted with such passion, she paused, staring at him. "Natasha, I would rather have you hate me with everything in your body than go a single day knowing that you were gone."
"I would die hating you," she said, finding her voice hoarse and throaty with oncoming tears.
"I'm not good enough for you anyways."
"That's childish," she remarked, looking away from him. "I would have thought you to respect my wishes and leave me dead. What's dead should stay dead."
"And I'm practically the King of Selfishness," he said bluntly. He reached around to make her face him. Taking a steadying breath, he said quite soulfully, "I love you. I know that you hate the word, and I hate it too, but not for the same reason. It's a word that is tossed about so easily today, and no one seems to really understand the depth of the emotion. Its definition has become mutated and simple, and when I thought you dead, I felt my own soul die away with yours. My fate rests on yours; it's like I'm tethered to you. I don't want to imagine a universe with you not in it, and even if that meant you hating me, I would at least be able to go to bed knowing that you were safe and breathing."
She smiled. "You love me?"
"Is that really all that you heard?" he yelled with exasperation.
Her smile only doubled its size. "It's just a strange concept to think of, that's all."
"Why because a monster is in love with you?" he asked roughly, looking hurt.
"No because a god is in love with me," she argued. "And because I'm in love with him." She laughed heartily, her head falling on his shoulder. "It's kinda ironic. That I'm taught this concept by someone who hates it."
"And I went through the desire of hating mortals and you end up being a mortal," he added. "I think it's also called poetic justice."
He ghosted his lips over hers again, wrapping his arms around her waist and gently pulling her to her feet, setting her back on the bed. The book fell from her lap, landing back on the floor, but neither of them paid any heed to the soft thump. Her own arms weakly went around his neck, successfully gluing his lithe form to hers. "You have no idea how much I've missed you," he whispered.
She quirked an eyebrow up teasingly. "Show me?" she asked playfully.
"You're still weak," he said nervously, pulling back, but she quickly secured his hips between her legs and gave his neck a squeeze with her arms. "Natasha…" he warned.
"I'm fine," she assured, leaning to kiss his pulse point, hearing him give a groan in approval. "Didn't you once say that you shouldn't refuse the cripple anything?" she reminded, hands tangling in his hair as she gave the sensitive skin a testing lick, smirking smugly.
"Standing up isn't comparable to what you're suggesting," he groaned.
"You said anything, Silver Tongue. That's your fault for not being clear enough for my mortal mind to understand," she retorted. "Now, why don't you put that silver tongue to good use?"
Loki shuddered with anticipation, surrendering and claiming her wicked lips for his own, sinking into the throes of passion.
Covered in a shiny sheen of sweat, Natasha felt his thin lips tenderly peppering kisses on her shoulder, her back pressed securely against his chest. He had been doing this for five minutes already and didn't seem inclined to stop any time soon.
She let him carry on with his affections, knowing how difficult it must have been for him the past couple days. Watching her supposedly die and waiting helplessly for something to be done to save her. And as much as she desired to believe his word of innocence, there was a part of her that was wary. He had said it himself that he wouldn't hesitate to employ magic in order to save her. And while she was very much entranced with his magic, she could already feel her skin crawl with the thought of magic being used on her. The Russian government had infiltrated her body and turned it into something unnatural and inhuman, and she hated the feeling. It wasn't like Loki where he was a god with a mortal appearing form, but there was piece of her body that didn't belong to her. It was fake and implanted and changed her entire makeup. It scared her to think that his magic could have a similar effect on her. That her beating heart wasn't because of her will to live but his manning of puppet strings instead.
Natasha knew that he meant well, and she knew that there was some truth to the things that he had said. She could easily understand his point of view, and she was sure that if their roles had been reversed, she would have, without thinking, done the exact same thing. Through the short exposure of him in her life, she was already confident that she would be unable to function properly without him.
But that still didn't give him a right to treat her body as an object and not respect her wishes.
Luckily though, he hadn't been placed in that kind of situation, and she wasn't going to let her guard down again to be prone to this kind of situation again.
His deft fingers started grazing the length of her arm, making her shiver in pleasure. This god said that he loved her. He had decidedly given his heart to someone like her to take care of. Even knowing her track record of safety and protection, he willingly handed it to her, beating and throbbing for her. He was right when he had called it poetic justice - two of the most violent criminals with ledgers gushing red, as he termed, and they found solace in the other's arms. His quick-witted mind not only saw how to manipulate, but also to understand. Every qualm she had had, he understood with ease, relating to her in every way. It was almost as if she didn't even have to speak in order for him to know her thoughts.
And she complemented his soul just as well, comprehending his methods and desires. Natasha understood his background and his feelings better than even Thor, knowing his every reaction before he could even react. It was a fine tuning that the two of them had to the other, and she knew that there were times when this connection scared the both of them.
It had been because of their connection that she had run from their relationship in the first place, not willing to put her heart on the line. It had been a quickly molded decision, and little thought had gone into the consequences that would ensue after her actions. She could see his dejected and shocked face even now in her memories, perched on the bed like he couldn't understand. It had been one of her greatest regrets, and whether he had silently forgiven her or not wasn't the question. They both needed to hear her apology and her real reasoning, just like Thor had told her.
"I'm sorry for walking out on you," she muttered, his fingers stopping in their travels and lips ceasing their sweet kisses. "I wasn't thinking clearly, and I shouldn't have done it."
"Love, I can swear to you that Sigyn is no longer a part of my life," he swore. "I don't even know whether the woman is alive now or not, but I do not care of her, I promise. You couldn't honestly think that there could possibly be a woman, Asgardian or Mortal, who could win my heart as you have done so? I swear, I solely belong to you, Natasha. And I apologize for never telling you of her and making you think that she was intended to remain a secret. I had forgotten about her until that moment."
"I was married too, once," she conferred, looking firmly at the wall of his room. He fell silent, and she felt his sudden intake of breath on her back. "From Russia," she started. "His name was Alexei. Unlike you, I guess, our marriage was arranged. He was a test pilot back in the forties, working with the Soviets during the War. One day, the army told me that he had died, and that was the end of it. He wasn't actually dead, but that was the end of the marriage. I don't know where he is now, but I haven't cared for a long time," she paused. "I never loved him," she said quietly. "He's saved my life on occasion, but that doesn't change the fact that I don't love him. Clint's saved me, and that hasn't changed my feelings."
Loki was quiet for a long time, absorbing his lover's word carefully. "That brings up a question," he began, after a long minute. "Why walk out on our relationship if you were guilty of the same crime?"
Natasha blushed at the question and rotated in his arms, facing him, noses only inches apart. "I didn't care that you had been married," she admitted. "Well, I cared, but that's not why I ended it," she sighed, prepping herself for her explanation. "I ended it because I was scared, Loki. For a while, I had been thinking about how, once everything was over, you'd go back to Asgard. I'd be stuck here on Earth, and I would probably never see you again. But I had told myself that it would be okay, because I didn't love you and my connection with you, while hard to sever, wasn't impossible to do so. I would live, because that's just how I am. But then, I heard you talking about Sigyn, and everything changed in that instant. Here I was, having been telling myself that we weren't looking for anything deep, and I felt jealousy. I had felt it before where you were concerned, but nothing like that. It was so strong, it nearly knocked me off of my feet. My thought process was that if I felt that strongly over someone I had never even met, and knew you didn't even care about, I was in too deep with you. I had lost control, and, well, we've talked about that before. Fight or flight response kicked in, and I'm ashamed to say that I chose the latter without even realizing it."
"And now?" he asked urgently, eyebrows raised in question. "Now that we've condemned ourselves to loving the other, what then? I still will return to Asgard, and you are right by saying that I probably will never return. Unless our lovemaking a moment ago was merely a way of saying goodbye, then I don't see your proposed solution."
"I don't have a solution," she answered truthfully. "And maybe that was a goodbye; I don't know, Loki. All I know is that the feelings I have aren't going to go away just because you do. Even if I never see you, it doesn't matter. I'll always belong to you, even when we aren't together."
Loki smiled, kissing her tenderly. "I'm yours, love."
Nodding in satisfaction, she pushed the blankets away, sitting up the bed and staring at the floor. "Help me stand?" she asked, feeling his arms wrap around her midsection as he sat behind her. His lips kissed a love-bite on the side of her neck.
"Where'd you throw my trousers?" he remarked, hopping from the bed and searching for them. Holding them proudly in success a moment later, he slipped them on, leaving his muscular chest bare. Clasping his outstretched hands tightly in her own, he carefully pulled her to her feet. Her knees, already wobbly from the drool-worthy sight of his body, knocked together in weakness.
"Damn, how long was I in a coma?" she asked, looking down at the shaking limbs, unable to control their rapid movements.
"Far too long," he answered, frowning at her legs as they showed no signs of improving. "This is quite concerning, Natasha," he stated. "We should go to the medical ward to see one of the doctors. Perhaps there is a medication they can give to help your muscles."
"No, the serum will do that on its own," she disagreed, the shaking finally stopping as she adjusted to carrying her own weight again. "It won't take long."
"I still think that a visit would do no harm," he said uneasily, holding her hips as she tried to take a step forward, surprisingly maintaining her balance.
"Where's Fury?" she asked, reaching for his bathroom door. "I should speak with him; he's probably been worried."
"You're not hoping to go out on a mission right now, are you?" he asked, helping her into the bathtub. "You're in no condition."
"Fuck no!" she yelled, watching as he began to draw up a bath for her, testing the water to make sure it was warm. She then smiled cheekily as he reached for a vanilla scented shampoo. "Are you planning on washing me?!"
"I do believe that it is my job as your designated caretaker to provide the best quality care that I possibly can. If bathing is included in the list of job requirements, then I certainly won't protest," he teased, roughly shoving her head under the water to wet it. When she came back up, glaring at him and spitting water at him, he merely laughed, plopping the shampoo on her red hair.
"You talk too proper," she mentioned after another dunking to remove the residual shampoo that didn't happen to be flung in his general direction.
"Would you prefer my language to be that of the mortals here? Destroying the English language until it is no longer recognizable?" he guessed, washing her back.
"English isn't even your first language," she mocked. "Is it?"
Loki laughed, rinsing away the soap. "I forget what my first language was," he admitted. "It's been so long; I forget even a time where I was unable to speak. I can say that English has been in my repertoire longer than some of them. Your first language was Russian, I presume?"
"Yeah; still use it too. Right before you got here with your rule the world plan, I was actually on a mission there."
"Successful?"
"You got here too soon for me to inflict any real damage. Coulson called and said that Barton had been compromised, and here we are," she said, gesturing to his figure.
"My apologies for ruining your mission. I know how you are with those," he said seriously, but the twinkle of sarcasm was in his blue eyes.
"I should send you over there to finish it," she remarked, being pulled out of the tub and having a towel wrapped around her. "Careful though - they pull teeth."
"Obviously not very well since you have all of yours," he teased, now finding a comb and running it through her hair while she held onto the counter.
"I think I can do my own hair," she mentioned, reaching for the comb, only to have her hand swatted away easily. "It's like Barbie dress up hour."
"I don't know what that means," he said, looking curiously at her in the mirror. Finishing with her hair, he stared at the hospital gown discharged on the floor back in his bedroom. A moment later, a pair of loose sweat pants and a comfortable t-shirt appeared instead. Smiling in triumph, he brought her back into the bedroom, presenting the new clothes. She merely rolled her eyes and allowed him to dress her, having to remind him of the importance of undergarments in S.H.I.E.L.D facilities.
"You finished yet?" she asked as he finished buttoning up a long sleeve shirt of his own. "I'm hungry," she complained.
"I thought you wished to see Fury?"
"Well, I actually want to see the team, then Fury, and then food. The sooner we get done with the get-well speeches, the sooner I get food and the sooner we can come back here," she added suggestively, giving him a wink to which he only rolled his eyes.
"As unmanly as it seems, I think it would be better for you if you were to rest a while longer. You've been standing for a while already, and you're starting to shake again. I'm almost convinced that you need one of those rolling chairs with the big wheels."
"Wheelchairs," she corrected with a smug smile.
"What an inventive name," he teased, opening the door for her and slowly leading her out into the hallways, brighter lights assaulting her eyes.
She had forgotten that there were more people on the Helicarrier than just Fury and the Avengers. Other agents all looked at her in awe, but all she felt was crippled and humiliated. The Black Widow, world-class assassin and professional spy, reduced to inching along the tiled halls like the old lady that she was. It was embarrassing, and she wanted to hit the others for even so much as blinking in her direction.
Loki sighed, wrapping a proud arm around shoulders and taking some of her weight off of her legs. He could easily see her distress in the situation, and he cursed himself for not thinking of this possibility before they left the room. Surely Fury had spoken to the S.H.I.E.L.D population and relayed Natasha's condition to them and how they were meant to proceed. But a woman - no matter how invincible she was to her peers - did not ordinarily come back from the dead, and admiration and wonder were things that she was going to be unable to escape. He knew that they only held high respect for her, but he also knew that she was not going to see it that way in the slightest.
Finally ducking into the conference, Loki helped her sit in her regular seat, having already paged the others to join them there. He would have preferred they remain in his room, but she had seemed adamant about leaving the quarters for a while and walking around, even if she didn't exactly want to. Oh well, he thought to himself. She was alive, and she was stubborn. And Loki was the happiest being in the entire universe over those two simple facts.
Yay, fluffiness and happiness ensue! I hope you guys liked it! I thought that you all deserved a treat after all of the really dark and depressing stuff that has been going on in the other chapters. Leave a review and let me know what you think about the continuation of this story, as mentioned in the other A.N at the top: would love to hear from you!
So, it's really late over here, and I am about to drop dead, so I apologize for any grammatical, punctuation, spelling, or any other kind of error that you may have found. I normally read through a chapter before I post, but I am seriously about ready to start drooling on my keyboard. I didn't see any spelling errors, but I may have missed one or two as I was looking through for the classic red line under my words.
I will get to my review replied tomorrow, so don't think that I forgot you! I know that I always reply to my account people right before I update, but I shall do that in the morning right when I wake up. I promise, so don't worry! I love you all too much to leave ya hanging.
And let's get to 200 reviews! Whoop, whoop!
Love you all lots!
- Books